Chapter 11 - Behaviorism: Later years Flashcards
(47 cards)
1
Q
What was IQ Zoo?
A
- Zoo established by Keller and Marian Breland
- Former psychologists who left the university to earn a living by applying conditioning techniques to animal behaviour
- Used basic conditioning techniques learned from B.F. Skinner
- 140 trained-animal shows at major tourist attractions
2
Q
What was after Watson’s behaviourism?
A
- Neobehaviourism - Tolman, Hull, and Skinner
3
Q
What are the postulates of neobehaviourism?
A
- The core of psychology is the study of learning
- Most behaviour, no matter how complex, can be accounted for by the laws of conditioning
- Psychology must adopt the principle of operationism
4
Q
What was after neobehaviourism?
A
- Sociobehaviourism (Bandura and Rotter)
- A return to the consideration of cognitive processes while maintaining a focus on the observation of overt behaviour
5
Q
What is operationism?
A
- Promoted by Percy Bridgman
- The doctrine that a physical concept can be defined in precise terms related to the set of operations or procedures by which it is determined
- The validity of any scientific finding is based in the validity of the methods used to arrive at that conclusion
- Physical concepts must be defined precisely
- Concepts that cannot be operationalized should be discarded
- Critics: really just a version of British empiricism
6
Q
What’s the life story of Edward Chace Tolman?
A
- Born in West Newton, Massachusetts
- Started a degree in engineering at MIT, transitioned into psychology at Harvard
- Becae acquinted with Watson and behaviourism in last year of his studies
- Received PhD form Harvard in 1915
- Took a position at University of California, taught compariative psychology
- Conducted research on learning in rats
- One of the most avid supporters for using rats in psychological testing
7
Q
What was Tolman’s purposive behaviourism?
A
- He was dissatisfied with Watson’s version
- Combining the objective study of behaviour with the consideration of goal orientation
- All actions are oriented towards achieving a goal, or learning the means to an end
8
Q
What were criticisms of Watsonian behaviourists to purposive behaviourism?
A
- Referencing purposiveness implies recognition of conscious processes
- Tolman-counter-argument = measurements taken are stated in terms of changes in overt responses as a function of learning or experience
- So long as measurements yield objective data, it is still in the spirit of behaviourism
9
Q
What were Tolman’s intervening variables?
A
- Set of unobservable and inferred factors within an organism that connects the stimulus and response (ex. cognitions, expectancies, purposes, etc.)
- Need to be operationalized
10
Q
What were Tolmans five observable intervening variables?
A
- Behaviour is a function of five observable independent variables:
1) Environmental stimuli
2) Physiological drives
3) Heredity
4) Previous training
5) Age - Also believed there were factors within the organism that influenced responses
11
Q
What was Tolman’s learning theory?
A
- Rejected Thorndike’s law of effect
- Believed that reward or reinforcement has little influence on learning
- Instead, reward or reinforcement enhances performance by influencing motivations
- Devised an experiment to assess this:
Group A: Rats fed after successful maze run
Group B: Rats not fed after successful maze run - Conclusion: Group B rats still did learn
12
Q
What was significant about Tolman’s learning theory?
A
- Based on findings, proposed a cognitive explanation for learning
- Due to dramatic improvement in speed, concluded that there was latent learning during the unrewarded runs
- Rats had developed a cognitive map of the maze through sheer exposure
- Providing reinforcement motivated rats to clear the maze faster
13
Q
What’s the life story of Clark Leonard Hull?
A
- Born in Akron, NY
- Poor early life contributed to development of perseverance and motivation to succeed
- Started a degree towards engineering, transitioned to psychology
- Received PhD from Unversity of Wisconsin, then went to Yale
14
Q
What types of contributions did Clark Leonard Hall make?
A
- Concept formation
- Substance effects on behavioural efficiency
- Aptitude testing
- Motivation
- Conditioning and learning
- Approach tended to be mechanistic in nature
- Thought Watson’s behaviourism as too simple
15
Q
T/F: Hall became the most cited psychologist.
A
- TRUE
16
Q
What was Hull’s behaviourism like?
A
- More sophisticated than Watsons
- The spirit of mechanism = described human nature in mechanistic terms
- Regarded human behaviour as automatic and capable of being reduced to the language of physics
17
Q
What were the four methods Hull considered useful?
