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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.
Spoiler Alert: that benefitted Russian psychology (see below)
assassinated in 1881
Alexander III
resumed old, despotic ways
shut off Russia from the West, again
Nicholas II
last Czar
lost Russo-Japanese War
Overthrown by Russian Revolution
he and family killed
Russian Orthodox Church
held near monopoly on religious practices
Xenophobic
fear of outsiders
severe international travel restrictions
Crimean War
Aftermath led to brief period of liberalism
Russo-Japanese War defeat was followed by instability and revolution
Psychologists Sechenov, Pavlov, and Bechterev grew up and were educated in this environment
Learning Objective: Appraise how Russia’s rulers created an on again, off again environment for scientific progress in the late 19th century.
PREVIEW(p. 294)
Pavlov’s discovery of classical conditioning eventually paved the way for Behaviorism’s success.
Watson’s Behaviorism synergized several extant movements in psychology: physiological psychology, comparative psychology, testing, applied psychology,clinical psychology because all were interested in behavior.
Now animal behavior could be studied by combining classical conditioning with psychophysics to investigate the sensory capacities of animals.
Research with Little Albert demonstrated that fears could be learned and extinguished.
The modern subfields of behavioral medicine and wellness allow therapists to deal with the effects of PTSD and the stresses of life in the 21st century.
Business took advantage of the behavioral approach with 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 (p. 295)
Multiple Sources contributed to end of introspective psychology:
Russian Psychology
Physiologically based
Sechenov's inhibition mechanism, animal models, against introspection
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the slowness of rail and steamship travel, combined with the xenophobic character of Russia caused communication difficulties within psychology.
That, combined with few outside of Russia knowing Russian added to the gap.
Was more open to women than was Western 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.
Studied Aplysia californica or the Sea Slug: Image (releasing toxins to defend itself)
In a way, he was carrying out Sechenov's approach to psychology
He mapped the sea slugs neurons that controlled its:
habituation
sensitization
classical conditioning
operant conditioning
Sechenov was the first Russian psychologist left legacy for those who followed him
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.
Son of a priest Russian Orthodox priest (they are allowed to marry)
Started at U. of St. Petersburg same year that Sechenov left (never knew each other)
Worked with Botkin, Pavlov supervised many graduate students
Spoiler Alert: that helped Pavlov become an accomplished laboratory manager later
Marriage helped him work ever harder
Wife only required he not drink alcohol and leave the lab on weekends
Studied with Carl Ludwig in Germany
developed surgical skills
Appointed to Military Medical Medical School in St. Petersburg
Became director of Institute of Behavioral Medicine as well
Began to study digestion
Student of his discovered that dogs would salivate to non-food cues
Memorial to Pavlov's dogs: Photo (by the late Chris Spatz) That's Chris climbing the fence on a Saturday; the lab was closed. An AK-47 toting guard showed up and Chris explained they were visiting American psychologists. The guard allowed them a brief visit.
Notice bas reliefs of Pavlov's lab on the base
Worked out the details of digestion over a seven year period
Lab included women and Jews, unusual in Czarist Russia
Yekaterina Shumova-Simonovskaya (Hill, 2019) pioneered the surgical creation of gastric pouches, or flaps designed to catch food swallowed before it reached the stomach (sham feeding), and the successful insertion of tubes (fistulas) into the various glands of the digestive system.
Pavlov won Nobel Prize in 1904 for research in DIGESTION (not psychology)
Pavlov's student Ivan Tolochinov, first noticed that dogs began to salivate to non-food cues; that they were learning to anticipate food when it was paired with a neutral stimulus. (Windholz, 1989)
Quickly, Pavlov moved to research that new datum
Pavlov was one of the first practitioners of "big science" (Hill, 2019)
His lab concentrated on the conditioning of autonomic responses
Spoiler Alert: Bekhterev applied Pavlovian conditioning to voluntary responses (see below)
Visited United States where his research influenced the growing behaviorist movement
He was mugged, apparently, during his 1923 visit to New York
Jaws and classical conditioning
Spielberg used the now familiar eerie theme music to prepare the audience for their eventual first view of the shark late in the movie. Second appearance of shark in Jaws: video "You're going to need a bigger boat."
