Topical Blog Week #9 (Due Thursday)

I will talk about the most influential figure in the short history of behaviorist psychology, B. F. Skinner. Though not the founder of the behaviorist field of psychology, Skinner’s experiments and findings are most widely recognized. Behaviorism was the most popular field of psychology during the 1920s-1950s and was led by the psychologist Watson (Link 1). Watson was the first scientist to suggest psychology was an objective science, primarily involved in the study of behavior and in particular animal behavior applied to human behavior, thus coining the psychological term “behaviorism.” Although Watson is known for initiating the field Skinner has had a lasting impact on psychology with the introduction of operant conditioning and shaping; two of the most widely recognized forms of behavior modification - changing
and controlling one’s behavior.

The theory behind behaviorism is that behavior is an observable entity, it can be measured and it can be controlled. The primary method of controlling behavior is by reinforcing certain behaviors with certain methods. One such method was Skinner’s operant conditioning method. Skinner’s hypothesis was behavior could be controlled and “shaped” using rewards and punishments using a schedule of reinforcement (Link 2). Skinner conducted a number of well-known experiments to observe this hypothesis. His most notable experiment involved what was termed as the Skinner Box-or operant chamber, used to measure animal behavior in a freedom like setting. The skinner box contaied a bar, 2 lights and a floor chamber. Skinner tested the behavior of pigeons by rewarding them with pellets each time they pressed the bar a desired amount of times. Skinner found, that depending on the number and timing the reinforcement was delivered, affected the speed of the pigeon in changing its behavior (Link 3). Skinner called this discovery, the schedule or reinforcement. That depending on whether an organism was reinforced on by a fixed variable (FV), fixed ratio (FR), variable interval (VI) and a variable ratio (VR) would influence when the organism would next emit the behavior.

Skinner’s experiments also discovered what he coined the shaping method and extinction. Skinner found that some behaviors were very difficult to reinforce and elicit in later circumstances, thus he formulated a new method that involved successive approximations. Rather then reinforce organisms in a single instance, he began a step by step process of successive reinforcements. For eg. reinforcing a rabbit to put a coin in a piggy bank was possible only by successive reinforcements that would shape the behavior. First reward the rabbit for picking up the coin, then reinforce him the closer he gets to the bank etc. Whilst much of Skinner’s work focus’ on changing behaviors he also discovered that learnt behaviors could be extinguished. That is, when reinforcement stopped, the organism would no longer emit the desired behavior and would return to the baseline behavior.

Although a brief description of Skinner’s work, it is clear he has had a substantial impact on the psychology of behavior modification. He has devised multiple methods for changing and shaping behavior, such as operant conditioning, schedules of reinforcement and shaping as well as an understanding of how to extinguish the reinforced behaviors. There is no doubt Skinner has been hugely important as solidifying psychology as a real science of human behavior.

Link 1 - http://www.simplypsychology.org/behaviorism.html

Link 2 - http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Operant_conditioning

Link 3 - http://genetics.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de/behavior/learning/SkinnerBox.html

TERMS: Skinner, behaviorism, Watson, operant conditioning, shaping, behavior modification, reinforcement, rewards, punishment, experiment, Skinner Box, desired, FV, FR, VI, VR, emit, elicit, extinction, successive approximations, baseline

The individual I have chosen was the first researcher to introduce the important concept of Conditioning: Ivan Pavlov. Pavlov is famous for using conditioning in animals (most popularly known is his experiment with dogs). In this section I will talk about the different contributions of Pavlov within the realm of Conditioning, and the different ways he went about doing so.

Pavlov was initially interested in studying digestive processes of animals using dogs, in which Pavlov used his invention, the “Pavlov Pouch”, in which he was able to measure the salivation levels of a dog when presented with food. As shown in the first link below, Pavlov identified that dogs actually began to salivate before the food was presented to them, and this lead him to his creation of Classical Conditioning. This idea of classical conditioning is that a natural response occurs; it is something that happens without being taught; When Pavlov presented a dog with meat powder, they immediately salivated because they were hungry and that is their Unconditioned Response that is emitted. The food is an Unconditioned Stimulus, because it is natural and not something that is taught; it naturally triggers the Unconditioned Response. Beyond this, though, Pavlov was able to create a trained, or conditioned response using the same kind of experimental technique. He used a Neutral Stimulus (in this case a bell) in order to train the dog towards an eventual learned response, or a conditioned response. Pavlov would ring the bell shortly before presenting the meat to the dog. Eventually, the dog would emit salivation when hearing the bell, meaning the bell has now changed from a neutral stimulus to a conditioned stimulus, meaning that the dog salivating is now a conditioned response. The dog has learned to salivate at the sound of the bell. The second link listed below gives a simple visual of this entire process that makes it easier to understand than through just words. Because it can be very difficult to get an exact measurement of saliva during the experiment, Pavlov was able to create a special contraction that was able to get an exact measurement in order for Pavlov to get accurate results. The dog was strapped in front of a screen that Pavlov was able to observe behind, and presented with the meat powder. Attached to the side of the dog’s cheek is a tube that wraps down to a container that it drips into, so the amount of saliva can be measured and recorded. Link 3 below gives a visual diagram of the device, as well a breakdown of the experiment in general. This experiment was revolutionary because it taught us as humans that we are able to condition animals to emit behaviors that we want to see through repetition. This concept is important because it is something that is continued to use today, not only with animals but with people as well. As we have seen through various examples people can be conditioned (one example is the one that I posted a few weeks ago from the TV show “The Office”, Jim is able to condition Dwight to reach his hand out for a mint at the sound of computer restart).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhqumfpxuzI

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/stoe0062/fall_2011%20psy%201001%20sec%2021/pavlov6.jpg

http://www.simplypsychology.org/pavlov.html

Terms Used: Conditioning, Pavlov Pouch, Classical Conditioning, Emitted, Unconditioned Response, Unconditioned Stimulus, Neutral Stimulus, Conditioned Response, Conditioned Stimulus

John B. Watson

Watson grew up in South Carolina on a farm. His father left them at 13 year olds and he stated that he would have ended up like his father if it weren’t for his ambitions and courage. He went on to attend Furman University at the age of 16 and went on to pursue his master’s and Ph.D. This is where he began his ideas that would soon lead to the development of behaviorism. His theory stated, “psychology was the study of people’s actions with the ability to predict and control those action.” (Muskingum.edu). He first tested his theory on animals, corroborating with Robert Yerkes. In 1909, Yerkes and Watson developed a new way to study visual discriminations in animals. It became known as the Yerkes-Watson discrimination method that became the standard behavioral technique in American labs. They then together founded the Journal of Animal Behavior. (Brynmawr.edu).

He then used this technique during World War I. He participated in the involvement of American psychologists in the World War I military effort. This led to the analyses of consciousness toward the development of objective methods of assessing human aptitude and predicting human performance in the work force and army as well. (Brynmawr.edu). After the war Watson wrote the first behaviorist textbook, Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist. This book emphasizes the importance of prediction and control of behavior and also the necessity of the stimulus-response analysis.

His most well known experiment was with a little boy name Albert. During the study studying the emotions of fear, rage and love could be artificially conditioned in children. He first observed how Little Albert interacted with white furry things. He’s demeanor was desirable and calm. Watson then paired the white stimulus with a loud noise, which had been previously found to be aversive to young Albert. This caused great distress in the child and then was generalized to all white objects. There are ethical concerns with this experiment, as Mary Cover Jones soon learned she could solve this issue. She used systematic desensitization to reverse the effects of Watson’s experiments.

After leaving John Hopkins, he used his knowledge to go into the advertising business. He wanted to use what he learned in the Little Albert Experiment to improve the effects of advertising. By 1924, he became the vice president at J. Walter Thompson, which was one of the largest ad agencies in the United States.

Terms: John B. Watson, behaviorism, psychology, Robert Yerkes, visual discriminations, Yerkes-Watson discrimination, Journal of Animal Behavior, development, Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist, control of behavior, stimulus-response, experiment, Little Albert, aversive, distress, desirable, Mary Cover Jones, systematic desensitization and effects

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/bhwats.html
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/watson.htm
http://www.brynmawr.edu/psychology/rwozniak/watson.html

IVAN PAVLOV

Ivan Pavlov is important to the field of psychology, as he pioneered the concept of classical conditioning. He is most well-known for this in his experiment with dogs, salivation, meat powder, and a bell. We have read about him in our text for this behavior modification class. I will review his classic study with dogs in relation to classical conditioning, explain classical conditioning, and then talk about Pavlov’s life.

