Reading Activity Week #12 (Due Tuesday)

The first thing I found interesting in Chapter 11 was the section about molar versus molecular behavior. Molar behavior referred to broad patterns of behavior that were directed at some goal. Tolman argued that the unit of study had to be larger than the “molecular” muscle movements, glandular responses, or neurological responses that were emphasized by Watson. Furthermore, what was learned in the rats swimming through the maze experiment, was the animal must come to some general understanding of the pattern of the maze and the response needed to be understood in terms of whole behavior patterns that in fact had meaning beyond the movement of just the components. Tolman ended up calling his theory the field theory. He did this to distinguish it from a more molecular approach of the stimulus-response model. He believed that learning did not involve the mere strengthening and weakening of connections between stimulus information and motor responses. Instead, he argued that the brain developed more of a “field map” of the environment.

The second section that I found interesting was the one about Clark Hull’s system. Hull had the same thought about humans as Newton did about the universe. Newton believed that the universe was controlled by precise mathematical laws, in turn, Hull thought that humans were controlled by strict mathematical laws. Hull developed the hypothetico-deductive system, which was also used by Tolman. This system was a very sophisticated approach to studying theories. The theory was first developed, then tested, they then were modified, and their modifications were tested again. This process happened over and over until the theory was correct or proven faulty. At the core of this type of behavioral theory are a set of statements about behavior that were gathered from knowledge of research and logic, but cannot be directly tested. From these statements, theorems can be deduced, and can further lead to experiments. The results of these experiments are then found to either reject or fail to reject the theory, which then in turn, strengthen or weaken the base of theory. Over time, the theory may then gather empirical support and found to then be true or proven false.

The third section that I found interesting was the section about technology of behavior. Laurence Smith concocted the idea of the technological ideal which is a scientist who doesn’t merely desire to understand nature, to control it. Sir Francis Bacon believed that the control of nature was an important science. Skinner recognized this and took hold. Bacon argued that for this to happen one would have to demonstrate control over some phenomenon either by manipulating some aspect of the environment and observing the predicted outcome or by creating some technology that worked reliably. For Skinner, he would show how psychology could be used to show how behavior could be predicted by using the technology of behavior, based on reinforcement principles, to show how behavior could be controlled. Skinner’s first attempt to control behavior was titled Project Pigeon. During WWII, he obtained some funding to pursue the development of a guidance system using pigeons to direct missiles toward targets. Along with a dedicated team of students, they trained pigeons to key peck at a target screen. As they pecked at the screen, the missile would change directions until the target remained in the crosshairs of the screen. Eventually the military killed the project, but this experiment convinced Skinner that this experiment was effective way beyond the laboratory.

The section that I didn’t enjoy in the chapter was the part in the section entitled “Evaluating Hull” where it talked about college students not being able to appreciate Hull’s stature, and that many never were able to even recognize him by name. It was believed that Hull’s theory was overambitious and that it overlooked the very human nature of research. We should recognize that although maybe his theory may not have survived, his positivist approach to research still remains. I think the most important sections in this chapter are those that talk about the work of Skinner. His contributions to the discipline are still used today and carry a lot of weight in every psychology class. A topic that I would like to learn more about would be latent learning.

The first thing I found interesting in this chapter was the experiment Tolman and Honzik did on rats to test if learning was done with or without reinforcements. I found this interesting because being an education major, my brain always ties things back into the education spectrum and how I could use this information in the classroom. Tolman and Honzik found that learning was done even out with reinforcements. Obviously rats and humans are different species but if rats can learn without having to be reinforced, couldn’t humans as well? This is important when thinking about teaching and having to motivate students.
The second thing I found interesting was the talk about hypnosis. At my school’s prom we always had a hypnotist and I always thought it was cool how they did it. I also saw this thing on hypnotic therapy but don’t remember much about it. I would be interested in doing more on this topic because I find it very interesting.
The third thing I found interesting in this chapter was the section on evaluating Skinner. Skinner was never elected president of the APA. His research is seldom referenced in mainstream APA journals. He attracted many graduate students but his radical behaviorism was and remains away from the mainstream of American psychology. Today, few psychology departments have more than a single “operant”. Even Skinner himself was concerned about the longevity of his brand of behaviorism, fearing that it would fade away after his death. However, his impact on psychology surpasses that of Tolman and Hull, as well as most of the psychologists encountered in this text. This is interesting to me because you can never underestimate the power or importance of the work you are doing. Whether big or small it can leave a legacy or change something you never imagined. This is important to remember in all aspects of life. I think this is also the most useful in understanding the history of psychology. When looking back on all these people’s work, many of them may have thought that what they were doing wasn’t going to have an impact. But without their failed attempts and their success, psychology would not be where it is today without them.
The one thing I found challenging/not interesting not read about in this chapter was the hypothetico-deductive system. There were too many words and concepts I didn’t know and understand, and I was just very confused throughout the whole paragraph.
This chapter builds on the previous chapters by describing more about behaviorism and Skinner which was mentioned in previous chapters. It gives more information and experiments that were involved with it.
My one main idea I had during reading this chapter was how we can relate the experiments done with the rats to humans. Can they be related? Can we draw conclusions about humans from these experiments? Could we somehow do these experiments to humans?

