Behaviourism

Question 1

Why study behaviourism?

Answer 1

• not something tha happened decades ago that we can now ignore
• understanding it can help become more critical of current work
• an alternative to introspectionism (examining ones own conciousness)

Question 2

What is the relation between logical positivism and radical behaviourism?

Answer 2

Carnap (from the Vienna circle) said:
- “cause” is unobservable
- scientific practice involves experimental variables
- the goal of science is not to understand the causes, but to use knowledge of independent variables to understand dependent varaibles

Skinner agreed saying that:
cause –> effect = independent variable –> dependent varaibel

• Logical positivism emphasized observable, measurable data, influencing behaviorism’s rejection of introspection
• Logical positivists said that knowledge must be testable, aligning with behaviorism’s focus on stimulus-response relationships (Verification through observations)
• Both emphasized objective approaches, rejecting unobservable mental processes

Main difference: Logical positivism is a broader framework in philosophy of science, whereas behaviourism applies its principles specifically to psychology

Question 3

What is operant conditioning? (Skinner)

Answer 3

Build on Thorndike’s concept of “stamping in”

When a response (not reflexes, but a voluntary behavior) is repeatedly followed by a consequence (reinforcer/punisher), the probability of occurence of the response will change (increase/decrease) in an unconscious, automatic fashion

Question 4

What is the main problem with internal causes according to Skinner?

Answer 4

they don’t explain behavior but merely label it, without offering a real scientific account.

Question 5

What are the implications and relevance of behaviourism for current cognitive science?

Answer 5

Laid the foundation for rigorous scientific methods in psychology, which current cognitive science builds on while current cognitive science also study internal mental processes that behaviourism originally rejected.

Question 6

How did behaviourism redefine psychology?

Answer 6

It was a reaction to the inreliability of the introspective method. Instead of focusing on the mind, it started focusing on behaviour based on the objective method of experimentation

Question 7

What is the introspective method?

Answer 7

Examining and reporting one’s own thoughts and feelings

Schools that used introspection:
- Psychoanalysis, internal structure of personality (Sigmund Freud)
- Gestalt, internal structure of perceptual experience (Max Wertheimer)
- Pragmitism, internal structure of goals and purposes (William James)

Introspection never stopped being used, and objective, quantitative experiments were actually already being used

Question 8

What are reflexes?

Answer 8

Automatic, unconcious, innate, unlearned response to a stimulus.

Combination of stimulus (external agent) and response (controlled behavior)

e.g:
stimulus: heated object on skin –>
response: pulling hand

stimulus: object approaching eye –>
response: blink

Question 9

Reflexes according to Descartes, Darwin and Sherrington

Answer 9

Descartes (1664): Reflexes are automatic, mechanical responses of the body, separate from conscious thought
(Proposed that some behavior were controlled by the mind and some were controlled by external factors)

Darwin (1808-1892): Reflexes are innate, adaptive behaviors shaped by evolution.

Sherrington (1857-1952): Reflexes involve integrated neural circuits forming a reflex arc within the nervous system.

Question 10

What is the reflex arc?

Answer 10

The neural pathway that controls an automatic response, linking a sensory input to a motor output.

Question 11

What is classical conditioning (conditioned reflexes) (Pavlov)?

Answer 11

When a conditioned stimulus is repeatedly paired with an unconditioned stimulus, this causes the conditioned stimulus to elicit a conditioned response in an unconscious, automatic fashion.

Question 12

What is an example of classical conditioning?

Answer 12

Pavlov’s dog:
Demonstrating how dogs could be trained to associate a neutral stimulus (like a bell) with food, leading them to salivate even when food was absent

Question 13

What is Thorndike’s “stamping in” vs Skinners operant conditioning?

Answer 13

Operant conditioning was inspired from stamping in.

Stamping-in: focuses on behaviors strengthening through trial and error when followed by satisfying outcomes

Operant conditioning: expands this by systematically using reinforcement and punishment to shape behavior

Question 14

What is Thorndike’s “Law of effect”?

Answer 14

Actions followed by rewards are repeated while actions followed by discomfort are avoided

He also made the law of exercise and readiness

Question 15

Who were the main philosophers in Behaviourism (dominant approach in 1970s)?

Answer 15

John Watson (1878-1958):
- influences by Pavlov and Thondike
- borrowed the concept of “reflex” from psychology
- coined the term “behaviourism” to describe a new scientific approach to psychology (a reaction to the unreliability of the introspective method)

Skinner (1904-1990):
- the most influential behaviourist
- against inner causes
- operant conditioning

Pavlov (1849-1936): He established that reflexes can be associated with new stimuli, and found that any type of behavior, even reflexes, can be learned

Thorndike: showed that learning happens through trial and error, with behaviors strengthened by their consequences (stamping in and law of effect)

Question 16

What was Watson’s “behaviourist manifesto” (1913)?

