October 23, 2007



October 23, 2007

Behaviorism: Antecedent Influences

Clever Hans

Van Osten: the man who traveled with Clever Hans

Stated that animals have the ability to be as intelligent as humans

Devastated at Pfungsts results of Clever Hans and blamed the horse, stating Clever Hans was deceitful.

Van Osten died and Hans was sold to a jeweler who charged people money to see Hans’ talent

Pfungst

found that Clever Hans was using non verbal cues to answer the mathematical questions

No one really cared about Pfungsts findings and found Clever Hans to still be interesting

The Influence of Animal Psychology on Behaviorism

Jacques Loeb (1859-1924)

Tropism: involuntary, forced movement (reflexes)

Associative Memory: an association between a stimulus and a response

Watson

The promoter of the Behaviorist Ideas

Brought in ideas for objectivism, mechanicism, animal psychology, and functionalism (which he wanted to destroy)

Interested in only observable behaviors

Interested in working with Loeb, but Angell talked him out of it

Robert Yerkes

Started a primate lab

Strengthened the whole idea of comparative psychology

Small

Invented the first rat maze

Had mentalistic ideas

Charles Henry Turner

African American Grad Student

Wrote a book on Ants and Ant Behaviors (Watson praised his book)

Had problems getting a job in comparative psychology because of his “color,” except for in Missouri and Georgia; his job problems might have been due to the lack of job opportunities and respect in comparative psychology

Turned to Applied Psychology

Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1939)

Received his education in the United States (Harvard)

Wanted to study children; was told not to do research with children anymore because he had to loosen their clothes to take their measurements

Started studying chicks

Maze

His landlord wouldn’t let him keep the chicks in his room so William James took them home.

Went to Columbia University with his best chicks

Spent 50 years at Columbia University

Made $70,000 annually in the early 1900’s

As soon as he got his degree, he stopped working with animals and went back to studying children

What Thorndike is known for:

Connectionism: the human mind is made up of connections between situations and responses (deals with objective kinds of things)

Associationism vs. Connectionism

Puzzle Box: put a cat in a box and the cat would need to perform certain tasks to get out of the box and receive the reward of food. The cat would accidentally get out, and then repeat the same behavior to continue to get out of the box.

Coined the term Learning Curve

Law of Effect: repeating a behavior that has positive results

Law of Exercise: the more responses used the more associations

Speculation( Experimentation: given credit for changing psychology from speculation to experimentation

Ivan Pavlov

Russian Physiologist

Injured his head which lead him to be tutored at home as a child

A clumsy man

Animal Physiology was his interest

Education on Animal Physiology was very far away, Pavlov walked there

Dedicated to research

Did not want any distractions by practical matters

He made an agreement with his wife that she should take care of the practical matters and he will do his research, and not smoke, drink, or play cards.

Lived in poverty most of his life

Professor at 41

Students gave him money for his “lectures.” It was actually pity money and he used it to improve his lab

Had over 150 Lab Assistants in his lifetime

Hot tempered, had a sense of humor, very human with his dogs

Studied nerves of the heart, digestive glands, conditioned reflexes (accidental study coming from digestion)

Psychic Associations (the name of the reflexes)

UCS-food UCR-salivation CS-foot steps

CR-Salivation

Tower of Silence (got rid of all other things that would affect the responses of the dogs in his research).

Looked at extinction, spontaneous recovery, generalization, discrimination, higher order conditioning (which sounds like research from Thorndike and Twitmeyer)

Poor E.B. Twitmeyer

In 1904 he presented the Knee Jerk Reflex

Victim of bad timing-no one paid attention to his ideas

Vladimir Bekhterev (1857-1927)

Enemy of Pavlov (Pavlov gave Bekhterev’s book a bad review)

Focused on humans and motor conditioning

Applied Pavlovian principles to humans

Associated reflexes

Died mysteriously: sent to treat Stalin; diagnosed Stalin with severe paranoia; Bekhterev died after he diagnosed Stalin and was buried immediately. He son was also ordered to be killed.

