Staats Chapter 14: Clark L. Hull: Knowledge and Purpose as Habit Mechanisms

Question 1

Summary

Answer 1

Hull describes how learning principles of conditioning is the basis for how organisms act in the world.

The overall argument is about Knowing or Thinking and that they are a result of natural conditioning processes.

Question 2

Stimulus Substitution

Answer 2

How stimulus substitution, from external stimuli to internal stimuli, takes place:

Our knowledge of the world results from the pattern of environmental stimuli that initially elicited our responses and have since been replaced with internal stimuli

Question 3

Habit Mechanism & Foresight

Answer 3

Habit accounts for foresight and the advantages that having foresight has for an organism

Examples of the habit mechanisms (stimuli and responses) involved in anticipatory defense reactions

Question 4

Habit Mechanism & Thought

Answer 4

Some of our responses only function as stimuli for other responses and are not instrumental

The internal habit mechanism of stimuli and responses, where the responses are pure stimulus acts, is what appear to be thought