After reading this chapter, one thing I found interesting was the concept of operationism. This interested me because it led to the term operational definition, which I find to be extremely important in the field of psychology. I think that operationalizing a definition can help people understand the true concept of what it is you are talking about. Another thing I found interesting in this chapter is the section on hypnosis. Although the book didn’t really cover much material, I related it back to when I have seen hypnotists in action before (prom and work parties). This sort of thing always interests me and although it is a little far off from the rest of the chapter, I wish there would have been more about it. A third thing that interested me was the discussion on cognitive maps. Tolman wanted to prove that rats developed cognitive maps rather than learning through stimulus-response when going through a maze. He tested this theory and much of his research found that rats do in fact create cognitive maps when learning a maze. The reason I find this interesting is because we mostly see rats as just test subjects and nothing else. However, Tolman’s research shows that rats do actually “think”; just not in the way that we would consider them doing so.
The one thing I disliked from this chapter was Watson’s view about psychology. He was very narrow-minded in terms of what he thought psychologists should study. He thought we should only study what is observable, but I would completely disagree! Watson was a very intelligent man, but not in this aspect I would say.
I think that learning about operationism would be the most important thing to understanding the history of psychology. I feel that in the early days of psychology, concepts and ideas being studied were not clear-cut as to what the study was about or what specifically was being examined. It is extremely important to operationalize a definition so that everyone is on the same page and will understand more quickly.
This chapter mentions behaviorism just as the previous chapters have. This is still an important thing to read about because we can compare this idea to the other ideas mentioned throughout the book such as classical conditioning and operant conditioning. This chapter also mentions more experiments and work that was done by Skinner that was hinted at earlier, but now it was discussed more thoroughly.
A topic I stumbled across while reading this chapter was latent learning. I have heard this topic mentioned before, and I have always wanted to look further into it. The chapter did not discuss much about it, which really disappointed me. This topic interests me because I want to learn the ways that we learn without realizing it or without any immediate reinforcement. Also, what causes our brains to think like this and process information this way.
While reading this chapter I thought a lot about the cognitive maps that Tolman found to be present in rats. I think that we all have these cognitive maps, in different ways of course, but I found it interesting to apply this idea to different species and situations. Also, how much of this research can we actually relate to humans. To me, a rat is rather different than I am (or I would like to think) but how much of this research could we apply to ourselves?

Chapter 11

The first thing that I found interesting was the term logical positivism in the Post-Watsonian Behaviorism section. This allowed theories to include abstract concepts but the concepts had to be tied to observable events. I found this interesting because it didn’t make sense to me the first time reading through it. When I think of the word logical, I think about being tied to observable events, but when I think of the word abstract I don’t think it is possible to explain with observable events, that’s the beauty of it. To me, this would be like telling philosophers that all of their theories had to be tied to observable events which would be impossible. I found the term interesting because the definition left me puzzled and thinking if it was even possible. The second thing that I found interesting was Edward C. Tolman’s belief that important behavior was goal-directed and purposive, but did not think that reinforcement was necessary for learning to occur. I thought this was interesting to think about how much reinforcement can influence our behavior and how many people behave a certain way only if they are reinforced for it. I can completely agree with Tolman that reinforcement is not needed to learn, because I think it is something that has evolved recently with our culture. I think money in general, as well as any other form of reinforcement is made too important, like we can’t simply enjoy learning. Motivation can drive us to behave a certain way or not behave a certain way and it is interesting to relate this to reinforcements and how they can change motivations. The third thing that I found interesting is also about reinforcements, but involves Clark Hull. His theory looks at reinforcers as stimuli that reduce drive. The other thing that caught my attention about Hull was his view of learning as an increase in habit strength. I thought this was a neat way of looking at learning without using the word repetition. Normally, when I think of habits like chewing your finger-nails I don’t think of it as something that is learned, but it really is your brain learning that behavior. This also leads to the reaction potential displaying the probability that a response will occur at a given time.

