Please read sections 3.4 (Watson) and 3.5 (Skinner)
NOTE - we will cover 3.3 out of sequence.
After reading the section, think of all the terms and concepts used in all of sections (1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 3.1, 3.2, 3.4, 3.5) please respond to the following questions and try to use these terms and concepts as you respond to the following questions.
What are three things you will remember about Watosn? What are three things you will remember about Skinner? Who do you find more interesting, Watson or Skinner? Why?
Do you think the work of Watson can be applied to the real world today? How so or Why not?
What if anything would you like me to be sure and go over in class when we meet?
Include a list of the terms and concepts you used in your post. (example - Terms: positive reinforcer, extinction, reinforcer, discriminative stimulus...)
Surprisingly, I already knew nearly everything in the Watson chapter probably because I just took History and Systems where we talked a lot about Watson. One thing I didn’t know though, was that Little Albert’s mother took him out of the study (understandably) without being desensitized. I guess we will never know whether or not Little Albert would have been desensitized even if his mother didn’t pull him out since Watson never intended to help Albert rid of the fear he instilled in him. Obviously, a study like this would not fly today, but it is interesting nonetheless. The chapter also outlines the difference between structuralists and functionalists. According to the text, structuralists are concerned with basic elements whereas functionalists are concerned with the complexity which can evolve from these elements. In my activity box, I described the two like this (hopefully they aren’t too far off): structuralists are worried about HOW something works/happens whereas functionalists are worried about WHY something works/happens. The last thing I will remember is the work of Mary Cover Jones. Mary Cover Jones provided research showing that desensitization of existing fears can be done. Unlike Watson, Jones did not condition the child in her study (Peter) to be afraid, rather, she chose him because he fear was already instilled in him. Jones then used the process known as systematic desensitization to help Peter get over his fears.
Like the chapter on Watson, I already knew quite a bit of the information on Skinner. Although I have not read Walden Two, I have read about it and have been curious about it ever since. I think the concept of social engineering could be interesting and perhaps even successful at producing a better society, but like the text pointed out, I don’t think it would have a lot of success in today’s society which favors freedom. One concept that was completely new to me was species specific responding. I never knew that rats froze as a result of being scared. I think this is interesting, but could not come up with any other species specific responses even though I am sure there are some very obvious ones! I also find Skinner’s air bed interesting although I don’t know that I would implement it into my parenting techniques.
The work of Watson and Skinner can definitely be used in modern day. Watson’s experiment with Albert demonstrated how certain unconditioned stimuli (the loud noise) can be associated with neutral objects and create aversive conditioned responses to the stimuli. An example of this happening in my life: a flushing toilet (unconditioned stimulus) doesn’t typically result in me changing my behavior except when I am in the shower (a neutral stimulus). However, it only took me a few times to discover that when I am in the shower and the toilet flushes, I will be scorched unless I move out of the way from the running water. Because of this, whenever the toilet flushes (conditioned stimulus) when I am in the shower, I move out of the direction of the water (conditioned response).
An example of how I use Skinner’s work in my life is through the use of shaping/successive approximation. When training puppy this summer, I used shaping to turn already learned behaviors in to more complex behaviors. For example, she learned to sit rather quickly so I wanted to teach her to lying down. In this process, I no longer rewarded her for just sitting and only rewarded her for lying down. Once she mastered this skill, I wanted to teach her to roll over. I did this same process and successfully got her to roll over in no time!
The only thing that I didn’t fully understand was a conditioned emotional response so it wouldn’t hurt to go over this concept in class.
Terms used: structuralists, functionalists, desensitization, systematic desensitization, air bed, Walden Two, unconditioned stimulus, neutral, conditioned response, aversive, shaping, successive approximation
Before reading this section, the things I have remembered about Watson were mainly the Little Albert study. I remember learning about this study in History and Systems, probably because it is so controversial. Little Albert was a 9 month old boy who Watson used to demonstrate human reflexes that we are born with. After being presented to furry things like rats, Little Albert began to become afraid of all furry things. This demonstrated that mostly all behaviors are learned, not innate. This was interesting to me because I don’t think we can necessarily modify a 9 month old baby to be scared of certain things, but that’s just my opinion. Also, I will remember the term desensitize. This term has been presented to me before, but not in such depth. Using this term in the Little Albert study to describe reducing fear makes me understand it more. That being said, I will remember the term systematic desensitization also. There are some people in my life who have phobias so I was initially drawn to this when I started reading about systematic desensitization. Systematic desensitization can be used by meditation or biofeedback. Also, visualization techniques may be used to reduce the fear.
One of the concepts I will remember about Skinner is the air bed. I was surprised to read about Skinner’s Air Bed and how he actually used a human being to experiment with. I think this different and more unethical than Watson’s Little Albert study because the baby was put in conditions where most people would find it to be cold. Conditioned Emotional Response is also another concept I will remember. I will remember this because not all conditioning that occurs in the operant chamber is operant conditioning. For example, a snail going back into its’ shell when feeling threatened exhibits a conditioned emotional response because it acts like classical conditioning. The Skinner Box is another thing I will remember from this section. I remember reading about it in previous classes but I think that the diagram showing how the Skinner Box actually works helped me out a lot.
