Behaviorism: Antecedent Influences

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Behaviorism Antecedent Influences
Chapter 9
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3 Forces that formed the system of behavioral
psychology

• The philosophical tradition of objectionism and
  mechanism
• Animal psychology
• Functional Psychology

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Clever Hans (1900-?)

• AKA Hans the Wonder Horse
• Resided Berlin, Germany
• Considered to have numerical reasoning of a 14
  year old boy
• Could add, subtract, use fractions and decimals
• Read, identify coins, play card games, spell,
  recognize objects,
• And performed feats of memory
• Wilhelm von Osten, Hans owner Math Teacher
• Trained Hans and took no money.
• Believed Darwin's Theory of similar
• human brain processes .

New York Times Article -1904
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Jacques Loeb (1859-1924)

• Born 7-Apr-1859
• Birthplace Mayen, Prussia
• Died 11-Feb-1924
• Location of death Hamilton, Bermuda
• Cause of death unspecified
• Gender Male
• Religion Jewish
• Race or Ethnicity White
• Occupation Doctor
• Nationality United States
• Executive summary Investigator of artificial
  parthenogenesis
• University University of Würzburg
• Medical School MD, University of Strasbourg
  (1884)
• Professor University of Würzburg (1886-88)
• Professor University of Strasbourg (1888-90)
• Professor Bryn Mawr College (1891-92)
• Professor University of Chicago (1892-1902)
• Professor University of California at Berkeley
  (1902-10)
• Scholar Rockefeller University (1910-24)

Loeb, developed a theory of animal behavior based
on the concept of tropism. Loeb believed that an
animals reaction to a stimulus is direct and
automatic. He argued that animal consciousness
was revealed by associative memory.
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Jacques Loeb (1859-1924)

• Download and Read his full works
• The Mechanistic Conception of Life Biological
  Essays
• Comparative Physiology of the Brain
• and Comparative Psychology

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Robert Yerkes(1876-1956)

• Education
• Ursinus College, Pennsylvania (1892-1897)
• Harvard University, A. B. (1898) Ph.D. (1902)
• Career
• Harvard University, Instructor and Assistant
  Professor in Comparative Psychology (1902-1917)
• Boston Psychopathic Hospital, Director of
  Psychological Services and Research (1913-1917)
• Helped create the Yerkes-Bridges Point Scale of
  Intelligence (1915)
• President, American Psychological Association
  (1917)
• Chairman, National Research Council Psychology
  Committee (WWI)
• Chairman, Committee on the Psychological
  Examination of Recruits (The committee that
  designed the WWI Army Alpha and Beta testing
  program)
• Continued to serve on the National Research
  Council (1919-1924)
• Yale University, Professor of Psychobiology
  (1924-1944)
• Founded and directed the Yale Laboratories of
  Primate Biology (1929-1941)

Robert Mearns Yerkes, (inset)pictured in Orange
Park, Florida, founded the Yale Laboratories of
Primate Biology in New Haven, Connecticut, in
1928.
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Robert Yerkes(1876-1956)

• The study of other primates may prove the most
  direct and economical route to profitable
  knowledge of ourselves, because, in them, basic
  mechanisms are less obscured by cultural
  influence. Certainly it is unwise to assume that
  human biology can be advanced only by the study
  of man himself. This could be true only if he
  existed as a unique organism, lacking genetic
  relations to other types of creatures (Yerkes,
  1943, p. 3).
• Yerkes, R. M. (1943, 1971). Chimpanzees A
  laboratory colony. New York Johnson Reprint
  Corporation.

Robert Mearns Yerkes, (inset)pictured in Orange
Park, Florida, founded the Yale Laboratories of
Primate Biology in New Haven, Connecticut, in
1928.
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John Watson (1878-1958)

• AKA John Broadus Watson
• Born 9-Jan-1878
• Birthplace Greenville, SC
• Died 25-Sep-1958
• Location of death New York City
• Cause of death Infection
• Race or Ethnicity White
• Occupation Psychologist
• Nationality United States
• Executive summary Founder of Behaviorism
• Wife Mary Ickes (sister of Harold Ickes, div.
  1920)
• Wife Rosalie Rayner (his student)
• University MA, Furman University (1899)
• University PhD Psychology, University of
  Chicago (1903)
• Professor Psychology, Johns Hopkins
  University (1908-20)
• Author of books
• Behavior An Introduction to Comparative
  Psychology (1914)
• Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist
  (1919)
• Behaviorism (1925)

Argued that organizations like the Boy Scouts and
YMCA lead to homosexuality. Girls in particular
were susceptible because they held hands, kissed,
and slept together in the same bed at pajama
parties.
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John Watson (1878-1958)