The one thing that I found the least interesting was B.F. Skinner’s classical and operant conditioning, but at the same time I think that it is the most important thing to take away from the chapter when studying the history of psychology. I didn’t find it interesting because it was just repeated information that I have learning in every psychology class. This also shows how important he is when it comes to the history of psychology. Something else from the chapter about Skinner I would like to learn more about is his call for technology of behavior to improve child rearing, education, and society as a whole through the use of behavioral techniques. I think ‘Walden Two’ would be interesting to read about how an entire community could function from operant conditioning. This relates to the overall idea about behavior and not necessarily what causes it, but how it is caused. If our behavior is followed with a positive response or reinforcement we automatically are more likely to repeat that behavior. On the other hand, if we behave a certain way and the response is negative or a consequence, more than likely we will not repeat that behavior again.

The first topic that I found interesting was the topic of latent learning. In Tolman and Honziks study on latent learning in rats they determined that whether there were signs that learning was taking place or not outwardly, there is learning taking place that is unobservalble. In there study they gave one set of rats reward, another no reward and the final set started with no reward and the went to reward. The findings that were discussed in the reading show that it seems that the no reward group was not learning as much as the reward group. However, the third group with the no reward and then reward shows that they were learning, with a huge increase in response after the reward was presented.

Another topic that I found to be interesting was cognitive maps. In this study Tolman had a maze with one route that led them to the end. Once it was apparent that the rats knew the maze he put them in a knew maze in the shape of a sunburst. In the sunburst maze the shoot (corridor) was blocked that they were taking before, so it was thought that the rats would take the ones next to the one they thought to be corrects, but instead they took the one that was pointing in the direction of the goal location. This showed that the rats had a "cognitive map" of the maze and had not just memorized the turns, etc. that needed to be made.

The last topic that I found to be of intrest was in this chapters close-up. The close-up decribed the book "Walden Two" written by Skinner. In this book a utopian society was created with the use of operant conditioning. For me the intrest in the does really have to do with the make-up of the Utopian Society, but rather the commitment that Skinner showed and had for the study of behaviorism and operant conditioning. One of the things that Skinner feared most was that after he was gone that behavioralism would die out, so he advocated for it and wrote as much as he could to keep the study alive.

The thing that I disliked that most about the chapter was the section about Hull and his system. For me I think that it was so boring, because it was way to overthought and hard to understand. It may have been easier to grasp the concept if less of the specifics were focused on and a more basic overview approach had been used. Something I thought about was in the section of latent learning and was not dicussed by the author at all. In this study of latent learning it is shown that more leaning (less mistakes) was made in those rats that were not given a reward for every trial, but were given a reward after so many trials were completed. I found it to be mindboggleing that this was not addressed at all in the section, beacause I found it to be the most interesting aspect of the study. Why would individuals without initial reward fare better that those that were? I think that this can be realted to something realworld. If an individual grows up in an environment that is in lower SES than they want to be in and as a result have a drive to work and try to make a better life for themselves. Whereas for those that are given everything and grow up in an already established enviroment dont feel the need to excel as much. In relation to the rat study, those that were not given reward at the beginning and then were were willing to learn more and get to the reward faster because they knew of a time when there was not reward and appreciated it.

In my opinion that most important thing to take out of this chapter is the concept of operant conditioning, which can be applied and used in all aspects of our daily lives and professional careers.

