Chapter 12

Behaviorism

Antecedents to Behaviorism

• Functionalism's eclectic approach to psychology, combined with its willingness to investigate animal behavior help to make the transition to behaviorism easier. It is easy to overinterpret Watson's role in the rise behaviorism. In truth, psychology was ready for something new and behaviorism just happened to be it.

Early Russian Psychology

• Ivan M. Sechenov (1829-1905)
  • Founder of Russian objective psychology
  • Understood Eduard Weber's discovery of inhibition
    • i.e., when a stimulus led to less of a response
  • Sought to explain behavior in purely reflexive terms
  • Little influence during his lifetime, but he inspired next generation of Russian psychologists
• Ivan P. Pavlov (1849-1936)
  • Life
    • Came from a family of priests (Russian Orthodox)
    • Thought about becoming a priest himself, but went to medical school instead
    • Distinguished himself in medical school
    • Afterwards studied with Karl Ludwig (one of the blood oath positivists) in Leipzig
    • In 1890 and in his 41st year, was appointed to professorship at St. Petersburg Military Medical Academy.
    • Wrote little and was a dedicated positivist
  • Psychology
    • Digestion research
      • developed technique using gatric fistulas to observe digestion in living animals
      • animals observed under such techniques appeared to anticipate the future by secreting before the eliciting stimulus was presented
      • won the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine in 1904, and that made him famous
    • Classical conditioning
      • Unconditioned reflex or response (UCR)
        • "built in" response to the unconditioned stimulus in the organism
      • Unconditioned stimulus (UCS)
        • the stimulus that elicits the UCR
        • rare in nature
          • pleasure
          • pain or pain avoidance
          • food
          • drink
      • Conditioned stimulus (CS)
        • discovered by Pavlov during the course of his digestion research
        • dogs would begin to salivate before Pavlov presented the UCS
        • Pavlov then began to investigate the process linking CS to UCS
      • Conditioned response (CR)
        • a response similar to UCR, but elicited by CS
        • best thought of a signal that the UCS and UCR will follow
      • Classical conditioning requires both contiguity and correlation to occur
        • CS-->UCS must be close in time (contiguity)
        • CS must predict UCS reliably (correlation)
      • Other related phenomena
        • extinction
          • loss of learning caused by removal of UCS
        • spontaneous recovery
          • return of conditioned response upon return to conditioning situation (albeit at a lower strength)
        • experimental neurosis
          • Pavlov and his students were able to induce dogs to quit responding when the dogs were required to make discriminations that were beyond their sensory and cognitive capacities
          • One experiment used a circle and an ellipse as stimuli, the ellipse was made more and more circular
          • At some point the dogs could no longer discriminate the difference between the two stimuli
    • Implications of Classical Conditioning
      • Provided the first powerful positivistic model for behavior
      • Heavily influenced the rise of behaviorism after Pavlov's 1927 visit to the United States
  • Pictures from Pavlov's Lab St. Petersburg (all photos courtesy of Chris Spatz, Hendrix College)
    • Bust of Pavlov in St. Petersburg
    • Pavlov's Lab Today (with Chris leaning on Pavlov's monument)
    • Chris Climbing Fence of Lab (it was a Saturday) Is this what they mean by ganz Americanisch?
    • Monument to Pavlov's Dogs (Note the details on the base.)
• Vladimir M. Bechterev (1857-1927)
  • Life
    • Attended Military Medical Academy of St. Petersburg at same time as Pavlov
    • Graduated in 1878 (MD) and in 1881 (Ph.D.)
    • Studied with Wundt, DuBois-Reymond, and Charcot before returning to Russia
    • Founded first experimental psychology lab at University of Kazan (1885)
    • In 1893 returned to faculty position at Military Medical Academy of St. Petersburg
    • Founded the Psychoneurological Institute in 1907, now known as the V. M. Bechterev Institute for Brain Research
  • Psychology
    • Coined the term "reflexology" (1917)
      • To Bechterev, reflexology was the objective study of relationship of behavior and environment
    • Disagreed with Pavlov over the use of salivary response
    • Instead, Bechterev used motor reflexes (i.e., paw withdrawal from electric shock)
    • Claimed to be the source of American objective psychology
    • Claimed that Pavlov did not discover the conditioned reflex

John B. Watson (1878-1958)