If I have to choose between the two, I choose Watson as being the most interesting. I think that his work with Little Albert was fascinating, and I think that he was the pioneer in behavior modification. Even though it seems like Skinner is recognized more than Watson, I think that Skinner lacks the creative sense that Watson has presented in his studies.
Though I do think that Watson is more interesting than Skinner, I don’t think his work could be used today because it is unethical. His study with Little Albert would definitely not fly in research today. When it comes to Skinner, I think a brief overview of Type S and Type R conditioning would be beneficial to go over in class if we were to go over anything.
Terms Used: systematic desensitization, desensitization, Air Bed, conditioned emotional response, Skinner box
Three things I’ll remember about Watson is his Little Albert study, his behaviorism perspectives, and how he thought that anybody could be conditioned to be a certain way. I’ve known about the Little Albert study for awhile so that’s something I’ll always remember. I wasn’t aware that Watson was so against structuralism and functionalism but when you look at the concepts of behaviorism, it’s rather different. I also think his view that anyone can be conditioned to be anything is very interesting. I think it would be a great study if someone could test that but it’d be unethical.
The three things I’ll remember about Skinner is his operant chamber, the shaping technique, and conditioned emotional response. I remember the operant chamber because it’s the tool he used to train his rats and has been taught in several psychology classes. The shaping technique is how to condition an animal (rat) to emit certain behaviors. The conditioned emotional response is similar to shaping but CER is just to elicit an emotional response, not necessarily a behavior.
I find Skinner more interesting because of his radical views about how he thinks the world should work. I think Watson will always apply to the real world, otherwise I don’t think he’d be such a prominent figure in psychology. His Little Albert study proved that people can be conditioned and that’s a huge part of what behaviorism is.
Terms: emit, elicit, behavior, conditioned, response, operant chamber, shaping
The first thing I will remember about Watson is the thought of Watson ‘Most all behaviors are learned and that parents could shape the behaviors of their infants and children’. This theory was demonstrated by the Little Albert study. I believed it before reading this section. In my opinion, people can be changed and shaped their characteristic by the environments that they belonged. Furthermore, children do not have many experiences or backgrounds in particular things so it is easier than adults. Through this study, I can have a confidence about my thought that the one way of behavior modification technique. Second, I would like to remember systematic desensitization and apply it to my friend. It is applied to some people who have a phobia in particular thing. Fortunately, I already knew this concept because I learned in the social psychology class. This concept was so interesting to me because I have a cat phobia. I wonder if this method applied to me, I can remove that phobia or not. The last thing I will remember is the fact that systematic desensitization applies with relaxation techniques and visualization. To get an exact result in systematic desensitization, I can use relaxation and visualization by make steps. The relaxation technique is the way to decline fear or panic such as meditation or self-control. And then the use of visualization relates to sensory of human like touch, look and hear toward the terror of something.
The first thing I will remember about Skinner is the difference between Type S and Type R. This part made me fully understood about these concepts. The stimulus is antecedent and the response is consequence in the Classical Conditioning. On the other hand, the response is antecedent and the stimulus is consequence in the Operant Conditioning. The other things I would like to remember are Shaping and Successive Approximation. These are not only new but interesting concept to me. When we want to particular behavior (desired), we can use shaping process. Also we can use the successive approximation technique by so reinforcing when the behavior closes to desired behavior.
I believe that the theories of Watson are more interesting to me. Because I can find some examples relates to the work of Watson easier than Skinner. As I mentioned above, systematic desensitization can be applied to person who have a phobia in the real world. I have an experience that I applied this concept to my friend who had a bird phobia. I showed bird pictures to her in the first step. If she emitted seeing behavior it for a long time, I gave her money that can be reinforer to her. And then I gave her a bird miniature while she eating her favorite food. Whenever she did not want to touch it anymore, I took off from her. It is a Negative Punishment. After repeating these steps, she overcame that phobia.
I would like to go over a Conditioned Emotional Response because it is a little complicated than others.
(Terms; systematic desensitization, relaxation techniques, visualization, antecedent, consequence, Classical Conditioning, Operant Conditioning, Shaping, Successive Approximation, reinforer, emitted, Negative Punishment)
So we have moved on to reading into what certain individuals did for the field of psychology. In particular these sections were about John Watson and B.F. Skinner.
I found a few things interesting about Watson. First I'd like to mention that I never knew that he believed there to be no difference between animal and human behavior. That all animals were believed to be on a continuum. I also like how he took structuralism and functionalism and threw them out the door. He said screw you, I'm going to do my own thing. Anyways, structuralists believed that everything can be broken down into basic elements by using introspection (documenting an experience). Whereas functionalists wanted to relate everything to Darwin's work. Every trait had some sort of survival function to it. We all know about the Pequena Albert study, by now it is easy to remember that Watson was able to condition fear into a baby boy by presenting a loud noise (US) with a soft object/animal (CS). Pequena Albert began to fear the soft objects and animals (CR). The UR would be fear to the loud noise when that was first presented to him by itself.
