PSYC 4008 FINAL EXAM

Methodological behaviorism

focus on observing behavior rather than the mental processes and subjective experiences

Psychological behaviorism

psychology is the science of behavior (behavior determinants are external)

Logical Behaviorism

philosophy about semantics of mental concepts

Radical behaviorism

methodogical, logical & psychological behaviorism combined

Environmentalism

• behavior derives from environmental experience

• this is how behaviorists applied British empiricism into their view of behavior

Auguste Comte

founder of:

• sociology

• philosophy of science

• positivism

Positivism

view that the only source of absolute knowledge is publicly observable data

a few concepts of positivism:

• unity & utility of science

• rejection of introspection & metaphysics

Law of 3 Stages

stages in how humans understand nature, which include

1. theological

2. methodological

3. positive: mind stops looking for causes of events, but rather describes the laws governing them

1 & 2 is where we seek answers, but 3 is where we accept we cannot know truth fully

Hierarchy of Science

sciences develop on a hierarchy, building on previous layers

Logical positivism

• gives science a firm foundation by establishing an agreed truth

• uses verifiability

• legacy: failed since verification is not verifiable

Logical positivism: Verifiability

statements must be “truth analyzed“ under these rules:

• rejects metaphysical reasoning

• empirical & logical language

• empirically/logically verifiable

Behaviorists on Reflexology

• views all behavior as reflexive to stimuli

• elaborates on responses that are conditioned & emitted

Pavlov

• classical conditioning

• S-S association or stimulus substitution

Thorndike

introduces idea that consequence of behavior is important (S-R associationism)

Behaviorist Manifesto (how they view psych)

• psych is an objective experimental branch of science

• goal: predict & control behavior

• introspection is useless

Watson on instinct

• instinct is natural and used early in life

• quickly replaced by learned behaviors

Watson on learning

• emphasized phylogenetic continuity

• demonstrated classically conditioned emotional responses

• criticized Law of effect

• classical conditioning is important to learning

Conditioning

• Little Albert Experiment

• discovered that deconditioning is possible

  • began work on methods (counter conditioning & systematic desensitization)

Neobehaviorism

• not all behavior is learned through classical conditioning

• uses operational definitions to study internal states

Operational definition

how you define/measure a construct

Guthrie’s Contiguity Theory

• applies Pavlovian model to S-R learning

  • contiguity between S & R required for S-R association

• other features

  • molecular behavior

  • learning occurs fully the first time w/o reinforcement

  • punishment deters unwanted behavior

  • associations can’t be unlearned

Molecular behavior

complex acts of many components and small S-R associations

(i.e., the many learned microinteractions within moving your arm)

Tolman’s Cognitive/Gestalt Behaviorism

• combined behavioral & gestalt principles

• emphasized animal learning research

Purposive behaviorism

• behavior has a goal

• molar behavior: holism

• cognition: behavior has cognitive determinants

• intervening variables

Intervening Variables

hypothetical variables mediating relationship b/w S & R

Latent learning

• Tolman believed learning happens randomly w/o reinforcement

• learning is defined in terms of behavior/performance

• thus, latent learning is learning that is not reflected in performance

Cognitive Map

spatial mental map of an area

Clark Hull

• physician

• believed organisms were complex machines, thus explained behavior using physics

• drive reduction theory of learning

Drive reduction theory of learning

formula: E = D * H

• E = excitatory potential: probability of a response occuring

• D = drive: motivation of behavior

• H = habit strength: strength of S-R relationship, requires S-R contiguity

believed that reinforcement (drinking) was to get rid of a drive (thirst)

BF Skinner

• highly important & controversial figure in psychology

• rigidly believed in behaviorism (radical behaviorism)

BF Skinner’s Experimental Analysis of Behavior

• finding variables that affect probability of response

• DV: response rate

• disliked nomothetic approach, preferred individual intense study over time instead

Nomothetic Approach

comparing means of two groups (ignores variability)