The first thing that interested me was the material on neobehaviorism. This was a movement created by experimental psychologists in the late 1920s and early 1930s. It lasted from about 1930 to 1960. Neobehaviorists took for granted the evolutionary assumption of continuity among the various species. Neobehaviorists also leaned heavily toward the nurture side of the nature-nurture debate. They argued that knowing why people do what they do requires a thorough analysis of the basic principles of how things are learned. This was actually one of the guiding principles for Watson when he conducted the Little Albert experiment, which was discussed last chapter. In the study, Watson claimed that fears were the result of learning. This was very interesting, because this is the first time anything about the nature vs. nurture debate has been brought up. Also, I liked how it built off last chapter by mentioning the Little Albert experiment.
The next thing that interested me was the information provided regarding reaction potential. Clark Hull rejected the type of intervening variables used by Edward Tolman. However, Hull did admit that he borrowed the concept used by Tolman. Hull came up with an important intervening variable, which he called reaction potential. The reaction potential refers to the potential that a reaction will occur at a given time, and can be inferred from several kinds of measurable behaviors. He believed reaction potential was influenced by many factors. He thought drive and habit strength were the most important. Hull thought rats will run the maze correctly only if they’re motivated, and if they had been through the maze enough times. It’s interesting how people come up with their own ideas off of concepts they didn’t even accept. If it weren’t for Tolman’s intervening variables, I wonder if Hull would have come up with the reaction potential concept.
Another thing that interested me was the material on Burrhus Frederick Skinner and his work on operant conditioning. Skinner investigated operant conditioning by creating a highly structured environment that enabled him to follow advice from Pavlov. He did the experiment using rats. The experiment consists of a chamber with a small lever on one wall that can be pressed by the rat, a small food trough to give the rats food for positive consequences, devices for the presentation of visual or auditory stimuli, and a set of parallel bars as a floor, which electrical current can pass to give the rat a mild shock for negative consequences. This box was later known as the Skinner box. When the rats were being conditioned to bar press, a light would normally be on. When the light was dimmed, the rate of response slowed. Eventually, the rats would only press the bar when the light was on. I really enjoy learning about experiments done on an animal’s behavior. It’s crazy how different things can be done during the experiment to make the animals act a certain way.
The thing I found to be the least interesting was the material on Hull’s system. I enjoyed learning about the other material on Hull, like habit strength and reaction potential, but this material was just too broad for me. It gave a background of what motivated him to come up with his ideas. I’ve definitely read things less interesting than this, but this was the one thing that interested me the least this week. The thing that will be most useful to me in understanding the history of psychology was the material on neobehaviorism. This was a very interesting part of psychology for about 30 years as they were firm believers in the nurture side of the nature-nurture debate. Also, this movement helped Watson come up with a very interesting experiment he called the Little Albert experiment.
This chapter builds off previous chapters by building off of behaviorism. This chapter introduced a movement based off behaviorism called neobehaviorism. Also, this chapter lets us know how Watson came up with his Little Albert experiment, which was introduced in the last chapter. More people are also introduced that had an impact in the history of psychology. A topic I’d like to learn more about is the Skinner box experiment. I like learning about experiments dealing with animals and their behavior. This experiment was a little different from the rest, so that was definitely intriguing. One thing I thought about while reading this chapter is when the nature vs. nurture debate really picked up and became a topic people were really interested in. Another thing I thought about was if Hull would have ever came up with his idea of reaction potential if it weren’t for Tolman’s concepts on intervening variables.

The first area I was really interested was on Edward Tolman. It is probably good, but anti climactic that Edward did not follow his older brother. Imagine what they might have done, especially being on different sides of a coin, Richard helping create the atomic bomb and Edward hating war, the world could be a different place.

The second are I was interested in was the molar versus molecular behavior idea. I like Tolman’s idea of the brain being a “map control room.” It gives a whole separate element to learning where once we learn something we can do it again in a different way because we have a higher understanding of the situation.

The third person I was interested in was Clark Hull. Here was a man who overcame many setbacks and was able to adapt to a different career almost easily. I think that his study with associating nonsense sounds to shapes was very interesting and gave insight even more into how people learn.

The part I found least interesting was on Skinner. I still find Skinner and his work with operant conditioning and other studies interesting, it is just that I was more interested in Tolman and Hull because I have, for the most part, never studied or looked into their research.