Pavlov was a physiologist studying the digestive system of dogs. He was studying the relationship between salivation and digestion. He was able to make the dogs salivate whether there was food in front of them or not. He called this the conditioned reflex. We now refer to this as the conditioned response. Keep in mind through my explanation of this study that conditioned basically means “learned,” and unconditioned basically means that it is innate (doesn’t have to be learned, inborn). In his study, the meat powder was an unconditioned stimulus because it causes the dog to salivate and required no learning to do so. The unconditioned response is salivation. Again, the dog doesn’t have to learn to salivate in response to the meat powder. In other words, the dog didn’t have to learn to salivate at the sight of the meat powder. The tone, or bell, is initially a neutral stimulus because it doesn’t elicit, or bring about, the salivation response. However, once the tone (or bell) is paired with the meat powder a sufficient number of times, it may elicit the salivation response on its own. When this occurs, the neutral stimulus becomes the conditioned stimulus. So, if the tone (or bell) elicits the salivation response in the absence of the meat powder, it has become a conditioned stimulus. If the tone (or bell) fails to elicit the salivation response, it is still a neutral stimulus. If the salivation response is emitted (occurs) in response to the conditioned stimulus (the tone or bell), then it is the conditioned response.

NS = the bell (because it doesn’t elicit the salivation response on its own)
US = the meat powder (because it DOES elicit the salivation response and is NOT learned)
UR = salivation (in response to the meat powder, this is NOT learned)
CS = the bell (because after sufficient pairings with the US, it DOES elicit salivation on its own and IS learned)
CR = salivation (in response to the bell, this IS learned)

Classical conditioning usually involves responses that are reflexes. In Pavlov’s study, salivation is a reflex that the dog exhibits in the presence of food. In another study, a bunny blinked in response to a puff of air (a reflex). We’ll take a look at the breakdown of the bunny example:

NS = the sound/tone (it doesn’t elicit the blinking response on its own)
US = the puff of air (elicits a blinking response as a reflex)
UR = blinking (in response to the puff of air, unlearned)
CS = the sound/tone (when it elicits the blinking response on its own, it is learned)
CR = blinking (in response to the sound alone, learned)

Hopefully this idea of classical conditioning is making sense by now. Let’s look now at some information about the life of Ivan Pavlov, who made the major contribution to psychology of classical conditioning.

Pavlov was born in 1849. His parents raised him to be a religious man, sending him to church schools and seminary. However, he left behind his religious pursuits and became a man devoted to science. His area of expertise was physiology, more precisely; he worked with the pancreatic nerves. Honestly, I haven’t the slightest clue what pancreatic nerves are. In reading about Pavlov’s accomplishments, I became a bit lost in the jargon. Perhaps if I was a medical student I could decipher his accomplishments and other research. He won gold medals for everything he did, it seems. He became director of the Department of Physiology at the Institute of Experimental Medicine. This is where he studied the digestive system of dogs and discovered the conditioned reflex, and where he pioneered the ideas of classical conditioning. The fields of physiology and psychology owe a great deal of gratitude to Ivan Pavlov.

Source 1: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/447349/Ivan-Petrovich-Pavlov
Source 2: http://www.ivanpavlov.com/
Source 3: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1904/pavlov-bio.html

TERMS: Pavlov, classical conditioning, conditioned reflex, conditioned response, conditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, unconditioned stimulus, neutral stimulus, elicit, response, emitted

The person that I have chosen to write about is Thorndike. Thorndike spent most of his life at Columbia University. He did work on animal behavior and learning behavior, and in 1912 he was president of the APA. According to Wiki he was born in Williamsburg Massachutets, and he earned his masters degree at Harvard in 1897. While he was at Harvard he worked with William James in the research of how animals learn. Soon after this though, Thorndike discovered that he was most interested in the way that humans learn and he chose to devote his life to the research of it.

Thorndike was able to create a theory of learning based on his animal research. He became interested in finding out whether or not animals could learn tasks through observation or imitation. To do this research Thorndike invented his famous puzzle box. The puzzle box was made of wood that he found and there was a small pulley inside. Thorndike then placed a cat inside the box and observed it to see how long it would take the cat to manipulate the pulley to let itself out. Thorndike discovered that each time he put the cat in the box it was able to get out quicker than the time before. This showed that the cat was learning.

Thorndikes theory of learning:
1. 1.Learning is incremental.[9]
2.Learning occurs automatically.[9]
3.All animals learn the same way.[9]
4.Law of effect- if an association is followed by a “satisfying state of affairs” it will be strengthened and if it is followed by an “annoying state of affairs “ it will be weakened.
5.Thorndike’s law of exercise has two parts; the law of use and the law of disuse.

Thorndike was a very influential man in psychology. He developed different theories and influenced the way we think about learning. He is very important to the study of behaviorism.