Stimulus control

change in probability of a response when stimulus is present

Evaluation of Radical behaviorism

• once ruled US psych, but is replaced with cognitive psych

• is too exaggerated and incomplete

• giving psychologists behavioral control is ethically questionable

Psychosis

• severely distorted perception of reality

• important to history of mental hospitals & psychiatry

2 Psychosis Types

• organic (neurology & toxins)

• functional (disfunction such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder)

Moral therapy

• an attempt to “fix psychosis“

• had many humanitarian treatments

• led to start of mental asylums

Dorothea Dix

• hears of mental illness while teaching at women’s prison

• advocate for mental asylums

Asylum Era

• idea of a therapeutic mental hospital

• introduction of moral therapy and psychiatry

Problem of Asylums

• not enough beds for # of patients

• fear that mental illness was rising

• new “dementia praecox“ (schizophrenia)

• led to aggressive therapies

Asylum Reform

a set of events that led to the reform of asylums

Clifford Beers

• founded National Committee for Mental Hygiene

• mental hygiene - preventing mental illness

Statistical Manual

• standardized stat reporting in mental hospitals

• evolves into DSM

John Maurice Grimes

• conducts study on asylum problem

• independently publishes that mental hospitals can’t be reformed

Asylum Reform: WWII

• 12% draftees rejected for mental illness

• asylums resembling nazi concentration camps

Thorazine/Chlorpromazine

• first true antipsychotic

• effectiveness helped depopulate asylums

Neurosis

• derives from neuritis (nerve inflammation)

• thought to be of neurological cause, but later shifts to psychological cause

Jean-Martin Charcot

• founded modern neurology

• linked neuropathology to symptoms in multiple sclerosis

• studied hysteria & hypnosis

• believed hypnosis susceptibility indicates hysteria

George Beard

• surgeon/neurologist

• discovers neurasthenia (mental&physical fatigue)

• thought that discorder was caused by exhaustion of nervous energy

• pioneered “electrical treatment”

Weir Mitchell

• neurologist

• invents rest cure for nervous disorders (forced inactivity for two months)

  • becomes a symbol of 19th c. patriarchal oppression of women

• neurosis shifts from physical to psychological

Sigmund Freud

• neurologist

• studied hysteria & hypnosis

• began psychoanalysis

• had a psychoanalysis “cult“

Alfred Adler

• early member (now defector) of Freud

• questions sexual determinism

• proposes social & environmental determinants

• proposes inferiority complex

• created school of individual psychology

Carl Jung

• early member (now defector) of Freud

• questions sexual determinism

• develops analytical psychology & collective unconscious

• archetypes, extraversion/introversion

Collective unconscious

inherited ancestral experiences

Psychoanalysis successes

• better relationship b/w doctor & patient

• psychiatry expands to neurosis

• psychiatry becomes popular

Psychoanalysis failures

• skeptic of medicine

• no empirical validation

• long and expensive treatment

What aspect(s) of psychology was America more focused on compared to Europe?

application of psychology & mental testing

American Zeitgeist

1. Democracy

2. Diversity

3. Private Property

4. Individual Freedom

5. Self-reliance

6. Competition

7. Meritocracy

Why was Darwinism hated in America?

it had negative theological implications

Why was Darwinism loved in America?

it justified America’s economic & social system, since capitalism reflects “natures way“

Pre-Jamesian Psychology

influenced by Scottish Realism (common sense view of reality)

Reid’s Faculties

• active powers (powers of will)

• intellectual powers (powers of understanding)

Thomas Upham

• wrote a book integrating philosophy & science of mind, primarily as sensory physiology

• trilogy of mind

Trilogy of Mind

• intellect (cognition)

• sensibilities (emotions)

• will (action)

Early Higher Education

• free public ed starts (early 1800s)

• higher ed starts at Harvard (1636)

• mostly religious higher ed schools

• secular universities more common after Morill Grand Act 1862

Inequalities in Early Higher Education

• solely white male students

• schools for minorities and women only created after Civil War

Variability Hypotheses

• women are thought to be less mentally capable

• men thought to be more varying in intelligence

Francis Summer

• 1st black man to get PhD in psych

• established & chaired psych dept at Howard University

Kenneth & Mamie Phipps Clark

• Kenneth becomes first black president of APA

• Conducted doll study for Brown v Board, which helped abolish segregation

Mary Whiton Calkins

• teacher at a woman’s college

• requested to do grad study at Harvard as a “guest“ to offer teaching material for her college

