Please read chapter 10. After reading the chapter, please respond to the following questions:
What were three (3) things from the chapter that you found interesting? Why were they interesting to you? What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? Why?
What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
What topic would you like to learn more about? Why ?
What ideas did you have while reading the chapter?
Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
The first thing that I found interesting was Pavlov and his ideas on conditioning and extinction. I think behavioral psychology is one of the most interesting branches of psychology. The unconditioned reflex is any reaction that does not have to be learned and in Pavlov’s study it was the food causing the dog to salivate. The unconditioned stimulus is any stimulus that will produce a specific reflex response, which is kind of the same as the unconditioned reflex. The conditioned reflex is the result when you pair the conditioned stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus. The conditioned stimulus is any stimulus that will be paired with an unconditioned stimulus to produce a conditioned response.
The second thing that I found interesting was Watson and how he was in the advertising business. His idea that we can be influenced by advertising is just so smart. His three basic emotions theory about fear, rage, and love to me was really smart because those are very strong emotions and people are more likely to react to something that has a strong emotional pull. I just thought that was interesting because we see it every day when we are driving to work, listening to the radio, or watching television.
The third thing that I found interesting was Watson and his Little Albert study. I have always thought that this study was interesting because it really stretches the moral limits to psychology. He basically took a very young child who wasn’t scared of anything really and made that child fear rats, anything white, and anything fuzzy like a rabbit. It is really unknown whether or not he reversed the effects done to the child.
One thing that I didn’t really like was Pavlov was his experiments done to dogs. I have never really like how he went about studying the responses to salivation in dogs. He is famous for this study and I didn’t like how he went about it I guess. He did surgery on these dogs that wasn’t very nice I guess. I mean they lived through it and everything, but I am not too supportive of what he did even though what he discovered was interesting.
When reading this chapter and once I got to the advertising part it really made me think about what I see every day and how it affects me. For example, when I watch television there are car commercials all the time that basically scare you into wanting to buy their car because you aren’t going to be safe unless you are behind the wheel of their automobile. One thing that I would like to no more about was the Little Albert Study because it did stretch the moral limits of psychology and I want to learn more of what came from that.
This chapter builds off the last chapters because it is going into behaviorism and the last chapter focused on Gestalt psychology. It is just going more into detail into the different branches of psychology. I think that it builds off the last chapter by going to a different branch of psychology. It is also going into more detail into applied psychology and what other branches of psychology can do with it.
I think the most important thing to take from this chapter is the moral codes that were really starting to be stretched in research. I think that it is important to understand what the psychologists did back then that was risky. The little Albert study was risky in my opinion and has been considered controversial now a days. Also animal studies are starting to get more and more harmful to the animals that are used and I think that is also something important to note.
Terms: Behaviorism, gestalt, psychology, applied psychology, behavioral psychology, conditioning, extinction, Pavlov, unconditioned reflex, unconditioned stimulus, conditioned stimulus, conditioned reflex, conditioned response, Watson, fear, rage, love, Little Albert, experiments,
The first thing I found most interesting was the section about Watson. He attended the University of Chicago. It was there that he became interest in the field of comparative psychology and studying animals. He wrote his dissertation about the relation between behavior in the white rat and the growth of the nervous system. In 1903 he received his doctorate and later became an associate professor of psychology at Johns Hopkins University. Watson was also interested in advertising business. He wanted to use his scientific theories of behaviorism and the emotions of fear, rage, and love to improve the effects of advertising on the "animal" or what we know as consumers.
The second thing I found interesting about Watson was that during his time at John Hopkins University he began his research and experiments on animal behavior. In later years he studied human behavior and emotion. He saw psychology as the study of people's actions with the ability to predict and control those actions. This new idea became known as the behaviorists theory. His famous study for this was called the Little Albert Experiment in which he theorized that children have three basic emotional reactions: fear, rage, and love. He wanted to prove that these three reactions could be artificially conditioned in children. Watson used a little boy named Albert to test his theory. He repeatedly presented Albert a rat in conjunction with a sudden, loud noise to classically condition fear of the rat.
The last thing I found rather interesting was Pavlov on his ideas of conditioning. Pavlov concluded that he was able to pair a neutral stimulus with an excitatory one and have the neutral stimulus eventually elicit the response that was associated with the original, unlearned reflex. In Classical Conditioning terminology, an unconditioned response (US) is an event that causes a response to occur, which is referred to as the unconditioned response (UR). Pavlov conducted a study using dogs and food as a stimulus. The food within the dog's mouth was the US, and the salivation is the UR. Pavlov took a step further and added an element known as the nonexcitatory, conditioned stimulus (CS), which is paired with the US. Pavlov's experimental research gained much respect throughout Russia as well as America and the rest of the nations.
I will have to agree with the post above mine when it comes to what I found least interesting. I dislike the way Pavlov went about his experiments with the dogs simply because it seems harsh in my opinion. This made me think about what we discussed today in class about humans not caring so much when it comes to animals. Although, this experiment and research is one of Pavlov’s most famous and well known publishes, I have just never really appreciated the way the animals were operated on.
This chapter builds off the last chapter by going more into conditioning and behaviorism. The last chapter focused on Gestalt psychology which also discussed behaviorism. I feel that this chapter just goes into more depth of psychologist that helped build the behaviorist theory.
I would like to learn more about John B. Watson and his research with Little Albert. I have been taught about this research but not into the depth of me researching it on my own. In high school and even through my first couple years in college all I heard was Watson, Pavlov, Fraud, and etc. These individuals are so important that their contributions are taught over and over again. So I feel it important to learn a little more of Watsons background and his most famous research.
Terminology: John B. Watson, Pavlov, Fraud, Little Albert, Gestalt psychology, behaviorist theory, behaviorism, conditioned stimulus, nonexcitatory, neutral stimulus, excitatory, elicit, Classical Conditioning, unconditioned response, unconditioned response
Chapter 10:
First, I'd like to say that overall, I really really liked this chapter. I find behaviorism to be incredibly interesting in general and would love to see where we can take it in the future.
The first thing that I came across that I found interesting was the section on Working in Pavlov's Laboratory. I knew of the experiment with Pavlov and his classical conditioning dogs, before reading about this, seeing as it's a very well known experiment. However, this section provided me with a ton of information about Pavlov's laboratory that I didn't know about. Most everything that Babkin had to say about Pavlov's study strategies were completely interesting to me, probably because these things are not things that we commonly hear about while reading or learning about the studies. We read about what we need to known such as the procedure, outcome, and statistics, but that's it. We also commonly read about the experiment from the experimenters point of view, not generally from the point of view of someone working in the lab for the experimenter. The most interesting thing I got from this section was how Pavlov's lab evolved over time. His lab began as Bakin stated " small and dirty" or a "mere hovel". Knowing this, Pavlov still kept up an amazingly antiseptic environment for his animals. His laboratory would eventually turn into a Tower of Silence provided in the Institution. This tower would provide a completely silent area that would maintain silence for this animals when it comes to experimentation time.
Another thing that I found very interesting in the chapter is the section on Watson's Behaviorist Manifesto. I real thought this was initially interesting due to the opening paragraph that the book provided in the text. The paragraph really summed up how behaviorist psychology is laid out and how we should think of it. I strongly believe that behaviorism is a strong component in the development of psychology and really was interested to read about this chapter and how behaviorism was started. I also found this section completely interesting because I had no idea what impact the Behaviorist Manifesto had on psychology. It brought psychology into the natural sciences, set up a clear set of goals, rejected introspection- based research, and accepted an evolutionary model of behavior. I had no idea that something like this could have that much impact on the discipline. I also enjoyed that Watson chose to have the meaning of psychology changed from the science of consciousness to the science of behavior, something that I also enjoy much more.
A third thing that I found very interesting was the section dedicated to the Watson/Carr Maze Studies. I had known prior to this chapter about Watson's seeming- obsession was maze studies, however I hadn't heard about the details that formed this one. I thought it was very interesting how the psychologists went about taking specific senses away from rats to more fully understand how how figure out mazes. It was even more amazing that the rats could get through the maze regardless of their senses. It amazed me how important our kinesthetic muscle coordination is. The section went on to be more interesting as I read about how Watson and Carr designed the maze to further puzzle the rats after they had already learned how to get through it. I believe that this experiment was really revolutionary in how we can alter and study the behaviors of animals to more clearly understand our own behaviors.
Something that I found very interesting was the section on Conditioning and Extinction. I took Behavior Modification last year and I really loved the class and found it incredibly interesting, however, I not only took this class because I had to, but to learn new material. This section, however, was about things that I was already aware of because I learned them in a previous class. the entire course basically revolved around these ideas, and although it was interesting to more fully understand where they came from, I didn't find any of it interesting to reread or relearn.
I really think this entire chapter is very important to think about. Behaviorism is something that really helped to put psychology on the map of science (if their is a map of science, haha) The fact that we can now more fully use imperial evidence to support our studies was revolutionary to our discipline and something that we need to know about. Also I think that the studies written about in this chapter were some very popular and relevant studies that we as psychology majors need to know about. Classical conditioning and systematic desensitization are two things that we see on a daily basis if we look for it.
This chapter builds on the previous one due to it's overall talk of important developments in the field of psychology. Gestalt psychology was something that led to the types of psychology and experiments that we find now. However, the chapter also went in a different direction by talking about a more relevant type of psychology and something more commonly understood and accepted.
Something that I would like to learn more about from this chapter is John B. Watson. I always like to know where the psychologists come from; their background. What types of families influence such revolutionaries such as these. Watson has contributed so much to the type of psychology I am most fond of and I would really like to learn more about his life and how he came to conclusions that he did by learning more about who he studied under.
I had a lot of ideas while reading this chapter and writing this blog, most of which revolved around the Watson/Carr Maze Studies. I was first thinking about how difficult I would find it to attempt to get through a maze without my hearing, sight, or touch receptors… I don't know if I would be able to do it, although I found it incredibly interesting that rats could. I also wondered about the value of animals and how much slack Watson received for using these rats in this way. At first, my reaction was that he was cruel to alter their bodies in that way. Also, though I respectfully understand why he did what he did. It was an experiment that was important to science and I'm sure that none of these rats were brutally treated. It's not these lab rats that I think we need to worry about. It's the people harboring other animals at their homes and beating and starving them by their own free will.
Terms: Pavlov, Babkin, Watson, Behaviorist Manifesto, behaviorism, classical conditioning, Watson/Carr Maze Studies, Gestalt psychology, systematic desensitization, imperial evidence.
I really enjoyed chapter 10; behavioral psychology has always been fascinating to me. I like reading and learning about the different experiments that have been done in this particular branch of psychology. For that reason, the first thing that was interesting to me was Pavlov’s work with conditioning, along with extinction. In 1910, a special laboratory was built specifically for Pavlov’s conditioning research. That in itself was very impressive to me. At this laboratory, which later became known as the Tower of Silence, Pavlov executed his famous dog/salivating research that we have learned about since our introductory class in psychology. I enjoyed learning about this more in depth. Through this research, Pavlov coined several terms: unconditioned reflex, unconditioned stimulus, conditional stimulus, and conditioned reflex. In his reach example, the reflex of salivating when seeing food was the unconditioned reflex. Food was the unconditioned stimulus. The conditional stimulus and reflex come after he presented a neutral stimulus. After conditioning the dogs, he was able to show that the conditioned reflex could become extinct. What I like most about this section is how it can be applied to real world. Many non-psychology students who read this may not find it very specific and non-applicable (who cares about dogs and saliva?) However, classical conditioning can be used in just about every realm of the professional and development world.
