History of Psychology Exam 9-11

Who was Clever Hans?

A horse that people thought could answer math problems.

Who promoted behaviorism?

John B. Watson

behaviorism focused on what

focused on only what could be seen, heard, or touched

Watsons psychology

•Watson's Psychology
-only observable behavioral acts
-described objectively
-Rejected all mentalistic concepts
•image, mind, consciousness-meaningless
-Consciousness had no value for behavioral psychology

What was the most important antecedent to Watson's psychology

animal psychology

Tropism definition

Loeb's theory of animal behavior based on an involuntary forced movement

Who introduced the rat maze as a standard method for the study of learning

Willard Small

Who began using the word behavior

Charles Henry Turner

Why was animal psychology a difficult profession?

not well respected in academia

always concerned with funding

poor career prospects

Who ignites and bring more objectivity the animal psychology field?

Ivan Pavlov

Objectivity definition

tendency to base judgements and interpretation on external data rather than subjective factors like feelings, beliefs, and experiences

Oskar Pfungst investigated Hens to see if he was clever and what did he find?

- he was not receiving intentional signals from owner
- horse used subtle cues from the keeper

Who believed that psychology must study overt behavior

Edward Thorndike

Whose approach to learning was connectionism

Edward Thorndike

Connectionism definition

Thorndikes approach to learning was based on connections between stimuli and responses
- argued that behavior must be reduced to its simplest elements

Who had the 1st dissertation to use animal subjects

Edward Thorndike

Who built puzzle boxes?

Edward Thorndike

The puzzle box results

- responses were random at 1st
on subsequent trials, random behaviors were less frequent until learning was complete

Thorndike's Law of Effect

acts that produce satisfaction in a given situation become associated with that situation; when the situation recurs, the act is likely to recur

Thorndike's Law of Exercise

the more an act or response is used in a given situation, the more strongly the act becomes associated with that situation

Thorndike trial and error learning

learning based on repetition of response tendencies that lead to success

Pavlov became interested in animal psychology after reading who's book?

Darwin

What 3 things were Pavlov interested in?

Functions of the nerves of the heart
Digestive glands
Conditioned reflexes

What are conditioned reflexes- Pavlov?

reflexes that are conditional or dependent on the formation of an association or connection between stimulus and response

Pavlov attempted to use the

experimental method to eliminate sources of error

Why did Pavlov design the Tower of Silence?

- way to control any outside influences
- air tight steel doors
- windows covered in extra thick glass

E.B. Twitmyer discovery involved

His 1904 doctoral research found that subjects having a knee-jerk test began to react to things other than the hammer (conditioned reflex)

Alois Kreidl found that

goldfish learned to anticipate being fed by the vibrations in the water

Who was a Russian physiologist, neurologist, and psychiatrist

Vladimir M. Bekhterev

What was Vladimir M. Bekheterev do?

•reflexive movements (withdrawing one's finger from electric shock) could be elicited by a conditioned stimulus (A buzzer at the time of shock)

Who was an enemy of Pavlov, had a suspicious death, and his son was executed?

Vladimir M. Bekheterev

Who founded behaviorism, but did not originate it?

John B. Watson

How did Watson become interested in psychology?

he was attracted to psychology by Angell and Loeb

What psychologist favored animal subjects?

Watson

Watson ran a lab at what university

John Hopkins

What 2 things did Watson believe have no value in psychology?

Psychic or mental concepts have no value for a science of psychology

Watson wanted behaviorism to be a

of practical value and applied to the real world

Watsons demise

- marriage was detoriating and he fell in love with a student
-Forced to resign
-No university wanted to hire him

What was Watson's 2nd career?

advertising

What companies did Watson work for

Did some work for Johnson's baby powder
He invented the coffee break to push Maxwell house coffee
Did an ad for ponds face cream
Queen Marie of Romania endorsed it

How did Watson promote behaviorism

lectures, radio talks, advertisements

Watson was very critical of child rearing practices

- thought that parents should not hug or kiss children

What were Watson's views on women?

Outspoken women- sexually dissatisfied
Once sexually satisfied- docile, quiet, and satisfied
Women lose sexual appeal by the age of 40
Totally over the hill by age 40

Watson was asking that psychology now be defined as

· the science of behavior (not consciousness)
· a purely objective, experimental natural science
· with no use of mentalistic ideas or terms
· use only behavioral concepts such as stimulus and response
·the study of BOTH animal and human behavior

Watson's Goal

Predict and Control Behavior

Criticism to Watson's behaviorism

Use of animal
Rejection of introspection

Behaviorism became popular between the 1920's and 1930's.

•By the 1920s:
-Universities were offering courses in behaviorism
-Term was becoming acceptable in the professional journals
•By 1930, so popular -No university could avoid teaching it

Watson's method of behaviorism

Stimulus response
-Observation
- testing methods
-The verbal report method
-The conditioned reflex method

Watson believed that the ______ is more important than the _____

experimenter, subject

Watson's primary subject matter is

elements of behavior

Watson's underlying belief

all areas of behavior would be considered in objective stimulus response terms

Watson's 3 specific areas of focus in behaviorism

emotions
instincts
thoughts

What did Watson believe about instincts

At first, he accepted the role of instincts
Next, he eliminated the concept of instinct
Finally, said that instincts are socially conditioned responses

Watson became an extreme environmentalist so he denied the existence of what?

capacities, temperaments, or talents

What did Watson think about behaviors?

