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Behaviorism
A non mentalistic view of Psychology
The main players:
 Ivan Petrovitch Pavlov (1849-1936)
 John Broadus Watson (1878-1956)
 B.F. Skinner (1904-1990)
Who influenced Pavlov?
 The physiological work of William
Beaumont (1785-1853)
 An expanded concept of reflex to
explain higher functions of thinking,
willing, judging -pioneered by Sechenov
(1829-1905)
 The ideas of Descartes (1596-1650) about
reflexes
Pavlov’s work:
 Work on the digestive system. Nobel
price in 1904
 Notices “mental secretions” -anticipated
responses of the animals becoming
familiar to the setting.
 Studied these “mental secretions” -they
become what we know as “conditioned
reflex”.
Important concepts
Pavlov brought us
 The whole notion of conditioned reflex
 Concepts of generalization,
differentiation, excitation, inhibition,
higher level conditioning
 Concept of experimental neurosis
Pavlov today?
• Visit the Pavlov Institute of Physiology in
Russia
Who influenced Watson?
 Reacts against Wundt and James -and
their followers such as John Dewey
 Infuenced by Loeb (tropisms) and Henry
Donaldson (white rat neurology) -studied
the myelinization of white rat nervous
system & consequent changes in the
complexity of their behavior.
 Pavlov
Watson’s main contributions
 Official founder of behaviorism as an
independent and valid approach to psychology
 Is a radical behaviorist
 Introduces the notion of conditioned emotional
response (little Albert)
 Three emotions: fear, rage, love -all emotional
life built on those
 Applies this to advertising
B. F. Skinner
Who influenced him?
 Bertrand Russel’s (a British philosopher)
discussion of J. B. Watson’s book on
behaviorism. (Then, Watson himself)
 H.G. Wells article on G. Bernard Shaw
and Pavlov (Then Pavlov himself)
What were Skinner’s main
contributions?
 Developed the Skinner box as a way to study
operant behavior.
 Important concepts: operant conditioning,
reinforcement, contingencies of reinforcement,
reinforcement schedules, discrimination
learning, programmed instruction.
 Developed the social implications of his theory.
A Skinner page
by undergraduate students
 http://www.wabash.edu/depart/psych/Courses/P
sych97A/STUDENT%20PROJECTS/Skinner/h
ammondk/
The End