Reading Activity Week #12 (Due Tuesday)

The first thing that I found interesting was Hull’s drive reduction theory. I thought his ideas on primary reinforcers and secondary reinforcers were interesting. A primary reinforcer are things that we need in order to survive like food and water, while secondary reinforcers are things that are learned through association with the primary reinforce like money for example. His drive reduction theory had to do with reinforcement and how it affects our habit strength. I think that this is interesting because he differentiated between what we need and what is associated with what we need.

The second thing that I found interesting was the idea of extinction and how B.F. Skinner stumbled across the demonstration. Extinction to me is just a fascinating idea. An example of extinction is when you are used to the door opening when you push it, but for some reason it doesn’t open so you try again, and again to push it open. Then the person will try a different way to open the door like maybe pull or look for a handicap button. People start to panic in a way when what they are used to doesn’t work anymore.

The third thing that I found interesting was Skinner’s idea of a Utopian society. The fact that he believed he could create a Utopian society is fascinating to me. In his Utopian society men and women were equal and controlled the society together. People could choose the type of work they wished to do or pursue anything that interested them. Skinner believed that we are all controlled in what we do because of the environment in which we live in. So he thought that we should control the environment so that we were better people and it would be good for everyone. I think that is a very interesting statement because I do think that we are all controlled in some way in how we react to certain situations.

One thing that I didn’t like was how B.F. Skinner treated his animals in experiments with the operant chambers. I think the fact that he electrocuted his animal participants was wrong. They didn’t understand what was happening to them so I believe this was just wrong. He still could have come to the same conclusions without electrocuting the animals.

This chapter really builds off the last one because this chapter is still talking about behaviorism. This chapter goes into the next step of evolution in the evolution of behavioral psychology. It focuses on the next three influential behaviorists.

I think that it is really important to understand that animals are becoming more used in psychology especially in behavior psychology. The behavior psychologists believed that to better understand behavior we needed to look at how animals operate because this can go back to Darwin’s ideas that we all are connected and that we are more like animals then most people believed back then.

I would like to learn more about the Utopian society created by Skinner because I think that he was amazing in creating this very thought out idea of what could happen if we did things a certain way. I agree with him that our behaviors are controlled in a way in most all situations. There are high probabilities of the outcomes in what we will do when put in certain situations.

When reading this chapter I was thinking about what if the Utopian society was real and what if it would make us a better society. I don’t think that it is possible in a large society, but I think it could be accomplished in a smaller setting. The only think is that if someone did try to do this it would probably look like a cult to the people outside of the utopian society. Another thing that I thought about while reading this chapter was what we would and wouldn’t know now if people didn’t use animals in cruel experiments. I was thinking about whether or not we would have figured out a lot of the things that we have found out. In my opinion we would have figured it out without the animals as our study things.

Terms: Behaviorism, behavioral psychology, behaviorists, primary reinforcer, secondary reinforcer, reinforcement, habit strength, Extinction, B.F. Skinner, operant chambers, Utopian society, Darwin, electrocution,

After reading chapter eleven there were a couple things that stood out as interesting to me. The first being neobehaviorism. This idea played a big part in American experimental pshychology from 1930-1960. The neobehaviorists took for granted the evolutionary assumption that there waas continunity among species, and they thought that the laws of behavior should apply for all species and not be sepcific to just one. They also said that learning was central to understanding behavior, and leaned heavily towards the nurture end of the nature-nurture continuum. I think that they were on to something when they said that learning has a big influence on understanding ones behavior. If someone was taught something verys poorly that could greatly effect how they act and how they function as well. They could come off as being slow but in reality they were just taught very poorly. The second thing that I found interesting was the idea of intervening variables. Intervening variables are hypothetical factors that're not seen directly but are inferred from the manner in which independent and dependent variables are operationally defined. They are assumed to influence learning by interveening between variables. I also thought that the backgrounds of Tolman, Skinner, and Hull were very interesting. All came from different backgrounds and ended up basically being just as successful as one another. Hull came from a very poor background and he worked hard and made something of himself, whereas Tolman came froma very average middle class family and he also worked hard, but it was more expected of him to go to college where as with Hull, it was a battle because of his background.

This chapter builds on previous chapters because it is giving us more information and relevance about behaviorism. It is also informing us who were the big players in the behaviorism movement and giving us some of their background as well. Someone I would like to learn more about from this chapter would be Skinner and his behaviorism ideas. I remember briefly learning about him in high school psych and in intro, but it would be nice to learn a little bit more about him and his ideas.