The aspect that is most useful I think for understanding psychologies history is to look at how all of the psychologists in the book are related, like Tolman being in Yerkes class and Skinner not liking Boring’s work. I think it is interesting to see how psychology grew this way and how each psychologist either built upon or rebuilt old ideas and studies.

This chapter built on the previous ones especially looking at the furthering of growth and popularity of behaviorism. In the previous chapter you learn about Watson and the start of behaviorism and in this chapter you see the research in behaviorism grow with Tolman, Hull and Skinner.

The area I would like to learn more about is Tolman’s cognitive map. The idea seem interesting how we can have knowledge of things with only a general sense of their nature. While reading this chapter I couldn’t stop thinking about Richard Tolman who had helped create the first atomic bomb. Where would we be if all of our most brilliant minds had all been used to enhance our tactics and technologies in warfare? Might we have found the, “Tony Stark,” capable of figuring out many of the most complex problems and furthering our advancements in all aspects of technology?

While reading the chapter, one of the things I found interesting was Edward C. Tolman and his work on latent learning.

Some theorists said that reinforcement was necessary for learning to occur. Tolman instead believed that reinforcement only influenced performance, and that performance should be separated from learning. He believed an animal could know something, but not show it until it was rewarded for doing so.

He showed this by doing a test with rats in a maze. He had three groups. One group was reinforced after they completed the maze, the second was never reinforced, and the third group wasn’t reinforced initially - but after 11 days they were then reinforced. Tolman found that the third group started learning and improved (they made less errors) without the reinforcement, but then when reinforcement was added their performance did improve more. This supported Tolman’s idea that reinforcement affects performance rather than it being necessary for learning to occur at all.

A second thing from the chapter that I found interesting was how Skinner separated classic conditioning and Operant conditioning or type S and type R conditioning. Type S (or classical conditioning) is Pavlov’s model, while type R (or operant conditioning) was Skinner’s. Skinner set up operant chambers to observe and condition behaviors of pigeons or rats. He developed operant conditioning - all of its procedures and methods, including inventing the operant chamber or Skinner box.

The third thing from this chapter that I found interesting was Neobehaviorism. This was a psychological movement that lasted roughly between 1930 to 1960. This was not a unified school of psychology, but had some basic similarities. There was a dramatic change of the number of experiments with animals on learning and conditioning during this time. They shared the idea that learning was essential for understanding behavior. They talked in terms of stimulus and response. And they used animals to try and discover how learning works. They disagreed on whether it required reinforcement, or whether it could occur in one trial or required many.

The three most important Neobehaviorists, according to the book, were Edward Tolman, Clark Hull, and B.F. Skinner.

If I had to name one thing that to me wasn’t as interesting in this particular chapter it would be the parts about Hull; of all the neobehaviorists I found Hull to be the least interesting.

The concept from this chapter most useful in understanding the history of psychology was Skinner and operant conditioning. He influenced so much of what happened later in psychology and he worked in so many different fields (like education).

This chapter relates to previous chapters because it explains what happened after Watson and the further development of behaviorism. Many of the ideas in this chapter are a direct result of what Watson worked on - his ideas and his experiments.

The topic I would like to still learn more about is Skinner and operant conditioning.

Main ideas I thought about while reading the chapter included that learning is a very important idea in psychology and that it influenced much of psychology during this period.