Terms: Behavior, puzzle box, learning, law of effect,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Thorndike

I am writing about my favorite behavioral psychologist thus far, B. F. Skinner. Burrhus Fredric Skinner was born in Pennsylvania March 20th of 1904. Skinner went to New York to become a writer, but that didn't work out. He said that he, "had nothing to say" so he went back to school. Skinner studied psychology at Harvard. Skinner became very successful in the field of psychology and gained much respect for his contributions. Skinner was the father of Operant Conditioning, which he based on Thorndike's law of effect. In operant conditioning, Skinner found that he could modify behavior by administering reinforcers or punishers to increase or decrease whatever behavior he desired. To make a behavior happen more frequently, he would give the subject something desirable or take away something aversive every time the behavior was emitted, or preformed. To decrease the behavior, he would administer something aversive or remove something desirable. These schedules are referred to as positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, and punishment. This finding was amazing for his reputation. This was Skinner's single biggest contribution to the field of psychology. Skinner thought that the only scientific approach to psychology worth taking, was regarding behaviors instead of mental processes. Throughout his career, he made no attempt to understand the human psyche. Skinner was perfectly content administering tests on pigeons, focusing on the behaviors of his animal subjects. Skinner spent much of his professional life teaching at Harvard. He also had an avid fascination with inventing and managed to write several books as well. Skinner died of cancer on August 18th, 1990.

http://www.nndb.com/people/297/000022231/
http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/bhskin.html

I chose Pavlov as the person I felt contributed the most to the science of behavior modification. It is the idea’s of unconditioned or neutral stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned stimulus, and finally the conditioned response that influence the idea that a person‘s behavior can be altered by changing the way the stimulus affects an individual.Pavlov actually won the Nobel Prize for his research in this area in 1904. I want to go through these individually and show what Pavlov discovered during the experiment that made him so famous in the psychology field.

Unconditioned stimulus (neutral stimulus)- Pavlov used a meat powder to try get the dogs to salivate. This is an unconditioned or neutral stimulus because dogs do not have to be taught to respond that way to the smell of meat. Unconditioned for this topic refers to anything that does not have to be learned.

Unconditioned response- When the dogs smelled the meat powder, they began to salivate. This was the unconditioned response to the stimulus. Once again, since it was an unconditioned behavior, this means that the dogs did not have learn how to salivate, this is a natural behavior that already occurs in that species.

Conditioned stimulus- In Pavlov’s experiment, he started to ring a bell at the same time he would let the dogs smell the meat powder. After awhile he would only have to ring the bell (without having the meat powder present) to get the dogs to salivate. Conditioned for the sake of this topic means that the individual has paired, or associated the stimulus with the previously unconditioned stimulus. In this case, the dogs paired the smell of meat powder with the sound of the ringing bell. They salivated to the ringing of the bell because previously they had been reinforced to salivate to the meat powder only. However, at the same time Pavlov would present the powder, he would also ring the bell. The dogs subconsciously made the connection between the ringing bell and the food smells.

Conditioned response- In the experiment, the learned or conditioned response was the salivating to the bell. The reason this is the learned response is because natural in the world, dogs don’t usually salivate to the sound of a ringing bell. This is just not a normal behavior for canines. They had to be taught or conditioned to emit that kind of behavior.

I think it is important to note that this method of behavior modification can involve the use of positive or negative stimuli. Here the dogs were being conditioned through the use of a positive (the meat). However, negative stimuli can be used as well. Aversive stimuli will most likely cause an aversive response though. This needs to be considered before following through with the idea of classical conditioning. Also, the antecedent or the environment in which the behavior modification occurs must be the right setting for the conditioning to take place. The environment plays an important role in the subjects behavior modification process.
Ivan Pavlov founded this idea that would later come to be known as classical conditioning while doing research on dog’s. He was not a psychologist, as some seem to think. He was actually a physiologist and was researching the digestive system of the dogs when he stumbled on the concept of classical conditioning that is so well-known today. I think it is neat that someone from a completely different field made such a huge contribution. Pavlov’s findings have been very beneficial to the psychology field. I am pretty sure we have talked about him in every psychology class I have taken so far. While I do get tired of going over Pavlov’s experiment so often, I still like the concepts that he discovered and how they have influenced the field of psychology in such a major way.

http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.uni.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=cee08fb7-96ef-4935-a15f-ef462a77ecda%40sessionmgr111&vid=2&hid=117
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Pavlov
http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.uni.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=a6f97cdd-8bb1-4269-a937-1f03ac075404%40sessionmgr111&vid=2&hid=117

Terms: Unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned stimulus, conditioned response, behavior modification, emit, positive, negative, aversive, classical conditioning.