They could be traced to early childhood training

Watson believed that emotions were

not a conscious process

Watson's explanation of emotions

the objective stimulus situation, the overt bodily response, and the internal physiological changes

What are the 3 primary learned reactions in infants

fear, rage, and love

Little Albert conditioned to fear what 3 things?

white rat, white rabbits, Santa Claus masks

Conditioning of little Albert leads Watsons to what?

reject the notion of the unconscious because it could not be objectively observed

Who hears of Watsons Little Albert's study during one of Watson's talks and what was her interest?

Mary Cover Jones
her interest: can conditioning be used to remove a fear

Mary did a study with 3-year-old Peter who feared rabbits and what did she do?

eliminated the fear response through conditioning
slowly introducing a rabbit when Peter was eating

What does Watson think about the thought process

Thinking is talking silently
thinking is subvocal talking that relies on the same muscular habits as overt speech

Psychology captured and captivated the public's attention
General public was convinced psychology

health, happiness, and prosperity

Karl Lashley was a supporter of behaviorism and came up with 2 principles

Law of mass action- efficiency of learning depends on the amount of tissue in the brain that is available
Principle of equipotentiality- the brain has the capacity to transfer memory to the portion of the brain the is damaged

William McDougall

- believed that consciousness was necessary
introspection was necessary in determining meaning of responses

What contributions did Watsons have to psychology?

furthered applied psychology to education, social work, and mental health agencies

Who invented the IQ zoo?

Keller and Marian Breland

What techniques did Keller and Marian Breland use at the IQ zoo?

Used basic conditioning techniques from Skinner

The animals from the IQ zoos went to what places?

Roles in movies, commercials, and television shows

Three stages of behvaiorism

Watson's behaviorism
Neo behaviorism- included the work of Tolman, Hull, and Skinner
Core of study of psychology is learning
Neo-Neo Behaviorism or sociobehaviorism- included Bandura and Rotter

operationism

The position that the meaning of a scientific concept depends upon the procedures or operations used to determine or prove them

operationism insists what? Also, they believe that there is no place for what?

Insistence on discarding pseudo- problems
No place for consciousness

Edward Tolman purposive behaviorism definition

Tolman's system combined the objective study of behavior with the consideration of purposiveness or goal orientation in behavior

intervening variable

unobserved and inferred factors within the organism that are the actual determinants of behavior

Tolman's learning theory definition

repeated performance of a task strengthens the learned relationship between environmental cues and the organism's expectation (cognitive approach)

The learned relationships for Tolman's learning theory

sign gestalts or cognitive map

Forerunner to contemporary Cognitive Psychology

Tolman

Clark Hull believed we should view humans as ______

-Describes human nature in mechanistic terms
-Regarded human behavior as automatic
-behaviorists should view subjects as machines

Hull proposed 4 methods in scientific research

•Simple observation, systematic controlled observation, and the experimental testing of hypotheses
-Fourth method:
•Hypothetico-deductive method: involved
•WHAT WE KNOW AS THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD!!!

Who invented hypothetico- deductive method

Hull
- what we know as the scientific method

2 kinds of drives- Hull

•Primary-
-associated with innate biological needs
-vital for survival
•Examples: food, water, air, temperature regulation, urination, sleep, sexual activity, pain relief
•Learned or Secondary (develop from primary drives)
-relate to situations or environmental stimuli that serve to reduce primary needs
•Example: burn your hand on the stove, tissue damage produces the primary drive (pain relief) ; other environmental stimuli become associated with the reduction of the primary drive (ex. sight of red burner) lead to withdrawing your hand

Who invented the need reduction theory?

Hull

Hull believes that learning cannot occur without __________

Learning cannot occur without reinforcement -reinforcement is necessary to reduce drives!

Primary reinforcement- Hull

The reduction of a primary drive is fundamental to his learning theory

Secondary reinforcement- Hull

-those things associated with things that reduce the primary drive
•also serve to reduce the need (ex. Seeing a vending machine which has been associated with reducing thirst)
S-R associations are strengthened by the number of reinforcements that have occurred - Habit Strength

The world's most influential psychologist for decades

B. F. Skinner

This behaviorist was not concerned with the organism

Skinner

Skinner the empty organism approach definition

not concerned with speculating about what might be occurring inside the organism--

Skinner proposed that humans are controlled and operated on by forces in the ______

environment

Skinner believed that behavior could be

predicted and controlled

Skinner believed that a learning situation involved behavior emitted by an ________

organism

Skinner called it operant conditioning because the organism operates on the

environment

Skinner Box

rat had to press a bar to get food

Skinner's law of acquisition

When we get reinforced the behavior increases

fixed ratio Skinner

•Reinforcer is presented after a predetermined number of responses
-For a fixed ratio schedule of 3, the rat has to press the bar three times to get a pellet.

fixed interval Skinner

•Organism is reinforced after a specific time interval -use of timing device
-Ex. once every 20 seconds

Skinner variable ratio

•The number is changed each time the animals receives reinforcement
•Delivery schedule is unpredictable
- For example: 3 presses to get a pellet, then 10, then 1, then 7 and so on.

variable interval Skinner

•Reinforcement is delivered after a random (unpredictable) amount of time
•Example: first 20 seconds, then 5, then 35, then 10 and so on.

Successive approximation skinner

an explanation for the acquisition of complex behavior that has a low probability of occurring in normal events