Music is conditioned stimulus the shark is the unconditioned stimulus
The audience never sees the shark until the "you are going to need a bigger boat" scene above
Pavlov: Video
Notice how the dog eventually salivates to the metronome
BORDER WITH BIOLOGY (p. 299)
Physiology and Behavior
The border between biology and psychology had first been created with the rise of psychophysics.
However, the work of the Russian physiologists expanded the exchange of ideas across that border.
While Pavlov never considered himself to be a psychologist, he was quite willing to explore the connections between physiology and behavior.
The genius of Pavlov was to realize that he and his associates had discovered something new in classical conditioning and to redirect their research efforts nearly completely from digestion to conditioning.
Learning Objective 3: Explain how Pavlov created the world’s first “big science” project.
Antonov-Ovseyenko (1981) suggested that Stalin had him poisoned and cremated.
The Russian psychologists urged objective methods and rejected consciousness and introspection
Learning Objective: Demonstrate how classical conditioning made it possible to “ask” animals questions about their sensory capacities.
THEN AND NOW (p. 302)
Classical Conditioning
Pavlov explained the process in terms of contiguity in time, meaning that the temporal relationship between the previously neutral stimulus (the conditioned stimulus) and the stimulus that caused a physiological reaction (the unconditioned stimulus) was the key to understanding the process.
As Toles (2014) explained, Pavlov hardly ever used a bell as the conditioned stimulus, instead (p. 1), “(he most frequently employed a metronome, a harmonium, a buzzer, and electrical shock).”
The conditioned stimulus had to precede the unconditioned stimulus, and there was a limit to how much time (about 0 to 15 seconds) could pass between them before conditioning failed.
Robert Rescorla (1968) demonstrated that simple temporal contiguity was not enough to cause classical conditioning.
He showed that the conditioned stimulus would not cause classical conditioning even when paired with the unconditioned stimulus unless the conditioned stimulus reliably predicted the occurrence of the unconditioned stimulus.
He systematically varied the predictability of a sound signal (the conditioned stimulus) and a shock (the unconditioned stimulus) in rats.
Some groups were always shocked after the sound signal and never shocked without the warning of the signal. Other groups were shocked after a sound signal or shocked without warning in various combinations of predictability.
Conditioned rats would freeze their movements, anticipating the shock.
Rats that were subjected to equal likelihoods of shocks with a sound warning or shocked without warning never froze.
So, the subsequent Rescorla-Wagner model of classical conditioning derived from his experiments added correlation to Pavlov’s temporal contiguity.
Notice that conditioning was nearly universal in the CS .4 and Shock in Silence 0.
But, there was hardly any conditioning in the CS .4 and Shock in Silence .4
Like Pavlov’s theory, modern conditioning theory still does not require appeals to consciousness or introspective accounts.
AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGY AT THE TURN OF THE 20TH CENTURY (p. 304)
The National Primate Research Center at Emory University was named in Yerkes's honor, now Yerkes's name has been REMOVED because of his support for eugenics (this happened after my book was published, so it is not mentioned in the text)
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.
John Broadus Watson (1878-1958)
From South Carolina
Attended Furman U.
forced to stay for fifth year for turning in his exam "backward"
Went to Chicago for PhD and stayed on a faculty member
Dissertation title: "Animal Education: An Experimental Study on the Psychical Development of the White Rat, Correlated with the Growth of its Nervous System
Behavioral research with Karl Lashley
Watson was a comparative psychologist
Ran the U. of Chicago's animal laboratory
Field research on Dry Tortugas (watch video below)
Watson became editor of Psychological Review earlier than normal
Watson wrote (Brewer, 1991, p. 177):
A few weeks after I began work at Johns Hopkins, Prof. James Mark Baldwin came into my office and said, “I am resigning and leaving now for the University of Mexico. You are the new editor of the Psychological Review.” . . . I was about as well prepared to undertake this work as I was to swim the English Channel.