The first topic that I found interesting was the section on Neobehaviorism. Neobehaviorism is a movement that came into America for experimental psychology. The text told how neobehaviorist took the evolutionary theory for granted among the different types of species. They believed that the “laws” of one animals or species behabior applied and was with other species as well. The “Columbia bible” rose the interest of studies on animals, and their behaviors. There would be “strict control” over the variables that were in the study, which was easier for them to study animals rather than exhibiting control over humans, because the studies they used would require them to make their variable go without food, so they could find how hunger effected learning. Neobehaviorists also believed that “learning was a central to an understanding of behavior.” They were more believing in the nurture side of the nature versus nurture side of the debate. They believed that people go through analysis. I found this section interesting because of how they took the evolutionary theory for granted, and they thought the “laws” would basically apply to all species, and in a way I think some of the learning ways could be the same, but all species have different experiences, so they will learn different things differently, I also think the animals rights group would not be too happy about how these animals were starved for a while so that the researchers could do their studies, and they wouldn’t do it on humans for that reason.
The second topic I found interesting was the section on operant conditioning. I have learned a lot and heard a lot about operant conditioning, so you would think one would be tired of hearing about it, but I still find it interesting. Skinner said, “I have a clue from Pavlov: Control your conditions and you will see order.” Operant conditioning van be used to get a behavior that is designed by someone from someone else, when I think about operant conditioning I think about the episode of the Big Bang Theory where Sheldon is trying to shape Penny to do behaviors that he feels are desirable. When she does something he likes he offers her a piece of chocolate as reinforcement. Penny’s boyfriend catches on to what Sheldon is doing, and says “Sheldon, you can’t train my girlfriend like a lab rat,” and then Sheldon says, “Actually, turns out I can.” Watching this episode made me laugh, because it is true, people do it all the time, even though they may not know they are using operant conditioning. Here is the youtube clip of that part in the episode if you would like to watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teLoNYvOf90
I also found the section about molar versus molecular behavior interesting. Molar is a broad pattern of behavior that are directed towards a certain goal. They did the experiments with the rats in the maze and how the rats need to get the pattern of the maze. Tolman called his theory the field theory. He thought that the brain development was like a “field map” of the environment.
I found this section on hypothetico deductive systems to be confusing.
The most useful in this chapter I think was operant conditioning. I think this because it has been used in many animal trainings, also people use it in human behaviors, like trying to change them.
This chapter continued on with the discussion of behaviorism. It went on to talk about skinner and behaviorism.
I would like to learn more about Hull and the things he did with his life this chapter talked a lot about skinner.
I really liked hearing about operant condition again, I think it is very important, because it is used daily, even when people don’t realize it.

One thing I liked from this chapter was the idea of operationism. We talk about operational definitions in research methods and I have become very familiar with how to define certain things in regards to measurement. I like that with this idea psychologists could do more precise work with measuring concepts like hunger, anxiety, aggression and memory.

I liked learning about Tolman’s phenomenon with latent learning. It talked about research done with three groups of rats and how they learned with different levels of reinforcement once completing the maze. One group didn’t get food as reinforcement, another got food every time they completed the maze, and the last group was reinforced after a certain amount of time. He found the maze was learned during the first 10 days of the experiment and performance improved quickly after day 11. The reinforcement was not needed for the maze to be learned/completed.

I liked reading about Skinner because for the longest time I didn’t know what the B.F stood for (Burrhus Frederick) and now that I know, I understand why he shortened it. It was interesting to read about how he wanted to be a writer and even got praise from Robert Frost. Skinner told his parents he wanted to take a year off to write once he graduated, but his parents were concerned. I think seeing a famous psychologist make a decision that most students in his position (like us now) wouldn’t necessarily make, gave me a new perspective on him as a person. Although he refers to that time as his ‘dark year’, it remotely led him to graduate school at Harvard.

The part I found the least interesting was with Hull. I was confused with all the formulas and variables. It kind of reminded me of math without numbers which can be even more confusing. I took one look reaction potential SER = D x SHR and skipped over that section.

I thought this chapter related to other chapters with how Edward Tolman got involved in psychology. Tolman went to Harvard after MIT and took an introductory course who happened to be taught by Robert Yerkes, a psychologist we just talked about in chapter 8. It’s interesting to see how these psychologists have crossed paths because sometimes one may branch off an idea from another without ever have met in person. From chapter 11, it said Yerkes sold Tolman on psychology and that’s what his interest in the field.

I would like to learn more about is the famous Skinner box because again I’m skeptical about it for children. I thought about this from one of our other chapters, but the whole concept of the box freaks me out and I would love to see how many people actually think it’s a genius idea and if it’s used today.

An idea I had during this chapter was about Skinner and if his parents hadn’t let him take the time off to write. Would he have still been led to the psychology field and gone to Harvard as a graduate student? I wonder if his parents are still worried about what other people might think of him with his work on behaviorism.

