Concept Questions - History & Systems
owilliams
Behaviorism1.pptxBehaviorism
Antecendents
Edward Thorndike
“Mind-reading” experiments
Chickens at Harvard
Escape is faster with each trial
Cats in puzzle boxes at Columbia
Trial-and-accidental success
Connectionism: learning occurs as a result of connections made between situations and responses
Thorndike, cont.
Law of Effect - responses are either:
Annoyers: weaken association between response and stimulus
Satisfiers: strengthen connection between response and stimulus
Truncated Law of Effect
Argued that behavior must be reduced to its simplest elements: S-R units
Ivan Pavlov
Planned on Priesthood, but read The Origin of Species and Reflexes of the Brain
Worked with S.P. Botkin (St. Petersburg Military Academy)
Nervism: the nervous system regulates most bodily functions
Classical conditioning (1927)
Pavlov’s Conditioning Experiments
Psychical Reflex: physiological reflex controlled by higher centers in the nervous system (UCR)
Psychical stimuli: a stimulus that elicits a response that is not appropriate to the stimulus (CS)
Different types of conditioned stimuli
Generalization: stimuli similar to CS elicits CR
Conditioning Experiments, cont.
Secondary Conditioning: pair a new CS with original CS
Extinction: decrease the association through repeated presentations of CS without the UCS
Discrimination: if another stimulus is different from CS, no CR will occur
Individual Differences in Conditioning
Conditioning Theories Before Pavlov
C. Dumas & the salivary reflex (1803)
Claude Bernard & waving at horses (1872)
Twitmeyer & patellar tendons (1902)
Birth of Behaviorism
John Watson
Replace the study of consciousness with the study of behavior
Goal: observation, prediction, and control
Studied with Gordon B. Moore
Chicago & Angell (remember the Chicago school)
Physiology under Loeb
Tropisms: unlearned orienting reactions toward and away from stimuli are mechanical responses
Watson’s Early Research
Dissertation: Speed of learning in rats of different ages
Chicago:
Maze learning in rats (with Carr), found memory of mazes stored in muscles, not senses
Watson at Johns Hopkins
“Behaviorist Manifesto” (Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It, 1913)
Attacked by most of the people we’ve talked about
Little Albert
This account may not be entirely true
Other researchers were not able to replicate
Watson After Johns Hopkins
A scandal!
Move to advertising
Return to research with children
Curing Peter’s fears (1923)
Psychological Care of Infant and Child (1928)
