Behaviorism Study Notes

Chapter 12: Behaviorism

Learning Outcomes

After studying this chapter, you should be able to:

1. Explain Russian Objective Psychology and contrast Bekhterev with Pavlov.

2. Provide a biographical and career summary of Ivan Pavlov, including his interest in psychology.

3. List and briefly discuss contributions of Russian psychologists after Pavlov.

4. Explain the basic "formula" for Classical Conditioning as found on page 272.

5. Provide a biographical and career summary for John Watson, including his post-academic work.

6. Explain how different Behaviorists have understood "instincts."

Overview of Behaviorism

• The founding of behaviorism is often credited to John B. Watson, but it was significantly influenced by earlier developments in psychology, particularly Russian Objective Psychology.

• Early psychologists like James McKeen Cattell emphasized studying behavior without introspection, paving the way for the behavioristic position.

• Objective psychology insists on studying measurable phenomena, a movement that was advanced in Russia before behaviorism gained prominence in the U.S.

Key Historical Figures and Influences

Ivan Sechenov (1829–1905)

• Recognized as the founder of Russian objective psychology.

• Emphasized the concept of inhibition in psychological processes, proposing that all psychological phenomena, including thoughts and emotions, can be studied physiologically as reflexes.

• His work suggested that voluntary control over behavior (e.g., suppressing a sneeze or a strong emotion) is due to inhibitory processes in the brain.

• Famous for stating: "Since the succession of two acts is generally regarded as an indication of their causal relationship… the initial cause of any action always lies in external sensory stimulation." This underscored his belief that all complex behaviors originate from external stimuli.

• Advocated that psychology must be objective and based on verifiable scientific facts, rigorously rejecting speculative metaphysics and subjective introspection.

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849–1936)

• Born in Ryazan, Russia, he initially pursued theology but later shifted to medicine and natural science.

• Nobel Prize laureate (1904) for his groundbreaking work on the physiology of digestion. It was during these studies that he serendipitously discovered the conditioned reflex.

• He developed a precise surgical method to collect gastric juices from dogs, which allowed for systematic observation of digestive responses to various stimuli.

• His research showed how neutral stimuli could evoke physiological responses (such as salivation in dogs) when they became associated with unconditioned stimuli (like food).

  Conditioned Reflexes

• A conditioned reflex (also known as a conditioned response) is an automatic response that occurs after a previously neutral stimulus (Conditioned Stimulus, CS) becomes associated with an unconditioned stimulus (US).

  • Unconditioned Stimulus (US): A stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a response without any prior learning (e.g., food, which naturally causes salivation).

  • Unconditioned Response (UR): The unlearned, natural physiological response to the unconditioned stimulus (e.g., salivation in response to food).

  • Conditioned Stimulus (CS): A previously neutral stimulus that, after becoming associated with the unconditioned stimulus, eventually comes to trigger a conditioned response (e.g., a bell or the sight of the experimenter's footsteps).

  • Conditioned Response (CR): The learned response to the previously neutral conditioned stimulus (e.g., salivation in response to the bell after it has been paired with food).

• Extinction of Conditioned Responses: This phenomenon occurs when the conditioned stimulus is repeatedly presented without the unconditioned stimulus, leading to a gradual decrease and eventual disappearance of the conditioned response over time.

Vladimir Bekhterev (1857–1927)

• Studied at the Military Medical Academy and was significantly influenced by prominent European psychologists of his time.

• Established the first Russian experimental psychology laboratory.

• His research focused primarily on motor reflexes (e.g., muscle movements) rather than the glandular reflexes that interested Pavlov.

• Believed that psychology should exclusively focus on observable behavior and conduct experiments that could be methodologically applied to psychological phenomena, a perspective that closely paralleled John Watson’s later approaches to behaviorism.

• He developed associative reflexology, a theory focusing on the relationship between environmental stimuli and overt behavior.

John B. Watson (1878–1958)

• Born in Travelers Rest, South Carolina, he experienced a troubled religious upbringing which may have influenced his later skepticism towards intangible concepts.

• His early academic experiences and influences from the University of Chicago, particularly the functionalism of John Dewey and others, shaped his scientific outlook.

• Critically rejected introspection as a valid scientific method and fundamentally redefined psychology as the science of behavior, positioning behaviorism as a purely natural science.

Goals of Behaviorism

• Watson’s behaviorism focused intensely on the prediction and control of behavior, rather than the understanding of consciousness or internal mental states.

• He famously stated, "Psychology as the Behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior." This declaration became a manifesto for the behaviorist movement.

Fundamental Concepts in Behaviorism

• Classical Conditioning Formula: Pavlov’s principles of how neutral stimuli can become conditioned through association with unconditioned stimuli formed a core mechanism for explaining learning in behaviorism.

• Understanding of instincts: Watson maintained a controversial view that instincts had minimal influence on human behavior. He strongly emphasized the role of learned responses and environmental conditioning over innate predispositions in shaping human behavior.

• Identified four types of behavior:

  • Explicit learned (e.g., talking, writing, playing a sport).

  • Implicit learned (e.g., anxiety sensations, changes in heart rate due to a conditioned fear; these are internal but still results of learning).

  • Explicit unlearned (e.g., basic reflex reactions like grasping an object or knee-jerk reflexes).

  • Implicit unlearned (e.g., glandular actions like salivation in response to food, hormonal changes; these are unconditioned physiological responses).

Experimentation and Theoretical Developments

• Watson conducted highly influential (and ethically controversial) experiments with infants, most notably the Little Albert experiment.

  • In this experiment, Albert B., an 11-month-old infant, was conditioned to fear a white rat by pairing it with a loud, startling noise. This demonstrated that emotional responses (fear) could be classically conditioned in humans.

• Emphasis on behavioral techniques such as reinforcement (though the term 'reinforcement' was more central to B.F. Skinner's operant conditioning, Watson's work laid groundwork) closely related to animal research, assuming continuity between animal and human learning.

Major Influences and Developments Post-Watson

William McDougall (1871–1938)

• A prominent critic of Watson’s radical rejection of instincts.

• Advocated for understanding instinctual behavior as a fundamental foundation of psychology, believing instincts motivated a wide range of human actions.

• Engaged in a famous public debate with Watson in 1924, which helped to clearly differentiate behaviorism's mechanistic views from more purposeful psychological approaches.

• Coined the term hormic psychology to encapsulate his ideas, which proposed that behavior is goal-directed and driven by innate propensities (instincts) and purposes, rather than just simple stimulus-response connections.

• Suggested that instincts motivate behaviors and emotions in complex ways, a perspective that stood in direct opposition to Watson’s more mechanistic and reductionist view.

Conclusion

• Behaviorism significantly shifted psychology's focus, moving it from the study of consciousness and subjective experience to the prediction and control of observable behavior.

• The early work of behaviorists, founded on physiological research and experimental practices, laid crucial foundations that continue to shape modern psychological approaches, particularly in areas like behavior therapy, learning theories, and developmental psychology.