Chapter 11. Behaviorism: After the Founding.

Behaviorism after the founding. What happens once Watson exits. Behaviorism dominated the field for a span of 40 to 60 years.

The people who kept the field going after watson included Walter Hunter, Karl Lashley, Clark Hull, Edward Tolman, Edwin Gurtherie, and BF Skinner

Neobehaviorists

the official men who followed in Watson’s footsteps but added something different to the field 

 

walter hunter

Was a student at Angells and Carrs. He was one of the first people to study the symbolic processes(what is going on in the head). He concentrated on the study of delayed reaction

how did hunter add to behavioralism?

Mostly used animals with a maze. Put rat in maze with cheese. The presented and removed stimulus(not allowing the animal to respond). They would perform better in the maze versus animals who never had been in the maze. He presented a T maze(most basic decisions). Looking at both behavior and memory.  Moving away from a strict behaviorism(which ignore the maze).

karl lashley

• equipotentiality & Law of mass action 

• Argued “learning is not merely a series of chained reflexes”

karl lashley studied what would happen to rats maze reaction time when removing certain parts of brain

Whatever what part you would removed, the animals memory deteriorated. Concluded that each part of the brain has an equal chance of being involved in a behavior

equipotentiality

each part of the brain has an equal potential of being involved in a behavior

law of mass action

Law of Mass Action believed that all part of the brain acts as a whole. He’s ignoring that he was asking the rat if he was doing a complex behavior that used many different parts of the brain. That’s why he saw all parts of the brain involved.

 

the brain acts. This is a flaw because he was treating complex behaviors lightly

clark hull 

hypothetical deductive method & mathematical equation

hypothetical deductive method

Used deductions from a set of formulations that are determined a prioriti. Using mathematical formulas to predict behavior and came up with theories ahead of time and used them to predict behavior. They worked reasonably well with animalsTrying to do math to predict behaviors and came up with formulas to predict behaviors

mathematic equation

come back

edward tolman

considered with moral(big picture) response patterns. Bridge between behaviorism and cognitive and information processing. Sign Gestalt expectation(what leads to what, cues). Knowing what happens next. Lead to cognitive maps and latent learning.

cognitive mapes

argued that we don’t just learn stimulus response, but instead we learn the characteristics of the environment

• Can be literal map

• Can be a cognitive map. This is how the world works

 

latent learning

learning something at one point in time but don’t show evidence of this until later

• Doesn’t align with strict behaviorism

 

edwin r. gutherie 

he only had one concept, one trail learning 

It only takes one trial to learn something. Learning isn’t necessarily segmented by multiple trials. Normally remember things that are important for survival

 

one trail learning in more detail 

Any time a response occurs it is linked forever to each of the stimulus elements, attended to after the response is made. Basically, it only takes on trail for things to be assositated. Certain number of trails before you had learned.

ex: To keep wolves from eating sheep, they would posion the sheep and leave it on the trail where the wolves would hunt. This made the wolves very sick so they would not eat anymore sheep.

BF Skinner

Voted most influential psychologists of the 2^nd half of the 20^th century

• schedules of reinforcement & token economy

• systematic desensitization

• Skinner box

schedules of reinforcement

-       Interval- Time

-       Ratio- Behavior

-       Fixed- same or regular

-       Variables- varies

fixed interval 

having a exact amount of time passing between each reinforcement

Ex: getting paid every two weeks

variable interval

varied amount of time before each interval

Ex: checking emails

fixed ratio

doing a certain amount of behaviors before receiving reinforcement

Ex: after 10 punches to your ticket, you get a free meal

variable interval 

reinforced after varies number of behaviors

Ex: playing the lottery, one most resistant to intinction(good)

 

Types of Reinforcement- Thorndike and Watson had done work on this before but skinner dug deep and applied it to other areas.

• Positive- adding to the situation

• Negative-taking away

• Reinforcement is increasing the frequency of the desired behavior    

• Punishment- decreasing the frequency of the desired behavior

positive reinforcement 

give a child a piece of candy after they go to the potty and the behavior increasing

negative reinforcement

putting electric shock in a skinner box, so when their feet get shocked, they will press the bar.

positive punishment

Spanking a child to get them to stop a behavior

negative punishment 

Putting a child in time out

• Negative because you are Removing them from the situation

• Punishment because you want the undesired behavior to stop

systematic densensization

using behavior principles to treat phobias by pairing a positive reinforcement to something negative. Afraid of dogs? Read about the dog, talk about the dog, watch a video or movie about the dog, seeing the dog across the room, moving up to seeing the dog across the room, then petting the dog.  

skinner box

Shaping is when you use operate conditioning to change behavior. You shape through successive approximations

• Ex of approximations: animals goes toward the bar, and you will reward them. If they move towards the bar a little closer, you reward them(only reward as they get closer the target behavior that you wish to see)

• Step by step