Explain how the trend towards objectivism influenced by the traditions of mechanism and positivism reinforced and favored the growth of animal psychology and of behaviorism.
- Mechanism: idea that there are rules that govern how the body works as a machine—body is subject to physical laws and can be studied (Descartes).
- Comte: founder of positivism—emphasizes positive knowledge and facts (knowledge that is not debatable) as opposed to subjective knowledge.
- Objectivism: truth is not debatable; true knowledge comes from observation; truth is objectively verifiable.
- Systematic introspection is no more; can’t observe what someone is thinking.
- Very objective view becomes part of the zeitgeist.
- Objective and scientific study of animal behavior develops into behaviorism, according to Watson. Animal psychology developed out of Darwin’s evolutionary theory.*****
- Skinner, Watson, and others believed that psychology should concern itself with the observable behavior of people and animals, not with unobservable events that take place in their minds
Describe the popularity of Clever Hans and the significance of his fame and the findings about him as an antecedent influence to behaviorism.
- Idea of a horse that could countà raised interest in animal intelligence and increased attention to behavior and consciousness; elevated question of animal learning.
- Turned out to be a conditioned stimulus (baiting stimulus).
- Pfungst demonstrated that the horse was not actually performing these mental tasks, but was watching the reaction of his human observers. Pfungst discovered this artifact in the research methodology, wherein the horse was responding directly to involuntary cues in the body language of the human trainer, who had the faculties to solve each problem. (From Wikipedia).
- Pfungst then proceeded to examine the behavior of the questioner in detail, and showed that as the horse’s taps approached the right answer, the questioner’s posture and facial expression changed in ways that were consistent with an increase in tension, which was released when the horse made the final, correct tap. This provided a cue that the horse could use to tell it to stop tapping. Even when Pfungst showed the most suddle cues, Hans picked up on them.
- Antecedent influence bc he brought attention to animal intelligence by training Hans to count
Relate Thorndike’s connectionism to the older philosophical notion of association. Describe Thorndike’s puzzle-box research and define the law of effect that resulted from this research.
- Wanted objective approach to animal behavior and a mechanistic approach to overt animal behavior rather than mental elements (ie. focus on observable behavior).
- Older Philosophical Notion: Connectionism: came out of the idea of associations (or concept of connections between ideas) from Locke and Hume; direct descendant from Locke.
o Thorndike said: NOT connection between ideas, but learning is the result between situations (stimuli) and responses***
- Mechanistic approach—reduce behavior to stimuli and response.
Puzzle Box research:
- Worked with animals using puzzle boxes he designed himself.
- Trial and Error learning or Trials of Accidental Learning.
- Animal (usually a cat) in the box must hit switch to open box, then gets food reward.
- Behaviors that open the door are rewarded and thus increase (Stamping in/out a response).
Law of Effect: any act that produces satisfaction and becomes associated with that action. When event reoccurs, satisfactory behavior is repeated (later known as positive reinforcement).
Explain Pavlov’s work and how it helped shift associationism from its traditional emphasis on subjective ideas to more quantifiable, objective responses such as muscular movements and glandular secretions. Why was this important at the time and why is this important to modern psychology?
- Pavlov worked with the primary digestive glands and the role of saliva; higher nervous systems of the brain—explored conditioned reflex.
- Looks at conditions that caused salivation by surgically isolating the glands.
a. Restrained dogs emitted ‘psychic’ predictive salivation (dogs salivated early) during not applicable conditions.
b. Pavlov tested conditions under which ‘psychic secretions’ and responses occur.
c. Thus moved association to quantifiable relationships that can be objectively measured (i.e.—science). - Pavlovian/Classical Conditioning: all about prediction of behavior; predicting conditions for a stimulus to occur.
Explain how Pavlov’s research started with psychic secretions and ended with an understanding that classical conditioning is all about prediction. Be sure to include an example of classical conditioning in your answer.
-• Pavlov worked with the primary digestive glands and the role of saliva; higher nervous systems of the brain—explored conditioned reflex.
• Looks at conditions that caused salivation by surgically isolating the glands.
a. Restrained dogs emitted ‘psychic’ predictive salivation (dogs salivated early) during not applicable conditions.
b. Pavlov tested conditions under which ‘psychic secretions’ and responses occur.
c. Thus moved association to quantifiable relationships that can be objectively measured (i.e.—science).
• Pavlovian/Classical Conditioning: all about prediction of behavior; predicting conditions for a stimulus to occur.
What was Twitmyer’s contribution to modern psychology, why is it so often overlooked?