This chapter was all about the development of behaviorism. Logical positivism, related to observable events, and operationism which gave the researcher control over the definitions of some concepts, paved the way for the surge of behaviorist thinking. Tolman's research, which relied heavily on maze learning, led him to believe that all meaningful behavior resulted from the pursuing of some goal or purpose. He also denied the necessity of reinforcement in learning. Clark Hull believed that learning involved the combination of stimulus-response proximity and reinforcement. Reinforcers, as defined by Hull, can be primary reinforcers such as food and water or secondary reinforcers that are learned through connection with primary reinforcers. B.F. Skinner didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye with Tolman and Hull. He wanted behaviorism to be about providing evidence that behaviors could be controlled. He emphasized the distinction between operant and classical conditioning and he wanted to use behaviorism to change the world! These guys were pretty interesting, but I don’t really like behaviorism. It takes the people out of people. This concept is however very influential on the world today and especially on the field of psychology. It is responsible for how we conduct research and how we write research articles. This chapter emphasized many of the concepts we read about in the last chapter and really helps to establish behaviorism more completely. Learning more about why this concept was so widely respected would be mildly interesting. I thought about how these immediate observable results might be easy recreate, control, and research but how simply stopping at that doesn’t get to the real roots of problems or behaviors. I also thought about how behaviorism affects me on a daily basis.

Cognitive maps blow my mind! The idea that we form images that are like “road maps” in our minds it incredibly interesting. It also makes sense that we would form plans and images of past attempts, successes, and failures. I also find it crazy to think of how or why Tolman would make a connection between this idea and his maze/rat experiment.

In general I prefer to use operation definitions because I believe that they make it easier for research to be more specific. Operational definitions set the stage for future researches to be able to comprehend exactly what was looked at or recorded in a previous experiment. This is why I found operationism to be interesting. Operationional ideals are fabulous because they describe scientific procedures and they give perspective to aspects of research.

I also like the analogy of brain development being like a field map. I found it interesting that Tolman took a new perspective on learning. Learning was argued to include the strengthening of stimulus information and its connection to the actual physical, motor responses that occur. I also found it interesting that this was developed as a way to differentiate between field theory and stimulus-response model. I liked learning about the molecular approach vs. the more operate differential look at the environment as a “field map”.

I was not interested in anything to do with technology or the mention of technology. It is far from a forte or interests of my to dabble with technology. For this reason I was not as interested in Laurence Smith. I also didn’t like the idea tha Smith want more than to just learn about or understand nature, he wanted to control it! I was far from intrigued about the details as it didn’t sound interesting to start with.

I am now able to understand the word “operant” thanks to this chapter. I had no idea that it formed from the word “operate”. It makes total sense to look at the definition of operant conditioning by saying that it is something that operates on the environment. Operate conditioning happens to the environment and that effects the behavior of the specific person/thing/individual in the environment. I think that my new ability to better understand this will be most useful in my understanding of the history of psychology and of upcoming things in the field.

The chapter builds on the previous chapter as it looks at conditioning and essentially learning/training of animals/individuals. For example, operant conditioning is another form of conditioning that is different from classic conditioning; however, it is the same idea. Both ideas deal with teaching and learning. I believe that this chapter expanded on teaching and learning as it moved into addressing operant conditioning.

I would really like to expand on the cognitive maps idea. I would like to learn more specifically about the cognitive maps that humans have. To we have a large capacity to build and follow our mental maps. How often do we access our recall. How many years do our cognitive maps last and how effective are they? I would like to learn more about Tolman and his work with cognitive makes. I find it interesting that the rats were able to store and remember so much about the maze. I want to know if humans have a similar strength in terms of forming and following cognitive maps.

As I stated above, I want to learn about cognitive maps. Naturally, I wondered about cognitive maps as I read. I also had many related ideas. This summer in Taiwan I did research on rats and I studied their reasoning skills as well as their decision to make a “risky choice” I wonder if their ability to form and store cognitive makes would have anything to do with the connections they make with reasoning and risky behavior or non-risky behavior.

The first part of this chapter that I found interesting was the section over Neobehaviorism. Neobehaviorism was a movement in psychology in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s. It became a key component in experimental psychology. Neobehaviorism had a huge influence on psychology from appromimately 1930 to 1960. The theories of Neobehaviorism were different across all fields of psychology, but there was somewhat of a consensus. May neobehaviorists believed that law of behavior in one species should be able to be generalized to other species, at least to some extent. They were mainly interested in using animal subjects, due to a famous book called the “Columbia Bible” written by Woodworth. There was an extremely high increase in the use of animal subjects from 1930-1960 due to the influence neobehaviorsim. Edward Tolman, neobehaviorist and former APA president, believed that many behaviors could be studied through rats. A second consensus among neobehaviorsits was that they mostly leaned towards “nurture” rather than “nature”. They believed that people do what they do because of socialization. Many human behaviors were learned. This idea was the idea that led Watson to his theory in the Little Albert experiement.