A
1) Simple observation
2) Systematic controlled observation
3) Experimental testing of hypotheses
4) Hypothetico-deductive method
18
Q
What was Hull’s hypothetico-deductive method?
A
- Identify problem statement
- Develop a hypothesis
- Determine method of experimental test
- Collect data
- Analyze and interpret results
- Identify limtations and future directions
- Repeat proces with new knowledge
19
Q
What were Hall’s thoughts regarding drives?
A
- Thought drives are the basis of motivation
- Caused by a state of need due to a deviation from optimal bodily conditions (arouses or activates behaviour)
- Reduction of a drive in the basis for reinforcement
20
Q
What determines the strength of a drive?
A
- Length of deprivation (ex. time between meals)
- Intensity of the response behaviour (ex. how much food eaten)
21
Q
Primary vs. Secondary drives?
A
- Primary - Innate biological needs that are vital to survival (ex. food, water, air, etc.)
- Secondary - Stimuli associated with the indirect reduction of primary drives
22
Q
What’s Hull’s law of primary reinforcement?
A
- Learning cannot take place in the absence of reinforcement, and the reinforcement must satisfy a drive
- If a stimulus-response connection produces a reduction in primary drives, then the likelihood of the same stimulua evoking the same resonse increases
- Referred to the strength of the stimulus-response conncetion as habit strength
23
Q
What were Hall’s contributions to psychology?
A
- Incredibly prolific, with much of his research cited by other behaviourists
- Critical to defending and expanding the influence of behaviourism in the US
- trained many other students
- Hull’s behaviourism won over Tolman’s but lost to Skinner’s
24
Q
What’s the life story of B.F. Skinner?
A
- Born in Pennsylvania
- Raised in a warm home but with strict moral standards
- Inquisitive and investigative in childhood
- Graduated from Hamilton College with a degree in English
- Endeavoured to become a writer but did not find success, considered himself a failure
- Read Watson and Pavlovian conditioning experiments, awakened a scientific interest
- Enrolled in psychology at Harvard
- Received a PhD from Harvard in 1931
- Was very disciplined student, and later as a researcher
- Post-doc at Harvard until 1937, then joined University of Minnesota
- Published “The Behaviour of Organisms” would later become successful
- Went to Indiana University, built the baby-tender
- Wrote Walden Two
- Returned to Harvard
- Wrote “Science and Human Behaviour”
- The most influential psychologist of all time, most citations to date
- Witnessed the fall of behaviourism and the growth of psychology at the end of life
- Died in 1990
25
What was Skinner's behaviourism?
- Had an empty organism approach, purely a descriptive form
- Focused efforts on describing behaviour rather than explaining behaviour
- Not concerned about internal forces such as intervening variables or drives
- Believed that human beings are controlled and operated by environmental forces
- Believed it wasn't necessary to use large sample sizes
- Conducted comprehensive investigations on a single subject
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Skinner's operant vs. Classical conditioning?
- Classical conditioning = a behaviour is elicited by a specific observable stimulus
- Skinner called this respondent behaviour
- Operant conditioning = a behaviour occurs spontaneously, without an observable stimulus
- Operant behaviour
27
What Skinner's law of acquisition?
- The strength of an operant behaviour increases when it is followed by the presentation of a reinforcing stimulus (e.g., the rat continues to press the lever after receiving food)
- Practice leads to more efficient bar pressing, but a reinforcement is required to increase the rate of responding
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How does Skinner's operant conditioning differ from Thorndike and Hul's positions?
- It's purely descriptive; does not try to explain why the rat is behaving in this way in these conditions
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How did Skinner set his schedules of reinforcement?
- Skinner was running low on food pellets, decide to ration and reinforce the rats once per minute (regardless of responses)
- Designed a series of studies to study the impact of frequency of reinforcers and the passage of time
- Also found that frequency affects extinction
30
What were the four schedules of reinforcement?
1. Fixed ratio schedules - food is dispensed after the rat presses the lever x number of times. Result - high and steady response rate, brief pause after dispensation
2. Variable ratio schedules - Food is dispensed after the rat presses the lever after five times, then after 10 times, 7 times, etc. Result = high and steady response rate
3. Fixed interval schedules - food is dispensed after a fixed length of time has passed since the rat first pressed the lever. Result - high rte of response nearing dispensation, slowed rate of response after
4. Variable interval schedules - Food is dispensed after an unpredictable length of time has passed since the first lever press. Result - Slow and steady response rate
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What's Skinner's successive approximation?
