Lesson 8 - Behaviourism Flashcards
Define comparative psychology
the study of similarities and differences in behavioural organization among living beings, paying attention to the psychological nature of human beings in comparison with other animals.
Addressed questions about consciousness and intelligence
What led to the rise of comparative psychology?
Darwin’s theory of animal / human difference + functionalism (allowed animal research)
What are the disadvantages of introspection? Why is there no introspection with animals?
The accuracy of the method is questionable and
the results are not replicable
In what other domains will experimental comparative psychology extend?
Medicine, learning and behaviour, motivation, effects of drugs and brain functioning
George John Romanes wrote the first book about comparative psych. What is it about?
Documenting higher level animal intelligence and analyzing the similarity to human intellectual functioning
What is Romanes’ anecdotal method?
Observational report about animal behaviour
How is Romanes defining the animal mind?
In terms of its learning ability - it will become a criteria for intelligence
What method did Romanes use after his anecdotal method? Give an example of this
Introspection by analogy - assuming that the same mental processes that occur in the observer’s mind also occur in the animal’s mind
Example: one ant killed, other ants tried to come help the dead ant by moving the rock - demonstration of empathy (we anthropomorphize bc it’s hard to know what the ants are thinking)
What is Romanes’ mental ladder concept?
He realized that species had different levels of intellectual development (cats were the smartest animals according to him)
According to Conwy Lloyd Morgan, what were the weaknesses of Romanes’ methods of anecdotal and introspection by analogy? What did he do to remedy this?
Believed that those methods were too subjective - like Wundt’s introspection
Romanes was ignoring the lower levels of intelligence (not following Ockham’s razor)
Therefore, Morgan wanted to reduce the use of anthropormorphism and introspection
Define Morgan’s Canon
Animal behaviour must not be attributed to a higher mental process when it can be explained in terms of a lower mental process
(law of parsimony)
Summarize Margaret Floy Washburn’s contribution
• 1st woman to get PhD in Cornell
• APA president
• 1st woman psychologist elected to the National Academy of Sciences
• Motor theory of consciousness
Thinking is based on movement; consciousness is linked to motor activity
Who was the first to develop psych’s first major learning theory?
Thorndike
Thorndike’s work combines associationism and hedonism, what are the 3 laws he is credited with?
• Readiness: a person can only learn when physically and mentally ready to receive stimuli
• Exercise: repetition is basic to development of adequate responses
• Law of effect: Association followed by “satisfying state of affairs” = response strengthened
Association followed by a “annoying state of affairs” = response weakened
What were the results of Thornidke’s puzzle box experiments with cats?
Conclusion that animals learn solely by trial and error and by reward and punishment
Random behaviour > Accidental response > Immediate response
Contributes to the validity of the law of effect
• Squeeze out of the box = frustrating
• Using levers = food = rewarding
What is Objective psychology from Russia? Who founded it?
experimentation based on quantifiable observations
Ivan Sechenov founded it
What did Sechenov’s “Reflexes of the Brain” book explained in terms of behaviour?
It sought to explain all psychic phenomena based on associanism and materialism. He suggested that thoughts cannot cause behaviour; they were only relfexes and therefore the cause of behaviours is always external
Explain Sechenov’s concept of central inhibition? How did he discover it?
The main purpose of the CNS is to inhibit reflexive behaviour; human development is simply the establishment of inhibitory conrtol over reflexive behaviour
Discovered it by numbing some parts of a frog’s brain with salt
What is the contributions of Pavlov’s work in the field of behaviourism?
It helped shift associanism from its emphasis on subjective ideas to objective and quantifiable physiological events
What apparatus did Pavlov use to study digestive secretions? What were his findings?
He used a fistula, a tube in either the cheek, throat or stomach that allowed to collect liquids
He discovered that gastric juices were produced even when there was no food in the stomach, therefore the production was mediated by the nervous system
What is the typical behaviour involved in classical conditioning?
All classical conditioning involves reflexive behaviour, that is made by the nervous system and does not need to be learned (requires no thought)
What is a secondary conditioned reflex?
Second order conditioning - pairing the metronome with a black square
What is a psychic reflex according to Pavlov?
a reflex elicited by something other than the original stimulus
How were the attempts at third order conditioning going?
Did not work with food, but with pain yes (avoidance reflex)
What is important in conditioning? What does that mean?
The salience of the stimulus
This means that aversive responses are easy to condition
Why is it easy to condition an aversive response?
Because it is natural for an organism - it is adaptive
What is Pavlov’s cortical mosaic?
The inhibition and excitation happening at the same time in the brain, mediated by external stimuli
He believed in the same theory as Sechenov - we learn to inhibit reflexive responses
What is the generalization of a response?
• A conditioned response may generalize (be triggered by slightly different stimulus) - adaptive
What is discrimination of a response?
• Discrimination: when the stimulus is too different therefore there is no response (also adaptive)
Define extinction
Extinction: elimination or reduction of a conditioned response
Define spontaneous recovery
Spontaneous recovery: reappearance of a conditioned response (after it has been extinguished) - may be of a lesser intensity
What conditions led the behaviourism movement to rise?
Issues with introspection methods + Pavlov’s objective measure of conditioned responses + Thorndike’s laws of learning based on associationism and hedonism + Russian objective measures = Perfect timing for behaviourism to rise
Who is known as the founder of behaviourism?
John B Watson
What is the Kerplunk experiment?
T maze for rats - when the maze it shortened, the rats are so used to the longer maze that they slam in the end
Proving the the behaviour of rats in a maze is simply the result of a series of associations between movements rather than from stimuli of the outside world
What were Watson’s critiques of psychology so far?
