Download The Research of Ivan Pavlov and the Behaviorism of John B. Watson

Chapter 12: The Research of Ivan Pavlov and the
Behaviorism of John B. Watson
Chapter Outline
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov
Pavlov’s Early Life
Pavlov’s Early Research
Pavlov’s Conditioning Experiments
Digestion research
Pavlovian pouch
Psychical stimuli
Classical conditioning
Pavlov’s Research on Neuroses
Pavlov’s Views on Individual Differences
Hippocrates’ typology
Pavlov’s Later Life
Pavlov’s Diverse Research
Academician Pavlov
Conditioning Before Pavlov
Early Descriptions of Conditioning
Edwin B. Twitmyer’s Conditioning Experiments
The Behaviorism of John Broadus Watson
Watson’s Early Life
Watson at the University of Chicago
Watson’s Early Research
Rats and mazes
The Antivivisectionist Response
Watson’s Field Studies of Animal Behavior
Watson at Johns Hopkins University
Watson’s Behaviorist Manifesto
“Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It”
Action and Reaction
Behaviorism in Action
Watson and World War I
Watson’s Research with Children
Watson and Albert B.
Watson’s Separation from Psychology
Advertising
Overcoming Fears: The Case of Peter
Watson’s Views on Nature versus Nurture
Johnnie the Gentleman and Jimmy the Mug
Press Coverage of Johnnie and Jimmy
Watson’s Environmentalism
Behaviorism and Child Care
Watson’s Later Life
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Suggested Activities and Assignments
On the day you discuss Pavlov, start class by publicly and dramatically slicing open a lemon.
Ask students to describe their reaction. Then tell them to try to stop salivating. Pass the slices
around and ask students to smell them and not salivate. In addition to introducing classical
conditioning, this process demonstrates the power of learned reflexes. They do become just as
strong and just as unstoppable as unlearned ones. This is what interested the physiologist Pavlov.
Assign students the unthinkable homework of watching television. Request that they pay careful
attention to three commercials, trying to identify techniques used by Watson himself. See if they
can find appeals to fear and love emotions, use of authority figures and celebrities, etc.
Send students on a scavenger hunt for mistakes about Little Albert. Chapter 12 summarizes (and
provides references to) some of the legends that were created; see if students can find actual
examples. Naturally it will help if they read the original article as well so that they know what
the truth is. (A similar hunt will reveal varying exaggerations of Pavlov’s mugging in New York
City.)
Ask students to look up modern descriptions of systematic desensitization. Have them identify
the basic steps of this procedure and then compare it to the case of Peter. What components are
the same and what is now different in this treatment of phobias?
Web Links
http://www.nobel.se/medicine/laureates/1904/pavlov-bio.html
Read about Pavlov at the Nobel e-Museum
http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ru/pavlov.htm
Read one of Pavlov’s lectures from the Marxist Psychology Archive
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Yerkes/pavlov.htm
Read Yerkes and Morgulis’s “The Methods of Pawlow in Animal Psychology”
http://www.wagntrain.com/OC/
Need a primer on classical and operant conditioning?
http://www.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de/genetics/behavior/learning/behaviorism.html
A short description of behaviorism and operant conditioning
http://www.barnsdle.demon.co.uk/russ/rusrev.html
Links to information about the Russian Revolution, which Pavlov endured
http://alpha.furman.edu/academics/dept/psychology/watson/watson1.htm
Learn a lot about Watson from Furman’s proud alumni website. Lots of great photos
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Watson/views.htm
Watson’s “Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It” article, founding behaviorism in 1913
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http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Watson/thinking.htm
A 1920 Watson article explaining his position on thinking as talking to oneself
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Watson/emotion.htm
The real story of Little Albert as presented by Watson and Rayner in 1920
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Dunlap/introspection.htm
Watson’s colleague, Dunlap, wrote this “Case Against Introspection” in 1912
http://www.jwt.com/
The site of the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency as it exists today
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