B.F. Skinner was a behaviorist who made many significant contributions to behavioral science. Even as a young boy, Skinner showed signs of impacting our world. He was always innovating and experimenting with certain processes such as making a “green dust” which helped a broom pick up dirt. After college, Skinner encountered books by Pavlov and Watson and found them intriguing. This was the start of his journey in behavioral science. In graduate school, Skinner partnered with his mentor William Crozier. The two began hosting animal experiments to observe their behavior. One of the experiments involved observing rats in a cage and presenting them with a lever. Skinner wanted to test a hypothesis much different from Pavlov and Watson. In Pavlov and Watson’s experiments, they presented the animal with a preceding unconditioned stimulus. An unconditioned stimulus is an event that evokes a specific behavior. Instead of using a stimulus, Skinner changed the environment. He firmly believed that changing environments could solely affect the type of behavior that was emitted because the environment and effects were controlled. “The process of arranging the contingencies of reinforcement responsible for producing this new kind of behavior he called operant conditioning.” In other words, analyzing the causes of an action and its consequences was operant conditioning. This theory was based off of the work of another behaviorist named Edward Thorndike, who studied animals using a puzzle box.
Essentially, Skinner believed that behavioral scientists could study observable behavior rather than internal mental events. He also introduced a new term called the Law of Effect-Reinforcement. Reinforcement is an action that occurs after a behavior has been emitted that increases or strengthens that type of behavior. A behavior which is reinforced will tend to be repeated and a behavior which is not reinforced will be extinguished or go away. Skinner was the behaviorist who identified three types of responses that can follow behavior: neutral operants, reinforcers, and punishers. A neutral operant neither increases nor decreases the probability of a behavior being repeated. Reinforcers “increase the probability of a behavior being repeated. Reinforcers can be either positive or negative.” Punishers are “responses from the environment that decrease the likelihood of a behavior being repeated. Punishment weakens behavior.”
If we go back to the rat in the cage example, we can illustrate operant conditioning. In the cage, there is a lever on the wall. If the lever is pressed, a food pellet is released into the cage. If the rat presses the lever, it will get reinforced with a food pellet. “The operant is the behavior just prior to the reinforcer, which is the food pellet, of course. In no time at all, the rat is furioursly peddling away at the bar, hoarding his pile of pellets in the corner of the cage.” If the rat is not reinforced with any more pellets, eventually it will quit pressing the lever. This is called extinction of the operant behavior. “A behavior no longer followed by the reinforcing stimulus in a decreased probability of that behavior occurring in the future."
We have barely scratched the surface of Skinner’s contributions but you can see how significant his impact has been on the development of behavioral science. His extension of Pavlov and Watson’s studies has showed the world that behavior can be attributed to the environment. His work will have a place in history forever.
http://www.bfskinner.org/bfskinner/AboutSkinner.html
http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html
http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/skinner.html

Terminology: behavioral science, unconditioned stimulus, behavior, stimulus, emit, reinforcement, positive/negative reinforcement, punishment, operant conditioning, consequences, neutral operants, extinction

The individual who I chose that has made a great contribution to behaviorism, behavior modification, and conditioning and learning is J.B. Watson. Watson according to the website, proposed the idea of an objective psychology, behaviorism. He believed that by studying people’s actions, psychologists would obtain the ability to predict and manipulate them. Watson additionally proposed a major aspect of modifying behavior in which psychologists observe behavior, make predictions, and then determine causal relationships. Watson was able to modify the behavior of a baby named little Albert using classical conditioning which according to the website is the process of learning to react to the environment. Watson classically conditioned Albert to fear a white rat. He did this by pairing the unconditioned stimulus (the rat which Albert previously had no fear of) with a loud sound that caused Albert to be afraid of and cry (unconditioned response). After the loud noise and rat had been paired Albert became conditioned to be afraid or cry (conditioned response) once he was presented with the conditioned stimulus (the rat). Watson believed that the environment has an enormous impact on behavior and provided evidence of this belief through his Little Albert study.

In a previous blog post, I listed Watson as my favorite psychologist of the four. After reading reviews of his book The Psychological Care of the Infant and Child however I take back my preference for Watson. In his novel, Watson had some very interesting yet disturbing ideas on how mothers were to raise their children. Some of his ideas included: children were to be taken from mothers during their third or fourth week; if not, attachments were bound to develop, the reason mothers indulged in baby-loving was sexual, and children should never be kissed, hugged, or allowed to sit on their parent’s laps. I disagree with many of Watson’s ideas in his novel. I agree that parents should not spend ALL their attention on their children but they should more so than Watson suggests. I also believe that attachments are good for children as long as they do not become insecurely attached. From a behavioral perspective, I think Watson’s ideas were intended to create an environment where children learn to emit independent and self-sustaining behaviors.

