Lecture 6 Flashcards
Behavior: where does the term come from, comparative psychology, mind as inference
Psychology began as the study of the mind in philosophy. At the turn of the century, it became a scientific discipline strongly associated with physiology (ala Wundt). The main topis were sensation, perception, attention, and memory. Higher brain functions that mechanistic physiology could not explain.
But by the turn of the century, intelligence testing really put psychology on the map. With those tests, psych showed that it could have an impact on society. Especially in WW1 times when it was applied to many people. There was also education work going on and it was not certain that this should be in education or psychology.
Freud links into this. By 1910-1920 psychology was a diverse field without a clear link between the areas.
The concept of behaviour is what links them together. Psychology will become defined as a science of behaviour – behaviour that is flexible and intelligent which is why learning becomes a term we associate with psychology.
How is the mind derived from inference?
What determines if it is or is not behaviour for comparative psychologists?
Mind as inference
As for intelligence, the use of the term behaviour in a meaningful way comes from comparative or animal psychology and ethology (part of biology interested in animal behaviour). But it is first used to compliment terms like “animal mind” and not to replace them. At this time, behaviour is not opposed to mind as a concept and the two are seen as complimentary. Up until 1936 this was the case. They are related to one another; if you are a comparative psychologist at the time, you are study animals to eventually understand human minds. This works via a two-step process:
- Observe the animal behaviour – in this case there is no difference to observing another human (the only way we can observe another mind is by observing human behaviour)
- And then imagination and introspections, trying to put yourself in other people’s shoes to infer if an observed behaviour is associated with a trace of consciousness
So, you observed and then put yourself in a living thing human or animal’s shoes. And then see if that behaviour is associated with the presence of a mind. Introspection is still associated with comparative psychology at this time.
- The criterion of a mind – the only way to infer the presence of a mind from another living being
- Behavior – refers to activities that could potentially reveal the presence of a mind: approach, avoidance, learning becomes an issue with lower life forms. Under this definition a snail that drinks COULD be associated with a mind therefore this is behaviour.
• The common denominator is behaviour that has an external reference. You are reacting to something in an environment. It seems to reveal the presence of a mind is that there seems to be intention there i.e., snail approaches water because it wants to drink it.
When you do this, you are still doing introspection. You think it means they have a mind because if you were that animal, that behaviour would probably mean there was a mind.
Eventually, as they become more interested in lower life forms, it becomes hard to infer a mind. You do not need to do so either. The snail can do all of thew behaviour without inferring a mind, and so over time the reference to a mind is lost.
What started Behviorism risiing in the USA?
The rise of behaviourism
In the US there was a strong preference for a naturalistic explanation of society. Social Darwinism – the same rules apply to the evolution of biological species apply to societies. They compete and some rise. Which is a big contract with Europe – they study history to understand science.
Functionalism falls into this category as it is related to the study of psychological functions as they are fit to the environment of the individual. SO big in the USA.
Behaviour is one term that bridges many areas – biology, animal psychology, human psychology and sociology are all bridged by behaviour. If we start using behavior as a concept, maybe we can ground these human sciences in biology and make them more scientific.
The behaviourist manifesto
The turning point for behaviourism was the behaviourist manifesto or more accurately psychology as the Behaviorist Views it by John B. Watson (1913). It is very clear and aggressive as an attack on the prevalent psychology of the time in the USA. This was structuralism, functionalism, psychoanalysis, gestalt in Germany and a rise of intelligence testing outside of the USA (this was pre purchase of the Binet test by Turman).
How was Watsons Proposed Psychology different to psychology research at that time?
(3 Ways)
Watson is different from psych going on in three ways
- No introspection – Watson says psychology should aim at being an objective science and according to Watson, worthless. Says it must stop now.
- Behaviourism believes that if you throw introspection out the door; you can study psychology easily via animal studies. Introspection and language can be removed and then accept studying behaviour via animals as much of humans. He is in the lineage of Darwin and comparative psychology
- The only goal should be the prediction and control of behaviour. We do not need to understand or have a model of the mechanisms behind the behaviour. If we can predict and control, that is good enough
It should be the study of behaviour for the study of behaviour. Not used to infer stuff that cannot be measured e.g., consciousness
What was Watsons’s Innate emotionas and where did everythig else come from?
Innate emotions
Animals and humans born with fear, anger and love.
Most emotional reactions (e.g., fear of the dark) evolved through learned associations with these 3 basic emotions.
Everything after that is learned via associations e.g., babies are not afraid of the dark
Between the manifesto and this book, his opinions changed to settle on associations and the mechanism of learning, likely influenced by Pavlov
He believed based on observation that babies are only afraid of two things when they are little, loud noises and being dropped
But he had no data to prove this yet and so he began the little albert experiment.
The Little Albert experiment
Little Albert
- Conducted with Rosalie Raynor who he will eventually marry
- Was an 11 month old infant
- Present him a white laboratory rat, they are nice animals that are not aggressive
- Is not scared
- When he reaches toward the rat to pet it they bang a steel bar behind him
- The first time he does not cry, he is just stunned
- The second time he cries
- So this quite a bit
- Do this until Albert cries at the sight of the rat
- They also present other objects that looks like the white rat (like Santa’s beard) and he cries so they see that there is generalisation
- Weeks later, albert was still conditioned and cried when he saw the rat
- Just sent home, no deconditioning process, no ethics back then
What was Watson’s Rdiacal Environmentalism?