• research and original findings at Harvard’s lab, regarding “paired-associates“ learning

• Harvard refused her a PhD despite met requirements

• first woman president of APA

Margaret Floy Washburn

• grad study in psych @ Cornell

• 1st woman to earn doctorate in psych

• 2nd woman president in APA

• original research in color perception, imagery & social consciousness (empathy & altruism)

William James

• 1st American psychologist

• 2nd most important psychologist

• functionalist

James’ 3 Psychology Methods

• introspection

• experimentation

• comparative

James’ Truth

• property of an idea, statement, belief, etc.

• correspondence theory - ideas true when corresponding to reality

• pragmatism - defining truth in terms of utility

Problems of Pragmatism

• utility isn’t enough for truth, as useful false beliefs exist

• utility isn’t needed for truth, as useless true beliefs exist

• reversal of cause & effect. beliefs can only be useful if true, not the other way around

James’ Self

2 Selfs

• I - the conscious self

• Me - self as an object of thought

James’ Free Will

• was disturbed by determinism

• although freedom may be illusive, it is a useful concept (pragmatism)

According to James, why do habits have significance?

• allows consciousness to focus on important problems

• preserves social order

• important to education, especially early on

James’ Emotions

consequence of perceiving bodily reactions, rather than the cause of the reaction

James’ Categories of Religious Experiences

• mystical - sense of unity w/ divine & transcendence

• conversion - profound change in belief & personal identity

G. Stanley Hall

• doctorate student of James

• 1st US doctorate in psych

• studied w/ Wundt after doctorate

• founded 1st lab for exp psych in US @ Hopkins

• founded APA

• founded American Journal of Psychology

Hall’s Psychology

contributed in 2 areas

• developmental psych of child study

• genetic (evolutionary) psych

these areas were linked by recapitulation theory

established adolescence as a stage of development

Recapitulation theory

biological development of organism mimics evolutionary progression of its species

Hall’s Education

• advocate for educational tracking

• against co-ed

• education for boys and girls were focused on their gender roles

What sparked the psychoanalytic movement in America?

Hall invited Freud to give lectures at Clark University

George Ladd

introduced Wundt’s experimental psychology to America

James Baldwin

• introduced concepts of accommodation & assimilation

• Baldwin effect - learning by imitation was an evolutionary adaptation

What were the similarities and differences b/w structuralism & functionalism?

• they both valued introspection and conscious experience

• they valued structure or function of mind

Edward Titchener

• lead structuralism in US

• completed PhD under Wundt

Why did Titchener dislike the APA, and what did he do about it?

• he had issues with APA not promoting lab psychology, scientific rigor, & structuralism

• formed a group called “experimentalists“ (it excluded women)

Titchener & the 2 schools

• named both schools

• structuralism = anatomy

• functionalism = physiology

• saw functionalism as old

Mental Elements

• sensation vs feeling

• had 4 qualities (quality, intensity, duration, clearness)

• both elements have all qualities, but feelings lack clearness

Titchener’s solutions to internal perception

• post-mortem examination

• break the experience into parts

• introspective habit

Post-mortem examination

internal perception relying on memory, rather than immediately recalling

Introspective habit

“calibrating“ (training) participants to do internal perception

Social Darwinism

• a view on society based on a combination of Darwin’s ideas

• compares societies as “better“ or “worse”

Laissez-faire capitalism

• market forces determine people’s fate

• no limit to wealth or poverty

• a form of evolutionary “natural eugenics“

• based around intelligence, which pushed mental testing in US

John Dewey

• believed psych & philosophy are inseparable

• founded school of pragmatism w/ James

• founded functional psych

Dewey’s education

• against laissez-faire

• emphasized provision of equal opportunity

• experiential learning

Dewey’s reflexes

believed that reflexes were a coordination of sense and action