Functionalism was a good bridge between structuralism and animal psychology.

October 30, 2007

Chapter 10: The Beginnings of Behaviorism

Little Albert

Loud noise associated with white, furry objects

Little Albert became frightened by all white, furry objects

Never had a debriefing

Watson was involved in a scandal and was kicked out of J. Hopkins, so he never found Little Albert for his official debriefing

John Broadus Watson (1878-1958)

“Environment determines who we are, and what we become”

Mom was religious, dad was a womanizer (prone to violence, affairs, and drinking)

His family lived in poverty

Dad ran off with another woman when John was 13

John Watson was a trouble maker

Got in trouble for carrying a gun

John’s mom wanted him t be a clergyman

Went to school in Greenville, SC at Furhman University

Never received his degree because he “failed a class”

Planned to be a clergyman until his mother died

Went to University of Chicago

Took classes under Dewey

1903 received his PhD at age 25

Graduated with honors

The youngest to graduate with a PhD in psychology from University of Chicago

Married to one of his students (she was 19, he was 25)

Preferred to work with animals and children as his subjects

Offered a position at J. Hopkins (1908)

Baldwin caught at a Brothel and asked to resign/fired

Same sort of scandal would happen to Watson

Watson

2 Kids

Voted most handsome professor

A womanizer

Rosalie Raymer

Watson spent time with her in his lab

Watson wrote her objective love letters

Watson’s wife found these letters, sent them to the Baltimore Sun where they were published.

Watson was forced to resign and never went back to Academic Psychology

Watson married Raymer

Watson started working in the Ad Business

Made $25,000 annually

Was behind the slogan “I’d walk a mile for a camel”

Came up with the idea of celebrity endorsements

Watson wrote controversial articles for magazines

Watson wrote books on child rearing (believed in objective parenting)

Said parents were too impotent

Parents showed too much emotion towards their children

Watson’s son said that he remembers Watson shaking his hand before tucking him in for bed at night

Watson was very into Nurture and not Nature

Nurture as in a strict upbringing without a lot of love/affection

Watson’s children

Had severe depression

2 kids committed suicide, the other tried numerous times and then had a mental breakdown

Rayner died at 37

This was the first time that Watson showed any emotion towards his children. He hugged them, sent them off to boarding school and then never spoke of Rayner again.

Watson was successful

He had a mansion, enjoyed drinking, flirted with society, etc. He gave up all of these things with Rayner died. He became “wacky”

Watson’s Idea of Behaviorism: objective study of behavior

Used the following methods

Observation with or without instruments

Testing Methods

Verbal Reports

Conditioned Reflexes (got this from Behkterev)

Watson was into stimulus-response, and not introspection

Calkins disagreed with his thoughts on introspection (other psychologists also disagreed)

Verbal reports are similar to introspection

Acts: complex behaviors made up of little things

Subjects of Behaviorism (Watson)

Instincts: socially conditioned, not really existent; you don’t inherit anything from your parents except for love, rage, and fear (which are all associated and learned)

Emotions: disagreed with W. James; stated that there is association with emotions

Thoughts: thinking is a motor process; 73% of people talk to themselves when they are thinking

Little Albert Replication

Peter (Subject)

Was afraid of white rabbits

The researcher unconditioned this fear

November 1, 2007

Behaviorism Continued

Criticisms

It freed people of customs and culture- wiped the slate clean

Revolutionary compared to other psychologies

1920: Outbreak of Psychology

There were articles, magazines about psychology, and people were using it in their lives

Joesph Jastrow

A hyperactive popularizer of psychology

Wrote keeping mentally fit articles and “Self Help” Articles

3 Main people that did not agree with everything Watson said

Edwin Holt (1873-1946)

PhD at Harvard

Disagreed with Watson’s view of consciousness and said that it doesn’t exist

Agreed with Watson that your environment does influence instinctual behaviors

He was given some credit for identifying drives like hunger, thirst

Said people do things for a reason or a goal. Looked at the purpose

Karl Lashley (1890-1958)