Watson believed in the importance of environmental factors on behavior. With this believe, I think Watson should have studied his past and present environments to hypothesis why he emitted undesirable behaviors. Such undesirable behaviors Watson emitted included adultery and being a poor father. Watson believed according to the website, like Freud, that early childhood experiences influenced the adult personality. Perhaps Watson’s parents did not give him enough attention or affection when he was young therefore influencing his adult personality of having poor relationships. Overall I think Watson was a very influential psychologist whom had a great impact on behaviorism. Although Watson was very intelligent I don’t agree with some of his ideas nor do I think he was the nicest person.

http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/watson.htm

http://www.sonoma.edu/users/d/daniels/Watson.html

http://www.psychology.sbc.edu/Little%20Albert.htm

Terms: emit, behaviorism, environment, classical conditioning, undesirable, learning, Little Albert Study, behaviors, attachment, unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned response, conditioned stimulus, paired

Born on August 31st, 1974, Edward Lee Thorndike would grow up to be one of the most famous behaviorist of his time. Hailing from Williamsburg, Massachusetts, Thorndike started his education at Wesleyan University and then continued his education at Harvard to study under one of his ideals; William James. After deciding that he did not want to continue his animal learning research at Harvard, he was invited to attend Columbia University where he was awarded his doctorate degree—his thesis being “Animal Intelligence: An Experimental Study of the Associative Processes in Animals.” In this thesis, he completed studies on fish, chicks, monkeys, cats, and dogs; categorizing all of these experiments under this one thesis.

One of his most famous experiments was his ‘Puzzle Boxes’ built to house cats and study their rate of escaping. By studying the time it took for the cat to escape from the same box, he discovered the methodological construct for intelligence. He also discovered that animals, exclusively, learn through trial and error or reward and punishment and once they know a certain behavior will be emitted, the process to reach that point is essentially stamped in (also known as the Law of Effect)—something that they will remember.

Later, Thorndike developed two other laws; Law of Recency and Law of Exercise. Both respectively include the elicitation of a behavior due to a short interval between reward and behavior and the strengthening of that conditioned action due to repetition. His work may not have been then biggest contribution to psychology as a whole, but as far as educational and animal conditioned learning, he excelled. Thorndike’s work not only inspired later work from Skinner—said to be the biggest contribution to behaviorism—but laid the stonework for other future experiments and comparisons between animals and humans and their learning abilities based off of a punishment/reward system that elicits a reactionary behavior to be emitted.

Terms: Behaviorist, Learning, Puzzle Boxes, Methodological construct for intelligence, Trail and error, Reward, Punishment, Behavior, Emitted, Stamped in, Law of Effect, Law of Recency, Law of Exercise, Elicitation, Interval, Conditioned Repetition, Skinner, Behaviorism, Thorndike, Elicits

In our last assignment I had stated that I would like to learn more about Skinner, however I decided to choose John B. Watson for this assignment for I feel like I don’t know a whole lot about him. Therefore, this is a great opportunity to further my knowledge of him and his contributions to behaviorism.

John B. Watson is most often credited the founder of Behaviorism and is listed as one of the most historical figures in psychology. He is best known for his Little Albert study and his behaviorist manifesto.

Watson experimented mainly on rats until he redirected his studies for human trials. He discovered that animals learned to adapt to their environments through reflex. He believed that what we learned from animals could apply to humans as well. He was most interested in human behavior and emotion. He considered emotion to be another example of classical conditioning. Therefore, Watson concerned his studies with stimuli; what stimuli can result in which human responses. Watson believed psychology was the study of behavior; and the study of behavior could lead to the ability to predict and control behavior.

Watson’s most famous research study was Little Albert. His goal was to condition a severe emotional response in a nine month old infant, Albert. Albert was a pretty fearless infant; the only fear that was observable was his fear of loud noises. Watson conditioned Albert to fear white, furry objects by associating Little Albert’s fear of loud noises with several white furry objects. Eventually Little Albert learned to fear white furry objects without the stimulus of loud noises. Watson concluded that behaviors and emotions could be learned through the modification of one’s environment. Unintentionally Watson found the key to learning; manipulation of environment.

Watson was a major advocator for rejecting introspection, which is the observation of one’s own state. He thought that a controlled laboratory was the most effective way to study psychology, especially behavior. A controlled environment became a major key for the development of learning. Watson believed that human differences were a result of learning.

Through his Little Albert experiment, Watson also demonstrated how humans learn to generalize reflexes to similar objects. He concluded that simple reflexes can be conditioned. His study was called unethical, but it led to the early beginnings of the development of learning science and the understanding of human psychology.