How did this mess up many parents?
Wrote Behaviourism
Radical environmentalism contrasts totally with all the eugenics workers. He says environmental factors have much more importance than hereditary in determining behaviour. He does not deny hereditary factors but says that they make little difference. Refreshing compared to genetic determinism but still super determinist. He can be God and make anyone do anything if he can control the environment. Goes further in Psychological Care and the Infant and Child in which he advocates foe extreme forms of radical behaviourism for education.
In this book, parents are told not to show any love to kids as this does not make them independent. From a behaviourist perspective, consoling kids reinforces behaviour. This messed up some kids. Still an idea that bobs around today (unfortunately).
Did Watson’s career change psychology?
By the end of his career, everyone in the USA is a behaviourist. Watson was good at giving the impression that if you are not behaviourist, you are not scientific. Europe was not affected.
Was Watson a good dad?
He had 2 sons, one of them did not like his childhood – very cold and dry, no affection. The other committed suicide. Seems to be hard to him serious when it comes to childhood advice. He closed out his career making money in advertising.
What was the problem with Watson’s definition of behaviourism?
What is the distiction between radiacal and neobehaviourists?
The issue is that Watsons’ definition is so harsh that it is hard to fit in. So, then what happens is there is a plurality of methods all calling themselves behaviouralists. Any kind of magnitude rating for example, a verbal report of pain. Is this still introspection (because you have direct access to your thoughts)? Well by this time, introspection was considered bad. SO, the trick is to say that the verbal report is still a form of behaviour (verbal) so we can continue what we are doing under the guise of it being behaviorism. Leads to total ambiguity with loads of factions and arguments between one another.
So, then it becomes needed to define, what are the laws of behaviourism?
There appears now a distinction between classical or radical behaviourists who were like Watson and neobehaviouralists who were a bit more open with their definitions
Clark Hall and mechanistic behaviourism
What is excitatory potential?
Clark Hall and Mechanistic Behaviourism
Was a neobehaviouralist.
Proposed mechanistic behaviourism. Is trying to go beyond predict and control, wants to understand what is the mechanism that causes behaviour. By doing this, he needs to imply variables that go beyond those Watson used (or would be okay with).
In doing so, he will create mathematical formulas that can be described law. Physics envy. Makes it all look scientific.
HE is trying to explain what he calls the Excitatory potential – how likely are you to produce response r to stimulus s. Came up with many variables he believed affected this. Using this, he can explain the behaviour of rats in very controlled experiments.
Edward Chase Tolman:
Latent Learning
Purporsive Behviourism
Another neobehaviourist.
Was the rat maze guy. Showed that you can have learning without reinforcement, which he called latent learning. Have 3 groups of rats in a maze.
Group 1 gets food at the end of the maze on day 1
Group 2 gets food after 3 days
Group 3 gets food after 3 days
Error scores of when a rat goes to a dead end.
G1 gets food immediately but it takes 7 days before they do it with no error
G3 was food goes in day 7 and when it is placed, they learned to make no errors in 2 days
So, when they were exploring the maze, they were learning. When they realised there was food, they knew that they could do the maze immediately.
This lead Tolman to propose Purposive Behaviorism, animal and human behaviour is motivated by a goal. Only when the rats are provided with a goal do they bother to make use of their knowledge. Without the food, they wont express their learning of the maze or show your knowledge. Is a departure from classical behaviourism because purpose and goal is an inner state, you cannot observe
What is Molar vs. Molecular Behaviourism?
Molar vs Molecular behaviour. Molecular behaviour would be dissecting the behaviour fo that rat in the maze as a function of right and left terms – the minute details of what the rat did. Molar behaviour is the general behaviour motivated by the goal: the particular behaviour does not matter but the process and goal do – if you change the starting point the molecular behaviour would change but the molar behaviour would not (would still look for food).
By the 1930s, behaviourism has become more flexible. Even though explicitly, they might not respect Toman’s distinction between molar and molecular behaviour. Implicitly, they switch between the two at will. Of they want to look extremely scientific, they employ a molecular perspective, if they want to emphasise the practicality of the science, they use a molar perspective.
The prediction and control of behaviour is still the big goal.
Social Control and behaviourism
What is big after WW1
Social control
This can be done in a variety of domains. Advertising, tests, experimental pedagogy, psychopathology. Behaviorism can be applied to all of this, but it requires a broad definition of behaviour – molecular AND molar depending on the idea.
Controlling the masses is big business after WW1. Bernays got a lot of money but so did the behaviourists. Slowly behaviour stops having the strong definition it had before. The polarity between mind which is unobservable and behaviour which is not is not so strongly maintained. Behaviour is now designating the type of research that can be used for social control. Terms like Cognitive Behavior presented no issues. Even Freudian Psychoanalysis can be behaviour.
“Old” vs. “New” psychology
Old” psychology vs behavioral science
And so old and new psychology can be readily contrasted:
Old psychology: The participant is privileged because they are the one who has access to their own mental content
New psychology: The scientist is the one in control. They decide on the IV and DV (you start to see these terms) and behaviour by then designates anything that can be out in an IV/DV scheme, so is anything you can predict and control.
How did Pavlov influence Watson?
The Abstraction of Learning
In the behaviourist manifesto, behaviourism was against everything subjective and unscientific like introspection. There was nothing constructive. But later, he added Pavlov. Pavlov’s work was done earlier but due to the time lag between that and translation/acceptance in the USA, this took a while to diffuse.