B.F. Skinner was a stud. He believed that he could "socially engineer" a society. This means that if everything in a society was behaviorally modified, it would work out for the entire society's good, not for individuals within the society. You have to love the Skinner Boxes. He invented a room for a rat or pigeon to be placed in to train. The room had a lever which Skinner would train the rat to press. To do this he used successive approximation. Successive approximation translates to reinforcing the rat for any behavior that deals with the lever. If the rat looked at it, he/she received a snack. This would continue until the lever was actually pushed by the rat. Pressing the lever would give the rat a scooby snack. Using the lever and reinforcement of the snack, Skinner studied schedules of reinforcement. You could place the rat on an FR20 schedule which means the rat would have to press the lever 20 times to receive its snack, or reinforcement. Another name for this "room" is the operant chamber.
I believe that Watson's work can be applied to the world today to an extent. He believed that stimulus and response should be the basis of psychology, and that this could shape people and society. I think that there is a lot of stimulus response in today's world. We are always reacting to stimuli. Whether is for the first time, or if we were conditioned to react to the stimulus a certain way (the textbook used taxes to illustrate this).
Terms Used: structuralism, functionalism, introspection, condition, US, UR, CS, CR, social engineer, successive approximation, reinforcement, schedule of reinforcement, FR20, operant chamber
I will remember that Watson claimed to see no distinction between man and brute. In the reading we were asked how we felt about this. My response was that I feel like for the purposes of his research this was ok. As he was one of the first behaviorists I think this was an appropriate place to start. However, I think that there are certain complexities and functions of the human brain, body, etc that would be different from animals and I wonder if he ever acknowledged that? I feel like if he did not then the information he would have gained about some things would be inaccurate.
I will remember structuralists and functionalists. Structuralists being people who wanted to break psychology up into basic elements and use them as building block to understanding humans. Functionalits are people who believed that abilities and traits existed because they were used to survive. Watson, however was in neither of these groups. He believed that psychology was about the study of behavior and that humans and animals adjust to the environment through habit and relflex.
Lastly, I will remember that Watson believed that behaviors are not innate but learned, so they can be modified, and his three basic reflex emotions which were fear, rage, and love. Also in thisi chapter but not about Watson was Mary Cover Jones’ Study. In this study she discovered systematic desensitization. This is a behavioral method used in helping people overcome phobias.
One thing I will remember about B.F. Skinner is that he distinguished between Type S and Type R. These are classical and operant conditioning, respectively. Also S- and S+. S- is extinction and S+ is reinforcement.
Skinner invented the operant chamber, also known as the Skinner Box, which is where animals were conditioned in certain behaviors. It had a cumulative recorder that graphed the lever pressing. It also had a light and tone which was a discriminative stimulus so that the animal would know when to do something. The noise was a stimulus contimuum because it was on all the time, but in varying tones, while the light was a discrete stimulus because it was either on or off. The lever was called a manipulanda because it is what the animal manipulates.
I will also remember Skinners Air Bed. This is a way to have less laundry to do by keeping the baby in a box with regulated temperature. The child that Skinner raised in this way turned out as normal as can be. This was an interesting concept for me and really I think was definitive of what an inventers child would put up with in their lifetime.
I think that Watson can really be applied to the world today. Behavior modification was essentially what he was talking about and that is extremely popular, a required course for psychology majors today. What Watson did was a precursor to things that came.
In class if you could explain what CER is? I saw it a couple of times in the reading and do not know if I should already know what it is? Other than that I feel I have a good grasp on the sections!
Terms Used: Skinners Air Bed, Behavior Modification, Operant Chamber, cumulative recorder,, discriminative stimulus, stimulus continuum, manipulanda, descrete stimulus, classical conditioning, operant condituioning, S- S+, Type S, Type R, Innate, Systematic Desensitization, Structuralists, Functionalists.
The first thing i will remember is Watsons study on little Albert. The kid was positively punished by a loud sound that made him up set and then was shown a rat. I do believe it is possible to control children on what they are afraid of and what they will fear when they grow up. If someone was to push me down the stairs everytime i got the the top i can pretty safely say i would try to avoid stairs 100% of the time in fear of getting hurt. I would really like to look more into systematic desensitization and the rate of success. I figure behavior modification would discuss more about how to asses certain situations and which relaxation behavior would help most in a phobia situation.
Skinner on the other hand thought close to the same thing about Watson in that he could control society by having certain behaviors be learned by positive and negative reinforcement and punishment. By using schedule reinforcement the rat was then controlled and learned what was being asked of it in order to receive a reward. This just reminds me more and more of the lottery. by having a slot machine on this schedule of reinforcement then we will continue to pull the lever because we find one reinforcement greater than fifty non reinforcements. If the lever of the machiene began to shock us for each time pulled as skinner did than i could see the gambling rate decrease because of punishment.