• Life
  • Born in Traveler's Rest, SC
  • Mother was very religious and wanted Watson to become an ordained minister, Watson promised her he would
  • Watson attended Furman University, but had to attend an extra year, earning a master's degree
  • After graduation, his mother died
  • So, he considered his promise to her moot, and attended the University of Chicago instead
  • At Chicago he was influence by Angell and Jacques Loeb
  • He began to work with white rats (dissertation title: Animal education: The psychical development of the white rat)
  • Hired by U. of Chicago and continued his rat and animal studies
  • Worked with Karl Lashley on field research with sooty terns (1907)
  • Moved to Johns Hopkins U. in 1908
  • In 1909, Baldwin, Hopkins chair, was fired because of being caught in a police raid of a brothel
  • Watson assumed Baldwin's duties as editor of Psychological Review (earlier in his career than otherwise possible)
  • Gave famous lecture, "Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It," in 1913, the official beginning of behaviorism (also published in Psychological Review that year
  • Interestingly, only Titchener supported his creation of behaviorism (but Titchener still clung to his structuralism)
  • Yerkes, Woodworth, Angell, and Thorndike did not
  • Became APA president in 1914
  • Served in the military from 1917-1919
  • Psychology from the Viewpoint of a Behaviorist was influential textbook (1919)
    • defined psychology as the prediction and control of behavior
  • Little Albert studies with Rosalie Rayner (1920)
    • discovery of conditioned emotional response
    • beginnings of behavioral therapy
  • Scandal at Johns Hopkins
    • Watson and Rayner were having an affair and Watson's wife discovered his love letters
    • Letters were published in the Baltimore Sun
      • even in his letters, Watson was was a behaviorist
      • he described his love for her in behavioral terms
        • "...every fiber of my being resonates..."
      • they later married
    • He was asked to resign from Johns Hopkins
  • Went to work for J. Walter Thompson (the advertising agency)
    • Started by doing market research on rubber boots in Mississippi river valley
    • Eventually rose to level of vice-president making $70,000 in 1930 (or about $292,814 today) (using the CPI Calculation Machine)
    • Did little for academic psychology after leaving Hopkins but was a popular writer and speaker on psychology
  • Received 1957 APA Gold Medal
• Psychology
  • Trained as a functionalist but soon began to doubt its methods
  • In 1913 article he argued for:
    • dropping the use of consciousness in psychology
    • the use of objective methods in both human and animal studies
  • Did not know about Russian objective psychology
  • Types of behavior:
    • explicit learned behavior
      • i.e., talking, writing, playing games
    • covert learned behavior
      • i.e., physiological responses to experience (dentist's drill)
    • explicit unlearned behavior
      • i.e., built in responses (sneezing)
    • implicit unlearned behavior
      • i.e., physiological changes (glandular secretions)
  • Behaviorism
    • Eventually took over nearly all of American psychology
    • Types
      • radical--deny mental events
        • Watson
        • Skinner
      • methodological--behavior is final arbiter of psychological concepts
        • nearly all psychologists are methodological behaviorists

William McDougall (1871-1938)

• Life
  • MD degree in 1897
  • U. of Gottingen Ph.D. with Georg Muller
  • Read James and was profoundly influenced
  • Went back to England (University College and then Oxford)
  • In 1920 became chair at Harvard (succeeding Munsterberg, but he saw himself succeeding James)
  • Went to Duke in 1927 until death in 1938
• Psychology
  • Purposive behavior
    • spontaneous
    • lasts a long time
    • goal is constant, but means to goal varies
    • ends when goal is reached
    • practice improves skill in reaching goals
  • Instincts
    • Components of instincts
      • perception
      • behavior
      • emotion
    • All three components work simultaneously and in concert with other instincts
    • Types of instincts and their accompanying emotions

• McDougall's instincts begged the question, they lacked explanatory power

• Battle of Behaviorism
  • February 5, 1924 at the Psychological Club in Washington, D.C.
  • Published as a book, The Battle of Behaviorism, by both in 1929.
  • Inconclusive results

• Summary
  • Watson urged the creation of a new psychology but his position was too radical for most (there's the pendulum again)
  • After he left psychology, a new psychology, Neo-Behaviorism, did arise
  • Others, i.e., Pavlov and Bechterev, should also get some credit for independently arriving at the necessity for a new approach to psychology

