Early Schools and Behaviourism Flashcards
Who had a major influence on the early development of psychology in the USA? Especially the functionalists. Why?
Charles Darwin
His theory suggests that most traits evolve because they are functional, that is, they help the organism survive and/or reproduce.
For Americans, especially the functionalists, understanding consciousness was important because consciousness helps people do things.
Adapting to changing environments is very important, which means learning becomes a significant topic.
What early form of psychology led to what we know of psychology today?
Functionalism was essentially an extension from Darwin’s theory. Functionalism is what led to what we know of psychology today.
Who was the only major proponent of structuralism?
Titchener
Who coined the terms structuralism and functionalism? Why?
Titchener coined the terms “structuralism” and “functionalism” as a way of contrasting his approach, which attempted to analyze consciousness into structures, with the approach of others who thought this approach pointless and sought to determine the functions of consciousness and other psychological processes.
What methods did Titchener rely heavily on?
Methodologically, Titchener relied very heavily on introspection and careful recording.
What were Titchener’s accomplishments / his legacy?
He encouraged large numbers of women to study psychology in a very sexist era
He devised a set of manuals for lab instructors (students and instructors) in psychology that were used for decades.
He also created a talking shop for psychologists that was supposed to be an alternative to the APA. In later years, this became the Society of Experimental Psychology, though in his lifetime they were simply “the Experimentalists.”
What happened to structuralism when Titchener died?
It died with him.
Was Titchener’s research program an extension of Wundt’s?
No, he claimed it was but what he was doing was actually different - he was using introspection for much more complex processes than what Wundt thought was appropriate
What did Titchener believe you needed to identify to study consciousness? How did that differ from functionalists’ thinking?
He believed you needed to identify the structures of consciousness like you would have to identify each piece of anatomy before you could study how it all functions.
Functionalists believed that, unlike anatomy, the structures of consciousness/physiology are not stable so there is no possibility or point to identifying them - the processes are the topic of concern
Who was Margaret Washburn? What was her main focus of study?
Margaret Floy Washburn was one of Titchener’s many female students to receive doctorates.
Unlike her teacher, she was very interested in comparative psychology.
What methodology did Washburn use? Who originally developed it?
Her methodology included a method called introspection by analogy, which was originally developed by the British naturalist George Romanes.
The idea here is that one imagines carrying out the action carried out by the animal and then imagines one’s own mental states.
What is Lloyd Morgan’s Canon? What is it a special case of?
Lloyd Morgan’s Canon states that one should not attribute more complex thought processes to an animal when less complex ones will account for the behaviour.
Note that this is a special case of Occam’s Razor.
Functionalists were interested in problems of ______________.
adaptation
Who were the three main precursors of functionalism?
James, Hall, and Cattell
What is John Dewey often credited with? What was his main idea? When?
John Dewey is often credited with writing the first functionalist article, an 1896 discussion of the reflex arc that argues that stimulus, internal processing, and response should not be broken up in this way, and that in fact reflexes are better thought of as goal-directed integrated wholes.
What is the reflexive arc? Who wrote about this? When?
Reflexive arc - neurons signalling through spinal cord before your brain has even received the message - point is that separating stimulus and response is artificial - reflex of burning hand on a candle flame (thinking of candle as stimulus and pulling hand away as response) but thinks that we should think of this as one continuous process - from reaching hand to candle (cognitions involved in the motivation to do that and expectations/interpretations need to be taken into account) - called them coordinations
Dewey 1896
What was Dewey most famous for?
Dewey is probably most famous for his experimental school, which introduced “learning by doing” into the vocabulary of educators.
Angell and Woodworth were from which early school of thought?
Functionalism
What three things did Angell identify? What are they?
Angell identified three fundamental elements of functional psychology:
“Functionalism studies mental processes, not mental elements.”
“Functionalism seeks to identify fundamental utilities of consciousness.”
This interest in adaptation also implies an interest in learning.
“Functionalism is psychophysical psychology.”
Psychophysical - not just interested in the mind as an abstract entity - rather, as a product of bodily systems
What did Woodworth call himself rather than calling himself a functionalist?
a dynamic psychologist
What did Woodworth think about behaviourists? Why?
Woodworth thought the behaviourists were too simplistic with their attempt to formulate an S-R psychology. Instead he advocated an S-O-R psychology that highlights the role of the organism.
Woodworth was particularly interested in problems of _______________. What very influential textbook did he write?
motivation
Experimental Psychology
Who launched the behaviourist movement? How?
John Broadus Watson
with a manifesto in 1913.
Who was studying behaviourist work before Watson’s manifesto?
Ivan Pavlov was studying conditioned reflexes in dogs in Russia for a long time prior to Watson’s manifesto.
Edward Thorndike examined learning in cats for his Ph.D. dissertation.
How did Thorndike study behaviour in cats? What did he conclude? What is his conclusion similar to?
He placed the cats in puzzle boxes that were filled with levers and pulls, but only one of them could be used to open the box.
Once the cat got out, there was food available.
Cats got faster and faster with practice, which led Thorndike to formulate the Law of Effect, which states that when an animals action results in the satisfaction of a need, the probability of that action being repeated in the future rises.
Note that this is almost identical to Skinner’s formulation of operant conditioning.
What were Watson’s legacies other than his manifesto on behaviourism? (4)
- Little Albert
- Affair/messy divorce leading to expulsion from academia
- Very successful in advertising
- Wrote influential parenting articles - advised very limited affection
Who created a cognitive version of behaviorism? When did his ideas become popular?
Edward Tolman
He was not taken seriously during the time of Hull and Skinner but became famous after the cognitive revolution (much later) as having paved the way
How did Tolman create cognitive behaviourism?
He figured that rats running through mazes are learning not merely behavioural responses but were forming cognitive maps of the mazes.
Toman’s evidence for mental maps:
-changes in habitual behaviour when rats look for food every time (like regular behaviourism)
-rats put in box with no food several times - then put food in - on the next trial it gets to the food/goal box faster – latent learning – the learning done in the first trials doesn’t change behaviour but learning is happening and when food is placed in the box you can see that the learning has happened previously and then changes behaviour are apparent
-response to blocked path in starburst maze - they choose path closest to the end goal (suggests they have a mental layout of the maze
-X shaped maze - some rats taught always have to turn left no matter where they enter the maze - others taught that they will always find the food in the exact same location no matter where they enter (these ones learned the layout of the maze substantially faster than those that have to turn left)
Who was the most famous behaviourist in the 1930s and 40s? Why? What did he call his method?
Clark Hull
He was tremendously excited by Isaac Newton, and wanted to create psychology using a similar procedure (what he called the hypothetico-deductive method) in which the sum total of an animal’s behaviour can be inferred as logical consequences of a few simple axioms.
People were very impressed because this seemed to promise a rigorous science of behaviour.
What happened to Hull and his approach to behaviourism?
Hull was unable to predict behaviour the way he wanted, and so his version of behaviourism declined very quickly.
When did Skinner become famous as a behaviourist? How was he different from Hull? Why did he become famous?
in the 1950s and 1960s
He believed that people like Hull were wrong to invoke unseen entities such as drive.
His goal was the prediction and control of behaviour (as Watson had also wanted).
He became famous because he wanted a science of behaviour to do practical things (e.g. pigeon-guided missiles).
What was Skinner’s focus?
He figured behaviourists should stop focusing on S-R psychology, where stimuli are seen as eliciting behaviour, and instead develop an R-S psychology, in which consequences of behaviour change its probability (c.f. Thorndike).
What was Skinner’s greatest discovery?
His greatest discovery is probably partial reinforcement.