I think i find Watsons study more useful and logical in todays society. By being able to "program" people into doing certain actions or thinking certain ways could make the government control peoples spending. If everytime a canidate commercial would come on and i was presented with ice cream for one candidate and nothing for the other in my mind i would associate something good with that one person. It makes more sense to me, but both are huge fore runners in psychology that can be considered in most psychological experiements
terms:reward, positive, negative, Systematic Desensitization, reinforced, punished, schedule reinforcement.
Watson:
1. He was a behaviorist who felt that psychology was an experimental branch of science.
2. He divided time psychology into structuralists and functionalists
3. The little Albert Study
Skinner
1. His book about the utopian community, Walden Two
2. The air bed
3. Social engineering
I find Watson to be more interesting because of his view on behaviorism. He had some ideas that I do not completely agree with but he also pushed the fact that we are a product of our environment and the things we are exposed to, which I do agree with to an extent.
I think that a lot of the things we are learning in class about these different psychologists and their theories can be applied to the real world today. They are kind of the fundamental building blocks for the things we are studying and experimenting with today. Watson came up with the idea that we can be conditioned to feel or believe certain things based on our surroundings and what others tell us. This can be applied to a lot of different situations we are presented with on a day to day basis. If I wasn’t born and raised the exact way I have been, I would be a completely different person. If I had been born to different parents or if my parents had abandoned me I would have different beliefs and attitudes towards things in the world. Although the ‘Little Albert’ experiment was done quite some time ago, it still holds true to behavior modification techniques that we use today.
terms:behaviorist, structuralist, functionalist, 'Little Albert' Study, social engineering, behaviorism, conditioned
First I will remember Watson for the use of the white rats. I will remember his use of the rat in his famous Little Albert study. Watson believed humans obtained three “reflex” emotions. We were said to possess fear, rage, and love. With the Little Albert study Watson used a child to condition the reflex of fear into other responses. When the researchers found little Albert was scared of loud noise they used this. A loud banging noise was the unconditioned stimuli that elicited Albert’s unconditioned response of being scared and therefore crying. Watson would put a rat, another unconditioned stimuli in front of little Albert and at the same time present the loud banging noise. Little Albert soon emitted fear toward the rat. The rat then became the conditioned stimulus. Watson then concluded behavior is learned and not innate. This is highly suggestive to the abilities parents and environment can then have on the development of a child. This can still be heavily applied to parenting today by the use of behavior modification. Children learn through punishment and reinforcement.
Secondly, I remember him as an extremely unique individual because he rejected the views of both structuralists (breaking psychology down into methods of introspection) and the functionalists (who were influenced by Darwin’s ideas). These were the two leading views in psychology so I see him as extremely influential to have the guts to deny both. Watson believed the study of psychology to be based on behavior. He believed both humans and animals adjusted to their environments through learning. He believed strongly that what was learned with animals could then be applied to humans because there was no dividing line. Although I see some fault in saying both animals and humans are exactly the same in psychology, I was intrigued by his very bold views that he was stuck to.
Lastly I remember that Watson’s for his work of Systematic desensitization, which is used to help people deal with phobias today. Watson would desensitize a person with different relaxation techniques. These relaxation techqniues would calm a person. Examples could be meditation. Then he began using visualizing techniques, while the person was doing relaxation, to visualize the phobia, but stay in a calm state. Visualizing can eventually become complex enough to enable a person to face their phobia, let’s say a snake, while feeling relaxed due to the relaxation techniques. To be honest, I see Watson as extremely amazing because he applied his psychological finding to very real world problems like phobia. Not only was he brilliant in discovering ways people learn behaviors, but he worked to apply this to the real world. This is a very commendable thing, although cheating on his wife with his research assistant may not have been.
First I will remember Skinner for being involved in social engineering. He believed that in creating specific environments, he could predict behaviors and potentially control behavior in these situations. He, like Watson, worked to better society with these views on behaviorism.
Second I will recall the differences in his Type S and Type R conditioning. Type S is simply classical conditioning that follows the sequence of the Stimulus coming before the Response. Type R, on the other hand, is simply operant conditioning when the Response comes before the Stimulus. Skinner also used shaping to actually mold a behavior. Before using shaping, we must use successive approximation. This basically means that if a rat we are trying to train gets close to the behavior we want, we then reinforcement them. The rat is then reinforced only when it presses the bar, instead of just looking at it, until we can reinforce only the exact behavior we want.
The last thing I will remember about Skinner was his “air bed” invention. To be honest, I thought it might go against a bit of motherly nurture by placing babies in these types of beds with no comfy blankets, clothes, etc.
I again feel that Watson was most interesting for his studies on real world situations like phobias. I recently read a paper on social phobias, and I think that it would be interesting to see how Watson has influenced modern day treatments of such phobias. When I googled relaxation techniques, I found many of Watson’s same techniques are being used today. This makes it clear his work is still working for us today.