-Discovered the same results as Pavlov with human patients and testing of reflexes (Simultaneous Discovery); Like Pavlov, he accidentally discovered classical conditioning or that he could condition a response by way of a bell. Twitmyer would ring a bell before testing the reflex and found that patient’s pre maturely responded to the bell. Technically Twitmyer discovered the phenomenon
He presented his work at a meeting of the American Psychological Association in 1904, presided over by William James. His paper, “Knee jerks without stimulation of the patellar tendon”, was given late in the session, well-past the scheduled lunch break, and drew little response from the crowd.
In what way did early influences in Watson’s life influence his untimely exit from psychology and what impact did that untimely exit from psychology have on the field?
Early influences:
- Mother’s phobic concern over dirt: dirt=the devil; very religious.
- Nanny: told Watson the devil was in ‘the dark’—resulted in Watson’s phobia of the dark; anxiety most of his life.
- Dad: abandons family, makes Watson completely dependent on mother.
- Switched to psychology in 1900 when mother died, did not fulfill promise to become a minister.
- Struggles with money and childhood anxieties; always on the verge of a breakdown.
Untimely exit:
- Scandal over his affair with Rosalie results in him losing his means of publishing research (no longer head of Psychological Review).
- Uses his experiences in psych and applied it to modern advertising:
o Attention to consumer behavior.
o Promoted advertisement psychology the most.
o Associated feelings with product (Hershey’s Share a Kiss and a Smile).
- Publishers wanted him to write articles in a readable style—no longer published in professional journals.
Why is Watson’s story prone to distortions of data (give examples) and how do these impact psychology?
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What criticisms of structuralism and functionalism did Watson make in his pivotal 1913 article?
- The content of psychology should be behavior, not consciousness.
- Methods should be objective rather than introspective (observing one’s own mental state); uniform and experimental methods.
- Purpose should be “prediction and control of behavior” rather than fundamental understanding of mental events; study of things that can be objectively viewed.
- Psychology had failed to become an undisputed natural science because it was concerned with conscious processes that were invisible, subjective, and incapable of precise definition.
How did behaviorism change the role and task of the human subject?
- No more introspection.
- Scientific—more people apply psychology.
- Humans are viewed as machines, thus to understand the machine you must observe it objectively.
- Consciousness not studied.
Discuss the reasons for behaviorism’s popular appeal.
- Based on science—more people apply it; more applicable to real life.
- Watson’s charm and charisma.
- First ‘truly scientific’ psychology.
- Disposed of philosophical question of mind and soul; no more introspection.
How did Watson explain thought? In what way can his view be seen in the work of Skinner?
- Behaviorism considered muscle movement as proof of thought; thought is subvocal speech (a behavior).
- Watson believed stimulus-response impacted thought processes; thus, study the connections between stimulus and response to discover thought processes adjusting to the environment (stimulusàthoughtàresponse).
- Skinner: studied the connection between a stimulus and reward resulting in a response that can be conditioning to reoccur. If an organism is operating on an environment and responding to consequences of its behavior, behavior can be altered based on the consequences.
What is operationism? How did it influence the neobehaviorists of the 1920s and 1930s?
- Operationalism: attitude/general principle; the purpose of which is to render the language and terminology of science more objective and precise and to rid science of problems that are not actually observable or physically demonstrable (pseudo-problems); the validity of any given scientific finding is dependent on the operations by which it was reached.
- Supported Watson’s call for objectivity and scientific methods in psychology: if you cannot observe and objectively test it, then discard it.
How is operant conditioning used to modify behavior?
- Operant conditioning: (BF Skinner) understanding how an organism is operating on an environment and how it responds to the consequences of behavior; how behavior is altered due to consequences of actions.
- Reinforcer: increases likelihood of reoccurrence.
- Punishment: extinguishes behavior/decrease likelihood of occurrence.
- By rewarding a series of little random movements, one by one, the experimenter can ‘shape the behavior’ of the animal until it acts in ways not part of original or natural performance.
Walden II represents a society based entirely on behavioral engineering. Choose one of the main characters from “Walden II” and briefly (but accurately) describe the community, be certain to consider what would be the most important features from that character’s viewpoint.
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What is the overarching principle of Walden II? Give examples of the use of the principle from Walden II.
-• Human behavior is always under the control of external forces; the goal of society and of a science of behavior should be to take control of those forces so that individuals can become happy and productive members of society.
• Skinner wanted behaviorism to change society for the better and for society to use behaviorism in real-world settings in positive ways.