- Failed to live up to its natural science expectations
- Failed to address problems that vitally concern humans
- the fialure to replicate findings using the introspective method is a big flaw
What were Watson’s suggestions for the future of psychology?
- We should stop using the introspective method if we want psych to become a science
- the behaviour of animals and man can be investigated without appeal to consciousness and must be considered as being equally essential to a general understanding of behaviour
What exactly is behviourism?
Approach to psych that in focused on observable behaviour and was more scientific than introspection in Watson’s opinion
Name the 4 types of behaviour according to Watson
- Explicit (overt) learned - ex talking and writing
- Implicit (covert) learned - ex: increased hart rate caused by a feared stimulus
- Explicit unlearned - ex: reflexive instincts such as blinking
- Implicit unlearned - ex: glandular secretions and other metabolic changes
What is the Little Albert experiment about? What were some of the findings?
Conditioned a fear response to a white rat
• The fear extended to other white furry things
Suggests that phobias may be issued from associations
**It is now possible to condition emotions, not just reflexive responses
Define Watson’s theory of emotions
Theory: we are born with 3 basic emotions
○ Fear
○ Rage
○ Love
• These emotions are like reflexes and can be associated
All other emotions build up from these
What did Watson suggest regarding child-rearing?
• Suggested not to give too much attention to their children, in order not to rear them as needy adults
Said that motherly love is dangerous
Wanted parents to have scientific principles in mind when rearing children
Explain Mary Cover Jones and her “Peter and the rabbit” experiment, and what does it prove regarding behaviourism
• De-sensitized a kid who was afraid of pets using snacks
Associated the pet with snacks
Proved that we can use humans with pre-made associations to study behaviourism
Name 2 reasons why we prefer to do animal research than human research
- Humans with no prior associations are rare
* Unethical to scare ppl
What was the shift in the field of psychology that behaviourism induced?
• Shift from studying the mind with subjective techniques, to studying behaviour with objective techniques
Watson said Psych could be a natural science if it focused on behaviour
Which corrections did the neobehaviourists brought to the field of psych?
- Agree that psych is about studying behaviour
- BUT behaviour cannot be fully understood simply in terms of observable stimuli and reactions
- Psych must adopt logical positivism, operationism and physicalism
Compare the original positivism of Auguste Comte with the logical positivism of neobehaviourists
Comte: science only deals with what is directly observable (empiricism only)
Vienna circle (new): Theories are used to explain what is observed (rationalism + empiricism)
Define operationism
doctrine that a physical concept can be defined in precise terms related to the set of operations or procedures by which it is determined
Define operational definition
defining of an abstract, theoretical concept by the procedures used to measure it
Define physicalism
material monism with the physical, observable properties being of importance, nothing further
What were the “rules” of neobehaviourism?
- THeories must be used in ways demanded by logical positivism
- Theoretical items must be operationally defined
- Non-human animals should be used as research participants
- LEarning processes are of prime importance because learning is the primary mechanism by which organisms adjust to a changing environment
Summarize what Clark Hull did
Watson’s work was not sufficient, since it was based on second hand reports from Pavlov
Tried to incorporate behaviourism into psychoanalysis
Hull was the first to use the hypothetico-deductive method; what is that?
- Summarized the literature
- identified problem areas
- formulated hypotheses
- defined constructs
- established a research design
- collected data
- analyzed data
- interpreted the results
- refined his theory
define Hull’s drive reduction theory, and what principle does it work on
Drive reduction theory: learning occurs when a behaviour is motivated by an unpleasant state that is solved after the problem is solved
Works on the principle that the body actively works to maintain a state of balance (homeostasis)
Ex: hungry (unpleasant) - unbalanced - eat - balanced
Define Hull’s concept of intervening variables
Physiological processes that are causally related to behaviour - need to be operationalized
Deifne Hull’s mathematico-deductive method
Suggests that reaction potential, or the probability of a learned response being elicited in a given situation, is a function of the habit strength, or the strength of the association between the stimulus and the response drive
Define Edward Chase Tolman’s purposive behaviourism
Combined the objective study of behaviour with the consieration of purposiveness or goal direction in behaviour
Explain the difference between molecular and molar behaviour
• Molecular (discrete, can be measured, like responses rates) - used by Skinner
Molar (behaviour of the organism as a whole) - Used by Toleman
What is Tolman’s version of intervening variables?
not only physiological but also cognitive (inferred factors that actually determined behaviour)
Define latent learning according to Tolman
Reward is not always needed - sometimes we learn without realizing it and without really “needing” it
• Latent Learning
Explain BF Skinner’s view on Neobehaviourism
A person’s behaviour and the environmental factors that influence it are much more crucial to the fundamental understanding of a person’s physiological state
Define Skinner’s law of acquisition
The strength of an operant behaviour is increased when it is followed by the presentation of reinforcing stimulus (operant conditioning)
Name the 4 types of reinforcement
POsitive reinforcement: add something pleasant
Negative reinforcement: remove something unpleasant
POsitive punishment: add somehting unpleasant
Negative punishment: remove something pleasant
Are continuous or intermittent schedules of reinforcement more efficient? What are the other parameters of schedules of reinforcement?
• Intermittent = more effective, reinforces behaviours
Types of schedule
• Ratio or interval
• Fixed or variable
What is shaping?
Shaping = showing the animal the desired final behaviour
What is superstitious behaviour?
Superstitious behaviour = associations that are unintentional
Ex: pigeon that learned accidentally to raise its leg before turning, will always do it even though it is not required
What is the other version of the Skinner box?
Heir conditioner or baby tender (for human babies)
Name some critiques of Skinner
- Data fishing
- Where is free will? - totalitarianism
- Is reinforcement THAT powerful? Maybe not