Terms used: reinforcement, relaxation techniques, behavior, shaping, successive approximation, stimulus, unconditioned response, unconditioned stimulus, conditioned stimulus, conditioned response, emit, elicit, Type S, Type R, visualizing techniques, social engineering, desensitization, reflex, punishment, structuralists, functionalists
When studying the cats in the puzzle boxes he concluded learning when a cat would take, for example, 30 seconds to get out of the box the first time, but then 20 seconds to get out of the box the second time. This would suggest the cat LEARNED from the first experience, and then this learning was helpful to it in the second experience. According to Thorndike this occurred because of the Law of Effect, or “trial and error” learning. A real life example of trial and error learning might be trying to open a rusty old lock that doesn’t have a key. At first you would try a variety of behaviors to open it. You could try, hitting it against your brother’s head, saying open, or using a pin, or using a fork. When you eventually figure out how to open it, the next time you try to open it you may need to ask yourself how you did that again. The second time it will not take you as long to open because hopefully you learned the first time that the behavior of using a pin worked and all of the others did not. Thorndike’s other laws; the Law of Regency for example says that the most recent response will be the most likely to reoccur, and his Law of Exercise states that through repetition associations are strengthened. Thorndike, as well as many other behavioral scientists created their own experiments and even made their own equipment to test their ideas. The use of animals in these experiments suggested that if they learned from trial and error, then this would apply to humans as well because they are of a higher species.
Skinner is highly known for the use of operant chambers, or a skinner box. Skinner’s research applies heavily to our societies today. His study of “social engineering” is very beneficial to understanding out environments. Skinner believed that instead of individuals being changed, the environments of humans should be changed to meet societal goals. An example would be building new schools. By building a new school it then changes the environments. Poor communities may need better schools in order to encourage different behaviors in their society. Better learning, safety, etc. The government also uses social engineering for things like taxes on cigarettes. Taxes are punishers because they are attempting to decrease the behavior. Vending machines with healthy and unhealthy foods would also be a great example of how we can use social engineering to change the choices people make by making healthy foods cheaper and unhealthy foods more expensive.
First of all, I thought it was interesting that Watson popularized the idea of classical conditioning. That being said, I think that his Little Albert case was really eye opening for me to think about how manipulation of behaviors can be unethical. I do agree with his opinion that humans adjust to the environment through habit and reflex.
I found it interesting that Skinner laid the foundation for modern behaviorism. Learning that operant conditioning is different from classical conditioning in that the stimulus follows the response was interesting. Finally I like that Skinner was a jack of all trades, contributing to many worlds: psychology, writing, as well as inventions.
Overall I really prefer Skinner to Watson because Skinner seemed to be more willing to push the edges of human thought, rather than pushing the edge of social norms (having an affair). Skinner's operant approach is said to be more voluntary, which I think it is important that people learn to choose how they respond to circumstances. And of course I like that Skinner was all around brilliant.
Watson's opinion that humans are just like animals in their behavior is something I am not sure I want to agree with. I feel that human thought, or consciousness sets them apart from other animals. It makes our behaviors more than just instinct, but rather they can be learned and conditioned. That being said, I do agree that with the right context and consistent conditioned stimuli and conditioned responses, that humans could be molded from birth into certain professions. All I have to think about would be any sort of royal family, raising each child to act a be like royalty.
Please spend some time covering operant conditioning and systematic desensitization.
terms: classical conditioning, behaviors, manipulation, behaviorism, operant conditioning, conditioned, context, conditioned stimuli, conditioned response, systematic desensitization.
Watson: psychology is an experimental science branch, no difference between animal and human behavior, Little Albert study
Skinner: book about Utopia, social engineering, invented a room for a rat/pigeon to be trained
I found Skinner more interesting than Watson. The main reason for this is because he believed you could socially engineer an entire society and it would work out better for society as a whole. So, in theory, he believed we could create a utopian society.
Watson's work can be applied to life today. Watson believed that stimulus and response should be the basis of psychology. He also believed that this should be what shapes a society. People always react to the stimuli that we're presented with.
I think both of the readings were interesting. I know a lot of the material about Watson, but it was a good review. Three things that I will remember are:
1. Watson wrote a Behaviorist Manifesto which stated this area of psychology was only interested in behaviors, not cognitions (introspection - documenting subjective experience of a behavior). The Manifesto also stated that behaviorists study both human and animal behavior, because human behavior is only part of the picture. Humans and animals learn to adjust to the environment through reflex and habit.
2. Watson performed a controversial study called the Little Albert study to demonstrate how humans learn to generalize basic reflexes they are born with to different objects and with different emotions. Watson thought that humans were born with 3 reflex emotions: fear, rage, and love. Watson never had a plan to desensitize Albert, but his mother pulled him from the study.
3. Watson believed most behaviors were learned, so parents could shape their children's behaviors. This means you could shape a child to be anything through the use of behavior modification techniques.
Watson's contributions to society are beneficial today. It's important to know that people/animals can be conditioned to emit specific behaviors.
I had a little difficulty coming up with examples in the reading about Skinner. I also knew less about him going into the reading. Three things I will remember are:
1. Skinner invented the operant chamber (aka the Skinner Box), which is a secured chamber that holds a lab animal. It helps study reinforcement and punishment methods.
2. Skinner wrote a book called Walden Two. It describes a utopian society that is governed by behavior modification and social engineering. He believed freedom got in the way of advancing society, and that the environment needed to be changed in order to meet society's goals.
