PSY 381– FALL 2015 Hande KAYNAK, Ph.D.

Five Schools of Behaviorism

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Behaviorism...

� There are several schools of behaviorism, each based on a somewhat different set of assumptions about how best to study environmental influences on behavior.

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Watson’s Methodological Behaviorism

� The term methodological behaviorism is applied to any approach that rejects the value of data gathered through introspection, including many cognitive approaches to psychology.

� Psychologists should study only observable

behavior.

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Watson’s Methodological Behaviorism

�  the term methodological behaviorism is sometimes applied to any approach that rejects the value of data gathered through introspection, including many cognitive approaches to psychology. � Psychologists should study only observable

behavior.

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Watson’s Methodological Behaviorism

� He did not mean that thoughts and feelings do not exist. According to him, if the discipline of psychology was to survive, it would need to break free from the extreme mentalism of the time and adopt a much different perspective.

� He also believed that learning involves the development of a simple connection between an environmental event (the “stimulus”) and a specific behavior (the “response”). Watson’s theory of learning is therefore regarded as a type of S-R theory.

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Watson’s Methodological Behaviorism

� Nature–nurture issue. � Humans inherit only a few fundamental reflexes

along with three basic emotions (love, rage, and fear). Everything else, he believed, is learned.

� Human abilities are mostly learned.

� Watson’s brand of behaviorism is a(n) ____-____ theory in that it hypothesizes that learning involves the formation of a direct connection between a ___________ and a ______________.

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Hull’s Neobehaviorism

� Watson’s rejection of unobservable events was scientifically wrong.

� Physicist and chemists make inferences about events that have never been directly observed (e.g. gravity).

� Hull’s idea: infering the existence of internal events that might mediate (draw a connection) between the environment and behavior. ¡  Mediating event: “hunger drive” ¡  The variable that can be measured: Number of hours of food

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Hull’s Neobehaviorism

� Hull’s mediating events= intervening variables. �  They intervene between a cause (such as food

deprivation) and an effect (such as speed of running toward food).

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Hull’s Neobehaviorism

� A pure S–R theory: Specific stimuli (input) yield specific responses (output), with certain internal events mediating the process.

�  critized for following a machine-like fashion.

�  Such internal events are called i____________ variables in that they are presumed to m_____________ between the environment and behavior.

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Tolman’s Cognitive Behaviorism

� A rat’s behavior in a maze is a goal-directed attempt to obtain food rather than a long chain of stimulus-response connections.

� He agreed that intervening variables may be useful in a theory of learning. However, while Hull’s intervening variables were physiological-type processes like hunger and fatigue, Tolman’s were considerably more mentalistic. The Tolmanian rat was not simply motivated by drives and habits but also had “expectations” and “hypotheses.”

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Tolman’s Cognitive Behaviorism

� Thus, Tolman’s cognitive behaviorism (sometimes called “purposive behaviorism”) utilizes intervening variables, usually in the form of hypothesized cognitive processes, to help explain behavior.

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Tolman’s Cognitive Behaviorism

� Tolman’s most famous intervening variable is the cognitive map… a mental representation of one’s spatial surroundings.

•  3 groups of rats continuous-reward group

•  the others couldn’t find food.

•  10 training days

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the average number of wrong turns the rats in each group made before reaching the goal box.

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Tolman’s Cognitive Behaviorism

�  Conclusion: nonrewarded rats had in fact learned the maze during the first 10 trials of the experiment.

�  the development of a “cognitive map”. �  latent learning says learning occurs despite the

absence of any observable demonstration of learning and only becomes apparent under a different set of conditions.

�  the distinction between learning and performance.

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Tolman’s Cognitive Behaviorism

�  A __________ ___________ is an internal representation of one’s surroundings.

�  The experiment by Tolman and Honzik (1930) has traditionally been regarded as a demonstration of _________ learning, in which learning appears to take place in the absence of any reward. The experiment has also been regarded as a demonstration of the distinction between learning and ___________________.

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Bandura’s Social Learning Theory

�  interested in imitation, which he referred to as observational learning. His famous study is on the influence of observational learning on aggressive behavior.

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Bandura’s Social Learning Theory

�  the concept of reciprocal determinism environmental events, observable behavior, and “person variables” are seen as having a reciprocal influence on each other.

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Bandura’s Social Learning Theory

�  Social learning theory has also stimulated the development of cognitive-behavior therapy, in which psychological disorders are treated by altering both environmental variables and cognitive processes.

� Bandura’s ____________ theory emphasizes the importance of o________ learning and c_____ variables.

� The concept of _________ proposes three variables:e________, b_________, and p____ variables, all interact with each other.

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Skinner’s Radical Behaviorism

�  emphasizes the influence of the environment on overt behavior,

�  rejects the use of internal events to explain behavior, and �  views thoughts and feelings as behaviors that themselves

need to be explained. �  The issue with respect to using internal events to

explain behavior is that we cannot directly change such events.

�  Saying that you are feeling “happy” to explain why you are always smiling and laughing is, from Skinner’s perspective, an example of using feelings as a pseudoexplanation for your behavior.

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Skinner’s Radical Behaviorism

�  the environment ultimately determines both external behavior and internal events.

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Skinner’s Radical Behaviorism

�  Skinner’s _________ behaviorism views both internal and external behaviors as resulting from e________ influences.

�  Operant behaviors—behaviors that are controlled by their consequences.

� For Tolman, the rat is running through the maze because it expects that doing so will lead to food, whereas Skinners’ rat is running through the maze because such behavior has in the past resulted in food.

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Skinner’s Radical Behaviorism

�  Skinner believed that the processes of evolution and operant conditioning were quite similar in that both involved selecting what was beneficial from what was not beneficial.

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Summary

�  Watson’s methodological behaviorism rejects all references to internal events, such as thoughts and feelings, that cannot be directly observed.

�  Hull’s neobehaviorism includes references to hypothetical internal events, usually of a physiological nature.

�  Tolman’s cognitive behaviorism explains that the intervening variables are of a mentalistic nature, such as expectations and cognitive maps.

�  Bandura’s social learning theory emphasizes the importance of observational learning as well as the reciprocal interaction of internal events, environment, and behavior.

�  Skinner’s radical behaviorism emphasizes the influence of the environment on overt behavior, rejects the use of internal events to explain behavior.

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Any questions???

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