Download Ch10zz

John B. Watson (1878-1958)
Give me a dozen healthy infants,
well-formed, and my own specified
world to bring them up and I'll
guarantee to take any one at
random and train him to become
any type of specialist I might
select—doctor, lawyer, merchantchief, and yes, even beggarman
and thief.
American Behaviorism
• John B. Watson (1878-1958)
– Attacked the psychology of his day:
• Arbitrary divisions of consciousness
(How many colors can you name?
Really?)
• Too human centered (Animals can
be valuable.)
• Unreliable methods (Introspection?)
• Inherently Dualistic (No more mindbrain stuff!).
– “…a purely objective experimental
science" with the goal of "predicting
and controlling behavior."
John B. Watson (1878-1958)
• His Mission
– Watson credited the work
of others as originators of
behaviorism, but…
– Saw himself as bringing
together the emergent ideas
– Goal: to found a new
school
Watson’s Youth
– Born near Greenville, South Carolina
– Delinquent behavior in youth
– Poor relationship with his father
– 1899: Promised Mom he’d enter the
Baptist ministry
– Mother died
– 1894: Enrolled at Furman University:
studied Philosophy, Math, Latin, Greek
At Furman
University of Chicago
• 1900: enrolled at the University of Chicago
(Princeton required Greek and Latin)
– Planned to pursue graduate degree in
philosophy with Dewey – Couldn’t
understand him
– Attracted to psychology through work with
Angell
– Studied biology and physiology with Loeb
University of Chicago
• Dirt Poor: Worked his way through school at
Chicago by waiting tables and feeding rats
John B. Watson (1878-1958)
• A period of instability at Chicago led him to
study Freud.
• Intense fear of the dark- a “Typical Angst.”
• 1903: at age 25 earned PhD – Youngest at U.C.
• Eventually abandoned Functionalism and Freud
– “Twenty years from now, an analyst using
Freudian concepts and Freudian terminology will
be placed in the same category as a phrenologist.”
– JBW, 1924
John B. Watson (1878-1958)
• Dissertation published
– Neurological and psychological
maturation of the white rat
• 1903: considered a more objective
approach to psychology
• 1908: expressed such ideas in lectures at
Yale and in a paper
• Married fellow student - children
John B. Watson (1878-1958)
• 1908: offered professorship at
Johns Hopkins university
– Reluctant to leave university of
Chicago
– Angell was a valuable mentor
– New job offered promotion, salary
raise, and opportunity to direct the
psychology laboratory
Watson’s Psychology
Breaking from Structuralism and Introspection
–
–
–
–
Structuralism: Subject has to be a trained
observer
Behaviorism: Subjects are almost irrelevant.
Anyone can behave: Children, non-verbal
people, pigeons, rats, etc.
Reinforced man-as-machine model (or brainas-computer model)
James Mark Baldwin (1861-1934)
• Offered the Johns Hopkins’s job to
Watson
• A founder with Cattell of
Psychological Review
• 1909: forced by the university
president to resign after caught in
a police raid on a brothel
• At Johns Hopkins, Watson was
free to develop a school
independent of his mentor, Angell
Watson’s Ascent
• 1909: Chair of psychology department
• 1909: Editor of Psychological Review
• 1912: Presented ideas for a more objective
psychology in lectures at Columbia
• 1913: Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It
published in Psychological Review - Launched
Behaviorism
• Angell was disappointed: “I shall be glad to see
him properly spanked…”
Developing Behaviorism
– 1914: Behaviorism: An introduction to
Comparative Psychology
• Argued for acceptance of animal psychology
• Described advantages of animal subjects
• Discussed importance of ridding psychology of
the remnants of philosophy
The Psychology of War
• Served as a consultant during WWI (1917-1919)
– Pigeons and propaganda
Developing Behaviorism
– Focus on practical applications (like
Functionalists)
– 1918: experimental research on children
– 1919: Psychology from the Standpoint of a
Behaviorist
• Most complete account of behaviorism to date
• Argued methods and principles of animal research
are appropriate for study of humans
Scandal Ends his Academic Career
• Fell in love with Rosalie Rayner,
graduate assistant
• Wife found his love letters
• Published in Baltimore Sun
• Forced to resign from J.-H.