3. Skinner distinguished between Operant Conditioning and Classical Conditioning. Operant conditioning (type R) occurs when the stimulus follows the response. The response is voluntary. Classical conditioning (type S) occurs when the response follows the stimulus, and the response is reflexive.
Terms: Behaviorist Manifesto, introspection, generalize, desensitize, emit, operant chamber, reinforcement, punishment, social engineering, operant conditioning, classical conditioning
Three things about Watson
1. Watson concentrated on white rats, and observed myelinization (helps speed the flow of electrical impulse along the axon) in the brain.
2. His famous experiment with Little Albert, he believed humans were born with 3 basic reflex emotions, fear, rage, and love. Albert was afraid of loud noises, so Watson associated loud noise with the white rat.
3. He believed ALL behavior are learned, so an individual can shape a behavior any way they want to.
Three things about Skinner:
1. Social engineering- by creating the right environment we can predict and control behavior to the benefit of society.
2. He created the operant chamber, this is used to study reinforcement and punishment in non-humans animals.
3. He created “Air Bed”- you can control the temperature of the environment where the baby is, without any clothing or bedding present for the baby.
I think both Watson and Skinner were interesting psychologist that had great minds, and created what they were thinking about to life. I like them both for different reasons. I like Skinners views of attention should be directed towards environments, social and physical in which people life. But I do like Watson’s confidence and stubbornness thinking he can take a any healthy infant and modify it to become what ever he desires.
I don’t think Watson’s work can be applied in today’s society, or at least the society we live in. One of the major reasons is the ethical guidelines, and we cant just experiment with humans any way we want to like Watson does. People would be questioning spiritual side of things and would be very threaten to know that somebody can easily manipulate their behavior. More people would be confused about their identity, so Watson’s ideas are frown up on.
Terms Used: Reinforcement, punishment
Though I've heard of Watson's work before, I was introduced to a few new things while reading section 3.4. The first thing I will remember about this section his behavior manifesto. Though the reading is a bit difficult to comprehend, it tells a lot of the time that Watson worked in, and the move from introspection to structuralism and functionalism. I really enjoyed the Little Albert studies. I'd like to see him try and get approved by the IRB nowadays. Another thing from this section that has always stuck with me from Abnormal Psychology is the concept of systematic desensitization. This occurs when trying to remove a fear from a subject. The subject gradually faces his or her fears until finally becoming desensitized to the stimuli. It was always ironic hearing about Watson's affair. Even with his good intentions of decoding human behavior, he couldn't control his own.
Skinner will be remembered by his differentiation between type S and R conditioning. Type R is operant conditioning, in that a consquence follows a behavior. Type S is a stimuli induced behavior. One new thing I learned is the dicrimination between positive and negative stimuli. Positive stimuli can elict reinforcement, while negative elicits extinction. Perhaps the most memorable image to me is Skinner's Air Bed. This would be the dream of many parents who were 'blessed' with a child but didn't have the time to take care of it. While it's unethical, it's always very entertaining and clever.
I personally find the works of Watson more interesting than Skinner. The Little Albert studies, though a bit on the mad scientist side, were concrete evidence of associating conditioned stimuli to elicit emotion. Watson's simplized theories can be understood by more people than of Skinner's, and can therefore be utilized more efficiently.
The work of Watson can definately be applied to the real world today. I like to think of racism, and discrimination in Watson's theories. Certain traits are paired with people of different races. For instance, it is stereotyped that many African-Americans are involved in crime. When many people think of crime (CS), they think of an African-American. Though sad, it's a reality of many.
Terms: behavior manifesto, introspection, structuralism, functionalism, conditioned stimuli, systematic desensitization, type R, type S, elicit, reinforcement, discrimination
The thing that obviously sticks out in my mind about watson is the little albert study and his theory of planned behavior.He believed fear, rage and love to be possible conditioned emotions. Little albert was classically conditioned to fear furry things but associating fluffy things with a loud clang noise that little albert didnt like everytime he was shown a fluffy animal. Little albert was never desensitized from his fear of these fluffy things. Mary Clover Jone's later proved systematic desensitization possible in the study with Peter and the food.
One argument Watson made was that introspection was not the best way for psychologists to examine their patients. Since this relies solely on the self-report of the client instead of being able to look at their actual behaviors. He believed that behaviorism and applied psychology were the best ways to study humans. Behaviorism would be useful for people to change their lives and applied to relate information to humans.
There were other main areas of psychology during Watson's time and those consisted of Structuralism, and functionalism. Structuralism is dependent on the unconcious and people's recordings of their personal thoughts and feelings. This can be very subjective and nothing is actually seen to be proven. Functionalism is the idea that the reason species are the way they are is a result of some form of adaptation for survival. Natural selection is the basic idea of this psychological construct but Watson did not believe these would determine human behaviors.
Social engineering is a particular theory developed by Skinner that stuck out in my mind. If this theory could actually work many problems in our society could be solved like the economic difficulties of today. I just find this idea extremely difficult to believe possible because our everyday lives cannot be controlled and there will always be outside factors interfering with our behaviors.