Overall, Watson was an enormous contributor to behaviorism, behavior modification, and learning and conditioning. John B Watson’s inevitably emphasized the importance of learning and environmental influences in human development, as well as established the study of behavior.

http://www.lifecircles-inc.com/Learningtheories/behaviorism/Watson.html

http://www.iep.utm.edu/behavior/

http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2543/Watson-John-B-1878-1958.html

Terms: behaviorism, behaviorist manifesto, classical conditioning, stimuli, emotional response, introspection

Russian psychologist/physiological Ivan Pavlov started off his education at a church school and theological seminary. After not following through with his father wishes to be a priest, Pavlov had decided that natural science was his passion. So instead he decided to attend the University of St. Petersburg and study chemistry and physiology. Pavlov became interested in physiology after reading a book by the famous evolutionist Charles Darwin. Pavlov started experimenting with pancreatic nerves in the heart. Pavlov wrote his doctor thesis about the centrifugal nerves in the heart. Pavlov has had many titles from being Director of Physiology to a Professor of Physiology to taking a Chair in Physiology. Pavlov is most famous for his experiment with animals. Pavlov began his research and experimenting with the digestive system and animals. Then he began to study dogs and the salivation in order to determine conditioned reflexes through the secretion of saliva through the presence of food stimulus. The explorations the Pavlov made through his experiments were the difference between a conditioned and unconditioned responses. The experiment that Pavlov did was taking a dog and having the dog received food in his bowl when a neutral stimulus, a bell, goes off. Pavlov introduced the world to the idea of classical conditioning. The idea behind this experiment is to show that a stimulus can become conditioned to a response with the conjunction of a neutral stimulus. Unconditioned responses are typically biologically or natural responses. While conditioned responses are developed through the process of experimenting with association of two unrelated stimulus. Pavlov used a neutral stimulus of a bell to condition a dog to salivate at the sound of a bell, because after conditioning the dog associated the bell sound with the dispense of food into the bowl. In this experiment the unconditioned stimulus is the food. The unconditioned response is the salivation. The neutral stimulus which becomes the conditioned stimulus is the ringing of a bell. The conditioned response is the dog salivating to the sound of the bell. Pavlov’s experiment proved that there are three principles of reflex theories, principle of determinism, principle of analysis and synthesis, and principle of structure. Pavlov’s development of classical conditioning was essential to everyday life because even now I am more aware of when I may have behavior that is being conditioned to a neutral stimulus.

Terms: neutral stimulus, conditioned response, unconditioned response, unconditioned stimulus, conditioned stimulus, behavior, classical conditioning, experiment, Ivan Pavlov, biological responses.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/bhpavl.html

http://www.simplypsychology.org/pavlov.html

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1904/pavlov-bio.html

I chose to write about B.F. Skinner, who I thought made the most interesting contributions to behaviorism. When Skinner was 24 he went to Harvard University and enrolled in the psychology department. Here, he was inspired to start experimenting and built numerous apparatus to begin studying rats and their behaviors. After experimenting for some time, he came up with the idea of operant conditioning, where behaviors operate on the environment, and is controlled by its effects. This basically said that the number of times the rat in his experiment would press a bar to receive food, depended on what followed the bar presses, not the stimulus that came before the rat pressed the bar. After discovering this, he spent a lot of time studying the effect of the consequences. Skinner wrote many books regarding psychology and behaviorism as well as articles in different magazines. He also found ways to train pigeons to peck targets during World War II, and invented a crib that came to be known as the “baby tender,” that prevented babies from getting a leg stuck in the bars. He received many awards for his work, but what he is most known for is his invention of and his work involving the “Skinner Box” The Skinner box was a chamber for rats, that included different apparatus such as levers, electric bars, lights, and food dispensers. With the Skinner box, B.F. Skinner conditioned rats in many different ways. He came up schedules of reinforcement, meaning after a certain number of lever presses, or after a certain amount of time had passed, the rat would be reinforced. He used the electric bars running across the floor of the cage to condition the rats, and the light acted as the conditioned stimulus that was formally a neutral stimulus. Skinner is a very well known behavioral psychologist and made many important contributions to this area.
Terms: operant conditioning, behavior, consequence, schedule of reinforcement, skinner box,
http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesofmajorthinkers/p/bio_skinner.htm
http://www.bfskinner.org/bfskinner/AboutSkinner.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner

B.F. Skinner contributed quite a bit to psychology and especially, behaviorism. Skinner first received his bachelor’s degree in English in New York but still didn’t feel like he fit in. After numerous attempts to find what fit him best, Skinner decided to continue his schooling and go on to get his master’s and then doctorate in psychology at Harvard. Five years after Skinner had earned his doctorate, Skinner went to Minneapolis to teach psychology at the University of Minnesota. This is where he met his wife, had two daughters (one being the baby used in Skinner’s experiment with the baby box) and wrote his book, Walden Two.