Taken to the logical conclusion, what is the bottom line of behaviorism in regard to freedom and free will, especially from the viewpoint of Skinner? Discuss the implications for society, giving consideration to Walden II.
-• Skinner wanted behaviorism to change society for the better and for society to use behaviorism in real-world settings in positive ways.
• In his view, humans could be studied as machines (mechanism); humans operating on their environment and then the consequences of their actions either reinforce or extinguish that action.
• No such thing as free will—we are all conditioned to respond in certain ways to certain things; our behavior is a cycle of stimulus and response.
Explain how a visual illusion gave rise to the Gestalt school of thought.
-• As Wertheimer was gazing out of a window of a train he was traveling on, he began to speculate why it was that objects in the distance seemed to be moving fast even though they were obviously stationary.
o (telephone poles, houses and hilltops, though stationary seemed to be speeding along with the train). As he rode, he began to question the popular belief that such illusions were the result of the retina and instead wondered if it could be the result of a higher-level mental process.
• Eventually, he began to think of another illusion produced by a stroboscope.
• Using projections of lines for his experiments, he stumbled upon the “phi” phenomenon. Although it was later disproven, his theory of the illusion of motion taking place in the mind, not retina, became the seed for Gestalt psychology and began the birth of Gestalt psychology.
What factors impeded acceptance of Gestalt psychology in the United States?
-• Wrong place at the wrong time. Behaviorism was very popular at the time and Gestalt psychology was dealing with the very subject matter that Behaviorism rejected or denied.
• Behaviorism grew out of the current atmosphere in the U.S. It was a reaction to psychological principles born here.
• Gestalt was born in Germany and was a direct rebellion of Wundtian principles. It valued the whole instead of its parts.
• Due to the World War, most of the leading Gestalt psychologists were forced to move to the U.S. in order to escape persecution and keep working. Not only were they impeded by the popularity of Behaviorism at its peak, they were held back by the language and culture barrier. Their work had to be translated and this delayed it from reaching an American audience.
• False belief of many in the U.S. that Gestalt dealt only with perception and that these professors had no graduate students meant that it never became a powerful school of thought in this country.
• Ideas from the Gestalt psychologists did keep cognitive principles alive that were later incorporated into Cognitive Psychology, which definitely became a powerful school of thought within psychology.
Name and explain three of the laws of Gestalt.
-• Proximity- This law states that as when a number of similar objects are seen, they tend to be perceived in sets of which are close to each other.
• Similarity- When a number of similar and dissimilar objects are mingled, the similar objects are seen as groups. This law can overcome the proximity factor**
• Pragnanz- the tendency to see the simplest shapes in complex patterns. For example, if a circle and a rectangle overlap, one will only see the two shapes and not regard the overlapping space as a separate shape. A particular case of the Law of Pragnanz is closure. This occurs when a familiar shape is seen with missing parts. As a result, we fill in the gaps to complete the image in the simplest way possible.
• The Law of Proximity: when we see a number of similar objects, we tend to perceive them as groups or sets of those which are close to each other. Wertheimer demonstrated this with paired groups of dots and paired groups of letters below them. He found that people shown the lines of dots spontaneously see it as pairs of dots close to each other; people cannot make themselves see it as constructed pairs of widely spaced dots with little room between the pairs.
• The Law of Similarity: when similar and dissimilar objects are mingled, we see the similar ones as groups. This can overcome proximity because we notice the similar objects before noticing the groups of like and unlike objects together.
• The Law of Continuation or direction: In many patterns, we tend to see lines that have a coherent continuation or direction (why we are able to pick out a meaningful shape from a bewildering background). In a picture of two figures that have become merged, where now a wavy line going through the figure is apparent, it is impossible to see the originals because of the dominance of the wavy line.
Describe Köhler’s research on Tenerife regarding chimpanzee mentality. What was the significance of this work?
What was the significance of this work?
• Tenerife is one of the Canary Islands where Kohler was offered the position of Director of the Prussian Academy of Sciences’ anthropoid research station.
• He arrived there in 1913 and ended up staying for over six years due to the war and post-war conditions.
• Some have speculated that he was really a spy and British intelligence agents thought so because they believed no scientist would have spent so much time studying how apes get hard-to-reach bananas.
Experiment:
• First he presented the chimps with detour problems where they had to use a roundabout route to get to the bananas. They could solve these types of problems easily. He then moved on to more challenging problems where they could use tools to get the bananas. These included poles that could be fitted together, boxes to stack, and ladders that could be leaned against a wall (which they never figured out how to use properly).