Answer 16

He argued that
1) psychology must be a science
2) in science, data must come from publicly observable phenomena
3) counciousness does not satisfy that principle bevause it cannot be observed publicly
4) the methods to which psychology are studying counciousness, namely introspection, are not scientific methods

To make psychology a real science her argued:
1) it must abandon conciousness as the object of its study
2) it must turn only to the study of publicly observable phenomena, namely behavior
3) It must develop methods for publicly observing behavior

Question 17

What are the three aspects of behaviourism?

Answer 17

Methodological behaviourism: Psychology is the science of behavior, not the inner mind as separate from behavior.

Psychological behaviourism:
Behavior is explained without mental events; its sources are external (environment), not internal (mind).

Logical behaviourism: If mental terms are used in psychology, they must be eliminated or translated into behavioral terms.

Question 18

What was Skinner’s radical behaviourism?

Answer 18

• against inner causes
• operant conditioning
• brought together Pavlov’s work on conditioned reflexes and Thorndike’s work on the Law of Effect
• looked at how behavior could be reinforced either positively or negatively

Two kinds of behavior: respondents and operants

Human behavior should be explained by environmental causes, not inner causes (thoughts, neural activity)

Question 19

What is a response?

Answer 19

an instant behavior (e.g. one instance of walking/pecking)

Question 20

What is an operant?

Answer 20

A class of similar responses (e.g. walking/pecking in general)

An action or behavior that is modified by reinforcement.

Question 21

What is a consequence?

Answer 21

The effect of the behaviour (e.g. food appears)

Question 22

What are the types of consequences that can be used in operant conditioning?

Answer 22

reinforcer: something that increases the frequency of a behaviour

punisher: something that decreases the frequency of a behaviour

positive: presenting a consequence

negative: removing a consequence

Question 23

What is reinforcement schedule?

Answer 23

the specific procedure in the experimental lab to present the animal with appropriate consequences for operant conditioning

Question 24

Skinner on science

Answer 24

• rejection of authority (evidence matters more that what experts say)
• rejection of wishful thinking (not believing something just because you want it to be true)
• intellectual honesty (be truthful about what you know and don’t know, even if it challenges your belifs)
• avoiding premature conclusions (waiting for enough evidence before making a judgement)

behavior should be analyzed in terms of external stimuli and reinforcement, rather than internal psychological processes

Skinner’s theory explains behavior by understanding how the probability of responses is shaped by reinforcement

Question 25

How to operationalise psychological concepts?

Answer 25

You define them in measurable terms by specifying the procedures or tasks used to observe or quantify them in a study.

Question 26

How does behaviourist explain behaviour?

Answer 26

not by inner causes but by pointing to the reinforcement history

Question 27

What is an example of operant conditioning (Skinner)?

Answer 27

Skinner trained pigeons in a famous experiment to peck at words like “peck” and not at non-words, showing that with operant conditioning, pigeons could learn to distinguish between real words and gibberish - trained through operant conditioning to recognizing patterns the pigeons recieved food as a reward

Question 28

What are naural and mental causes?

Answer 28

Neural: explaining behavior by reference to the nervous system Mental: explaining behaviour by reference to inner agent (e.g. psychoanalysis, folk psychology and cognitive psychology)

Question 29

What are some problems with intervening variable (hypothetical inner states) raised by Skinner?

Answer 29

- they are impossible to manipulae directly - we dont need them to predict and control behavior - an explanation in terms of intervening variables alone would not suffice, and we would still need to refer to the external procedure

Question 30

What is the main problem with inner causes that both Skinner and Dennet agree?

Answer 30

The suggestion that explanations using mentalistic terms like want, believe, or think assume some level of intelligence in the subject - presuppose rationality

Question 31

What have we inherited from behaviourism?

Answer 31

- methodological behaviourism - many experimental and statistical methods - talking of independent and dependent variables - expanded the stimulus-response model to stimulus-internal process-response - a general tendency to avoid studying conciousness - the mind/behaviour dualism is still unresolved

Question 32

What is psychology according to behaviourism?

Answer 32

the science of behavior

Question 33

What phenomena are studied in behaviourism?

Answer 33

a broad range of behavior understood as the result of associations between stimulus and response; operant and classical conditioning

Question 34

What questions are asked in behaviourism?

Answer 34

how do classical and operant conditioning influence response to different stimuli?

Question 35

What methods are used in behaviourism?

Answer 35

"functional analysis": control stimulus and consequence (reward punishment), measure response (frequency of operant behavior)

Question 36

What are good explanations?

Answer 36

radical externalism: explain by reference to the reinforcement history. Do not involve inner causes

Question 37

What is a satisfier?

Answer 37

a pleasant consequence that strengthens a behavior Thorndike’s Law of Effect and stamping in refer to the same idea: behaviors followed by satisfying outcomes are strengthened and more likely to be repeated. In Skinner’s operant conditioning, this is called a reinforcer.

Question 38

What are the problems with behaviourism?

Answer 38

- Psychoanalysts accused the behaviorists of only treating the surface symptoms and not the underlying causes, while the behaviorists argued that it was only the surface symptoms that really mattered

Question 39

What are the two kinds of behavior according to Skinner?