Skinner’s work built on the theories of two other psychologists, Watson and Pavlov. Skinner’s views were not as extreme as the other two psychologists. He believed that the best way to understand behavior is to look at the causes of an action and its consequences. He called this approach operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is when a behavior occurs and the immediate consequence of said behavior determines the likelihood of the behavior reoccurring. Skinner used Skinner’s Box to demonstrate this with rats and pigeons. In this box there would be a lever or disk, a pellet dispenser, a qued light, a speaker and an electric rod as a floor. In this box, the animals were tested to see if their behavior could be conditioned. Skinner used Schedules of Reinforcement to condition the behavior of the rat. An experiment might go something like; every time the rat hits the lever, he gets a pellet. This is continuous reinforcement. Extinction occurs when the lever is pressed and the rat no longer gets the pellet. The rat presses the lever again in hope of a pellet with no success. Again the rat hits a lever and gets the pellet. Now the rat receives a pellet every third time he hits the lever. This is called fixed ratio reinforcement. With this experiment, you can conclude that the behavior is affected by the environment.

Skinner was also known for his “Air Bed”. Also known as the baby box was Skinner’s attempt to care for a child mechanically. From birth, the baby, Skinner’s daughters, were placed in a box were the temperature was set so the baby would be comfortable wearing only a diaper. Though this baby box was a success, it did not catch on.

Terms: Air bed, Schedules of Reinforcement, extinction, Watson, Pavlov, behavior, operant conditioning, consequence, Skinner’s Box, continuous reinforcement, fixed ration reinforcement

http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/skinner.html
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/skinner.htm
http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199511/babies-in-boxes

B.F. Skinner was an influential part in psychology for many reasons. Skinner’s main focus was to manipulate and control animal’s behavior. He built a box where animals would press bars and receive stimuli which would be a food pellet. When observing the animals behavior and seeing that the rats would push the bar based on the following stimulus he came up with the term operant conditioning. Skinner also wrote a book called Walden Two. This book is about society based on positive reinforcement to control human behavior. He then wrote another book called the Science and Human Behavior and also the Schedules of Reinforcement. He did some work at Harvard which helped him to learn more about schedules of reinforcement and how they affect behavior and he discovered that the shorter length of time in between reinforcements the more rapid the responses had become. B.F. Skinner also came up with this idea of shaping. Shaping is where you first reinforce the behavior similar to the one desired. Skinner also invented a thing called the “Air Crib”. This was his attempt to encourage a child’s independence while minimizing discomfort and decreasing child care related tasks. Skinner also created a device called the “cumulative recorder” this showed the rates of responding as a sloped line. When using this device it would show that the behavior did not depend on the preceding stimulus. Instead, Skinner found that behaviors were dependent on what happens after the response which is known as the operant behavior.
http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesofmajorthinkers/p/bio_skinner.htm
http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/skinner.html
http://www.goodtherapy.org/famous-psychologists/bf-skinner.html
http://faculty.frostburg.edu/mbradley/psyography/bfskinner.html
Terms: Skinner,operant behavior, preceding stimulus, cumulative recorder, shaping, reinforce, reinforcement, schedules of reinforcement, positive reinforcement, operant conditioning, manipulate, stimuli.

John Watson

He earned his PhD in Psychology from the University of Chicago where his interests were in studying animals and comparative psychology. He saw psychology as a way to look at actions and from the actions he could change one's behavior. He started behaviorism in psychology. He went to teach at Johns Hopkins and worked there for awhile before he had an affair with one of his students. He thought that learning was best done by using a laboratory. In the laboratory he was able to control the environment, and through controlling this he could condition the person or animal to change their behavior to that of which he desired. One of his most famous experiments was called the Little Albert study. Watson used a 9 month old boy and paired a neutral stimulus the rat with a loud noise. At first playing with the furry animal was pleasurable but when the furry animal was paired with the loud noise it became aversive every time the furry animal was placed in front of him. The study showed that behaviors can be conditioned through manipulating the environment. He had a famous quote saying that if given a group of 12 children he could make them into professional just by using behaviorism techniques. He showed that learning and behavior was just not genetic but also greatly shaped by the environment that an individual was in.

Terms: Watson, behaviorism, aversive, environment, psychology, learning

http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/watson.htm
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/bhwats.html
http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesofmajorthinkers/p/watson.htm