Terms: Skinner, Tolman, Hull, Behaviorism, Neobehaviorism, Intervening Variable, Psychology

The first thing that stood out as particularly interesting to me from Chapter 11 was Hull’s work. Clark Hull was a very influential leader in the field of psychology, even though this was one my first times coming across him name and his work. Hull was interested in learning, aptitude testing, and hypnosis. As we learned in the book, Hull was pursued these interests simultaneously, which I liked learning about because it is similar to the current school systems; students enrolled in various classes of various subjects at once. In the area of hypnosis, Hull felt as though the medical community overestimated the effects of hypnosis. Hull believed that hypnosis was not much different from normal consciousness. To him, it was a strong, and habitual, form of relaxation. As for learning and testing, I found Hull’s take on the human body very interesting. Because of his fondness and immense understanding of machinery, Hull compared the human body to machines and felt as though it could never be fully understood until an exact replica machine could be made to demonstrate the processes that are involved in the human body. To relay his beliefs and research to the general public, Hull publishes Principles of Behavior which included his 16 postulates. Postulate 4 best summarizes this body of work. In postulate 4 Hull outlines his firm belief habit strength is what leads to learning. I, too believe the habitual routine is an effective way to learn.

The second thing that I found interesting was the concept of neobehaviorism. This was a new term to me, which might have led to my initial interest. Neobahaviorism was a psychological movement during the 1920s and 1930s. It emerges after Pavlov’s work which led to a widespread acceptance of behavioral psychology and operationism. There was a wide variety in terms of beliefs among the neobehaviorists. However, there were certain beliefs shared among them all. Firstly, neobehaviorists believed, maybe too much, in the “evolutionary assumption of continuity among species.” This means that one behavior/mental process found in a certain species could be projected onto all species. This led to the rise of animal research which is still prevalent in today’s experiments. The other thing that neobehaviorists agreed upon was that “learning was central to the understanding of behavior.” This means that neobehavorists were more on the nurture side of things. I liked this new point of view, since most of our textbook has been more focused on the nature side.

Lastly, I found Skinner and his work on operant conditioning to be interesting. Skinner was a very radical and outspoken person, although rightfully so. During this section, I thought of classmates that have similar personality qualities to Skinner. These classmates get on my nerves a lot but perhaps I should give them more credit. Similar to Pavlov, Skinner worked with animals to condition them. The book tried to differentiate between classical conditioning and operant conditioning but this was a little hard for me to understand. To do his experiments, Skinner created the Skinner box. Skinner was interested in measuring the responses to different stimuli he introduced. Through this work, he demonstrated extinction. When he withheld the reinforcement, the response that was otherwise rewarded with reinforcement came to a halt. I like how our author discussed Pavlov first, followed by Skinner. This made it a bit easier for me to understand. I thought this idea of schedules of reinforcement mimicked Hull’s idea of habit strength.

Of the many topics discusses in Chapter 11, I found the work of Edward Tolman to be the least interesting. His work was very science-y which is more difficult for me to follow, perhaps because I don’t understand it as well. Tolman believed that all behavior is goal-directed. He depicted this belief by demonstrating that the main motivator for the completion of the rat mazes was for rats to obtain food. Here, Tolman introduced intervening variables. During this section, I thought about my research methods course. When doing experiments, it is important not to be so quick to draw conclusions because there may be intervening variables working that are not readily available through observation. Different from the reinforcement theories discusses earlier, Tolman said that humans engage in latent learning, where a reward is not present. This reflects his belief in goal directed behavior.

I thought this chapter was the best in terms of building off of previous chapters. Chapter 11 was a continuation of Chapter 10, which made the material easier to follow. The author also gave specifics examples of whom and what influenced the psychologists discussed in this chapter. For instance, on page 364, we learned that Tolman became interested in psychology after reading The Principles by William James, who we learned about earlier in this class. Also, in earlier chapters we focused on the importance of empirical evidence. Before this time, psychology was part of philosophy departments. This was mainly because, due to the lack of numbers and empirical evidence, the general public was not as accepting of psychology as a science. The psychologists discussed in this chapter helped change this false, but widespread belief. In addition to that, this chapter provided me with a better understanding of the history of psychology because I learned how animal research grew to become so central in psychology and the research done in our field.

After reading the chapter, I would like to learn more about Skinner’s Utopia, which was this week’s up-close. It is interesting to me that no matter the field of expertise, many well educated professionals, such as Skinner, find a way to apply it to governing a body of people. This reminded me of our recent University Presidential elections, when many professors, with their PhDs, believed they knew how to run a college more so than some of the presidential candidates.

