Chapter 10

Behaviorism

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Behaviorism: the approach to psychology spearheaded by Watson that sought to eliminate consciousness and introspection and substituted objective methods that focused on animal and human behaviors only.

Modified: 2022-04-11 (10:09 am)

ZEITGEIST

Learning Objective: Appraise how Russia’s rulers created an on again, off again environment for scientific progress in the late 19th century.

PREVIEW

Pavlov’s discovery of classical conditioning, although mostly unknown at the time in the United States, along with his objective methods eventually paved the way for Behaviorism’s success. Watson’s Behaviorism synergized several extant movements in psychology: physiological psychology, comparative psychology, testing, applied psychology, and clinical psychology in that all were interested in behavior, not in mental states. Several of those areas saw little difference in the methods necessary to study human or animal behavior. Combining classical conditioning with psychophysics, for instance, allowed researchers to investigate the sensory capacities of animals for the first time, and to answer age old questions such as: Do dogs see color?

Behaviorism eventually moved into more applied areas as well. Research with Little Albert demonstrated that fears could be learned, and later research showed they could be extinguished too. Work in that area has blossomed into the modern subfields of behavioral medicine and wellness as therapists attempt to deal with the effects of PTSD and the stresses of life in the 21st century. Business was yet another area to take advantage of the behavioral approach, leading to research in marketing and the power of advertising. Hereditarian theories competed with environmental ones as psychologists debated the existence, extent, and nature of instincts. The first inklings of widespread technological change date from the rise of radio and the subsequent forms of media created since.

INTRODUCTION

RUSSIAN PSYCHOLOGY

Learning Objective: Examine how language and transportation technologies (e.g., steamships and trains) made it difficult for scientific ideas to disseminate easily from Russia.

IDEA: Pavlovian conditioning-the pairing in time between a neutral stimulus and a stimulus that DOES cause a consistent physiological response so that, over time, the neutral stimulus comes to cause the SAME physiological response.

 

Learning Objective 3: Explain how Pavlov created the world’s first “big science” project.

Learning Objective: Demonstrate how classical conditioning made it possible to “ask” animals questions about their sensory capacities.

comparative psychology-the branch of psychology that explores the behavior of all animals (including humans) and attempts to demonstrate the phylogenetic linkages of those behaviors between species and to assess their adaptive value.

Summary

By the turn of the 20th century, Russian psychologists had made important advances in physiological psychology. Pavlov’s work on the conditioned reflex was the most important of those. Gradually, news of those findings filtered back to the United States.

At that point in history, American psychology was in flux as Structuralism, Functionalism, applied psychology, and animal research all vied for attention. Behaviorism began in 1913 with Watson’s speech. His radical position gained adherents slowly, but picked up steam after Pavlov’s conditioning research became well known. Watson’s academic career, however, was short-lived after a scandal involving him and his research assistant, Rosalie Rayner. Just prior to the scandal, they had conducted important research with an infant, Little Albert. After the scandal, Watson worked for advertising agencies, lectured and wrote, and promoted applied psychology using his Behaviorism.

William McDougall also called himself a behaviorist, but his approach was very different from Watson’s. McDougall was British, a Lamarckian, and a hereditarian. He put much stock in the role of instincts in behavior. Watson and McDougall debated on the radio in “The Battle of Behaviorism.” Watson’s position gradually strengthened and was taken over by Neobehaviorism.

 

GLOSSARY

comparative psychology: the branch of psychology that explores the behavior of all animals (including humans) and attempts to demonstrate phylogenetic linkages of those behaviors between species and assess their adaptive value.

Behaviorism-the approach to psychology spearheaded by Watson that sought to eliminate consciousness and introspection and substituted objective methods that focused on animal and human behaviors only.

conditioned emotional responses-terminology first introduced by Watson and Rayner to describe the acquisition of emotional responses in children through classical conditioning.

hereditarianism-the view that individual differences in behavior are mostly due to innate and inherited factors.

environmentalism-the view that individual differences in behavior are mostly due to experience and other environmental factors.

Then and Now:

Little Albert

Watson and Rayner’s research is cited and described in nearly every general psychology textbook. Often, the exact details are glossed over or misrepresented. Cornwell, Hobbs, and Prytula (1980, p. 216) noted that “many of Albert’s observed fear responses were stimulated not by a conditioned stimulus object but by the removal of his thumb from his mouth.” Harris (1979) listed several failures to replicate Watson and Rayner’s results and many others have pointed out how unusual it is in psychology for a study involving only one subject (Albert) to have achieved such wide prominence and notoriety. Replicating the study now is out of the question because of ethical constraints on research. Such ethical standards did not yet exist in 1920. Watson, too, helped popularize his account by republishing it in his subsequent books and by filming the original research, probably a first for psychology. Today, it is well accepted that people and animals can acquire fear responses through conditioning. Furthermore, the extinction of those fears is possible through a variety of techniques derived from behavioral theory (e.g., counterconditioning and flooding). Watson, Rayner, and Little Albert are likely to continue to appear in future psychology textbooks if nothing else to illustrate the scientific highwater mark of Watson’s career.

Border with Philosophy

Sealing the Border?

Behaviorism effectively sealed the porous border that had long existed between psychology and philosophy. As long as psychology defined itself introspectively, its border with philosophy allowed the free passage of ideas in both directions. More importantly, Behaviorism eventually led to another solidifying distinction between the disciplines: experimentation. Behaviorists promoted the design and conduct of experiments that did not require introspective analysis. In a way, behaviorists took psychology out of its armchairs and into its newly founded laboratories. But, as mentioned earlier  (see chapter 1) Knobe and other philosophers have pushed for a new approach in philosophy, experimental philosophy or X-phi. In an interview (Roberts & Knobe, 2016, p. 15), Knobe defines experimental philosophy thusly:

Experimental philosophy is an interdisciplinary field at the intersection of philosophy and psychology. Very roughly, the field aims to make progress on the kinds of questions traditionally associated with philosophy using the kinds of methods traditionally associated with psychology.

Mallon (2016, p. 437) adds, "experimental philosophy is…quickly becoming larger still, blurring the disciplinary boundaries between psychology and neuroscience with consequences that have yet to reveal themselves.” It seems that the border between psychology and philosophy is now being renegotiated.

 

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