Next Skinner helped us distinguish between different types of conditioning. We have now S which is classical (the stimulus before the response) and R which is operant (the response before the stimulus. This are very important factor looking at how somethings behavior is modified.
Watsons theories can definitely be related to things today. We learn conditioned behaviors in our everyday world like stopping at stop lights. and getting systematically desensitized to certain phobias can be very helpful for some people to just function in everyday life.
Terms: classical conditioning, systematic desensitization, little albert study, Theory of planned behavior, introspection, behaviorism, functionalism, structuralism, social engineering, stimulus response, phobias.
Watson was a behaviorist who said that there is no line between human and brute when it comes to our responses. He focused on predicting and controlling of behavior, and said that in studying animals we could learn about humans as well. Three things I will remember about him are:
1. He didn't particularly agree with functionalists or structuralists, and focused on the study of behavior and that we learn to adjust to the environment through habit and reflex. (stimulus->response)
2. He did the little Albert study, attempting to prove that our key emotions (fear, rage, and love) are learned and can be shaped.
3. He went to advertising after losing his job and applied his psychological techniques.
Skinner was a lot like Watson in his interest in behaviors, however he took it a lot further. Through his studies of behavior he focused a lot on operant and classical conditioning, involving both (S->R) and (R->S). Three things I will remember about him are:
1. He invented most all of his equipment used in his studies, including the operant chamber, cumulative recorder, and an air bed.
2. He did a lot of work with FR/FI and VR/VI (fixed radio/interval + variable ratio/interval) which takes us back to classical conditioning.
3.Skinner also did studies on CER(conditioned emotional response), involving the use of electric shock.
Both of these men had very interesting looks on psychology, so it's hard for me to say who I found most interesting. In the end I would probably have to say skinner, due to his use of inventions and the way he really dug into our behavior. His belief in social engineering was also quite interesting. That is, taking any child, and through behavioral techniques, raise them to be whatever he wanted them to be.
Watson's work does apply in small ways, but realistically it doesn't apply due to all of the knowledge we have acquired over the years since then.
I don't think too much of this needs to be covered in class really, their studies made sense and progressed a lot of learning in behaviorism.
terms- behaviorism, social engineering, conditioned emotional response, fixed ratio/interval, variable ratio/interval, operant chamber, cumulative recorder, operant and classical conditioning, functionalism, structuralism
Three things that I will remeber about Watson(behaviorism) are: 1)Watson rejected the structuralist(is braking down human behavior into simplistic elements) and the funtionalist (relativity to survival and darwinism) views.Watson believed that humans/animals adjsuted through habit and reflex. 2)He believed humans were born with three emotions Fear rage and love. The Little Albet study was done to demonstrate how the innate emotion of fear could be cndtioned to be more generalized. Which proved that most fears are in fact conditioned and not innate. 3)Watson was never able to desensitize Albert, but Mary Cover Jones did a desensitizing experiment using food and CS that produced fear Ur(Systematic Desensitization).
Three things I will remember about Skinner modern behaviorism and behavior mod.): 1) Social Engineering-create the right enviroment can predict/control behavior. He agreed with watson but expanded on the manifesto, Type S(classical SR) Vs. TypeR (OperantRS)2) Skinner invented the operant chamber and the cumulative recorder.and the use of Succesive Approximation (being reinforced for behaviors close to the target behavior) to shape behavior and eventually use intermeitent reinforcement.Rats can experience ratio strain when jumping too many ratios with out leaning out 3)He was an inventor of amny things and also a writer, he wrote Walden Two which was upsetting to most people because it depicted free will as a problem with improving society, and how community overides individuals.
I find Skinner more interesting becuase he is a little more radical and out there and he seemed to be very involved in his studies if he was willing to use his daughter as a participant/subject.
I think the work of Watson can be used to help with people who have phobias but I think thatMary's work was also benificial with creating some kind of desynsitization system.Everything is fairly clear in these two sections.
Ters Used: Systematic desensitization, leaning out, shaping, target behavior, reinforcement, ratio stress, ?
Three things that I will remember about Watson (Behaviorism) are
1. Watson rejected both the structuralist and functionalist views of psychology. He believed that psychology is the study of behavior and that humans and animals learned to adjust to the environment through habit and reflex. He didn't believe that there wasn't a dividing line between the way humans and animals learn.
2. He is best known for his Little Albert study and for his behaviorist manifesto. In the Little Albert study he was demonstrating that humans are born with 3 basic reflex emotions, fear, rage, and love.
3. In Mary Cover Jones's Study Systematic desensitization was developed, a method used to help people overcome phobias. This method uses a combination of relaxation techniques, visualization and taking small systematic steps towards approaching the object the individual fears.
Three things that I will remember about Skinner are
1. Unlike Watson who believed that he could raise any child a specific way through behavioral techniques, Skinner believed that by creating the right environment we can predict and control behavior to the benefit of society (social engineering).
2. He distinguished between two types of conditioning, S (classical conditioning S-R) and R (operant conditioning R-S)
3. He used rats in an operant chamber in order to shape certain behaviors. In order to do this successive approximation (when the rat does something close to the behavior it gets reinforced) was used to start, and then was leaned out to an intermittent schedule of reinforcement, and is continued to be leaned out until the desired behavior is emitted.