Terms used: Clark Hull, Skinner, Edward Hull, habit strength, intervening variables, Skinner box, Skinner utopia, latent learning, operant conditioning, neobaviorists, goal directed, reinforcement, postulates, aptitude testing, hypnosis, nature and nurture.

Chapter 11

The first thing that I really found interesting while reading this chapter was the section on neobehaviorism. I honestly had never heard to neobehaviorism before and thought it was a very interesting concept. Their beliefs were and understanding of behavior were also something new to me. I mean, I had heard of the social learning theory but I've never heard of a field of psychology that not only uses it as a main focus but researches, measures, and studies everything about it. I also was unaware that the neobehaviorists were responsible for the refocus of the famous "mind as a blank state."

Something else that I found interesting was the idea of an intervening variable. I've never heard of this concept before and I thought it was interesting that there was a name for a hypothetical indication that can't be seen. Something that intervenes between a stimulus and behavior is something that's really interesting to even think about. Why would we need an intervening stimulus? I mean, what good does it do? We already have the stimulus which will usually follow with the behavior, so whats the point?

Another thing that was interesting to me while reading this chapter was the section on latent learning. The idea that Tolman had about learning being unnecessary was an idea that I had never thought about before. So my criticism of his point was, if our brains aren't molded around learning then why do we live the way we do? Which was answered further down in the section when he described that our lives tend to revolve around our motivation to do something.

One thing that I found very interesting was the section on Molar verses molecular behavior. I really thought this section was extremely dull and boring to read. It really seemed like it came straight out of a science dictionary and I found it very unpleasant to read. Also, I don't think the writers could have tried a bit herder to make the information more relevant to the chapter instead of just throwing it in there.

I really think that once I understand more about Tolman's Latent Learning, I'll really keep that in mind and remember it. I really think it's very interesting and think that the concept will stick with me and be applicable to use/ think about in the future. Mostly because I'm going to be a teacher and anything that has to do with learning, whether the theory is valid or not is really something good for me to think about.

I would like to learn more about Tolman's theory of latent learning. I really think the idea of it is intriguing but I am also a little bit confused about it and would like to find out more. The main thing that confuses me is what exactly he believes drives us as human. The text begins by giving me the impression that reinforcement before something happens is important but yet, they also give concern to the facts thats we don't' need reinforcement to have a drive to do something.

This chapter does a great job continuing the behaviorist ideas. Although this is a different concept of behaviorism, it still really continues with the same ideas and focus on empiricism.

I had quite a few ideas while reading this chapter, most I've posted above. A few others are concerned with how this book was written and if I could write it better, which I'm not sure I could. I really think this book focuses too much on definition of words, but I suppose that's a very important part of understanding what they are talking about.

Terms: Tolman, latent learning, empiricism, reinforcement, Neobehaviorism, intervening variable, molar behavior, molecular behavior, behaviorist, stimulus

The first thing that I found interesting in chapter 11 was Tolman and his research on rats and their learning while participating in maze experiments. Tolman wanted to standardize the maze procedures because in the early 1920’s psychologists were beginning to question their reliability. To do so Tolman came up with many new ideas: first he would measure the error scores rather than time-to-completion since some rats run faster than others, next all mazes would have uniform choice points, they would have numerous choice points, and there would be gates that would close to prevent retracing. First Tolman studied latent learning which would distinguish learning from performance, and it would show how reinforcement affects performance rather than learning. Although there showed to be drastic improvements in the number of errors when scientists added food on day 11 we still know that learning occurred to this point because they can’t just improve in one day. Next he branched from here and did more research on cognitive maps. Tolman did not believe that rats learned stimulus- response connections rather he thought they had an overall knowledge of the maze’s structure and spatial pattern that gave them a general sense of where to go. I love animal research because it fascinates me how animals like rats show intelligence, we humans always think we are superior to everything else on earth, but when if rats can show this type of learning and intelligence it makes me question what other species have the capabilities of doing.

The next topic I enjoyed reading about was Clark Hull. We’ve discussed many times in class why it is interesting to read about the lives of others: because it gives us hope, we love hearing about underdogs that came out on top because they are inspiration to us. Also we can relate to these types of people too so we always want to hear about their success stories. Hull was born into poverty, he lived in a log cabin on a farm in New York, he was raised on a farm in Michigan, and he was educated in a one-room schoolhouse in “pioneer conditions”. After he graduated he developed typhoid fever and soon after he contracted polio and was partially paralyzed at age 24. Because of this he had to take a year off but that is when he realized he wanted to pursue a degree in psychology because it related to philosophy, involved theoretical work, and permitted rapid growth. Hull was inspired by his experimental psychology course and he wanted to construct an experimental apparatus and be recognized by his predecessors. Hull is well known for many different things throughout his career including: hypnosis, aptitude testing, learning, hypothetico-deductive system, habit strength, drive reduction, primary rein forcers, secondary rein forcers, reaction potential, and much more.