Student of Watson

Studied brain mechanisms and intelligence

Law of mass action: the efficiency of learning is a function of the total mass of cortical tissue

Equipotentiality: the idea that one part of the cerebral cortex is essentially equal to another in its contribution to learning OR if parts of your brain don’t work, other parts will make up for it

EX. if you are blind, you may have better hearing

The Brain is more complex than what Watson said

All Parts of the brain contribute to learning

William McDougall

Wrote the first social psychology like textbook

Clashed with Watson

He was not very well liked

Believed in Free will

1924: the Battle of Behaviorism: debate with Watson and McDougall; many attended this debate; they debated on the nature of behaviorism.

McDougall said that introspection was important and attacked Watson’s verbal reports; McDougall had more points, but Watson was better liked

Watson

20 years as an Academic Psychologist

By the time he was done, he set the light for behaviorism---which served as a rebellion and then drifted out

3 Categories of Behaviorism

Watson’s School

Neobehaviorism (Tolman, Skinner, Hull)

Neo-Neobehaviorism (1960-1990)

IQ Zoo Breland and Breland

Trained animals to do things like play piano, drums, etc.

No matter what, the animals still used their basic instincts/natural tendencies

Shoed instincts are important in behaviorism

Operationalism (Percy Bridgman): ensure testability of all experiments; if you cannot test it, it doesn’t exist

Criticisms of Operationalism

Restating an old concept

Completed a 7 vol. work after he found out he was terminally ill, then he killed himself

November 6, 2007

Edward Chace Tolman (1886-1959)

Into the idea of purposive behavior (different from other behaviorists)

Brother is a famous mathematician

Electrochemistry (looked for a degree in this, until the works of W. James influenced him to study philosophy, then psychology)

Not into introspection

Taught comparative psychology at Berkeley

Worked for pre CIA

Anti-Communism Oath: employees of Berkeley had to take this oath in order to keep their jobs. Tolman refused along with others and then they sued the school. They were given their jobs back.

Purposive Behaviorism

Rejects introspection, but all acts are done for a specific goal

Reinforcement isn’t necessary, just a purpose

Observable Variables: environmental stimuli, physiological drives, hereditary, previous training, and age

Intervening Variables: affect what you do, but you cannot see it (an ulterior motive)

Reinforcement has little influence on learning

Tolman’s ideas are that we have cognitive maps. It’s not repetition; you form a map in your head with a purpose in mind.

Cross Shape Maze with Rats as his Subjects

Two Conditions:

1. Food always in same place, but rats start in different spots (rats found the food quickly).

2. Food was in a different place, but rats only had to make 2 right turns to find the food (it took longer for the rats to find the food)

Clark Leonard Hull (1884-1952)

Stated, “Watson is too naïve. His behaviorism is too simple and crude.”

Known for his debates against Tolman

He was sick most of his life

From a poor family

Earned his PhD at 34

Studied mining engineering before psychology

Objective individual

Studied hypnosis for 10 years (which is odd because that is not objective)

Believed in mechanism

Believed in the hypothetic-deductive method (theory)

Believed in drives (aka motivation): a state of bodily need, when you deviate from normal biological conditions

Two types of drives:

1. Primary drives: hunger, thirst, sex, comfort

2. Secondary drives: learned things

Law of primary reinforcement: reinforcers that reduce bodily need (habit strength)

BF Skinner (1904-1990)

Born in Pennsylvania

Led a normal life

Brother died of a cerebral hemorrhage at 16

Trained pigeons

Unhappy at college

He was in a fraternity, which he did not like

He openly criticized faculty

Received his degree in English

After receiving his degree, he tried to be a writer for 2 years; he quit because he “had nothing to say”

He was constantly rejected by women

After reading Pavlov, etc. he decided to study psychology

Skinner Box

Differed from Hulls because he did not do theory testing. His approach was descriptive. Often referred to as Empty Organism Approach. He didn’t like explaining behaviors.