Significance:
• The finding that insight learning does not depend on rewards, as did the stimulus-response learning that was described in Thorndike’s experiments with cats had huge implications for the psychology of learning because Kohler showed the reward did not bring about the learning; the animals solved the problems before they received the fruit.
• The second very significant idea that came out of his research was that insight learning allowed him to see that once an animal achieved an insight they could then generalize this information and apply it to other situations. In psychological terms, insight learning is capable of “positive transfer.” Kohler later showed the processes happened with young children, although even very young children were far more insightful than mature chimps.
• Third, Kohler showed what the Behaviorists and followers of Wundt would not believe: that an animal can be trained to choose between two different colored objects, but what they learned was not a relationship between the colors. Kohler’s experiments with chickens and later with chimps on this subject showed that the relationship between the colors was the primary fact the animals had learned since they transposed it to different situations. It was an example of the general rule that animals and humans perceive and learn everything in terms of relationships. Relationships are the key to perception, learning, and memory. This idea had been excluded from psychology but was reinstated by Kohler’s work and the work of other Gestaltists. Experiments and findings such as these kept the path to cognitive psychology open and alive, even as Behaviorism tried to smother them.
- Kohler’s experiments consisted of placing chimps in an enclosed area and presenting them with a reward that was out of reach, such as bananas. Kohler used four chimps in his experiments, Chica, Grande, Konsul, and Sultan. In one experiment, Kohler placed bananas outside Sultan’s cage and two bamboo sticks inside his cage. Neither stick was long enough to reach the bananas so the only way to reach the bananas was to put the sticks together. Kohler demonstrated to Sultan the solution by putting his fingers into the end of one of the sticks. However, this did not help Sultan solve the problem. After some contemplation, Sultan put the two sticks together and created a stick long enough to reach the bananas outside his cage. Another study involved bananas suspended from the roof. The chimps first tried to knock them down by using a stick. Then, the chimps learned to stack boxes on top of one another to climb up to the bananas. He noticed that an ape would suddenly see a solution. He interpreted this as a restructuring of their view of the situation. He called the sudden discovery “insight” and defined it as “the appearance of a complete solution with reference to the whole layout problem.” This was a very different process than Thorndike explained with his trial-and-error or “trial-and-accidental success” learning.
- Kohler described three properties of insight learning. First, insight-learning is based on the animal perceiving the solution to the problem. Second, insight-leaning is not dependent on rewards. Third, once a problem has been solved, it is easier to solve a similar problem.
- Kohler tested Gestalt theory in regards to the transposition of stimuli by training a chicken to distinguish between two shades of gray. The chicken was then rewarded for pecking at the darker gray card but was not rewarded for pecking at a lighter gray card. After numerous trials, the chicken only pecked at the darker gray card. When the chicken was exposed to a dark gray and a black card, the chicken pecked at the black card. This experiment disproves Thorndike’s theory that animals learn to respond to a particular stimulus with a specific response.
- Kohler conducted a series of experiments on chimps mentality between 1914 and 1920 that lead to studies of human problem solving by the Gestalt psychologists. Kohler created a number of different problems for his apes to solve where the chimps had to get bananas by a roundabout route and others where they had to use “tools” to reach the out-of-reach bananas (they used sticks where they could knock the bananas down, and ladders where they could lean them against a wall, and boxes). At times the apes would suddenly see a solution to the problem, which Kohler termed as a restructuring of the ape’s view of the situation- or “insight.” It was defined as the appearance of a complete solution with reference to the whole layout of the problem. In one experiment, Kohler put an ape in the cage an the bananas out of reach, outside the cage with several sticks inside the cage. In some situations, the apes would immediately see a solution and in others, the ape might not realize it for some time, then all of a sudden see that it could reach the bananas with the sticks.
- Kohler also determined that this insight thinking could not be used on simpler animals such as chickens; in these experiments, he set up a semi-enclosure making an “L” shape with the chicken on the inside and the food on the outside of the fence. The chicken was not able to realize how it could get around the wall to the food but a dog could.
- This was different from Thorndike’s experiments using cats because the puzzle box problem was not something they could solve using intelligence because it contained mechanical elements they could not see. It was a different process of problem solving: looking at the whole layout of the problem versus trial and error learning. Thorndike’s learning was dependent on reinforcements and punishments were not used as frequently because of the difference in effectiveness from rewards. One of Kohler’s most important findings was that insight learning does not depend on rewards as did the stimulus-response learning of Thorndike’s cats. The chimps were seeking a reward but their learning was not brought about by the reward, they solved the problem before they ate the fruit. Another finding was that when animals achieved insight, they learned the solution to the problem and were able to generalize and apply the solution to different problems (in modified form). These observations prepared the way for Gestaltist studies of human problem solving.