• Married Rosalie but still
banished from academia
• Titchener one of the few
academics who reached out to
comfort him
A Second Career
• Child Support
• Applied psychology in advertising
– J. Walter Thompson Advertising
– Quadrupled his academic salary
– Mechanistic view of humans
– Proposed experimental (lab) study of consumer
behavior
• Publicity for psychology in the popular media
• 1925: Behaviorism; A book for the general public,
introduced plan to perfect the social order
A Second Career
• Conducted surveys, clerked at
Macy’s, sold coffee to learn.
– “…tell the consumer something that
will stir up fear, rage, or love…strike
at a deep emotional need.”
– Make the consumer dissatisfied with
what he has
– Promoted celebrity endorsements
• Ponds, Maxwell House
• Raced speedboats
A Second Career
• 1928: Psychological Care of the Infant and Child
– Strong environmentalist position
– Recommended perfect objectivity in child-rearing
Had the greatest impact of all his work
• 1935: Rosalie died; He became a recluse
• 1957: at age 79 awarded APA citation for his vital
and fruitful work
– Refused to go inside to receive award
– Watson afraid that he would get emotional
– Son accepted it in his place
• Burned all of his papers prior to his death
The Behaviorist’s View
• Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It (1913)
– The definition and goal of behaviorism
– Criticisms of structuralism and functionalism
– The role of heredity and habit in adaptation
– Applied psychology is truly scientific
– Importance of standardized or uniform
experimental procedures
The Behaviorist’s View
• The science of behavior is the only psychological
science
• A purely objective experimental branch of natural
science
• Both animal and human behavior are studied
• Discard all mentalistic concepts
• Use only behavior concepts
• Goal: prediction and control of behavior
Initial Reactions
• Behaviorism was not embraced
• Calkins disputed Watson; Adhered to introspection
as the sole method for studying some processes
• Washburn called Watson an enemy of psychology
• His 1919 book Psychology from the Standpoint of a
Behaviorist was a success in the general public
• Hastened the movement’s impact
Behaviorism and Popular Thought
•
•
•
•
•
Offered hope to those disenchanted with old ideas
The Religion Called Behaviorism (Berman, 1927)
Society could be improved through Behaviorism
No one is a lost cause
Experimental ethics over religious ethics
– Not popular with some!
Through the 1920s
• University courses in Behaviorism
• The word “Behaviorist” appeared in journals
• McDougall: issued a public warning against
behaviorism
• Titchener: complained of its force and extent
• Other forms of behaviorism emerging
Watson-McDougall Debate (1924)
• William McDougall (1871-1938)
– Accepted that behavior should be the
center psychology
– The Energies of Men (1924) argued for
the “validity of both the mechanistic and
the purposive principles of explanation,
each in its own sphere.”
– Set to reconcile the “purposive mind
with an apparently causally determined
body.” - Uytman (1967)
Watson-McDougall Debate (1924)
• William McDougall (1871-1938)
– Behavior is driven by instincts, but free
will exists (creativity, bettering society)
– Self-report is necessary if we are to
understand daydreams, fantasies, the
experience of a concert
– Why try to prevent war or improve
society if all of our actions are
determined by past experience?
– These themes will reemerge in the
Humanistic movements of the 1950s-60s
Methods of Behaviorism
• Adoption of the methods of the natural sciences
• Only accepted objective methods
– Observation, with and without instruments
– Testing methods
– Verbal report method – Only to confirm that
participants saw what we thought they would see
– Conditioned reflex method
The Subject Matter of Behaviorism
• Items or elements of behavior
• Goal: understand overall behavior of the total
organism
• Acts versus responses
– Act: complex behaviors
– Response act accomplishes some result
– Capable of being reduced to simple, lower-level
motor or glandular responses
Terminology of Behaviorism
• Explicit versus Implicit responses
– Implicit Responses must be observable through
the use of instruments
• Simple versus Complex stimuli
– Complex stimulus situation can be reduced to
simple, component stimuli
– Example of simple stimuli: light waves striking
retina
Terminology of Behaviorism
• Specific laws of behavior
– Identified through analysis of S-R complexes
– Must find elementary S-R units
• Major topics: instinct, emotion, thought
• All areas of behavior: must use objective
S-R terms
Instincts
• 1914: Watson described 11 instincts
• 1925: eliminated the concept of instinct
– An extreme environmentalist
– No inherited capacities, temperaments, talents
– Children can become anything one desires
– A factor in his popularity with the American
lay public
• Seemingly instinctive behavior is actually a
socially conditioned response
• Psychology can only be applied if behavior can
be modified
Emotions
• Defined as bodily responses to specific stimuli
• Denied conscious perception of emotion or
sensations from internal stimuli
• Each emotion = specific configuration of
physiological changes
• A form of implicit behavior: internal responses are
evident in overt physical signs such as blushing
• Critical of James's more complex position
involving conscious perception and a feeling state
Emotions
• Emotions completely described by three things
– Objective stimulus situation
– Overt bodily response
– Internal physiological changes
Emotions
Fear, love, and rage are
unlearned emotional
response patterns to stimuli
– Loud noises or sudden lack
of support lead to fear
– Restriction of bodily
movements leads to rage
– Caressing, rocking, patting
lead to love
Albert, Peter, and the Rabbits
• Albert study was never successfully replicated
• It demonstrated conditioned (learned)
emotional responses – or did it???