The second thing I found interesting in this chapter was the piece on The Watson and Carr Maze Studies. Before this class, I had heard and learned of Watson several times but Harvey Carr was a new name. It is nice to see that these pioneers we have been learning about had help in their research; makes it easier for me to relate to them. The goal of this maze was to determine which senses were needed for a rat to learn a maze. I like this section because I am also in biopsychology right now and we learn a lot about rats and mazes such as the Morris water maze; connecting the two classes helps me have a more holistic approach to psychology along with a better understanding of the material. Through these maze studies, Watson and Carr demonstrated that the rats were learning to “associate sequences of muscle movements with the various turns in the maze.” For example, they knew that after 7 steps they must turn left and so on. Relating that to humans and the way I navigate, I of course do not think in those terms but I am sure that subconsciously the same thoughts are occurring in my brain.
Lastly, (naturally) Little Albert fascinated me a great deal. The research of Little Albert stemmed from the initial interest of researchers of 3 main emotional responses: fear, rage, and love. Watson was able to have “Little Alfred” from infancy (9 months) and condition these responses in the small child. Initially, Alfred was not afraid of things such as rats, rabbits, dogs, monkeys like other children were. Through classical conditioning, this was reversed and Little Alfred became afraid of anything white or fluffy. Going back to Pavlov’s work, loud noises used to scare the child are the unconditioned stimulus. The rat is the conditioned stimulus. The fear produced from the rat is the conditioned response whereas fear produced from the noise is the unconditioned response. Perhaps, I liked this section the most because experiments of such as these cannot be done in today’s scholastic world because of ethics. Nonetheless, great information was gained from this research study.
The sections that I found least interesting in this chapter were the sections on the last few pages where the author evaluated what we had learned about behaviorism thus far in the chapter. It wasn’t necessarily boring to read, it just wasn’t as fun as the studies I discussed earlier. I did like however how the author says that Watsonian behaviorism was a failure. I had to reread this sentence to make sense of it but I thought it was nice to add in there. Watson originally wanted to be able to predict all responses, given the stimulus. Clearly, this was never done, which is why the author said that in some aspects it was a failure, for he did not do what he originally set out to do. It was a nice reminder that as long as you passionately work towards your goals, you may not keep to the path because greater opportunities will arise that you could not have originally foreseen—while reading this section, I thought more about my personal aspirations and it was relieving to see that a “failure” is a triumph when looked at through a different lens.
As for building off of previous chapters, I liked how at the beginning of the chapter the author links behaviorism to the empiricists’ beliefs that we learned about in Chapters 2 and 3. This gave me background information and made it easier to conceptualize why the pioneers in behavioral psychology (one we learned about in this chapter) were interested in the things they studied (emotional responses and stimuli).
Now that I have completed chapter 10, I would like to learn more about Little Alfred, specifically what happened to him after “working” with Watson. Also, I would like to look up current research being done in the realm of behavioral psychology.
Terms used: behavioral psychology, empiricist, Pavlov, Watson, Little Alfred, conditioned response, conditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, unconditioned stimulus, fear, rage, love, reflex, Harvey Carr, maze studies, Tower of Silence
I have always been fascinated by Pavlov and his research, but I never knew the whole background to his life. I found it very interesting that Pavlov grew up to such a poor family, and was one of eleven children. His family was very religious his father a priest, and mother daughter of a priest, but they all worked as peasant farmers to meet the needs of the family. At first Pavlov thought he wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps but he was inspired by Darwin’s Origin of Species and Reflexes of the Brain so he pursued a degree in medicine and Physiology instead. Pavlov is most famous for his studies on digestion and salivation. I thought that his surgical procedures took to isolate parts of the digestive system were very interesting, especially the Pavlov pouch. When I read through this section I wondered why he chose to do his research on dogs, and also I thought to myself that this whole experiment seemed to be common knowledge and it made me wonder how many other psychologists got famous off of an experiment that seems so simple.
Another thing I found interesting was the misportration of Pavlov’s apparatus. I have seen the picture described in this text many times, and like it says, I too always identified it as Pavlov’s. After reading this section I learned that this was not so, rather this set up can be attributed to Nicolai who worked in Pavlov’s laboratory. Nicolai wanted to improve on how saliva was recorded rather than measuring the drops of saliva that fell into the cylinder. Turns out Yerkes and Morgulis introduced Pavlov’s research to America in 1909 via these sketches and ever since people have thought that they were his. John Watson recognized the difference between the two and tried making the distinction in 1914, but it still hasn’t been widely accepted and people often continue to make the mistakes even today. This section was very interesting and it made me wonder what other types of mistakes have been made throughout the history of psychology. It also makes me wonder how much help Pavlov received from former psychologists on this matter. Last looking at the picture 10.4 b I wondered how this device worked to trap the saliva it looks like it was surgically placed on the dogs cheek… if so I did they have anesthesia back then so they could put the dogs under?
One last concept I found interesting was Watson’s research on little Albert. We’ve all learned about this before but there were many small details that were new to me. First I never knew that at the time of Watson’s career University administrators were becoming reluctant to supplying budgets for research that didn’t seem to serve a purpose, this obviously had to have had a big impact on why Watson began this research also it explains why he moved from animal research to infants. Next I always thought that this experiment was legit I wasn’t aware of all of the questions it produced including: weak reactions, additional pairings of stimuli creating confusing interpretations, unidentifiable fears, and last you can’t draw conclusions about fear because he only tested this on one subject. From all of these it has been concluded that this experiment cannot be applied on conditioning principles, it is however important to see how it began a new behavioral movement in America. When reading this I wondered why Watson decided to test the three emotions of fear, love, and rage. This is the subject I would like to learn more about for this week’s topical blog. I want to learn more about the hypothesis’s he had, and if they matched up with what he concluded form the research because once again this all seems like common sense paired with research.
All in all I thought that this section was very interesting and there weren’t many things I wasn’t interested in. I love reading about all of these experiments because I already know a little bit about them so it’s always fun to brush up on my knowledge and add new information to what I already do know. I guess if I had to choose one thing that wasn’t that fun to read about I would say it would be the last few sections where the book evaluates everything we have learned about behaviorism so far. It seemed a little redundant and I like evaluating for myself not reading over the authors own evaluations.
Chapter ten related to previous chapters we have read in many ways. In this chapter the main focus is on behaviorism and how it developed. In chapters 2 and 3 we learned about different philosophical movements and how they shaped the psychology. This again is touched on in this chapter with positivism. Also we see more connections with animal research, Thorndike/trial and error, Kohler on intelligence, evolution, imageless thought, stimulus-response, association, and Cattell is mentioned again from his claim that psychology should not be limited to the study of conscious experiences and introspection should not dominate the methods used by psychologists.
Terms: Pavlov, Nicolai, Yerkes and Morgulis, Pavlov's pouch, Watson, little Albert, classical conditioning
Chapter ten was a nice adjustment away from the Gestalt psychology. I enjoyed reading it because behaviorism is something that I can relate to, I spend time in my classes learning little bits about it and the chapter connected a few ideas for me. The three things that I found interesting in this chapter would be the idea of control of human nature with Ivan Pavlov, Watson’s overall life, and the Albert Study. The chapter started out heavy on Ivan Pavlov, and it made me realize how much I did not know. I always thought of him with the dog and bell experiment, but there is much more to his career in psychology. I thought it was interesting to learn about the isolation of sections of the body parts to extract digestive fluids. It made me think of how this must have gone over in the time of the study. They were not as medically advanced, so I would assume it was a struggle. I also thought it was cool that he took a portion of the stomach and created a mini-stomach to measure the fluids correctly. The making of the tower of science laboratory was a very elaborate addition to his study as well. The chapter states his students found him to not be the most clean, or organized with his research. This laboratory sounds advanced and pricey to say the least! This is another case where he had delayed recognition of work, and he did not gain full credit. That has been a reoccurring happening in the history of psychology. It made me think far back to the chapter about the great man theory. We wouldn’t discover things without our “great men,” however, many times people have discovered but not claimed for a period of time. Perhaps we would discover more the sooner people would publish. We would be a few years ahead if time was not delayed. Watson is overall an interesting historic figure. It at first sounds like he took many things and publically critiqued them and was seen in a negative light. I found his quote, “When psychology must discard all references to consciousness,” and interesting idea. It made me probe and want to learn more about this perspective. There was also a section connecting to this about sub vocal speech. He referred it to how infant’s subconscious is projected with their speaking and as adults we have inner conversations with subconscious. Over the past few days I have been consciously thinking about the idea of conversations that happen within me that are not projected. When I did this, i came to find a majority of my time was spent talking to my subconscious. His ideas of behaviorism were placed around two conditioned reflexes, salivating reflex and motor reflex. The study of emotional development I found it interesting that he believed he could improve the way of life by understanding conditioning. This made me think about conditioning and how you could condition yourself for small things to improve life. It is doable, and it makes me want to self-experiment. Moving on to the Albert study, this would not be accepted today. The fact that they took a child that showed less emotion to focus on is inhumane, what if this child has autism. He could be slower to react to things, shows less emotion, yet shows discomfort with sound. This study is flawed in many ways. But I did find it interesting that we criticized animal research and then moved on to infants. The baby did not like Watson and responded differently to him, this itself could have affected the study. The stimulus of a loud sound almost could be classified as abuse for this child. Also, it made me want to learn about the acts that preface the laws for research. Our animal law came about ten years prior to our human laws. The place I find conditioning the most useful is for systematic desensitization, and I would like to learn more about how they use this in therapy. This would be an area I would find useful to understand in psychology. I would like to take this information and use it for real-life conditions. The part about this chapter that was less interesting would be behaviorisms antecedents; it was a poor way to start the chapter. It was boring and I skimmed to so I could come to the actual studies. I found the bashing on Watson irrelevant also, but it was nice to hear how industrial psychology was introduced.
Key Terms: Ivan Pavlov, Tower of Science Laboratory, Control of human nature, Watson, subvocal speech, behaviorism, salivary reflex, motor reflex, Albert study, systematic desensitization, conditioning, stimulus.
I really enjoyed reading this chapter, it held my interest alot better than the previous chapter! There were so many interesting thing and topics throughout the chapter that I enjoyed reading it and learning more about Behaviorism, Watson, and Pavlov, and all their accomplishments and contributions to the field of psychology.
The first thing that I found interesting was Pavlov and his dog studies, and also how he trained his research assistants. I faintly remember learning about the dog studies and classical conditioning in my high school psych class, and also in my intro to psych class here at UNI. The thing I found most interesting about how he trained his research assistants was that he assign the person a problem that already had a solution, so there wouldn't be all the pressure and they would be able to find a solution stress free because they know it has already been solved. I thought this was a smart idea becuase it is training the assistants how he wants, but it is also challenging them to find a solution to a problem, minus the stress. This was the idea of replication. The reason I found the dog studies so interesing was that he found a way to manipulate an organism to get it to do the task he wanted, without hurting it persay, but by rewarding it. It was a great finding in the field of psychology. The second thing I found interesting was the rat maze studies by Watson. It was interesting to be because they had three different groups of rats and each group had something different manipulated on them. Eventually the rats figured out how to navigate the maze. I thought this study was interesting, and a great contribution to psychology. The thrid and final thing I found interesting in this chapter was the Little Albert study. I also remember learning about this in my high school psychology class and my intro to psych class here at UNI. In high school we didn't go over it as in depth as the book did, it was just simply metioned as something we should know. I found this interesting because of they different stimuli they used to try and get a reaction out of him. I also found it interesing that they could manipulate him into being scared of certain objects just by making a frightening noise whenever various objects were near him or he touched a certain thing. It was a great breakthrough in the field of psychology as well.