To me Skinner is more interesting than Watson. I'm not sure why I think this though. Probably because I've been taught more about him than I have Watson. I also find Skinner's Air Bed idea to be very interesting and kind of wish I had one myself. Although I don't necessarily agree with the treatment that was used on the rat's in Skinner's experiments, I do feel more comfortable about that than I do about Watson's use on Little Albert.
I think Watson's ideas could be used today to an extent. I do believe that his law's are accurate, and I do think that there are similarities between the way humans and animals learn, but I also think there are differences which could pose as a problem.
Terms: Skinner, Watson, Emitted, behavior, Leaned out, intermittent schedule of reinforcement, reinforced, successive approximation, shape, operant chamber, social engineering, operant conditioning, classical conditioning, systematic desensitization, phobias, bahaviorist manifesto, structuralist, functionalist
Watson was best known for three things, his behaviorist manifesto, little albert studies, and his contributions to advertising. Most know him for the lil A studies. He conditioned an infant to fear all things furry. Also he was quoted saying that given the right tmie and enviroment he could turn a child into anything he saw fit, lawyer, doctor, criminal, by use of behavioral techniques.known as the father of behaviorism.
Skinner laid the foundation for behaviorism as we know it. WEll known for his concept of social engineering. This stated that we could use Bmod techniques to create a better society by controlling the environment and predicting the behaviors. He made use of a device he called an operant chamber. It was a secure enclosed chamber used to study animal behavior.
Watson's work: yeah i think it is still used today. Systematic desensitization seems to be the most productive manner in which to cure people of their phobias. Also behavior mod is used as the number one way to educate autistic children today.
terms: B mod, desensitization, operant chamber, environment, conditioning
One thing I will remember about Watson is his theory of behavior manifesto. I understood this concept as him explaining psychology as a purely objective science. Also, introspection, or the act of looking at ones own behaviors and actions, serve no significance in psychology. Lastly, there is no difference between humans and animals when it comes to studying them. Watson did a lot of animal research. A second aspect I will remember about Watson is his work with Little Albert. Basically what happened here was he and his assistant Rosalie Raynor taught a little boy to be afraid of furry objects. Albert was not afraid of much besides loud noises, so Watson and Raynor paired a white rat with a loud clang, and soon after when Albert would see the rat, he would be scared. This is a conditioned behavior. From this, he learned that most behaviors are learned; thus, he made stated his famous 12 infants quote. A third aspect I learned from Watson, or the Watson section, is the Mary Cover Jones study. She did a similar study, structure wise, to the Little Albert study but instead of teaching fear, she taught a boy named Peter NOT to be scared of rabbits. The technique used to treat phobias is called systematic desensitization. This would help people in many areas such as being afraid of heights, spiders, or any other fears. You can either use relaxation techniques (such as meditation, controlled breathing, or yoga), or visualization which is where you think of situations where you are asked to see yourself with the object that scares you while practicing a relaxation technique.
Skinner did a lot of influential work and it is hard to pick only three things I will remember about him. One of the first things that comes to mind when I think of Skinner is the Skinner box. This was a little chamber he invented to study the behavior of animals in which provided different stimulus, eliciting specific behaviors, thus creating an environment with both classical and operant conditioning. One of the aspects of the classical conditioning is a discriminative stimulus, such as a light, that would turn on then elicit a behavior from the rat such as indicating THAT is the time to press the lever if it wants to be reinforced in which the rat would learn to emit a lever pressing behavior. A second thing I will remember about Skinner is his idea on shaping as a form of teaching. This involves successive approximation which is when the rat is close to the target behavior thus it is reinforced; each time, forcing the rat to emit an action closer to the target behavior in order to be reinforced. The last thing I will remember about Skinner is the air crib. This was an environment in which a baby would live that the temperature was controlled at a comfortable level, the sheets were similar to the rollable towels in public bathrooms so when the baby discarded it's waste, they could just roll a clean sheet out, both of these allowing the baby to not be constricted by clothes and blankets.
I find Skinner more interesting because it is easier for me to understand the logic behind his work. His book Walden Two is about a Utopian Society in which the environment is designed and enforced a specific way to elicit agreeable behaviors from the citizens. I more so favor environment on the nature vs nurture debate but I feel like Watson takes it to the extreme saying solely environment can make anyone do whatever you want. Watson takes the learning process into account and thoroughly explains it.
I think Watson's work can still be applied today. Every day we learn from our environment using aspects that he established such as systematic desensitization and relaxation techniques and visualization. The last two aspects are more attributed to Mary Cover Jones but they still fall under Watson's ideas. Fear is something that everyone experiences in some way so continuing his work on Little Albert and the Peter study, his ideas can be applied to almost anyone.
Terms: behavior manifesto, introspection, conditioned, systematic desensitization, relaxation techniques, visualization, stimulation, elicit, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, discriminative stimulus, reinforced, emit, shaping, successive approximation, target behavior, and air crib