Thus, early in his career, he became editor of one of the most influential journals in psychology
Such editorships confer power over their fields as the editors may choose to publish, or not, research they deem important. In other words, they function as gatekeepers for their disciplines.
Wrote Behavior: An Introduction to Comparative Psychology (1914)
President of American Psychological Association (1915)
Argued for Behaviorism at speech at Columbia in 1913, Watson, 1913, p. 176):
Psychology, as the behaviorist views it, is a purely objective, experimental branch of natural science which needs introspection as little as do the sciences of chemistry and physics. It is granted that the behavior of animals can be investigated without the appeal to consciousness . . . The position is taken here that the behavior of man and the behavior of animals must be considered on the same plane; as being equally essential to a general understanding of behavior. It can dispense with consciousness in a psychological sense.
He added that psychology could use the same methods as those in animal work
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.
He also believed that educational psychology, psychopharmacology, advertising, forensice, and testing were worthy parts of psychology
In US Army during WWI
Drafted into the Signal Corps
Nearly court martialed
After the war he began to work at Johns Hopkins Hospital Phipps Clinic
“every cell I have is yours, individually and collectively. My total reactions are positive and towards you. So likewise each and every heart reaction. I can’t be any more yours than I am even if a surgical operation made us one” (Buckley, 1994, p. 24).
Fired from Johns Hopkins
Love letters published in Baltimore Sun
Watson's Career After Hopkins
Hired by J. Walter Thompson advertising agency
Rubber boot market in Mississippi was first assignment
I think of Watson every time I see a pair of rubber boots in between the cab and bed of pickups.
Product placement in stores was his idea too:
All that stuff at the checkout line
Putting items at the end of aisles
So, I think of Watson when I'm about to check out. Do I really need that Kit Kat bar?
Was one of the first to use emotion in advertising
Eventually became a vice-president and wealthy
Wrote books and articles for popular magazines
childrearing
sex
marriage
Given the American Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions (1957).
Awarded for distinguished careers and enduring contributions
But Watson put many sources together to create Behaviorism
Speech at Columbia
Psychology "has failed signally...to make its place in the world as an undisputed natural science."
Psychologists:
Should use behavior only
Treat psychology as a purely objective natural science
Have no need for introspection or consciousness
Should be against Structuralism
Learning Objective: Summarize Watson’s position on the breadth of topics amenable to investigation through a behavioral approach.
THEN AND NOW (p. 309)
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.
William McDougall
English
Read James, became a psychologist
Studied with Georg Müller in Germany
Instincts became his major focus
He defined instincts as (McDougall, 1926, p. 30):
an inherited or innate psycho-physical disposition which determines its possessor to perceive, and to pay attention to, objects of a certain class, to experience an emotional excitement of a particular quality upon perceiving such an object, and to act in regard to it in a particular manner, or, at least, to experience an impulse to such action.
Studied instincts throughout his career; later, his definition added emotion and goal directedness
Instincts always had the following components: behavior, emotion, goal
Seven Basic Instincts
Instinct
Emotion
flight
fear
repulsion
disgust
curiosity
wonder
pugnacity
anger
self-abasement
subjection
self-assertion
elation
parental
tender emotion
Influenced by Freud, he later added sexual behavior as an instinct
Learning Objective: Predict how future psychologists might deal with the issue of instincts.
February 5, 1924 at the Psychology Club of Washington, DC. (Live audience of 1,000)
Imagine that happening today. The debate speaks to the public's interest in psychology at the time
Both called themselves "behaviorists"
But their definitions of the term were different
Watson wished to rid psychology of all mentalistic terms and only use objective methods
McDougall was not willing to eliminate the use of introspection
The audience viewed McDougall as the debate winner, narrowly.
But Watson won in the long run, his views became more popular
Behaviorism's march was slow and had several different approaches
Chapter 11 covers three of those: Tolman, Hull, and Skinner
Gestalt psychology, especially in Germany, was also developing simultaneously with Behaviorism, chapter 12 covers that kind of psychology
BORDER WITH PHILOSOPHY (p. 314)
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) added, "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
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.
At that point , 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. (See chapter 11)
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.