- Also known as 'shaping'
- Reinforcement changes in succive stages as the human or animal approaches the final desired behaviour
- Could achieve remarkable results by chaining behaviours
32
How did Skinner describe his shaping of language?
- Infants spontaneously babble, which are reinforced by parents' smiling, laughing, and talking
- Stronger reinforcers are provided by parents when the babbling starts to become more akin to words
- As words become more common, parental reinforcement becomes more restricted, given only for correct use of words and pronunciation
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What were Skinner's thoughts regarding behavioural modification?
- Can modify behaviour using reinforcement
- Socially desirable behaviours should be reinforced with smiles, praise and affection
- However, undesriable behaviours should not be punished
- Seen in token economies and applied behaviour analysis
34
What were criticisms of Skinner?
- Extreme positivism and opposition to theory
- Instinctive drift showed that reinforcement was not as all-powerful as Skinner claimed
- Stronger evidence for Chomsky's view of language acquisition
- Radical behaviourism with little room for cognition
35
What were Skinner's contributions to psychology?
- World's most famous psychologist for decades
- Promoted behaviour modification and its clinical applications in hospitals, factories, schools, etc.
- Involved in the invention of an automated crib and teaching machines
- Methods are still in use today
36
What's the life story of Albert Bandura?
- Born in Mundare, Alberta
- Had to elarn independently due to limitations of learning in small town
- Enrolled at UBC where he discovered psychology by accident
- Earned PhD at university of Iowa in 1952
- Accepted teaching position at Stanford University in the following year after completing postdoc
- President of APA in 1974
- Regarded as one of the most influential psychologists of all time
37
What was Bandura's Social cognitive theory?
- A less extreme form of behaviourism which incorporates cognitive aspects
- Believed that humans are not like machines
- Internal motivators such as beliefs, expectations, and instructions
- Emphasized the importance of rewards or reinforcements in acquiring and modifying behaviour
38
How did Bandura's Social cognitive theory relate to learning?
- Studied behaviour as it formed and modified in social situations
- Direct experience is not necessary to learn
- Learning can be done through modeling and the observation of others
- Learning can occur through vicarious reinforcement by observing the behaviour of other people and its consequences
39
How does the effectiveness of modeling vary?
- People are more likely to model their behaviour after a person of the same sex and age, after their peers, or after those who have solved similar problems to their own
- Simple behaviours are also more easily imitated than highly complex behaviours
- Hostile and aggressive behaviours also tend to be strongly imitated
40
How did social cognitive theory relate to different schedules of reinforcement?
- The schedule of reinforcement itself does not change behaviour, rather it is what the person thinks the schedule of reinforcement is
41
What was Bandura's idea of self-efficacy?
- People vary in their responses to events based on their self-efficacy
- Self-efficacy = one's sense of self-esteem and confidence in dealing with life's problems
- People who have a great deal of self-efficacy believe they are capable of coping with the diverse events in their lives. Leads to better life outcomes
42
What were Bandura's contributions?
- Principles of social cognitive theory and modeling applied to behavioural therapy
43
What's the life story of Julian Rotter?
- Grew up in Brooklyn New York
- Suffered financial hardship during the Great Depression
- Influenced his views on social injustice
- Read both Freud and Adler in his youth
- PhD from Indiana University
- Taught at Ohio state and later UConn
44
What did Rotter think about cognitive processes in behaviourism?
- Promoted the inclusion of cognitive experiences in behaviourism
-Emphasized that internal cognitive states such as subjective expectations and values influence the effect of external experiences
- This also varies between people
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How was Rotter similar to Bandura?
- Also criticized Skinner's radical behaviourism
- Argued that we learn primarily through social experiences, criticized isolation of subjects
- Believed that the link between behaviour and a reinforcer is mediated by cognitive processes
46
What's Rotter's locus of control?
- People vary in their responses to events based on their perceived locus of control
- Internal locus of control - the belief that reinforcement depends on one's own behaviour
- External locus of control - the belied that reinforcement depends on outside forces
- Internal locus of control tend to be physically and mentally healthier
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