He said that humans were controlled by their environment and not by themselves

He did not deny drives, just stated that he didn’t want to use them

He didn’t use large samples in research

Operant Conditioning

Called Pavlov’s conditioning “respondent conditioning”

He said you are responding to a stimulus

Operant Conditioning is different because there isn’t necessarily a visual antecedent stimulus and the organism can control/change the stimulus

Law of Acquisition: strength of a behavior is increased when followed by a reinforcer

Schedules of Reinforcement

Took into account frequencies and time periods and their effects on behavior

Found that shorter intervals between reinforcers would cause more frequent and faster a behavior would occur

Successive Approximations: you reward a behavior gradually until the organism does what you want it to

Aircrib: made his daughter this; it was a climate controlled box that had a roll of fabric as sheets, sound/humidity controlled

When Skinner’s daughter was in 4th grade, Skinner went to “Dad’s Day” at her school. He said that the teachers were not effectively teaching the children and teaching them the wrong way

Teaching Machines: it tells you if you are the right answer before you move on to the next question. This did not sell well…it was too ahead of the time

Training Pigeons: he did this during WW2; he taught the pigeons to peck at a target; guide missles (which the military did not buy into, they picked up on radar)

Brelands worked with Skinner

Thy taught pigeons to take pictures with small cameras

November 8, 2007

Skinner had a midlife crisis

He wrote a book, “Walden Two” (a story of society being controlled by positive reinforcement)

Skinner had an impact on Behavior Modification

The use of positive reinforcement to control a variety of individuals or groups

Found that you can reinforce more desirable behaviors, thus people will behave in more desirable ways

Problems with Skinners Behaviorism

He didn’t believe in theory

He was overconfident about the things behaviorism could do

Breland and Breland with Skinner

Breland and Breland found the instinctive drift: reverting back to behaviors that take precedence over learned ones.

Skinner believed that you could train animals to do anything with positive reinforcement

Contributions of Behaviorism

Shaped American Psychology

Operant Conditioning was seen as humanitarian because you can use it to change behaviors to more positive and you can use it in a variety of settings

Neo-Neo Behaviorism

Introduced a cognitive element of Behaviorism

Albert Bandura (1925-)

Canadian

PhD from the University of Iowa in 1952

Went to Stanford after U of I

Subscribed to social cognitive theory: believes positive reinforcement can change behaviors, but also different because he believes in vicarious reinforcement (learning can occur by observing the behavior of others rather than directly experiencing reinforcement)

Ex. Setting a good example for your younger siblings

Said that we learn by modeling and children imitate behaviors

BoBo Doll Study

Children imitate aggressive behaviors to the Bobo Doll after watching an adult perform aggressive behaviors on the BoBo Doll

Into the idea of self-efficacy: sense of self esteem and competence in a situation

People who have high self efficacy are usually more successful in life and increases your ability to resist stress

Behavior Modification

Said that you can re-train people to do a behavior correctly

Julian Rotter

Social Cognitive Behaviorist

Like psychology, but he was disappointed about the lack of job opportunities in psychology (he was also Jewish which made it really hard for him to get a job)

He was not fond of Skinners subjects, which were individual subjects (usually animals)

Rotter said that we should study humans

His focus was cognitive processes

Locus of Control: the perceived source of reinforcement

Internal: you are responsible for what happens to you

Best in learning and motivation

External: a lot of things that happen to you are out of your control

Behaviorism ended up being more cognitive bases because of Rotter

November 13, 2007

Gestalt Psychology: the whole is different than the sum of its parts; Gestalt means form or configuration

Antecedents of Gestalt

Immanuel Kant: conscious experience differs from sensory

Ernst Mach: space form vs. time form

Ex. Looking at a pregnant woman form the front vs. the side

Christian von Ehrenfels: form emerges from sensation

Just say no to W. James (the Gestaltian view)