I thought that Tolman’s ideas about latent learning were also very intriguing. Tolman believed that reinforcement wasn’t necessarily necessary for learning to occur. In studies involving rats, Tolman argued that the food wasn’t exactly the reason that rats were able to learn the maze. Instead, Tolman argued that it effect the rats MOTIVATION, not necessarily it’s learning. Therefore, he believe that learning came from the performance, but reinforcement did not. He believed the rat would learn the maze with or without the food at the end. He called this “latent learning” because the animal was learning, but it wasn’t always exactly noticeable by researchers. This theory becomes extremely interesting when looking at the experiment that he conducted. Three groups of rats (NR-no reward), (R-reward), and (NR-R- No reward, reward), were tested. NR group received no food at the end of the maze at all during the experiment. R always received food at the end of the maze. The NR-R group received food at the end of the maze starting on day 11. The study showed that the performance immediately jumped up on day 11, showing that learning had occurred in days 1-10. Therefore, latent learning HAD occurred.

The third part that I found to be very cool was the section on B.F. Skinner and Operant Conditioning. B.F Skinner devoted his life to behaviorism, and spent a great deal of that time with Operant conditioning. With knowledge gained from Pavlov’s experiments, B.F. Skinner took a new route and became a very influential psychologist. Using the “Skinner Box”, a very well-known invention even today, Skinner showed that animals (rats, pigeons) were able to learn to press buttons in order to receive rewards. The animal was not always reinforced, but a cumulative recorder kept track of the actions/reinforcements. Skinner was also able to demonstrate the idea of “extinction” with his skinner box. The idea that once reinforcement stops, the behavior will eventually stop as well.

I did not find the section about Clark Hull to be very interesting. I thought it was a bit dull due to all the mathematics discussed. (Not one of my favorite topics). Part of it was kind of interesting thought, like the section on Habit strength, which discussed the conditions necessary for learning to occur. I think knowledge of these conditions are pretty important event today.

I had a lot of different thoughts while reading this chapter. I thought a lot about Tolman’s ideas and hope to learn more about his experiments with latent learning. I liked how he was also interested in motivation. Could this say anything about our education system? Are there children that are learning that are just not performing well because they are not motivated? I would think that the answer to this question is yes. I think definitely a possibility that “latent learning” is occurring in our schools today. A personal example, which I’m not sure if it is really latent learning, but I’ll try to apply it: I was not a great student in high school. In college, I turned things around completely. I was never great at standardized tests, yet looking back, I don’t think I really tried. In college, I feel like I’m more motivated and maybe I am actually using the skills that I learned in high school NOW, even though I didn’t use those skills back then. Did latent learning occur in that personal example? Maybe….

I found Tolman’s studies about latent learning. I find the study of motivation to be interesting and it was really clear that the mice who were rewarded made fewer mistakes than the mice not rewarded. The non-rewarded mice did improve once they were rewarded.
I also found Hull’s Postulate 4, about habit strength interesting. This is important in a lot of things we do daily. It kind of reminds me of how if I am a passenger I might watch where we are going and pick up some of the directions. In order for me to really learn the directions I have to be the one driving or at least giving the directions.
Most of Skinner’s work fascinates me. I don’t necessarily agree with all of it, for instance the “Utopia” but his work on operant conditioning is really interesting. It really builds beyond the work of Pavlov and the drooling dogs.
I really didn’t get a lot from the Chinese characters that Hull used. I’m not sure exactly what it was but I had a very difficult time focusing on that section.
As I read I did wonder what the children of Skinner thought of his ideas on raising children.
I think seeing how the behaviorists built from the ideas that came before them. They took different things from Watson and expanded and built new ideas.
This chapter really built on the last chapter simply the name “The Evolution of Behaviorism” speaks as to how it expands on the progress of Watson and other behaviorists.
I would like to learn more about the Utopia and book Waldon Two, because I am not familiar with the book and I also am curious about how he was as a parent.