Lecture 1 - Introduction & History Flashcards
What was the context Prior to Watson?
Freud and his psychoanalytic approach
* psychoanalysis dominated psychology
* introspection
Watson’s view on the current psychological approach (Freudian views)?
- Psychology was dependent on the subjective judgement from the researchers
- research lacked objective rigor
- lack of rigor caused a lack of explanation and predictive power
What did Watson say in his landmark paper?
Many saw this article as the start of behaviorism
* psychology should only use objective data
* should avoid all forms of subjective data
* should be concerned with prediction and influence
* animal research is fine
The impact of Watson’s article ‘Psychology as the behaviourist views it’
- Paper became known as the behaviorist manifesto
- Watson argued that the environment shapes behaviour relative to biology
*Thus, if the environment alters behaviour, we can change the behaviour by changing the environment - Views were incompatible with freudian views
What is conditioning
Association learning
Conditioning is a form of learning in which either
1. a given stimulus (or signal) becomes increasingly effective in evoking a response
2. a response occurs with increasing regularity in a well-specified and stable environment.
The type of reinforcement used will determine the outcome.
Famous conditioning study
Pavlov - first person to show association empirically:
* he showed that a previously neutral stimuli (a bell) can prompt the same physiological response as food
Watsons comments on Pavlov’s study
Someone watching Pavlov’s work can see the chain of events for themselves
They do not need introspection or internal models to understand what was happening
What was Watsons famous study
Little Albert Experiment:
* Watson presented Little Albert with a white rat and he showed no fear.
* Watson then presented the rat with a loud bang
* After the continuous association of the white rat and loud noise, Little Albert was classically conditioned to experience fear at the sight of the rat.
* Albert’s fear generalized to other stimuli that were similar to the rat, including a fur coat, some cotton wool, and a Father Christmas mask.
What is respondent conditioning?
an organism is presented with two things at the same time, and thus comes to associate them
respondent conditioning = classical conditioning
Skinners contribution to behaviourism
there are ways the environment can help us learn other than just association - CONSEQUENCES
* consequences can increase or decrease the rates of behaviour
* He did not think that classical conditioning was wrong, just that this was an incomplete account of the way the environment can shape behaviour
Skinners study of operant conditioning in rats
A Skinner box, also known as an operant conditioning chamber, is a device used to objectively record an animal’s behavior in a compressed time frame
An animal can be rewarded or punished for engaging in certain behaviors, such as lever pressing (for rats)
* operant conditioning chamber
* lever, food dispenser, light and loud speaker
* skinner could alter the environment and measure the impact this had on behaviour
* the research suggested that the consequences of an action can impact the probability of those actions being repeated
Why did skinner use animals
- Watson said we can gain useful information about human behaviour based on animal behaviour
- high experimental control with animals
- ethics
What is ABA?
Applied behaviour analysis:
* the attempt to solve behaviour problems by providing antecedents and consequences that change behaviour
What is a behaviour problem
A behaviour analyst would say that this is when a certain behaviour is happening too much or too little. Thus, the job of a behaviour analyst is to change the frequency of behaviour
Steps of a behavioural assessment
- define the target behaviour
- identify functional relations between the target behaviour and its antecedents and consequences
- identify an effective intervention