I think that the behaviorism studies will be most useful in understanding the history of psychology becuase that is essential what psychology is about. Psychology is the study of the brain and how we act, and that is basically what behaviorism is. How to manipulate someone and get them to act a certain way. I would like to learn more about Watson's maze studies and the Little Albert study in more detail, because I found them particularly interesting and I think they were a great contribution to psychology. Some ideas I had while reading this chapter were the fact that I had previously learned about most of the topics, but I never learn about them in detail like the book went into. Just because I learned about them mostly in high school and intro, and they weren't designed to go into much detal, just to inform us that it happened and was a great contribution to the field of psychology. I did really like this chapter though and found the contents of it very interesting and informative to read.
Terms: Behaviorism, Watson, Pavlov, Dog Studies, Little Albert, Maze Studies, Classical Conditioning, Psychology,
The thing I found most interesting in this chapter was Watson and his Behavior Manifesto. Watson gave a lecture at Columbia University in 1913 which later became published and titled “Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It.” This now is known as Watson’s Behavior Manifesto. The opening paragraph of the Behavior Manifesto seemed complex. “Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior. Introspection forms no essential part of its methods, nor is the scientific value of its data dependent upon the readiness with which they lend themselves to interpretation in terms on consciousness. The behaviorist, in his efforts to get a unitary scheme of animal response, recognizes no dividing line between man and brute…” I felt it was appropriate to add this opening paragraph in my post because of how many times I read though it in order to grasp the true meaning. Even after reading so many times and now typing it, I’m not sure I fully understand. With what I did understand, I found interesting. In this paragraph, Watson is clearly disregarding what psychology is most known for studying, introspection and the consciousness. He completely believed that psychology was should be studying behavior and that there is no difference between animal and man.
The second thing I found interesting were the Watson and Carr Maze studies. While in Chicago, Watson’s most important research were the rat in mazes studies he conducted with graduate student, Henry Carr. The point of these studies was to see which senses were most important to the rats in finding its way through a maze. It was found the only important factor for the rats were the “kinesthetic impressions coupled with certain other intra-organic impression.” This means that the rats were relying on their muscle movements to move through the maze. The rats remember to take ten steps and turn right and them another five steps. After this was concluded, Watson and Carr continued their research by lengthening and shortening the maze. This research was interesting because I would have thought that smell would be the primary factor in getting through the maze.
The last thing I found interesting was Pavlov’s research on classical conditioning. I found Pavlov interesting because it is a review from what I have learned in my behavior modifications class. An unconditioned response is one that occurs naturally like a puff of air in the eye causes a bunny to blink. The unconditioned stimulus of that situation would have been the puff of air. Pavlov also came up with a conditioned stimulus and a conditioned response. A conditioned response is a dog salivating at the sound of a bell and the conditioned stimulus is the bell. The conditioned response could also undergo extinction. Extinction is when the previously conditioned response is no longer reinforced. This is only a small amount of what Pavlov has research. I found this interesting because it amazing me how you can manipulate behaviors around you along with your own.
There was nothing in this chapter that I found uninteresting. I find behavior modification fascinating and I would love to keep learning more about it. I would like to do more research on Pavlov and classical conditioning. I want to do more research on it because I want to be sure that I know everything there is to know about his research and findings. This chapter gives insight on how psychology has taking many turns in opposite directions. This chapter demonstrates how psychology is very diverse and there are many opinions on what is most important. While reading this like many other chapters, I couldn’t help but disapprove of the surgery done on animals. But I do understand why it would seem necessary at the time.
Terms: Watson, behavior manifesto, Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It, Carr, maze studies, kinesthetic impressions, Pavlov, classical conditioning, conditioned response, unconditioned response, conditioned stimulus, unconditioned stimulus, extinction
First off I found Watson, and his biography, to be interesting. Watson, given that he came from a family with mediocre father who drank too much and couldn’t keep it in his pants, to a mother who was a devoted Christian, I feel like he could have ended up contributing a lot less to society then what he did. Also the fact that he was so interested in animals, which I feel like the author might have hinted that it was more of an obsession, was beneficial in the fact that he proved white rats to be able to have true ‘associative learning’ abilities after three weeks of life.
This led into the second thing I found interesting, which was the Watson/Carr maze studies, prior to this chapter I had never read about this study(from what I remember) but I did find it really interesting and important. Watson/Carr took studying the sense to a different level. They actually surgically removed the senses of sight, sound and smell from three different groups of rats and the rats were still able to learn the maze that they were placed in. The interesting thing here was that the belief that the rats would use touch and their whiskers to remember a route taken, it was actually due to their kinesthetic impressions along with intra-organic impressions. I personally found this to be interesting just because I feel like sometimes humans forget or take for granted their senses, with understanding because they have always been there, but I think it just reminded me that the human body/mind is really an interesting and mind boggling tool that is able to adapt in odd situations.
Thirdly, while reading about Watson, I also stumbled upon Jacques Loeb who was German psychologist who studied tropisms; which are movements of plants or animals that are forced automatically by some aspect of the environment. I found this interesting because as soon as I read what tropisms were, I kind of laughed and thought how stupid is that, but then it made me think. I have never actually studied plants, but my dad gardens and when we shop for plants/flowers in the spring each plant has a list of a ‘good environments’ for that specific plant. Such as sunlight, no sunlight, water, little water, partially shaded, and it just made me realize that I had totally overlooked this. Instead of asking myself why, I just did what the sheet suggested, when really it’s interesting to know why plants have certain requirements like that and how did they evolve. I guess, I had never thought of plants to have behaviors given an environmental stimulus.
Something I didn’t understand or care for while reading was the use of animals, I’ve always been torn on this issue. I can see how back during that time studying animals wasn’t seen as harming them, but on a personal level Pavlov should have had some sense that what he was doing wasn’t right. On the other hand looking back on the studies performed, they are important in what we know about psychology today and it’s hard to say that those findings could have be founded had they not used animals in experiments.
Something that helped me understand the history of psychology was when I read about the beginning of behaviorism, technically there had been prior data, theories, etc. about behaviorism; examples being, Sir Francis Bacon, acceptance of evolutionary thinking and animal involvement in psychology. But really ‘behaviorism’ didn’t become popular until many years later. This made me question if it’s not all about who thought of what when, but rather is the environment right, is society right for different theories or advancements. I think of it like technology or even fashion in today’s world, a place in New York may be better equipped for new technology or different fashion then a place like Cedar Falls, Iowa because they are two totally different environments.
This chapter built off of the previous chapter, which focused on Gestalt, because this chapter focuses on behaviorism, which stems from Gestalt psychology. This chapter seemed to go further into detail with behaviorism and psychology then the previous chapter, along with applied psychology and looking at what exactly the field of psychology can do with both topics. This chapter also was more about the acceptance of behaviorism in the field of psychology, when the previous chapter was just covering the introduction of it.
I would like to learn more about the little Albert study, I had never heard of this study before and I found it to be questioning and interesting.
Something that intrigued me was that with behaviorism Watson is credited the title of ‘founder’ when in fact he wasn’t the first person to originate Behaviorism, but because he was a promoter of behaviorism. It just reminded me that although we know all these famous names throughout the book, that doesn’t mean that they single handedly ( for the most part) discovered a certain topic of psychology, more so it made me realize that the history of psychology is really a series of events taking place, in which many beneficial people aren’t recognized for their works.
Terms; behaviorism, gestalt, applied, Watson, Sir Francis Bacon, Jacques Loeb, Tropisms, environmental stimulus, associative learning, Watson/Carr maze study, kinesthetic impressions, Little Albert Study.
The first thing I found interesting in chapter 10 was how Watson's childhood home life influenced his career in such a large way. I did not know that because of his home life, he was interested in behaviorism, and more so in animals. His love for animals influenced his interest in comparative psychology and his work with animals. It was also that his decision was reinforced by Jacques Loeb and Henry Donaldson and their studies on tropism, or the movement that plants and animals are forced somehow by the environment.
The second thing I found interesting was Watson and Harvey Carr's rat maze experiment. I found this interesting because they were interesting in the lack of senses on the ability to detect their way through a maze; the importance on kinesthetic sense for maze learning. The thing I found most interesting about this experiment was that they found that the lose of no sense hindered the rat's ability and that the rats were learning through sequences of muscle movements and memory.
The third thing I found interesting was the study Watson and J.J.B. Morgan did on emotional responses. This study was used to identify fundamental human emotional responses and the stimuli that produced these responses. Watson and Morgan identified three emotions: fear, rage, and love. They found, through experimenting with a baby, that fear came from sudden loud noises or loss of support, rage came from hindering movement, and love came from a gentle touch. I found it interesting that these responses can be similar to a grown adult, and not just a baby and their higher desire for attention.
Like many, the one thing I found least interesting was the section on Pavlov and his dog, and classical conditioning. I found myself skimming the pages and replaying the information I have learned in the past while skimming. Although I believe Pavlov's experiment is very important to psychology, it just has been taught time and time again in almost every psychology class I have taken.
This chapter is useful in understanding history because they reader is learning a lot about behavioral experiments, something we can identify with everyday. It is important to understand where these ideas came from so we can understand why we behave in the way we do.
This chapter builds off the previous chapter, diving deeper in behaviorism and conditioning. Gestalt was the focus of last chapter and this chapter branches off of that and does a better job providing information on behaviors and conditions.
I would like to learn more about is Watson's childhood home life. The book gave a small depiction of how it was, with his father and mothers characteristics, but I think it would be interesting to learn more specific times that brought his interests to behaviorism and animals.
I don't think I really had any ideas during this chapter. But I did find myself interesting in the Little Albert experiment, and was reminded of the video I watched in a previous class about how they found Little Albert years and years later, though he had died in his younger years if I remember right.
Terms Used: Watson, behaviorism, comparative psychology, tropism, Jacques Loeb, Henry Donaldson, rat maze experiment, Harvey Carr, J.J.B. Morgan, Pavlov, Pavlov's dog, classical conditioning, Gestalt, behaviorism, conditioning, Little Albert
After reading this week’s chapter I found three things interesting. The first thing that caught my eye was reading about Pavlov’s background. He is a big name in psychology but I never really knew about his life at all. I also found it interesting that Pavlov’s original goal wasn’t psychology he was studying digestion. The second thing I found interesting was what I learned not just about Pavlov’s history but about his personality. He had a bit of a temper and devoted his whole life to science, literally seven days a week he was at the lab. I had no idea that he was so passionate about his work. The third thing I found interesting was the Watson/Carr Maze Studies. It is crazy how the rats learned the mazes with losing some of their senses. They would use muscle memory and memorize the maze also. The thing I found least interesting in this chapter was Pavlov’s conditioning and extinction. I learned about that in high school so it’s just repeating so I lost interest.
I think everything that I read on Pavlov was the most important in this chapter when it comes to understanding the history of psychology. Pavlov’s discovery was so huge and his work before and after are so significant in psychology even today the history of it is still so relevant. Last week we learned about Gestalt psychology and this week we are learning about another branch. There are so many different categories within psychology we building up to get through each one. I would like to learn more about the studies done on emotional development. We learned about some of it in developmental psychology and in the reading today but it is very interesting to me because I want to work with kids and you have to know emotionally how developed a kid is when you are working with them. While reading this chapter I was thinking about how much I liked developmental psychology. I had no idea what it was about when I signed up for it but I never missed a day because I liked it so much. I mean I like the history of psychology don’t get me wrong but wanting to work with kids, development psychology is just more useful.
Terms: Pavlov, Gestalt psychology, developmental psychology, emotional development, Watson/Carr Maze Studies
I found chapter 10 to be a fairly interesting chapter. It discussed behaviorism and how it came to be. This chapter also discussed a number of famous scientists that played a large role in behaviorism, and psychology in general. There were a lot of things that interested me throughout the chapter.
One of the first things that interested me in this chapter is also one of the topics that I have heard about the most while studying psychology. Although I had heard about Ivan Pavlov I still found some new and interesting information about him. For instance, I knew that he was famous for his classical conditioning of the dogs salivary response, and I knew that he was studying the digestive tract when his focus switched to salivary response, but I did not know how his focus changed. It is interesting to me how he noticed that the dogs were salivating before the food would even arrive. It was funny to me that he found the to be annoying because it would conflict with his data collecting, because the dogs would salivate before they knew if they were getting wet or dry food, so their amount of saliva would not necessarily reflect the type of food. I never knew that it was this reason that got Pavlov to focus on the salivary response. It is awesome that he did not just go on with his experiment like the book said he could have. Another thing I found interesting was that he won his Nobel prize for something that turned out to not even be the main focus of his life, and at his acceptance speech he introduced his new research topic.
The next topic that interested me was still about Pavlov, but it was about how he impacted Russia, America, and all psychologists. His work made him important to the Soviets and after his death they saw him as a war hero. To me this was interesting that a powerful nation would spend so much effort on a scientist, but Pavlov's work could easily be transferred over to the Soviet's goals of control. Pavlov's work on conditioning was able to show the Soviet's how to use propaganda. I was also interested at how influential Pavlov was to America. It was not right away that his work was noticed to be so heavily valued, but eventually the scientists would discover that Pavlov's work was important to all of their studies.
The next section I liked in this chapter was about John B Watson and his maze studies with Harvey Carr. Their research with rats was interesting because of the different number of things they tried with the rats. The first thing interesting with this study was that they did not let the rats live in the maze like previous studies similar to theirs had done. They also performed different surgeries on the rats to eliminate some of their senses. One group would have their eyes removed, another group would have their olfactory bulb removed for loss of smell, some would have their middle ears removed. I think some of the most interesting aspects of this study came from the changes of the maze. The maze they created had a portion of the maze that they could remove or insert whenever they wanted. This was an interesting aspect of the study because the rats that had been trained in the large maze, would crash into the walls of the shorter maze. Also the rats trained in the smaller maze would turn earlier than they were suppose to in the larger maze.
All in all I thought this was an interesting chapter because of all of the information about the introduction of behaviorism to the field of psychology. There was a lot of information that I learned in this chapter I did not know before. It was also a good review of some of the information I had already learned before, such as Pavlov's dogs, and the Little Albert study.
I would like to learn more about John B. Watson's career in advertising. The book spent some time talking about it but I think I could find some more information if I searched the internet for it. This will probably be what I focus on for Thursday's assignment.
Terms: behaviorism, Pavlov, classical conditioning, salivary response, digestive tract study, propaganda, John B. Watson, Harvey Carr, rat maze, olfactory bulb, and Little Albert.
The first thing I found interesting about this chapter was the section on Watson's early life. I had learned about Watson before, but never knew that his childhood was different than most psychologists. Watson's dad was a farmer who was a cheater and a drunk. His mother was very religious and insisted her son join the church. Watson was a troublemaker and was arrested more than once. He was still, however able to enroll in college and received a masters. When his mother died, Watson felt he no longer needed to join the church. In grad school Watson developed a liking for psychology. For his dissertation, Watson showed that rats were capable of learning. This sparked many of his later research ideas.
I liked this section because Watson did not have the normal childhood for someone who ends up being a major person in the history of psychology. Most of the men in his category grew up with college educated parents, many who were professors or deans. Watson's father was a drunk and his mother was super religious. I believe that these things might have influenced Watson's interest in behavior.
The second section I liked was about the Watson/Carr Maze Studies. While Watson was a professor at Chicago University he conducted research studying rats in mazes along with Harvey Carr, a student at Chicago. The study was meant to determine which senses were necessary for a rat to learn a maze. Watson and Carr removed the eyes of some rats, the middle ears of others, and the olfactory bulbs from a last group. Despite having missing senses, the rats were still able to learn the maze. Watson and Carr then decided to remove whiskers from some rats and numb the feet of others. At last they realized that the rats learned the maze through muscle memory. They were able to remember which way their bodies moved at each section of the maze. When Watson and Carr shortened the maze, the rats would run into the walls, thinking that the maze would keep going. When the maze was lengthened, the rats would turn where they had turned in the regular sized maze.
This section interested me because I like learning about the capabilities animals have. I do not like that Watson and Carr removed the eyes, whiskers, etc. from rats though. It seems cruel that they did this, since the study didn't really end up contributing to society on a major level. I did think it was interesting how the rats learned using muscle memory. I figured they would use their whiskers or vision to help them learn.
The last section I found interesting was the one on Little Albert. Child researchers at this time believed there were only three instinctive emotions that children had. These were fear, rage, and love. Watson wondered why children shows these responses to many different stimuli. He believed it was because of conditioning. Watson wrote the Little Albert study, also known as "Conditioned Emotional Reactions" along with Rosalie Rayner, a student at Johns Hopkins. To prove that these children were being conditioned, Watson and Raynor picked an 11 month old boy whose pseudonym was Albert. Albert was supposedly unemotional, which made him a good subject. Albert was first shown a white rat, a rabbit, a dog, a monkey, etc. Albert did not seem to fear these items and animals. Albert was, however, afraid of loud, unexpected noises. When Albert reached for a rat, a bar was struck behind him, making a loud noise. A week,and several more trials, later, Albert was presented with the rat. When he saw the rat he began crying and tried to crawl away. In this study, the noise is the unconditioned stimulus and the fear of the noise is an unconditioned response. The rat is the conditioned stimulus and produces the conditioned response.
This section was interesting to me because I had heard about it before, but never this in depth. I wonder sometimes how smart young children are, and if they are able to associate two things, and this test proves that they are.
The section I did not find interesting was the one on Pavolov. He was born in Russia to a father who was a priest and his family lived in poverty. Pavlov was supposed to join the priesthood as his father did, but became interested in science while studying in the seminary. Pavlov was interested in inhibitory and excitatory processes in the nervous system. Pavlov left the seminary and studied physiology instead. Pavlov also received a degree in medicine.
This section did not interest me because Pavlov had a typical life of a scholar. He considered joining the church, like most people did at the time, and then changed his mind. His family lived in poverty, but it didn't create much drama. Watson's early life was much more interesting.
I think learning about how the people who created behavioral psychology grew up and developed their passions will help us better understand how behaviorism came about. I feel that knowing about Watson's early life helps me understand why he chose behaviorism, for example.
This chapter builds on the previous ones in that we talked about a theory of psychology in the last chapter, which was Gestalt psychology. Now we are learning about a different theory, Behaviorism.
While reading this chapter I thought back to the all the other puzzle and maze studies that had been done with rats in history, and how we are still using rats today to conduct experiments and test out drugs. I wonder if we will always use rats, or if we will find something else to test on in the future. I also wonder why we started testing on rats, why not another animal.
I would like to learn more about Watson and his upbringing. I never knew he had an atypical childhood, so I would like to see if there is more I can learn about that.
terms:
Watson, Watson/Carr Maze Studies, Harvey Carr, Little Albert, conditioning, conditioned emotional reactions, Rosalie Raynor, unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned stimulus, conditioned response, Pavlov, inhibitory and excitatory processes
I really thought the section on Watson and Carr and their maze studies was very interesting. I think it is crazy that they were able to do some of the things necessary to test their hypothesis. They had the precision and expertise to deprive certain rats of certain senses to see what ones they used to solve a maze. They had to have been highly trained and intelligent men. I also thought that the results of this test were really interesting. They found that we use a certain kinesthetic sense to solve the maze. It has something to do with muscle memory and the way our body recognizes and interprets a previously ran maze. Having the idea to do this is one thing, but taking the time and effort to complete it is another. They were basically using the process of elimination to determine what or if any senses contributed to learning the maze.
The second thing that I found really interesting was Watson and Morgan's work on the studying of emotions. I am sure that Watson was very excited that he got to prove his theories correct using humans. It had to have been really frustrating for him to do this work on animals and have really no one acknowledge it. They found three main emotions in humans, fear, rage, and love. At the time this had to have been really exciting because it was their first work done with humans and they were figuring these things out. This had to be a real motivator into learning more about behavior by studying humans. This definitely go the attention of his critics because he was able to successfully study human behavior.
The third thing I found to be interesting were the ideas and work behind the concept of systematic desensitization. I feel that this process can be extremely useful in our society today because there is a phobia for everything. The only problem is that their are not enough psychologists or time to emit this process on everyone. I think we should teach people these strategies so that they can get over their own fears. It is a process that is proven to work and it can help someone beat a fear that has been effecting them their entire lives. Systematic desensitization is a very useful and effective strategy that we know works.
The one thing about this chapter that I found least interesting was the basically everything about Pavlov. I have heard about it so many times. I would like to think I know everything to know about him but in reality I do not. However, I still cannot stand the thought about spending more time learning about his life. I just want to focus on his main contribution to psychology and not worry about other less important information about him. I also found the classical conditioning part to be uninteresting because I have learned these concepts in almost every psychology class that I have taken.
If I had not had so much previous knowledge on Pavlov, I would say his concepts would be the most useful to understanding. However, since I am a psychology major I have heard this things a thousand times. I really thought the section on Watson and the beginnings of behaviorism was most useful to me. He was identifying new concepts that are somewhat basic to us now. It reminds us that we can always come up with a new theory but if you want support you must be able to adequately test it.
This chapter builds on others by continuing to give us the origins of different schools of thought. It is important to know where and how they were brought to be so that we can fully understand them. These men had the curiosity and drive to conduct these experiments. It reminds us to follow our gut because if we are wrong, we are just at the same place that we started.
I would really like to know more about systematic desensitization and how it is used to get people over their fears. I think it would be really useful if we could make this concept easy to learn so that people and their families can use these techniques to improve their lives. This thought kept occurring to me throughout the chapter when I kept reading how easily we can manipulate behavior.
terms: Watson, Carr, kinesthetic, senses, experiments, maze, muscle memory, interpret, Morgan, systematic desensitization, process, Pavlov, classical conditioning, psychology, origins, behaviorism
There were many things that I found interesting about chapter 10. I did not find myself spacing off as much because the content was good throughout the whole chapter. There were some major names in this chapter that had been talked about in previous chapters, but this chapter got into more depth with some of their research and life stories. I did not mind reading about the life story aspect of Pavlov and Watsons life's because I do my topical blogs on that anyway, so it makes my blog on Thursday easier. There were three things that I found to be interesting in this chapter. The first thing that was interesting was Pavlov (his life story; his work as a physiologist). I liked this part because you get a look at his life before he started doing research, and what lead him to study what he did. The second thing that I found interesting was Watson and his early life before his research. He has probably one of the most interesting back stories of any psychologist that I have read about just because of his struggles in his early childhood. Also, why he his interests in animals shaped his beliefs in psychology. The last thing that I found interesting while reading the chapter was the study that Watson and Carr conducted on rats. I did something like this in high school, but it was not in psychology class, but in science class. There is a relation there I believe, so it was interesting to see it from the psychological perspective as well. The part that I did not like reading about the most was the new life in advertisement section of the chapter. Maybe because I read about all the great things that he did in the beginning of the chapter, and then reading about a nasty divorce. To wrap up the blog I will talk about how this helped me in the understanding of psychology, how it related to previous chapters, a topic that I would like to learn more about, and some ideas that I had while reading the chapter.
The first thing that I found interesting was the section on Pavlov which pretty much took up half of the chapter. The author focused this chapter on both Pavlov and Watson which were two very important men in the field of psychology. This made very fun to read because the experiments and research that was talked about in this chapter was familiar because it has been talked about in previous introductory classes. Pavlovs life came from humble beginnings growing up in a poor family, and being the first born of 11. Six of his brothers and sisters had died either in labor or in the first couple years of life, so it makes me appreciate the advancements we have nowadays. His father was a minister, and his mother was a daughter of a minister, so it was in Pavlov's cards to become a minister himself. Pavlov grew up in the time that you did the work of what your parents did (traditional culture). Pavlovs mother wanted him to be a minister, so he studied at a seminary for a couple of years. Pavlov soon began to love science and left the seminary to study at the university of st petersburg. He earned his degree from medicine there and continued to do research as well. Pavlov was named director and began to systematically investigating the digestive system. I had known that Pavlov did this research, but I had known about the dog experiments. He earned a noble peace prize in his research so I am surprised that an introductory class fails to mention this in its context. The main findings that he discovered had to do with gastric secretions from the stomachs of dogs. Pavlov must have hated or really liked dogs because all of his experiments have the dog as the subject. The part of his research that everyone can relate has to do with the saliva in dogs when presented a bowl of food. This was known as the classical conditioning experiments 'pavlov's dogs'. This is where he coined the phrases unconditioned response, unconditioned stimulus, conditional stimulus, conditioned reflex, and extinction. I knew of the other terms when I was reading, but I either forgot about the extinction term or it was not mentioned in my introductory class. I thought this was interesting because I did not know that a conditioned response that had been learned could become extinct. Like I said in the opening paragraph, I had heard about these two psychologists, but it was interesting to read about their life's, and a more in depth picture of their research. This is something that a simple introductory class would leave out, so I am glad that I got the picture by reading this chapter.
The second thing that I found to be the most interesting from chapter 10 was Watson, and his early life. His father was a farmer, and his mother was a religious women who wanted Watson to become a minister. She wanted him to become a minister starting from the beginning sense he was named after a famous baptist minister John. His dad was the town drunk who got into fights, so I found it weird that a religious women like Watsons mother would marry someone who is the complete opposite. I guess I wil never understand women. The book talked about how dysfunctional Watson was as a child. Saying that he was a troublemaker, and arrested twice by the time he was in his mid adolescents. This surprised me because he was so unlike the psychologists we had read about in the previous chapters. Those men and women had such structure in their childhoods that it seemed right that they succeed in what they did as psychologists. Watson seemed to be the exact opposite, but what he lacked in obedience he had in intelligence. He attended the University of Furman were he got his degree. His mother died in his last year at Furman, so he was no longer obligated to become a minister. The book put this very bluntly as if his mother was not a very important part of his life, so I did not question it. Watson was recommended by one of his professors to attend the University of Chicago which had only been around for eight years, and was funded by the Rockafeller family. Watsons earlier beliefs in psychology stemmed early when he found out that he liked to study animals better than humans. His graduate dissertation was a study of the relationship between cortical development and learning in young white rats. At this time the study was important to psychology because psychhologists believed that rats were incapable of associative learning. His research showed that rats had some minimal learning ability. I found this interesting to read about because at that time dissertations had some really important relavants to the field of psychology. I do not mean to put that meanly, but it was so early in the beginning of psychology that every study has some major importance which I think is awesome. I can only hope that my dissertation has some importance such as this.
The last thing that I found to be interesting in the chapter was the maze study that Watson conducted with Carr. I know that I combined the pavlov experiment along with his story, but I really liked Watson's childhood, so I decided to dedicate that section to one of my favorites on my blog. Watson was a professor at the University of Chicago until 1908 where he conducted his famous maze study. He wanted to see which senses a rat needed to be able to learn the maze. Small had already done the research, but Watson believed that Small had done the experiment incorrectly by allowing the rats to sleep in the maze overnight. Watson removed the rats ears, eyes, whiskers, and olfactory bulbs in order to find out what allowed the rats to be able to learn. I am not sure if this research would be allowed nowadays, but I found this very interesting to read about. The interesting thing that Watson discovered was that the rats were still abel to complete the maze with no problems with everything removed. He found out that rats were learning through muscle memory. His research soon came to an end when he became known as a butcher in the publics eye. He was accused of torturing white rats for the ploy of his experiments. I found this interesting to read about because I did not know that activism was relavant during this time period, and it is unfortunate that Watson could not continue his research.
The thing that I found to be the least interesting thing to read about was Watson and his life at John Hopkins. I did not like reading about all of his great achievements during his years at the University of Chicago, and then the nasty divorce that occurred at John Hopkins. It was a little section of the chapter, but I liked everything else in the chapter, so this may be a little out of context. I just think that this is something that could have been left out of the chapter all together, but it is a history book, and it was significant so I understand why. The one positive that came out of the divorce was his dismissal from the University which lead him to become a successful advertising man. I guess the guy just could not lose. He got fired from one prestigious job in psychology, and then becomes relevant in the business field. Just seems like he was destined to do well in whatever he did in life.
This chapter was important in the understanding of psychology because mainly this two men were big influences in the field of psychology. The dog experiment and the maze experiment are two of the major experiments that are discussed in a introductory class of psychology. Watson was pioneer in the field of behavorism which was a product of him liking to work with animals more people. Pavlov wanted to considered a physiologist rather than a psychologist which I found interesting, but still psychology still considers him to be one of the biggest names in their field. A lot of the material in this chapter was helpful in the understanding of psychology because I got a good look at some of the major players in the field, along with the very important experiments that they conducted to revolutionize the field.
I think this chapter relates to the last chapter because because Watson gave much of his credit to thorndike in his trial and error experiment. If it were not for thorndike than Watson would have never done his experiment and questioned the learning process of a rat. I think that this is a cool part of the blog because week in and week out I out close to the same thing for this section, and for a reason. I think it is cool that these psychologists build off each other ideas and make the field better than what the last guy left it. The ideas of all these men and women are questioned by their peers and it makes the field better. If it were not for guys in the past than we would not be able to retest their theories. We saw this with thorndike and the gestalt guys and now with thorndike and Watson. So it is cool to see all of this unfold on a timeline as we read along the chapters.
The thing that I would like to learn more about would be Pavlov and the dog experiment. THe book did a good job in explaining the experiment and the terms that went along with it but it did not provide a great desciption of the experiment. It did not talk about the order of the experiment like my intro class did. I really liked this experiment the first time, so I was dissapointed that this book did not go into much detail about the experiment this time. I guess this is not something I would have liked to learn more about, but more a review from the last time that I learned about it.
Some thoughts that I had during the chapter had to do with Watson, and how his research had to come to an end because of the activists. I am not on either side of the argument when it comes to animal equality. I just thought to myself, and said what other discoveries would we have come up with if we were aloud to test more on animals. We found out some much when psychologists were aloud to test on animals during the early years of psychology, and I just wonder what else we could have found out by now. I do agree that testing on animals can be wrong, and just because we are the superior species we do not have the right to overpower the weaker species. I am just curious that is all.
Terms: Pavlov, unconditioned response, unconditioned stimulus, conditional stimulus, conditioned reflex, extinction, Watson, Behaviorism, Carr, Maze, John Hopkin, University of Chicago, Advertising.
The first thing of interest while reading this chapter was about Pavlov and his study in the digestive system. Being able to leave his rural life and pursue a life of physiology, Pavlov attended the University of St. Petersburg where he attained his medical degree. Shortly after he became a research psychologist and after a few lower level positions he was rewarded first director of the physiology division of St. Petersburg’s Institute of Experimental Medicine. It was only then did he investigate into the physiology of the digestive system. He did this by isolating various parts of the of the system and extracting the digestive fluids, a process that was noted for his precision in surgical techniques that still allowed for a normally functioning animal. His best known techniques was that called a Pavlov pouch, a part of the stomach, removed, and then redesigned to function as a miniature stomach. A means of collecting digestive fluids accurately without the means of food ever entering the miniature stomach itself.
Another area Pavlov investigated in and is more well known for is that of gastric secretion of dogs. To try and measure the amount salivation a dog placed from its mouth when presented with before food. By fastening a small tube to the dog’s salivary duct and colleting the measurement Pavlov ran across a phenomenon, dogs salivated more when presented with dry food than moist. Probably do to the fact that less saliva was needed for moist, but a secondary finding reared its face, after a number of trials the dogs would salivate before any food even arrived. Proving it hard to measure the accuracy of Pavlov’s attempt to measure the amount of saliva in response to a specific amount of a certain food. It was this finding that became Pavlov’s life work and most remembered for.
During these years of conditioning in the Institute of Experimental Medicine Pavlov worked in a what was described as “small and dirty” laboratory. With Russia funding most of his needs through a fairly large budget Pavlov still found it necessary to raise more money. Money he raised through the sales of gastric juices he would take from his dogs during experimentation. He did this through the same process as that of the Pavlov pouch, just applied to the dogs themselves. By connecting a fistula to the dog’s esophagus the dog would eat normally but with the redirection of food to a collection tube, giving it the appearance that the dog was eating and swallowing the food. The food would never reach the stomach which would still produce the juices that then would be collected through a another tube in the stomach for collecting. Pavlov would then sell the juices as an elixir for those suffering a digestive ailment. Due to Pavlov’s skills he was able to institutionalize demanding control in the lab and create a world-class research environment during the hard conditions. He was also showed a rigorous attitude in his creating an antiseptic environment for his surgical procedures, dramatically reducing infection and ensuring the survival of all his animals.
In the 1900’s the Institute built the Tower of Silence for Pavlov and his research. A two story building with eight chambers, four on each floor separated by an intermediate floor. Each chamber was fully soundproof and insulated, and separated by corridors. To go a step further the building was supported by beams immersed in sand and surrounded by a sand and straw-filled moat to reduce noise and vibrations.
I think the most useful information out of this chapter would be Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning research. To me it shows how the beginning of how psychology came about controlling external variables in an experiment. I would like to learn more about conditional and unconditional stimulus. I say this because aside from Pavlov setting the stage for the basic procedure it is a fascinating subject that intertwines into other psychological studies such as the debt or nature vs. nurture. One can say it builds off the last chapter in that it reverts back to the dissecting the whole into its basic elements as well as looking at the whole (gestalt psychology) in regards to what comes first or second (classical conditioning).
Terms: Pavlov, Institute of Experimental Medicine, University of St. Petersburg, Tower of Silence, Classical Conditioning, gestalt psychology, Pavlov pouch, stimulus
I thought the most fascinating thing about this chapter was Ivan Pavlov and his salivating dogs, but not for the reason that one might think. I was amazed and disgusted to find out that Pavlov was selling the saliva that he collected from the dogs as a gastric remedy! That really made me sick to my stomach! I wondered if the consumers of his remedy were informed about the source of the elixir. However, Goodwin did not elaborate on the subject, he just threw that out there and moved on; but I want to know if the dog saliva remedy was effective in treating digestive problems in the patients who used it. I was also amazed to read that the dogs Pavlov used in his experiments were given fistulas to divert the food from the stomach into a pouch he had created from a section of the dogs’ stomachs. That type of stomach resection sounded similar to the gastric bypass surgeries that are done today. Pavlov must have had some incredible surgical skills.
I also enjoyed reading about John B. Watson and his transition from behavioral psychology to a career in advertising. Watson was able to take all of his knowledge in psychology and his experimental research with children and use it to become successful as an advertising executive. He was versatile enough to change careers in mid-life and still be a dynamic personality in the field of psychology by writing books on behaviorism and child psychology. I was also happy to see him admit that some of his writings did not have the requisite data to support his theories and ideas on child-rearing. It is rare to see a man of his caliber admit to being fallible. I was a little concerned about his work with Little Albert, and the book said that due to time constraints Little Albert was never “de-conditioned” from his learned phobias; I do realize that the experiments must be taken in the context of the times, but I am happy that we now try to revert the participants back to a pre-experimental status through de-briefing methods. Later, Watson oversaw the work of Mary Cover Jones on systematic desensitization experiments with the boy who was fearful of rabbits. Jones was able to desensitize a little boy to the presence of rabbits by introducing rabbits into the area where the boy was eating, gradually moving the rabbit closer and closer to the child. The boy experienced pleasurable feelings while eating food and he was subsequently able to associate those feelings to rabbits. The experiment seemed to be an expansion on Pavlov‘s conditioning and extinction techniques.