Mary Cover Jones
• Peter and the Rabbit
• Treatment method
– Involve Peter in eating
– Introduce rabbit at a distance
– Each day, decrease the distance
– Peter could eventually touch the rabbit
without exhibiting fear
– A forerunner of behavior therapy
• Generalized fear also eliminated
• 1968: Jones given G. Stanley Hall award
for her outstanding work
Can you think without Behaving?
• Traditional View
– Thinking occurs in the absence of muscle movements
– Not accessible to observation and experimentation
• Watson’s View
– Thinking is implicit motor behavior
– Reduced it to sub vocal talking
– Same muscular habits as used for overt speech
– Thinking = silent talking to oneself
Behaviorism’s Popular Appeal
• Watson called for a society based on
scientifically shaped and controlled behavior
– Free of myths, customs, and convention
– The Religion Called Behaviorism (Berman, 1927):
read by B. F. Skinner
• Emphasis on childhood environment and
minimization of heredity
Conditioned Reflex Method
• Adopted in 1915
• Watson responsible for its widespread use in
U.S. Research
• Conditioning is stimulus substitution
• Selected because it is an objective method of
behavior analysis
• Reflected reductionism and mechanism
• Designation of the participant changed from
“observer” to “subject”
• Experimenter became the observer
Clinical Application of CRM
• Approach Implied emotional disturbances
in adulthood due to conditioned responses
during earlier years
• Implies proper childhood conditioning
precludes adult disorders
An Outbreak of Psychology
• A public already attentive to and receptive of
psychology
• Watson’s considerable charm and vision of hope
for behavioral change / betterment of society
• Psychological advice columns and radio shows
• Behaviorism became too large to fall completely
under Watson’s domain
Watson’s Psychology
Maze learning at Chicago (1908)
• Systematically deprive rats of sensory input
• Rats could learn the maze without eyes,
ears, whiskers and numb feet
• Maze learning through kinesthetic
information only!
What did Watson Bring to Behaviorism?
• Made psychology more objective in
methods and terminology
• Stimulated a great deal of research
• Surmounted earlier positions and schools
• Objective methods and language became
part of the mainstream
David L. Rosenhan (1973)
• Ph.D. Columbia
• Penn, Swarthmore, Princeton
• Currently Professor of law and
Psychiatry at Stanford
Experiment 1
• Pseudopatient observations:
Response
Moves on with head averted
Makes eye contact
Pauses and chats
Stops and talks
Percentage making contact
with patient
Psychiatrists
Nurses
71
88
23
2
4
10
4
0.5
Experiment 2
• Detection performance of admitting staff:
Number of patients judged
193
41
Number of patients confidently judged as
pseudo patients by at least one staff member
Number of patients suspected by one
psychiatrist
23
Number of patients suspected by one
psychiatrist AND one other staff member
19
Conclusions
• Can a patient be viewed without looking through
the lens of the diagnosis
• Mental illness diagnosis and treatment relies on
verbal communication
Anna Freud (1946)
• Anna Freud (1895-1982)
– Repression is “motivated forgetting”
– Regression: Hip , Hair, and Honda
– Projection is attributing one’s own
undesirable characteristics to others
– Reaction Formation involves
presentation extreme opposite true
thoughts
– Sublimation refers to the transformation
of aggressive energies into acceptable
and pro-social behaviors.
Seligman and Maier (1967)
• Martin Seligman (1942- )
– Ph.D. U. Penn 1967
– APA President 1996
Seligman and Maier (1967)
Seligman and Maier (1967)
J. B. Calhoun (1917-1995)
• You must go to the rats...The rats on Mr. Fitzgibbon's
farm have…things…ways…you know nothing about.
They are not like the rest of us. They are not, I think,
even like most other rats. They work at night in secret.“
• Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH