course reflection
Contemporary Issues: Historical Framework of Contemporary Psychology
Unit 10
Origins of Behaviorism
Behaviorism’s Antecedents
Philosophical antecedents
British Empiricism: John Locke - tabula rasa
British Associationism
Comte’s positivism (a form of empiricism)
We can’t know the essence of a thing, but only its relations to other facts
“Positive” knowledge
Observable, measurable
theology and metaphysics are imperfect modes of knowledge
Controlling nature
Concern over methodology
Introspection in particular
Comparative psychology
Required non-introspective measures
Ivan Pavlov 1849-1936
In training for ministry;
but decided on science after reading Darwin and Sechenov (physio)
1883 degree in medicine
1891 director of Institute of Experimental Medicine (St. Petersburg)
Research on digestion/gastric secretion
Research on salivary reflex leads to conditioning work
‘psychic salivation’
a reflex - not a permanent but a temporary or conditioned one - was involved.
Nobel Prize for physiology 1904
Conditioned Reflex
Now possible to study all psychic activity objectively
instead of subjective approach
Study relation between an organism and its external environment
The Experimental Psychology and Psychopathology of Animals (1903)
CR, etc. defined
CR is elementary psychological phenomenon
Pavlov’s Influence
honorary degrees from Cambridge & many others
Russia became center of Physio Research
1915 Order of the Legion of Honor (France)
Pavlov and Soviets
1921, Lenin: “the outstanding scientific services of Academician I.P.Pavlov, which are of enormous significance to the working class of the whole world.”
Conditioning work consistent with Soviet mission
All equal
Condition people to share Communist ideals
Hence, Pavlov’s work favored and well funded
Pavlov initially critical of government
But accommodated in face of Nazi threat in 1930s
Pavlov and the Americans
Pavlov introduced by Yerkes and Morgulis (1909)
Greatest impact in the 1920s (lectures translated into English)
A Cautionary Tale of Hx from 2nd Sources
Goodwin, C.J. (1991) Misportraying Pavlov’s apparatus. The American Journal of Psychology.104(1), 135-141.
Usual sketch (left/A), actually equipment developed by Nicolai but usually attributed to Pavlov
Actual apparatus (right/B) in the early years of the lab
Stems from misreading of Yerkes and Morgulis (1909)
Problem textbook writers relying too heavily on secondary sources
The Founding of Behaviorism John B. Watson (1878-1958)
Trained at functionalist University of Chicago (1903)
comparative psychology & studying animals
Influenced by Jacques Loeb’s work on tropisms (in plants)
phenomena of life explained re: physical & chemical laws
PhD 1903 correlated brain development and improved learning ability in rats
1903-1908 on the faculty at Chicago
Maze studies with Carr
Surgically eliminated senses one at a time to determine which were necessary for learning (e.g., vision, smell, not needed)
Key sense kinesthetic
Shorten a maze alley rat hits the wall
Lengthen an alley rat tries to turn too soon
Watson and Carr Study
Maze
(shaded area could be removed)
Antivivisectionist reaction
Watson at JHU 1908-1920
Continued animal studies
Both lab (conditioning) and field (bird studies)
1913: Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It
“Behaviorist Manifesto”
1st @ Columbia, then in Psychological Review, 20, 158-177
“Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science.”
Introspection and consciousness OUT
Thinking is just subvocal speech
Study of overt behavior IN
Goal given S, predict R; given R, predict S
Promise of applications
1915 APA presidential address
Demonstrated effects of conditioning procedures
Emotional Behavior: Little Albert
Watson & Morgan (1917) basic emotions or ‘drives’
Fear results from loud noise or loss of support
Rage results from restraint
Love results from stroking skin
Watson & Rayner (1920) (Little Albert experiment)
a healthy, stolid 9-month-old baby, was shown a live rat, a rabbit, a dog, and a monkey. He showed no fear.
Paired loud noise with rat to produce fear of rat
Fear generalized (e.g., rabbit)
Fear persisted (for a month)
Ethical and methodological problems
Mary Cover Jones: eliminated fear (behavior Tx)
Little Peter's fear of a white rabbit - presenting food along with rabbit (1924)
Watson After Johns Hopkins
1920: Watson a superstar
Affair with Rayner, his 21yo grad student
Wife divorces him
big news, she’s from prominent family
JHU fires him; cant find another academic job
J. Walter Thompson: advertising firm in NYC
Applying science to a new life in
Marketing research
Advertising campaigns based on emotions
Popularizing behaviorism
Behaviorism (1924)
“Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select…”
Psychological Care of Infant and Child (1928)
Rational rather than emotional parenting strategy