I was also interested in reading about Watson and Harvey Carr’s maze studies with the rats. I was not at all excited about the terrible things they did to the rats, but I think that the information they gathered from the experiments was important. Watson and Carr proved that rats learned to use their kinesthetic senses to decide the moves necessary to navigate a maze. After depriving the rats of one sense and then another, Watson and Carr learned that the rats were “counting” the steps necessary to reach each turn in the mazes, and when the walls of the mazes were lengthened or shortened the rats became disoriented and were running into the walls precisely where the wall openings had previously been.
I was bored reading about Pavlov’s experimental neurosis research with dogs because I had a hard time understanding what Pavlov was trying to prove, and then I was not at all convinced that the dogs’ behaviors were due to any recognition of a circle or ellipse. Pavlov determined that the dogs were able to discern some elliptical projections from others, to a point. Once the elliptical objects became indiscernible to the dogs they seemed to have a mental breakdown and began reacting in “neurotic” ways. The experiment did not seem very useful to me.
I felt like there were many useful experiments conducted by Pavlov, Watson and their colleagues. I thought that Pavlov’s surgical procedures and experiments were very important in understanding how the gastric system operates and the bypass surgeries are something we use today in humans. I thought that the maze studies were useful in understanding how kinesthetic senses work with the other senses to develop a sense of perception about objects and distance.
The chapter was about how behaviorism developed in the United States, and why John B. Watson was considered the founder of the behaviorist movement on the continent. I believe that Watson is given the credit as the founder of behaviorism largely because of his ability to sell it, and Goodwin admits that many of Watson’s theoretical claims were not entirely backed by research data. Still, Watson was able to take his work in psychology and successfully apply it to advertising through the use of data and demographics to sell products. It was interesting to learn how important the use of data had become to Watson once he was in the field of marketing.
I would like to learn more about Pavlov and his surgical work. More specifically I would like to know if his surgical techniques were expanded upon. I read that Pavlov was very particular about cleaning surgical instruments and having clean operating procedures, and it made me wonder if he pasteurized the dog saliva he was selling to people. I am hoping to find more information about Pavlov, his surgical techniques and his saliva elixir.
Terminology:
systematic desensitization, Mary Cover Jones, Ivan Pavlov, gastric bypass, John B. Watson, behavioral psychology, Little Albert, kinesthetic senses, Harvey Carr, experimental neurosis, behaviorism, demographics, surgical techniques, pasteurized
The most important thing I got out of this chapter is that psychologists were beginning to observe things much more objectively, and they recognized the problem of observer bias. I find it amusing that Ivan Pavlov, who explicitly denied that he was a psychologist, and claimed only to be a physiologist, was the man whose research strategies saved the study of psychology from the influence of introspective researchers.
I got kind of bored when the book spent multiple paragraphs discussing Pavlov's laboratory, but I was able to understand it much better with the illustrations.
I already know all of the terms and details about classical conditioning, such as the Unconditioned and Conditioned Stimuli, and the Unconditioned and Conditioned Responses.
I found the concepts of Generalization and Differentiation very interesting because it shows a systematic way that we can find out how much animals really know or are capable of learning.
I didn't really like all of the extensive background information on John Watson, because his dysfunctional family is irrelevant to the contributions that he made in psychology. However, it might have been an explanation to why he had an almost nonexistent moral code when studying Little Albert.
One thing that I forgot about Watson was that his career was ended because of an affair.
I like this time period in the field of psychology, because it is when I think we can first start seeing the beginning of what we have today. However, I may be biased because I am more interested in behavioral psychology than anything else. I feel like I was unfair against the Gestaltists, and I think that both sides are important because they keep each other in check. Scientific objectivity works best when you know that your harshest critics are going to be checking your work.
Terms:
Observe, Objectively, Bias, Pavlov, Physiologist, Introspective, Unconditioned, Conditioned, Stimuli, Responses, Generalization, Differentiation, Systematic, Learning, Little Albert, Watson, Behavioral Psychology, Gestaltists.
After reading chapter 10 one interesting thing that I read was how Pavlov was low on money for funding for his laboratory and would sell the gastric fluid secreted by the dogs which anticipated food but never made it to the stomach. The reason I found this interesting was because even though by Russian standards his laboratory was of high funding he was still struggling on funds and would do just about anything for some extra money. Therefore, he decided to collect this secreted stomach juices and sell them as an elixir to people who had an insufficient flow of their own gastric fluids. This was both disgusting that people drank this and interesting at how he was doing all he could to keep his research afloat.
The second thing that I found interesting in this chapter was how Pavlov was taking so much care in how he didn’t want his research to get tainted by extraneous variables in his laboratory. The way he did this was by having two upper floors with four rooms in each floor and was separated by insulation and then the foundation was immersed in sand and surrounded by a straw-filled moat. I found this cool because lots of his research was done with animals and they have good hearing and could get distracted when the outside stimuli was interfering with the control stimuli, even the researchers were outside of the room as to not mess with the results of the study.
The final thing that I liked about this chapter was kind of odd but I found it interesting that John Watson was doing studies on behaviorism with animals when he came from a family of a father who consumed lots of alcohol, fought, and committed adultery on the regular. Watson was also known to have been arrested twice before entering college. It was kind of weird to see how someone who would have so much behavior problems and being so “dysfunctional” would enter the study of behaviorism and how people act the way they do. While reading this I found this interesting and kind of ironic at the same time.
The one thing that I didn’t really like about this chapter was how Pavlov was so badly accepted by the Americans in his studies he was doing. It took a while for Pavlov to gain traction in America because it was just slow in being felt. It was just kind of annoying how some of Pavlov’s apparatus sketches were mistakenly portrayed and they’re still accepted to this day even though they are wrong. It kind of shows how with technology we can excel in research because of new communication skills that have come about in the last couple of decades.
I think the most useful thing in this chapter that would relate to psychology would be the covering of behaviorism in general. I feel like behaviorism is a huge part of the field of psychology so we kind of have to cover it in order to help us understand psychology as a whole. Behaviorism is also very interesting and really helps to attract a crowd to the study of psychology.
A topic that I would like to learn more about would be John Watson. It sounds like he was a very intelligent and creative person so I would like to see some more studies done by him in the coming chapters or topic assignment. One idea that I had while reading the chapter was if somebody like Pavlov could get away with the studies that he did in the past today. Like with animal protection groups would he be able to do his research without getting really bad publicity.
Terms: Pavlov, laboratory, gastric fluid, dogs, anticipated, Russian, extraneous variables, outside stimuli, control stimuli, John Watson, behaviorism, dysfunctional, America, psychology.
I’d like to start off and say that I was very very happy to finally find a psychologist who didn’t start his life with lots of money. Pavlov started out in a relatively poor village in Russia. He had a difficult childhood. The reason that I find this so important is because it gives me hope that as a (hopefully soon to be) psychologist, I have a chance in the world. I didn’t start off with anything in my favor; in fact, many things hinder my possible education. It’s very defeating to see that almost every other famous psychologist came from a wealthy family and had the ability to attend college and earn multiple degrees. With that being said, I would be interested in learning more about Pavlov’s early life and how he was able to overcome all of the things that were holding him back.
I also really liked to see about positivism and learn more about it, and by learn I mean research it. Positive psychology is what I want to go into for a master’s degree. On Monday, I went to a video conference with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the psychologist who discovered flow. He is known as the leading researcher in positive psychology today and I got to meet him (via video). The field is immensely interesting to me and I will be applying to different schools that have a positive psychology program.
I also really liked what positivism did for the field of psychology. It really helped the movement for psychology to be recognized as a modern scientific field.
I’d like to say that I find it funny that a lot of famous psychology work was not originally done for the field of psychology. In fact, many of those who have contributed to the field don’t even consider themselves psychologists, and in some cases detest the idea of being a psychologist. It would be interesting to speculate on why that might be. I guess this could be something I didn’t like, because it seems that those who are intellectual seemed to have to respect for the field.
Who could not mention classical conditioning and little Albert? It’s a famous study that is taught in every intro to psychology class and even in some non-psychology classes. Although unethical, the study gave Watson insight into what classical conditioning was. He was able to train a child to fear a rat by making loud noises when the rat was brought close to the child. The child didn’t like the loud noise and began to pair it with the presence of the white rat. The child also started to generalize this fear to other white rodents. I do think that this was an incredibly unethical study because it caused trauma in the child for years to come. However, we cannot overlook how incredibly important it was to psychology.
Another interesting thing that I would like to discuss on Thursday would be talking about how many amazing discoveries seemed to be unethical. Why is it that these studies were so helpful if they had the opportunity to hurt people/animals? Why do people want to overlook a study if it was unethical? I think that these are all important things that we should be aware of and it is something that everyone would hold an opinion on.
Terms: Positivism, Pavlov, Positive psychology, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Classical conditioning, Little Albert, unethical
I thought this chapter was fairly interesting. For being so heavy on the biographies of psychologists, there was a lot that really put their research and legacy into perspective.
The first thing I found interesting was Pavlov's story. I found it hilarious how much he hated psychology and insisted on being called a physiologist. While it's understandable that he had this position (as psychology back then didn't rely as heavily on scientific measures, often using introspection, and was far less respectable), it's still funny because we see him as one of the cornerstones of psychology. Still yet, he wanted to "be liberated from such evil influences." While reading this chapter, I couldn't help but think about how Pavlov would react if he knew we regarded him as a psychologist. At the same time, if he knew how much progress has been made in terms of our findings and especially in terms of how we have adopted the scientific method, I don't think he would be quite as upset with it anymore. This further validates the importance of looking at the context and adopting a historical approach while reading.
The second thing I found interesting in this chapter was also about Pavlov. His experiment initially set out to test the amount of saliva produced by a dog eating dry food versus moist foods. However, he noticed that the dogs started to have a sort of "psychic" salivation before the food was even presented. Most scientists would have found this annoying because he/she would have to find a way to control for yet another variable. However, Pavlov found the psychic salivation to be peculiar and followed through on that, determined to understand the nature of the situation. I thought this was interesting because it was a very different mentality than I would expect most scientists to have.
The last thing I found interesting was Watson's maze studies. Firstly, I thought it was interesting how his personal life and preferences directly influenced his studies. His love and interest in animals influenced him in such a way that he was interested in performing his scientific experiments on rats rather than human subjects. The thing that struck me the most surprising about this, though, is how the book explains that he used a process of elimination in one of his studies. While the process of elimination works splendidly on multiple choice tests, I don't really see how it worked for him in a psychological experiment. It seemed like a hasty way to arrive at a conclusion, as there are potential confounds that may not have been identified at that point. Perhaps there were variables that the experimenters were not controlling for, and to say "we tested for this, this, and this and it didn't work, so it must be *that*" doesn't seem like a valid scientific process.
The thing I found least interesting also surprised me. While I would typically much prefer to learn about the thoeries and skip the biographical information, I found the theories presented in this chapter to be mundane. Subjects like classical conditioning and everything associated with it (conditioned stimuli and responses) have been covered in a number of classes at this point, so all the information about the process of how learning takes place is well known among psychology students. The biographies of Pavlov and Watson proved to be the more interesting portions of this chapter.
This chapter builds off of the last chapters in that we see a dramatic shift in thinking. What was before "introspection" and less-than-scientific measures is replaced with rigid measurement. The psychologists' reactions (particularly Pavlov), also build upon the history of psychology. Had psychology had a good track record, he wouldn't have had such a negative impression of the field and would have been more likely to associate with it.
I got a few ideas while reflecting on Pavlov's salivation studies. Although scientists are quite methodical (and for a good reason-- we have to be meticulous about our measures), we often forget the importance of creativity in science as well. We often think of creativity as encompassing the fine arts, however, a good amount of creativity goes into scientific findings. For example, it takes at least some amount of creativity to come up with a good research question. It also takes creativity to do what Pavlov did-- to notice something odd about the present situation and spontaneously research that instead. I think it's important that scientists remember that just because we have to be rigid with our measures, it doesn't mean we have to be rigid with our ideas.
I would like to learn more about what Pavlov was trying to accomplish with his experiments regarding classical conditioning and dogs-- particularly in association with his fascination with neurosis. I wonder how this relates to human neurosis.
Terms: Ivan Pavlov, introspection, historical approach, John Watson, Maze studies, behavioral psychology, classical conditioning, unconditioned stimulus, conditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned response, neurosis
The first thing I found interesting was the section on Pavlov. I was always interested in Pavlov, but felt like he was always passed over. The only thing ever mentioned about Pavlov was his study with the salivating dogs. Finally, this book showed more information about the psychologist I especially loved the part about Pavlov yelling at an assistant for being late due to the Bolshevik revolution. I think this chapter helped to show that Pavlov was a lot more than just some Russian guy that made dogs salivate. He was a prominent behaviorist who was confined by the politics of the world around him. I love Pavlov’s theories on conditioning and extinction. He believed that certain behaviors and perceptions of behaviors were reinforced or nullified through a system of rewards and punishments. I think I like behaviorism because the scientists focus so little on the thoughts and biology of a person, and more on strictly the behavior.
The second thing I found interesting was the Watson and Little Albert study. I have always liked this study because it really pushes the boundary of what is ethical for scientists to do while studying humans. Different people have different opinions on what is and is not ethical. However, manipulation of an infant who lacks the ability to comprehend what is going on is not really fair. The child has no knowledge of the consequences, and although this study did not damage the child in the long run, other studies may. I am interested in this case because of how it affected the role of ethics in psychology.
The third thing I found interesting was the Watson/Carr Maze studies. It was cool how the mice were able to navigate the mazes due to muscle memory and other senses. I do not think it was animal cruelty, because the research and findings would hold great ramifications for humanity and the field of Psychology. The thing I did not find interesting was the section on the specifics of conditioning. I remember back to Intro to Psych where we would have an essay question regarding the unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned reflex, conditioned stimulus, and conditioned reflex. We had to write about what each one was in specific examples. At the time, this concept confused me, and I grew to even hate the words themselves.
The thing I read in the chapter that will be the most useful to understanding the history of psychology is how the field of Psychology is settling into many different areas. There are many different areas of Psychology that have developed into things that are now so different, it is almost like the “history of psychology” is being split into many different directions. This chapter relates to the previous chapters in that it shows a different way of looking at things. The field only advances if people look for what is not already there. Behaviorism is much different than other disciplines of psychology and it relates to the other chapters in that a certain branch of psychology was developed due to lack of support from other branches. I would like to learn more about Behaviorism as a whole, because I like the idea of targeting behaviors to influence the mind as opposed to targeting the mind to influence behavior.
Terms: Pavlov, Watson, Little Albert, conditioning, extinction, unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned reflex, conditioned stimulus, conditioned reflex.
I found John B. Watson to be a very interesting and influential character in psychology. As he wrote in the Behaviorist Manifesto, he believed psychology should really be boiled down to “the study of behavior.” I do think he really had a strong foothold when he suggested psychology should be a branch of the natural sciences and in order to do that, must be fully objective. Watson believed, though that psychology could be simplified completely to stimuli and responses. He believed that all conscious thought could be described and experimented on as a behavior. He renamed thoughts subvocal speech, believing that all thought is simply talking to yourself in your head. Watson suggested that as children, we do this out loud, but it is not socially acceptable for adults. Watson also believed thinking could be measured, as regular speech, by measuring the vibrations in the larynx. Another idea Watson threw around was the final goal of psychology: to understand all behavior in such a way that one could predict a stimulus given the response and vice versa, as well as control the behavior of others. This is kind of a scary thought to me, and it was already being used in Watson’s time with advertising and education among other areas of human life.
Watson also did research on infants. The opportunity was given to him by way of his friendship with Adolf Meyer who founded a hospital. Meyer gave Watson a human lab across from the nursery, giving him a constant supply of subjects. I wondered while reading this if it was ethical for Watson to do these experiments on infants, given that they cannot consent. I also wondered how other psychologists felt about infant experimentation. It seems to me that this could be a cause for concern because infancy is when Piaget suggested a person builds basic trust or mistrust which could be affected by the emotion experiments. I then remembered that Piaget came much later, so this was most likely not on anyone’s mind. I think the study of emotion is really quite cool. Watson established three basic emotions which can be seen in an infant given the correct stimuli, fear, rage, and love. It is really interesting to read about the many different theories of emotion and the many different ideas of how many basic emotions we all have.
The authors gave us an interesting look into Watson’s personal life as well. I was surprised to learn that Watson “fell in love with” and married one of his students, not once but two times. This understandably resulted in his dismissal from Johns Hopkins and really from the academic world. What I think is really thought-provoking about this is that Watson then took his knowledge from behavioral psychology and used it in advertising with J. Walter Thompson. Watson was credited with bringing emotion and psychological needs into advertising, although it is said these ideas were not his own. More importantly, Watson brought the use of science and scientific data into the advertising world.
I think it is very important in understanding the history of psychology to realize that psychology can be used in nearly every field. Just like Watson brought his psychological knowledge to advertising, psychology can be helpful in many other aspects of our society. I also think it is important that the authors included Watson’s research on subvocal speech which turned out to have little empirical support. It is important in understanding the history of psychology to realize that great thinkers and influential people in the field were often wrong.
This chapter builds on previous chapters by expanding on ideas brought up before and building on the knowledge we are gaining through this study.
There was really not much in this chapter that didn’t interest me. I enjoyed reading this chapter, but perhaps the sections on Pavlov were my least favorite. I think they were slightly less interesting because I have studied Pavlov often in the past.
John B. Watson, Behaviorist Manifesto, stimuli, responses, subvocal speech, larynx, behavior, Adolf Meyer, emotions, fear, rage, love, advertising, J Walter Thompson, psychological needs, Pavlov
The first interesting topic from chapter 10 was Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, whose conditioning helped to open the door for American behavioral scientists. He was born in 1849 in the small village of Ryazan located in west central Russia. Pavlov grew up living in poverty and suffered the loss of many younger siblings. Pavlov studied physiology at the University of St. Petersburg, he always considered himself a physiologist and not a psychologist. Pavlov was influenced by Darwin’s theories and writings, Origin of Species and Reflexes of the Brain. Eventually he earned his physiology degree, and became the first director of physiology in St. Petersburg’s Institute of Experimental Medicine. Pavlov’s research earned him the Nobel Prize in 1904. During this time he studied the digestive system in dogs, he collected digestive fluid from the digestive system, and he then measured the quantity of fluid. He created a pouch by surgically redesigning the dog’s stomach in order to insert a small tube into the pouch to extract fluid before it mixes with food. I hope no dogs had to suffer from these experiments. Pavlov would also study conditioning through salivary responses from a dog’s mouth. This time he measured salivation through a tube that was connected to the salivary duct. One of Pavlov’s students figured out that dogs salivate more in the presence of dry food rather than moist food. I found it interesting that Pavlov used the dog’s saliva and sold it as a digestive ailment to help the flow of “gastric juices.” Wonder how it tasted! Pavlov also had his lab students perform replications of past experiments that had already been done. This scientific method of research helped to build validity with experimentations. When it came to conditioning Pavlov was interested in unconditional reflex, the dog’s automatic response. He would use food as the unconditioned stimulus and pair it up with a conditional stimulus that remained neutral. The pairing of the UCS and CS resulted in a response known as the conditioned reflex. Pavlov tried to distance himself from the mental process of psychological thinking and instead focused on the observable physiological responses.
The second interesting topic was John B. Watson. He was born in South Carolina and had a hard partying father and a religious controlling mother. Welcome to middle class America. It was interesting to learn that Watson had behavioral issues of his own, considered a trouble maker, and was arrested twice. Through all of Watson’s troubles, he would eventually mature and graduate from Furman University in 1900 with a master’s degree. He liked comparative psychology and developed an interest in animal behavior. In 1908 Watson became professor of psychology at John Hopkins University. There Watson was considered a leading researcher of animal psychology and proclaimed behaviorism. He rejected the idea of conscious introspection of psychology and instead focused on more observable behavioral psychology. Watson wanted psychology to become the science of behavior.
The third interesting topic was learning about emotional development. Watson was making the switch from comparative psychology of researching animals to instead studying behavior in human babies. He would study their emotional response towards fear, rage, and love. These experiments were done out of his new human laboratory in Meyer’s clinic at the John Hopkins Medical School. Watson along with J.J.B. Morgan defined fear response as “a sudden catching of the breath” where an infant clutches their hands, puckers their lips, and begins to cry. Their definition of rage was discomfort, and love was defined as the emotional response of smiling and cooing. Watson decided to use an 11 month old infant boy who he called Albert. Before the study Little Albert did not show much fear toward different types of stimulus accept for loud noises. For the experiment Watson would deliberately provoke the emotion of fear by banging a hammer on a metal bar. He then began introducing animals such as a white rat, and when Albert reached out to touch it, Watson would bang the hammer creating a loud noise producing fear that caused a startle reflex. With Albert, Watson succeeded in conditioning the emotional response of fear in rats and even some other furry animals. However it is suggested that Albert actually feared Watson for creating the loud banging noises. Watson discovered from this research that the conditioned response of fear can ultimately persist throughout life.
This topic relates with previous chapters by introducing behaviorism as a new way of applying psychology. And the topic I would like to learn more about would be Watson’s research with Little Albert about conditioning. Although he was able to manipulate the situation to prove his point, it is sad to think the study could have emotionally scarred the child for the rest of his short life.
Terms: Ivan Pavlov, replication, unconditional reflex, unconditional stimulus, conditioned reflex, conditioned stimulus, John Watson, Little Albert
BR
In this week’s reading of chapter ten, the first thing that caught my interest was the section about Pavlov and his background. In every psychology class I’ve taken I’ve learned about Pavlov, but how he was raised, and how he became a physiologist were never taught. He was raised in a poverty home in Russia. It was sad to read that he was one of eleven children but six of them passed away. I thought it was interesting how Darwin’s work, and Sechenov’s influenced Pavlov so much and how he combined both of their aspects into his work. Pavlov’s dog salivating studies were neat and different back in those times but also important! His studies were used to do research on reflexes of the brain and how they affect certain parts of our bodies.
The second interesting section I found from this chapter was the one over Watson and Carr’s maze studies. I know many people are against animal testing and I’m not really pro animal testing but I thought it was interesting all the different things they did to the rats and how it affected the rats’ abilities to get through the mazes. I learned in the section that obviously cutting off their whiskers has nothing to do with their sense of direction, because the rats could still get through the maze. They also removed some of the rats’ eyes, middle ears from others, and the olfactory bulbs from another group. It was interesting to read that none of these caused difficulties for the rats, for they finished the mazes with ease. This is when Watson and Carr came up with the idea that the rats must have, through sequences of muscle movements, learned to associate them with the mazes structure. They proved this by blocking off part of the maze that the rats had memorized. The rats were running into walls and they couldn’t go through the maze as easily. Once they had the new maze with the blocked off part memorized, Watson and Carr, unblocked it which made the rats confused once more. Their hypothesis was correct. This amazes me! They literally made the rats blind, deaf, and directionally challenged and they still managed to get through the mazes with no problem, but by simply blocking a section off the rats struggled through it. I find this very interesting that the rats memorized the mazes with association of their muscle movements. I thought this was a cool study with some surprising and unique results.