Answer 39

Respondents: reactions to stimuli like the reflexes Pavlov studied (conditioned by repetition) Operants: actions that animals/people do spontaneously, like the actions of the cats in Thorndike's puzzle boxes (conditioned by rewards or consequences)

Question 40

What is meant by behavior shaping?

Answer 40

the reinforcement of successive approximations toward desired behavior

Question 41

Nature vs. nurture debate

Answer 41

Nurture: Skinner and Watson - believed learning was more important than inherited abilities Nature: Chomsky - how people learned were governed by innate tendencies

Question 42

What are the three types of stimulus-response relations?

Answer 42

Unconditioned reflexes: automatic, untrained responses - E.g. tearing up from onions Conditioned reflexes: learned responses through association - E.g. Pavlov's dogs salivating at a bell Operant conditioning: Behavior shaped by reward/reinforcement - Positive reinforcement: behavior increases due to a rewarding outcome - Negative reinforcement: Removing something unpleasant to increase a behavior

Question 43

What is meant by the words cause and effect?

Answer 43

Cause = change in an independent variable Effect = change in a dependent variable Skinner uses this framework to define cause and effect scientifically, focusing on how changes in external variables influence behavior

Question 44

What are three links of casual change explaining behavior?

Answer 44

1) An operation performed upon the organism from without - water deprivation 2) An inner condition - thirst 3) A kind of behavior - drinking The objection to inner states is not that they do not exist, but that they are not relevant in a functional analysis, so behaviourism focus on the first and third

Question 45

What is a functional analysis?

Answer 45

A method of understanding behavior by examining external variables (independent variables) that influence it, rather than relying on inner psychological states.

Question 46

Three processes of conditioned reflexes

Answer 46

- Psychic secretion: conditioned stimulus triggers a physiological response, like Pavlov’s dogs salivating at a bell Process of conditioning: neutral stimulus becomes associated with a response after repeated pairings. Process of extinction: If the conditioned stimulus is repeatedly presented without the unconditioned stimulus, the conditioned response will eventually fade.

Question 47

What is the learning curve in behaviorism?

Answer 47

Behavior change over time tends to follow a negatively accelerated curve, where learning is quick at first but slows down over time as reinforcement continues.

Question 48

What is the probability of response?

Answer 48

Skinner focuses on how the probability of a response is influenced by reinforcement.

Question 49

What are standard conditions?

Answer 49

To study operant behavior, it’s essential that the behavior is measurable and repeatable without interference.

Question 50

What is trial-and-error learning?

Answer 50

Behavior is shaped through repeated attempts and feedback (reinforcement).

Question 51

What is reinforcement?

Answer 51

The process that increases the likelihood of a behavior being repeated.

Question 52

What is operant reinforcement?

Answer 52

The technique of strengthening a behavior by rewarding it.

Question 53

What is conditioning?

Answer 53

The process of learning through reinforcement. - In operant conditioning: We strengthen behavior by increasing the likelihood of the response occurring more frequently. - Pavlovian (respondent) conditioning: Focuses on the magnitude and timing of the response to the conditioned stimulus.

Question 54

How does Dennett argue against Skinner?

Answer 54

Dennett's strategy: - Clarify Skinner's arguments against mentalism as best as possible - Clarify the problems with mentalism - Clarify why Skinner's wholesale rejection of mentalism is wrong Dennet examines four possible problems with mentalism: - It implies accepting that mental things must be made of non-physical stuff - It involves internal, private evens that cannot be objectively studied - It involves events whose occurrence "can only be inferred" - It involves internal events Dennet argues that Skinner is inconclusive and contradicting himself in these

Question 55

How does Skinner misapplicate principles according to Dennet?

Answer 55

- He misapplies some perfectly good principles - He misdescribes crucial distinctions by lumping them all together - He lets wishful thinking cloud his vision - Fails to explain rationality

Question 56

What is Virtus dormitiva?

Answer 56

Mocking explanations that restate the obvious Skinner thought that all mentalistic explanations is infected with virtus dormitiva

Question 57

What is the Homunculus Fallacy?

Answer 57

The mistake of explaining something, like thinking or seeing, by imagining a tiny person inside the brain doing that job, which just raises the same question again. Skinner rejects the “little man in the brain” explanations, but at the same he wrongly assumes that intentional idioms (beliefs, desires) must involve this mistake

Question 58

What is Misguided Reductionism?

Answer 58

Skinner wrongly assumes that scientific explanations must replace rather than coexist with intentional explanations

Question 59

What is meant by Skinners Lack of Explanatory Power?

Answer 59

His approach works well for simple animal behavior but fails with complex human cognition, particularly novelty and generalization.

Question 60

How did Behaviourism emerge?

Answer 60

Behaviourism emerged and became a widely discussed subject following John B. Watson’s “behaviourist manifesto”. It was most influential within the 1920’s to 1960’s, especially within America stood as an alternative to the earlier methods of introspection