Act Psychology: its important what the mind does, not what is in it

All people of Gestalt Psychology were taught by Stumpf

Behaviorism was occurring in the United States as Gestalt Psychology was occurring in Germany

Phenomenology: an approach to knowledge based on an unbiased description of immediate experiences as it occurs, not analyzed or reduced to elements

Physics Influenced Gestalt

Fields of force: regions or spaces traversed by lines of force, such as magnet or electric currents

Phi Phenomenon (Wertheimer): the illusion that 2 stationary flashing lights are moving from one place to another

Ex. Picture books, flashing Arby’s sign, stroboscope

Wertheimer was on a train ride and noticed the phi phenomenon. He decided to stop and go to a toy store where he bought a stroboscope: a circular toy with holes in it. If you turned the circle you could see various pictures through the little slots and it made the pictures seem like a story or like the pictures were moving

In 1912 Wertheimer published an article describing the Phi Phenomenon. This started Gestalt Psychology.

3 Founders of Gestalt Psychology

Wertheimer (1880-1943)

Koffka

Kohler (1887-1967)

All students of Stumpf

Wertheimer was into stimulation

He was a vivid lecturer

Married his 22 year old student and let her know that his actual marriage was to gestalt psychology

Koffka

Wrote an article on perception---American’s weren’t interested

Said that information without consciousness is senseless to developmental psychology

Published a book on developmental psychology which did take off

Kohler researched aspects of learning

Studied chimps at Tenerife (an Island) for 7 years

Wrote a book entitled Mentality of Apes

WWI broke out during his study at Tenerife, and he told others that he could not leave. This was odd, because other people left Tenerife. Some people believed that he could be a spy

After his study, he divorced his wife, cut off his kids, and remarried a rich woman.

He brought his Apes back to Germany with him, but they died because of the weather differences

Protested the dismissal of Jewish scholars, but he wasn’t Jewish

Perceptual Constancy: a quality of wholenss or completeness in perceptual experience that does not vary even when the sensory elements change

Gestalt Principles

Law of proximity: objects near each other tend to be grouped together

Law of continuity: lines are seen as following the smoothest path

Law of Simplicity: items that are similar tend to be grouped together

Law of Closure: objects grouped together are seen as a whole

Law of Pragnanz or Simplicity: reality is organized or reduced to the simplest form

Figure/Ground: we look at both positive and negative space

Kohler

Chimps and Insight (immediate or accidental learning is nonexistent; spontaneous learning)

Studied 4 chimps; Sultan was the most important

Kohler would put bananas high up in the air, give the chimps tools to get the bananas down, and watch them

Thought chimps were as intelligent as humans

Once, Sultans stick was not big enough to reach the bananas in the air, so he put one sick inside of another to make it long enough

Sultan also learned by modeling

The chimps solved problems which meant that there was evidence of insight

Pavlov thought this study was interesting and decided to replicate it. It took Pavlov’s animals 2 months to figure out how to reach the reward. Thus, Pavlov believed that Kohler made up his quick results

When children learn, they need to learn by the big picture not bits and pieces

Gestalt Psychology spread quickly in Germany, but did not go over well in the US, Why?

Behaviorism already took root

Everything was in German; translation barrier

Founders of Gestalt went to small colleges

Been there, done that- rebellion to previous schools of psychology were already established in the US

People thought that Gestalt only dealt with perception because of Koffkas title to his article

Lewin

Field Theory: Lewins system using the concept of fields of force to explain behavior in terms of one’s field of social influences

Life space: all influences acting on a person at any given time

Bluma Zeigarnik Effect: a certain tension in life force…satisfaction of the need reduces tension

Ex. you remember things for an exam, but not after

Lewin looked at social psychology too

Criticisms of Gestalt

Vague

All theory with no empirical data

Insight? (Pavlov’s replication of Kohler’s experiment)

Poorly defined Principles (we already knew what Gestalt had to offer)

Contributions of Gestalt

Perception

Learning

Thinking

Motivation

Examples: how we look at psychology; how we teach; various therapies

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