The Little Albert study was also interesting and how it dealt with behaviorism. Watson was also behind this experiment. This was interesting because Watson’s experiment made a child afraid of rats because when the rat was presented it was also injunction with a loud noise which made him scared. By doing this it conditioned the child to be afraid of the rat because the loud noise was present! This experiment proved that children’s reactions of emotions could be molded.
I didn’t find the stuff about the Soviet Union and how Pavlov didn’t like them then he came around to liking them very interesting. I found this part to be boring and not really of importance for this chapter.
I think the most useful thing from this chapter that helps in understanding psychology’s history is the transition to increase objectivity in the measures taken by psychologists. This opened the doors of acceptance of evolutionary psychology and of animal psychology. Both are equally important to the history of psychology and both have made big contributions leading up to today’s psychology fields.
I would like to learn more about the maze studies conducted by Watson and Carr. I would want to know what other kinds of tests they did as well as if they tested them on different animals. I think it would be interesting to see if the same results would be true for humans or other animals in the same situations or more rigorous ones.
The thoughts I had while reading this chapter was, what if American psychologists didn’t take in the ideas of Pavlov or other psychologists and how that could’ve effected the development of our psychology compared to other countries.
Terms: Pavlov, Sechenov, Watson, Carr, reflexes, Little Albert, conditioned, animal psychology, behaviorism
I liked this chapter a lot more than the others because I am more interested in behavioral psychology than gestalt psychology or any of the other field of psychology we've discussed. The first thing I found interesting was that he came from a family with a low socioeconomic status. So far in all of our readings the psychologist come from pretty wealthy families. This impresses me because although his family was poor he still attended the University of St. Petersburg to study physiology. The fact that he was a physiologist first and foremost also interested me. The author says he had little regard for those whom called themselves psychologist. This is interesting to me because it seems to me he is better known now as a behavioral psychologist.
Another thing about Pavlov I found interesting was The Institute of Experimental Medicine. He had his own lab that he would put animals, mainly dogs, in and research how their digestive system worked. He fed the dogs but the food never made it to the stomach. The food ended up in a collection tube. I found this to be completely appalling. Who would want to examine the contents of dog food and why? Eventually the lab went from being somewhat small and dirty to being its own little place. The Tower of Silence was meant to keep out all outside stimulus. It was also very sterilized. Pavlov even came up with his own form of antiseptic so the animals wouldn't become infected. Wouldn't the dogs starve because the food never got to the stomach? I feel that Pavlov tried to take care of these animals but at the same time I also see them as being tortured by having tubes stuck in them just to be researched.
Another part of this I found interesting was how Pavlov trained his research assistants. He gave his future assistants problems that had already been solved. This put less stress on the students because they wouldn't have to worry about producing new findings. Instead they could focus on replication. I don't see how replication could benefit them because they are just doing something they already knew the outcome of so wouldn't that make it easier? I realize replication is very important in any field of science but I think I would want someone in my lab who could produce their own discoveries.
A different part of this chapter I found interesting was the Watson/Carr Maze Studies. John Watson and Harvey Carr were determined to find out what senses were needed for a white rat to learn a maze. They removed different senses from various rats to figure this out. However, what they found was that when their senses were removed it didn't matter because they could still finish the maze. After that failed Carr and Watson decided to shorten the maze, but the rats continued running into the wall until they were allowed to finish the maze. I think this is interesting because it shows us how the brain works even if some of the senses are completely knocked out.
Although I found this chapter to be a lot better than the others there is one part I didn't like. I didn't like the part about conditioned stimulus, conditioned reflex, unconditioned stimulus and unconditioned reflex, because it was just too repetitive. Even though much of this chapter was a repeat of things I had kind of already heard of I felt the author did a good job of going into detail about some of the experiments and with the psychologists background. This chapter definitely helps to understand behaviors and the reason behind them.
Terms: Ivan Pavlov, Psychologist, Physiologist, Behavioral Psychologist, Gestalt Psychology, The Institute of Experimental Medicine, Tower of Silence, Replication, John Watson, Harvey Carr, Watson/Carr Maze Studies, Conditioned Reflex, Conditioned Stimulus, Unconditioned Reflex, Unconditioned Stimulus, Behaviors
One thing that stuck out as familiar to me was the section on Pavlov. I have heard more about him this semester than in any of my previous psychology classes. He had a very creative way of discovering stimulus and response. By rerouting a dog’s salivary glands to the outside of the dog, he could actually observe how long it actually took the dog to salivate. Something I read here that I haven’t before is that the dogs salivated more to dry foods because they needed less salivation for moist foods. The main finding, however, was that the dogs were salivating before the food actually went into their mouths. I can compare these studies with other things I have read in other classes, like Behavior Modification. We learn about the terms unconditioned reflex and conditioned reflex in this chapter, and it tells us that Pavlov successfully created a conditioned response with the dog subject by starting a metronome to signal that food was coming and time at what point the food would come out. The time interval created a conditioned response for him. However, this also led to extinction after a while, which I have also learned about in other classes.
Another section I liked was about John B. Watson and behaviorism. Something I found interesting was that as a child, his father wasn’t very father-like and his mother was overly religious, therefore he turned out an adolescent troublemaker. With parents like these in terms of psychology, it’s no surprise he turned out this way. If you smother your kids too much they tend to rebel, and with his mother doing just that and his father not around to guide him, he began to make trouble. He is most known for his interest in animal behavior, which pretty much influenced his idea of psychology as a whole. One of his most famous studies was mentioned for a second time for me this semester: the maze studies. These studies acted as a precedent outline model for scientific research by their method of elimination. The last thing I found interesting about this was that there was a group called the antivivisectionists back then, who are similar to groups like PETA. I had no idea that animal rights groups went back that far.
Something else that I recognized from my Behavior modification class was the Little Albert study by Watson and Rayner, which meant to induce fear through classical conditioning, just to see if it were possible. I have read other articles and sections in textbooks about the Little Albert study. Watson and Rayner never tried to remove his fear of the rats, which I wonder if it carried on into this child’s future life. I wonder what they would have found if they tried to do so, although they had theories about just that. The actual term for the technique of removing a fear or phobia is systematic desensitization, which I have learned occurs slowly, and in steps. I think one of the main reasons that this study is so famous is because of the ethics involved with inducing fear in a child. Obviously, Watson did not really pay much attention to ethics, but at least he got his studies done before there were more rules introduced on that sort of thing. One last thing I know about this study is that Albert’s real name is in fact not albert, but believed to be Douglas Merritte. I wonder if the reason Watson and Rayner did not follow up their experiment was because maybe the mother got mad about the way Douglas was treated during these experiments. Just a guess!
Terms: Pavlov, psychology, stimulus, response, studies, Behavior Modification, unconditioned reflex, conditioned reflex, conditioned response, extinction, John B. Watson, behaviorism, animal behavior, Watzon/Carr maze studies, scientific research, method of elimination, antivivisectionists, Little Albert study, classical conditioning, Rayner, fear, phobia, systematic desensitization, ethics, Douglas Merrite
1a) Ivan Pavlov
1b) I found his work interesting because he was again like other psychologist using animals to prove theories that he had come up with in regards to humans. The most well-known test is the test with the salivation of the dogs. How every time he would get ready to feed the dogs he would ring a bell, after a while of conditioning the dogs to the bell, every time he would ring the bell the dogs would begin to salivate because they knew they were about to get fed. This whole conditional response research is interesting to me because it does happen. Looking at young children you see that when they get so used to a routine they become conditioned to a specific result from everything, which is why I seem to think that positive reinforcement works with children.
2a) Tropisms
2b) I found this interesting because I didn’t know before that flowers always grow in the way that the sun shines. I guess it makes sense since they have to use photosynthesis in order to grow but it was something new and interesting to me. The fact that plants alone can adapt in order to survive is interesting to me because so many people just over look plants because they are not like a living and moving organism so therefore they are ignored a lot. Looking back on the chapter of Darwin and when he talks about survival, there is not plant life that is discussed even though many plants have survived even when all other life died off. The fact that Loeb did a study of plants and how they adapt is interesting to me because he used the stimuli approach to study something that many other people overlooked.
3a) Watson’s Study on Emotional Development
3b) This was interesting to me because it was done on infants, at that point in a person’s life they can only really use reflexes and automatic responses because they have to control over their body. I think the fact Watson was able to find specific emotions in the infants because of being exposed to different stimuli was interesting. How when a baby was startled they would make a specific response with tightening up their bodies and would have a catch in their breath, but when an infant was upset about something they would tense up, they would get stiff and then a loud cry would follow. The fact that the infants whole body comes into play when it comes to them showing emotion is interesting because it seems to be something that continues in life. Such as when an adult becomes upset they being to feel their muscles tense up in response to their feelings because they are then about to get angry and adrenaline begins to kick in. The fact that even as infants who have no muscle control, no way of communication other than crying show some of the same emotions as adults do is interesting to me because it appears that our ways of showing emotion are learned at a young age and just develop more as an adult but still show some of the small similarities.
4a) Watson-Carr Maze Studies
4b) I didn’t find this section all that interesting because it so something that just continues to be used, the mazes and how the animals get to the end of the maze in order to receive a reward. It is something that continues to be used over and over again but always tends to have issues with validating the actual results. The fact that the rats could smell out the food but because of their physical disposition they were not always able to get to the end of the maze. The fact that they removed some of the senses did make it a little more difficult but I kind of find that cruel to the animals at the same time. It might help the theory that if one sense is gone the others increase into super senses but at the same time taking away a sense is cruel in its own. These studies continue to be used but they just keep running into the problem of finding direct evidence to support their findings.
5) I believe that the sections about conditional responses and the emotions of infants are useful in understanding psychology because they are something that applies and are seen on an everyday basis. The fact that some things are just conditioned into us for a specific response. Just like when you are hungry and you smell something good cooking your mouth begins to water, that is something that Pavlov was able to discover just by learning the different responses of dogs. All of the different responses are a great way to understand the basics of psychology because they are the small parts of the body that determine how a person is to react to different situations.
6) This built on other chapters in the means of responses and how things can be situational. The fact that different situations, such as the infant study, create a different response. Even though they are being stimulated through the environment their behavior remains to be constant. It is through the environment around a person that will lead them to respond to stimuli a specific way.
7a) Experimental Neurosis
7b) I would like to learn more about this research on how after the dogs seeing the different circles would affect their responses. How just by being put and exposed to different things of conditional stimulation would eventually lead to a type of neurosis. The fact that the dogs changed over time of being put in this same situation that the found uncomfortable and then their responses in regards to temperament of dealing with the situation is interesting because it could be the same with humans who are continuously put in a situation that they don’t want to be in or a situation that is not stimulating to them. I would like to learn how a situation can lead to neurosis.
8) I just had different thoughts about how little things that happen early in life do remain with you throughout your life. How you react to certain things you just cannot control, going back to when you get scared, you tend to close your eyes, tighten up and that is the same thing that even infants do, as an adult some will even begin to cry depending on the situation. The Pavlov experiment though is something that just took me back to the intro to psychology and how just understanding the basic responses that the body creates is important because it will help you to survive at times and conditional responses is something that helps with discipline with younger people, the rewards versus punishment and positive reinforcement are all learning elements.
Terms: Ivan Pavlov, Conditional Response, Conditional Stimuli, Leob, Tropisms, Experimental Neurosis, Emotional Development, Watson-Carr Maze Studies