URLs

• Ivan Pavlov--NEW, text, basic, short, links, graphics
  • Short biography and picture of Ivan Pavlov. http://dekalb.dc.peachnet.edu/~nreynold/Pavlov.htm
• Russian Medical Military Academy--NEW, text, basic, short, links, graphics, Russian
  • Russian page on the Medical Military Academy in St. Petersburg. Page includes photos of the academy in 1897 and in 1997. Pavlov and Bechterev are both graduates of the academy. http://www.medport.ru/RMMA/index.html
• The Age of "isms"--tutorial, basic, medium, links, graphics
  • Page on early psychological theories, covers: Wundt and structuralism, Ebbinghaus, James and Functionalism, Watson and Behaviorism, and Gestalt psychology. Also includes demonstration of Gestalt principles of perception. http://www.geneseo.edu/~intd225/psycisms.html
• Mind and Body: From Descartes to James--index, interm., medium, links, graphics
  • This page is an on-line version of a catalogue of a book exhibition at the National Library of Medicine in 1992. The exhibition was in conjuction with the celebration of the centennial of the American Psychological Association (APA). Topics included are: Rene Descartes and the legacy of mind-body dualism, the rise of experimental psychology, and psychology in America. http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/Mind/Table.html
• Classics in the History of Psychology--index, adv., short, links
  • A page with full text works by: Aristotle, Baldwin, Cattell & Jastrow, Binet, Cattell (J. McK.) Darwin, Dewey, Freud, James, Koffka, Mead, Plato, Terman, and Watson. http://www.yorku.ca/dept/psych/classics/
• Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It--NEW, article, adv., long, links
  • Watson's seminal article in Psychological Review, from Classics in the History of Psychology page. http://www.yorku.ca/dept/psych/classics/Watson/views.htm
• Commentary on: Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It--NEW, article, adv., long, links
  • Article by Robert H. Wozniak on the consequences of Watson's (1913) article on psychology. http://www.yorku.ca/dept/psych/classics/watson1/commentary.htm
• Conditioned Emotional Reactions--NEW, article, adv., long, links
  • Full text of Watson and Rayner's (1920) article in the Journal of Experimental Psychology. http://www.yorku.ca/dept/psych/classics/Watson/emotion.htm
• J. Walter Thompson--NEW, text, basic, short, links
  • Short history of famous advertising agency of same name. Includes brief mention of Watson. http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/hartman/jwt/jwtbroch.html
• Jacques Loeb--NEW, text, basic, short, links
  • Short biography of Jacques Loeb, the psychologist who researched forced movements: tropisms, kineses, and taxes. http://dept-info.labri.u-bordeaux.fr/~loeb/tree/jacques.html
• James Mark Baldwin--NEW, adv., short, links
  • Page has links to works of James Mark Baldwin, the psychologist who chaired the psychology department at Johns Hopkins University when John B. Watson arrived in 1907. http://paradigm.soci.brocku.ca/~lward/SUP/Baldwin/BALD_008.HTML
• The History of Psychology--index, basic, medium, links, graphics
  • Page that links to other resources in the history of psychology. Has links to pages on Dewey, Piaget, Helmholz, Skinner, and others. http://www.guam.net/home/bmarmie/history.html
• Biographies of Psychologists--index, basic, short, links
  • Short biographies of: Alfred Adler, Alfred Binet, Edward de Bono, Hans Eysenck, Sigmund Freud, Howard Gardner , Karen Horney, William James, C.G. Jung, R.D. Laing, Abraham Maslow, Don Norman, Robert Ornstein, Wilhelm Reich, Carl Rogers, B.F. Skinner, Thomas Szasz, Lewis Terman, Edward L Thorndike, and John B. Watson. http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~rsauzier/Biography.html#Psychology
• People and Discoveries--index, basic, short, links, graphics
  • Page provides short biographies of the following: Jean-Martin Charcot, Charles Davenport, Sigmund Freud, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, Harry Harlow, Abraham Maslow, Ivan Pavlov, Wilder Penfield, B.F. Skinner, Roger Sperry, and John Watson. The page also has linked timeline of discoveries in psychology from 1900 to 1993. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/humbeh.html
• The Behavioral System--tutorial, basic, medium, links
  • Discusses types of learning and some basic terms and concepts. http://www.valdosta.peachnet.edu/~whuitt/psy702/behsys/behsys.html
• Behaviorism--tutorial, adv., long, links
  • Tables list theoretical issues in behaviorism. Tables are: criticisms and responses to behaviorist arguments, behavioral data language, theoretical concepts, theorizing, S-R psychology, and the organization of behavior. http://galton.psych.nwu.edu/GreatIdeas/behaviorism.html
• Definitions of Behaviorism--text, interm., long
  • Classroom hand out describes, characterizes, and contrasts methodological behaviorism with radical behaviorism. http://www.uwm.edu/People/jcm/psy551/skinner.2/ho2
• Behavior Analysis, Radical Behaviorism, Mentalism, and Methodological Behaviorism-- text, adv., long
  • Classroom hand out fully characterizes and describes behavior analysis and radical behaviorism. Later, the issue of mentalism is addressed and behavior analysis's objections to it are explained. http://www.uwm.edu/People/jcm/psy551/skinner.2/ho3
• Behavior Terminology--text, basic, long, links
  • Page provides a list of basic terms use in describing learning and conditioning, a self test, and more information about learning and conditioning. http://pages.prodigy.com/behavior/
• Lectures in Learning--index, basic, short, links, graphics
  • From the home page of an instructor, provides basic, referenced lectures with graphics. Lectures included are: evolution and animal intelligence, the reflex from Descartes to Pavlov, basic concepts in classical conditioning, cognitive models of associative learning, what is learned in classical conditioning, trial and Error, from the rise of Thorndike to the fall of J.B. Watson, operant conditioning, generality, constraints and concepts in learning. http://www.dur.ac.uk/~dps1rwk/
• Timelines: Psychology 1846-1935--NEW, adv., long, links
  • A chronological list of events in the history of psychology from 1846 to 1935. http://paradigm.soci.brocku.ca:80/~lward/TIME/TIME_PSY.HTML
• John Broadus Watson--NEW, basic, long, links, graphics
  • Series of pages on the life of John B. Watson, founder of behaviorism. Pages describe his childhood, undergraduate and graduate education, his careers in education and advertising, and more. http://www.furman.edu/~einstein/watson/watson1.htm