• Adapted Pavlov's "reflexological" terminology to
  human behavior.
• His most famous conditioning experiment was the
  "Little Albert" study A small child, was
  conditioned with the fear of a white rabbit by
  repeatedly pairing it with the loud "clang" of a
  metal bar. This conditioned fear was then shown
  to generalize to other white furry objects,
  including a Santa mask and Watson's own white
  hair.
• Was the father of behaviorism in American
  Psychology
• Objective methodology applicable to humans and
  animals
• Physiological basis
• Polemical tone
• Emphasis on application
• His psychology dealt only with observable
  behavioral acts
• described as stimulus and response.
• He rejected mentalistic such as image,
  sensation, mind, and consciousness
• as all assumptions.
• Download and Read his full works
• Behavior An Introduction to Comparative
  Psychology
• Psychology from the standpoint of a behaviorist
• Behaviorism

APA President (1915)
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Animal Psychology an antecedent of Watsons
program

• The existence of mind in lower organisms
• The continuity between animal and human minds

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John Watson (1878-1958)

• Little Albert Study

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The relationship between animal psychology and
Behaviorism

• Is a direct outgrowth of studies in animal
  behavior during the first decade of the 20th
  century.

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Willard Stanton Small (1870-1943)

• Used the Rat Maze and mentalistic terms

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Edward Lee Thorndike(1874-1949)

• Born August 31, 1874 Williamsburg, Mass
• Father of modern educational psychology
• 50 Years at Columbia University
• Wrote the first Psychology Doctoral dissertation
  to use animal subjects.
• Applied Animal research to human subjects
• Connectionism
• Thorndike stated in his book Human Learning
  connections of varying strength between
  situations, elements of situations, compound
  situations, responses, readiness to responses,
  facilitations, inhibitions, and directions of
  responses. If allcould be inventoriedtelling
  man everything nothing would be left out
  learning is connecting. The mind is mans
  connection-system.

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Edward Lee Thorndike(1874-1949)

• Animal Intelligence An experimental study of the
  associative processes in animals
• Independent Simultaneous Discovery
• Behavior Stimuli response (Pavlov)
• Mechanist, objective learning theory that focused
  on overt behavior
• Believed psychology must study behavior, not
  mental elements or conscious experiences
• Developed Law of Effect 1898 Pavlov proposed
  similar law of reinforcement in 1902

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Edward Lee Thorndike(1870-1943)
Puzzle Box
Trial and Error Learning resulted from response
tendencies by the animals over time
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Edward Lee Thorndike(1874-1949)

• Law of effect
• Thorndike in the Elements of Psychology, Any act
  which in a given situation produces satisfaction
  becomes associated with that situation, so that
  when the situation recurs the act is more likely
  than before to recur also. Conversely, any act
  which in a given situation produces discomfort
  becomes disassociated from the situation, so that
  when the situation recurs the act is less likely
  than before to recur
• Satisfaction undefined
• Law of exercise or disuse
• And Any response to a situation will, other
  things being equal, be more strongly connected
  with the situation in proportion to the number of
  times it has been connected with that situation
  and to the average vigor and duration of the
  connections
• Later deemphasized for more reward than to
  punish.

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Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)

• AKA Ivan Petrovich Pavlov
• Born 14-Sep-1849
• Birthplace Ryazan, Russia
• Died 27-Feb-1936
• Location of death St. Petersburg, Russia
• Cause of death unspecified
• Gender Male
• Race or Ethnicity White
• Sexual orientation Straight
• Occupation Scientist
• Nationality Russia
• Executive summary Studied conditioned reflexes
• University University of St. Petersburg
• Medical School Imperial Medical Academy, St.
  Petersburg (1879)
• Professor Professor of Physiology, Imperial
  Medical Academy, St. Petersburg (-1924)
• Nobel Prize for Medicine 1904
• Copley Medal 1915

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Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)

• Conditioned Reflexes
• Psychic Reflexes
• Tower of Silence
• Reinforcement is necessary for learning to take
  place

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Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)

• Conditioned reflex basics
• Unconditioned stimulus
• Food
• Unconditioned response
• Salivation
• Conditioned stimulus
• Light
• Conditioned response
• Salivation in response to light

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Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev (18571927)

• Pioneer in many areas of research
• Accepted Women and Jewish as students and
  colleagues
• Degree from St. Petersburg Military Medical
  University
• Studied under Wilhelm Wundt at Leipzig
• Was poisoned by Stalin for his diagnosis of
  paranoia.
• Defined the direction towards objectively
  observed overt behavior from subjective

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Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev (18571927)
Developed theory of conditioned reflexes Invented
the term reflexology - defined as a scientific
discipline that studies the response to external
or internal stimuli Assumed existence of two
psychological systems subjective, the basic
method of study is introspection, and objective
a(conditioned reflex). Discovered objective
psychology without recognizing it as such.
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Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev (18571927)

• Associated Reflexes
• Applied Pavlov's conditioning principles to the
  muscles
• Conditioned stimulus reaction by associated
  original stimuli considered reflexive
• Believed higher level behavior of complexity
  could be explained the same way