chapter 12 & 13 - behaviorism & neo-behaviorism

Question 1

what does behaviorism take from functionalism and what does it reject?

Answer 1

take:
- evolutionary theory -> animal study (acknowledgement of similar origins)
- adaptation to environment -> learned behavior (but not biological mechanisms)
- applied (therapy and using science to improve society) -> applied
reject:
- instincts x only learning (no instincts)
- conscious mind x only behavior (no mind and no cognition)
- brain physiology of the German physiologists x only behavior

Question 2

how do the ideas of behaviorism connect to the British empiricists and Aristotle?

Answer 2

• emphasizes the mind as a blank slate and associations
• all behaviors learned through the environment
• innate or inherited factors have little to no influence on behavior
• Aristotle believed in nurture, saying that education and experience would define the formation of the mind and build knowledge
• associations

Question 3

how is the radical empiricism of Watson modified by the neo-behaviorists?

Answer 3

• Tolman and Skinner expanded behaviorism y proving the importance of thoughts and introducing operant conditioning, respectively
• neo-behaviorism happened when behaviorism was combined with logical positivism, many neo-behaviorists believed they could be theoretical and still remain objective (Skinner is still neo because he accepted operationalism)

Question 4

what is Tolman trying to demonstrate through his experiments with rats? how does this diverge from Watson’s brand of psychology?

Answer 4

• demonstrates that cognitions matter
• learning still occurs in the days leading up to the reward because, after day 11, the performance is far quicker
• pulls learning and performance apart
• rats demonstrate purposive behavior, still have intentionality, and have a mental image of their surroundings

Question 5

what are the main contributions of behaviorism and what are the anomalies that behaviorism has trouble explaining?

Answer 5

contributions:
- behaviorists made psychology scientific in that they studied what was observable
- Watson greatly contributed to the way advertising is done currently, used classical conditioning to provoke certain attitudes along with the appearance of a product
- behaviorism is largely responsible for establishing psychology as a scientific discipline through its objective methods and especially experimentation
- used in behavioral and cognitive-behavioral therapy, behavior modification is commonly used in classrooms
anomalies:
- speech/language - language is learned and actually biological given the critical period of language acquisition and other developmental processes
- human and non-human learning are equivalent (not true because we can study for a test but we can’t learn how to fly)
- mental events can be ignored as casual to behavior
- adult and child learning are equivalent (not true because object permanence is something that comes with age)

Question 6

how would the behaviorists describe the causes of human behavior and thought?

Answer 6

• thoughts don’t really exist but they would come from associations
• all behaviors are learned through interaction with the environment, or responses to external stimuli