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Skinnerch3IntelllectualBackground.pptCH. 3- INTELLECTUAL BACKGROUND
SKINNER’S PSYCHOLOGY
NORMAL SCIENCE
- Paradigms or theories are developed
- Hypotheses based of paradigms are tested
- Useful for solving problems?
- Useful for explaining current data or phenomenon?
- New paradigms replace others as we learn more about a particular field
SKINNER’S INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY
- Wundt-
- Subject: the elements of the mind
- Methodology: introspection
- Gall
- Subject: personality
- Methodology: study relationships between shape of the skull and personality traits
- James
- Subject: stream of consciousness
- Methodology: none
FRANCIS BACON
- Criticized the practice of “appealing to authority” to prove ones argument
- Study nature, not what someone writes about nature
- Science and implications for solving problems
- Methodology:
- systematic and controlled observation
- induction
BIAS DISCUSSED BY BACON
- Idols of the tribe
- Senses are limited
- Believe that there is more order and regularity in the world
- Confirmation bias
- Idols of the cave
- Personal lens
- Idols of the marketplace
- Learn words and phrases in the vernacular- connotations
- Accepting what others believe
- Same words-different meaning
- Idols of the theatre
- Flawed philosophy and methodology leads to a false picture, a fiction
SKINNER AND BACON
- Gain knowledge through direct observation and experimentation
- instruments
- Induction as proper methodology- not testing of preconceived
- Production of technologies to help people
- “study the book of nature”
- Take precautions to avoid observer bias
SKINNER AND MACH
- Mach was both a physicist and a philosopher
- Mach’s writing reinforced many of the same ideas of Bacon
- Induction: observing many instances and generalizing to more universal claims
- Words contain excess meaning
- Science should be practical- help people survive and prosper
- Reduce biases of hypotheses
- Extensions
- Functional relationships between variables
MACH’S INFLUENCE
- Search for causal relationships in the form of functional relationships between variables
- Economical description of the facts- parsimony
- Philosophical and cognitive explanations problematic- go beyond the facts
- Science (not philosophy) provides the best way to gain knowledge
- Darwinian biology- serve as a foundation for answering questions
PAVLOV
- Pavlovian conditioning or Classical conditioning
- Neutral stimulus- does no evoke the response
- Conditioned stimulus- requires learning to evoke the target behavior
- Unconditioned stimulus- evokes the target response without any learning
- Unconditioned response- the unlearned response to the unconditioned stimulus
- Conditioned response- the learned response to the conditioned stimulus
- Extinction, spontaneous recovery, generalization, and discrimination
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NSeYRanbbU
THORNDIKE
- Father of intelligence testing
- Law of effect
- Behaviors that lead to satisfying situations are “stamped in”
- Behaviors that lead to unsatisfying situations are “stamped out”
- Weak law of effect
- Behaviors that lead to satisfying situations are “stamped in”
ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE-PUZZLE BOXES
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THORNDIKE
- Problems with Thorndike’s analysis
- Appeal to internal , emotional states as an explanation
- Punishers do not have to be painful
- Reinforcers do not have to be pleasurable
- Did not believe Thorndike’s work had enough scientific rigor
- Influenced Skinner’s work: set the groundwork for Operant Conditioning
WATSON
- Demonstrated that human behavior could be classically conditioned
- Demonstrated the feeling could be classically conditioned
- Demonstrated both generalization across stimuli and discrimination between stimuli in terms of classical conditioning
DISAGREEMENTS WITH WATSON
- Exaggerated the role of learning
- Explain too much with few principles
- Emphasized stimulus-response psychology
- Humans just animals
- Cognition (i.e., feelings, thoughts, and beliefs)does not a legitimate role in the science of psychology
AGREEMENT WITH WATSON
- Used the term Behaviorism to characterize his approach to psychology
- Relevance of behavioral concepts and conditioning to improve human life
INFLUENCE OF LEARNING RESEARCHERS
- Behavior is worthy of study
- Animals are predictably influenced by experience
- Goal of science is prediction and control of behavior
- Scientific control is necessary to determine critical variables (use of scientific methods, reduce bias)
- Different types of learning
- Different learning phenomenon (acquisition, generalization, extinction)
- Principles of learning applied to all mammals
INFLUENCE OF CHARLES DARWIN
- Skinner considered psychology as a branch of biology
- Evolution- process of the environmental selection of certain features in organisms
- Must be some variability
- Must be a mechanism for retaining what is selected
- Something must select (environment)
EXAMPLES OF EVOLUTION
- Phenotypic characteristic of a species based on differential survival
- Moths with different coloration
- Change in environment
- Change in survival and thus reproduction
- Evolution based on differential reproduction and sensitivity to a particular reinforcer
- Sexual act pleasurable or not
- Survival only without reproduction will not allow your genes to go on to next generation
EXAMPLES OF EVOLUTION
- Extinction
- Part of the process
- Environmental change that interferes with reproduction
- Inability to solve problem (not able to adapt to environmental changes)
- Reflexes
- Reflex- automatic response to stimuli
- Evolution of learning from consequences
- Learn from experience (learning is advantageous)
- Operant conditioning
- Habituation
- Classical conditioning
EXAMPLES OF EVOLUTION
- Evolution of societies
- Social practices can have implication for survival
- Evolutionary selection: Advantageous not but not later
- Slow process
- Example: like high calorie foods
SUMMARY OF DARWIN'S INFLUENCE
- All organisms are a product of the evolutionary process
- Answers to many questions about organisms can be found in evolution
- Operant conditioning exists due to the survival benefits of learning from experience
- Operant conditioning mirrors natural selection- environmental contingencies select behaviors from some initial distribution of behaviors