Why was Gestalt psychology both a success and a failure?
-• Gestalt psychology had many disadvantages at the time of its emergence. Though it became a leading school in Germany, the founders and their students were forces to disperse because of World War II. Koffka and Kohler introduced Gestalt psychology and at first there was a great interest in it. Yet, behaviorism was rapidly becoming popular and overshadowed the new ideas. This was especially the case with translation, as it delayed the impact of the Gestalt works. Also, with the behaviorist views being so popular, many were not interested in the topic as they were misinformed that it was only about perception. The combination of these factors left little room for Gestalt psychology to spread; however, this is not to say that it completely disappeared, but was absorbed in a number of other schools of thought. In recent years a resurgence of interest in Gestalt ideas has occurred, although it has happened less forcefully.
• Success: Several forms of research confirmed Gestalt psychology theories such as studies of language acquisition (showed that children sense the grammatical structure of sentences and begin speaking in grammatical sentences long before being taught anything about grammar). Koffka had an extensive effect on he psychological community through his writings, mainly Principles of Gestalt Psychology. Kohler created a center for psychological research and scholarship at Swarthmore, which top notch doctoral candidates and as elected president of APA representing his personal achievements and contributions of Gestalt movement to psychology. The most important ideas of the Gestalt psychologists had become part of the mainstream of psychology thinking such as that of the whole, (the Gestalt), Pragnanz, and the Gestalt problem solving theory, and its contributions to the study of memory.
• Most behaviorists saw Gestalt psychology as a regression to a discredited, unscientific nativism. This nativism meant that innate ideas existed and that the mind imposes certain kinds of order on experience; which could not be true according to the behaviorists. The dismissive approach to behaviorism by Wertheimer, Koffka, and Kohler offended many American psychologists resulting in the Gestalt psychology becoming only a secondary part of psychology at the time.
Describe the relationship between psychoanalysis and the other schools of thought we have discussed. What was the third great shock Freud delivered to humanity?
- -When Freud introduced psychoanalysis, Wundt’s psychology had been around more than 15 years, structuralism and functionalism were young, and behaviorism wasn’t even around. Each focused on conscious experience in some way and used experimental methods or introspection all in the academic environment. However, psychoanalysis focused on the unconscious and used clinical observation as its method. It emerged from medicine/psychiatry and focused on psychopathology or the mentally ill.
- The third great shock was claiming, basically, that people are controlled by the unconscious, which operated outside of awareness or control (deterministic).
- 3 great shocks to society’s collective ego: Copernicus, Darwin, Freud (The third great shock was claiming, basically, that people are controlled by the unconscious, which operated outside of awareness or control (deterministic))
- Psychoanalysis deals with the unconscious, which is mostly ignored by other systems. Wundt and Titchner would have no use for it because it cannot be broken down into elements. All were influenced by the spirit of mechanism, by Fechner’s work in psychophysics, and evolutionary ideas of Darwin.
- Psychoanalysis came from within psychiatric tradition of treating the mentally ill; was not and still is not comparable to other ways of thinking in psychology.
- Psychoanalysis was neither a product of the universities nor purely a science, but instead it arose within the psychiatric traditions.
- Deals with the unconscious; everyone else in psychology was ignoring unconscious.
- The third greatest shock Freud delivered to humanity was when he proclaimed that we are not all rational rulers of our lives but instead we are controlled by unconscious forces.
Discuss the two major sources of influence on the psychoanalytic movement. What school of thought within psychiatry did Freud revolt against? Explain.
-• The two major sources of influence on the psychoanalytic movement were the somatic and psychic. The somatic school held the belief that abnormal behavior had physical causes such as brain injuries, strained nerves, or understimulated nerves.
• The psychic school held the belief that mental or psychological were explanations for abnormal behavior. In general, the somatic viewpoint was dominant due to the work of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant who ridiculed the view that emotional problems could somehow lead to mental illness. Psychoanalysis developed as a revolt against somatic orientation. As the treatment of mentally ill persons progressed, some scientist became convinced that emotional factors were of far greater importance than physical causes.
• (this is from previous study guide, I don’t have any notes on ‘somatic’ vs. ‘psychic’)
• Somatic: Immanuel Kant; physical explanations for abnormal behavior.
• Psychic: weakness within a person’s faculties; emotions are more important.