One last thing that was extremely interesting to me was the section on A Skinnerian Utopia. I particularly enjoyed reading this section because last year I read Communist Manifesto and 1984 so I saw many similarities, and then towards the end of the section when it said sales were minimal at first I could understand why. Skinner wrote this book because he believed we could manipulate people’s behaviors and create happy, useful, and productive people. With this he wanted to restructure society built on operant conditioning ideas. A professor, a philosopher, two grad students and their girlfriends go to visit this society called Walden Two. In this society members get to choose their jobs, they all receive community’s benefits (free health care, education, cultural opportunities), they all earn a certain number of labor credits per year (less attractive jobs get more), everyone works 4 hours a day, there are six planners/managers both split equally between sexes because they are they don’t discriminate, and children are raised by the entire community being exposed to different frustrations and rewarded for dealing with them in a proper manner. This book didn’t sell well at first because it was during World War II/ the cold war so everyone thought it sounded communist and they didn’t like how it denied healthy competition but once it got closer to the 70’s people began to invest more in it. I found this whole concept very interesting and I would like to learn more about it along with Hull’s hypnosis.

I didn’t particularly enjoy reading the introduction to this chapter because it seemed very wordy, complex, long, and boring. I don’t like reading about definitions and that seemed to be all this chapter was about: post-watsonian behaviorism, logical positivism, operationism, operational definitions, neobehaviorism, etc. Although each of these are very important in understanding psychology I didn’t enjoy learning it by reading.

This chapter built on others because it expanded on behaviorism and taught us more about the key psychologists dealing with this. It also brought up classical conditioning, maze experiments, animal intelligence, Watson, and Titchener.

Terms: reliability, Tolman, latent learning, cognitive maps, Skinner, Walden Two, positive reinforcements, hypnosis, aptitude testing, learning, hypothetico-deductive system, habit strength, drive reduction, primary rein forcers, secondary rein forcers, reaction potential, post-watsonian behaviorism, logical positivism, operationism, operational definitions, neobehaviorism.

Chapter 11 was an interesting chapter that builds off of chapter 10 which we read last week. It is contributing more information to the concept of behaviorism which was the main topic last week. This chapter talks about three important people that played a role in behaviorism. I found a number of different things interesting.

The first thing I found interesting in this chapter was Tolman's Research Program. I found this section interesting because it talked about rat mazes. It started off explaining how rat mazes were found to not be very reliable. There were multiple reasons they believed they were not as reliable as previously thought. One reason was that there were a variety of different mazes and each maze would cause different times of completion making it difficult to compare. One thing I found interesting was even using the same maze there was not very good reliability and the times would still differ dramatically. Tolman's research was designed to help solve the problems associated with the evolving learning theory. Tolman termed the phenomenon of rats not needing a reinforcement to learn to complete the maze as latent learning. It was interesting that Tolman believed that rats created a spatial map of the maze they were learning.

The next thing I found interesting in this chapter was Clark Hull's system. One thing that I found really interesting about this section was just the outlook he had on life. He shared a lot of similar ideas with Sir Isaac Newton. I found it interesting that, similar to how Newton believed that the universe was a giant machine, Hull believed humans also operated in a mechanical fashion. It was interesting that someone could think like that. It was most likely because of his ability to build machines. The hypothetico-deductive system was also an interesting part of this section. It was the way that Hull tested his hypothesis. He would develop a theory, test it, modify the theory based on the testing, then test the modifications. He would continue doing this until he found the theory to be completed.

The next section I found interesting was about the experimental analysis of behavior. This section talked about B. F. Skinner and how he was able to distinguish between Type S and Type R conditioning. He distinguished these two different types of conditioning in The Behavior of Organisms. Type S conditioning is the model associated with Pavlov. Type R can be known as operant conditioning and is a when a behavior is emitted following a consequence and the future behavior occurring to the consequences.

All in all I thought this was a relatively boring chapter. I am not exactly sure why I just could not get interested while reading. I don't know what I want to learn more about from this chapter.

Terms: behaviorism, Tolman, Clark Hull, Newton, hypothetico-deductive system, B.F. Skinner, Type S, Type R, operant conditioning, and consequence.

Because I tend to be interested in behaviorism, and also because I am in Behavior Modification this semester, I already knew most of the things from this chapter. However, repetition will only help remember something better, and I find this area of psychology extremely fascinating, so I kept an open mind while reading this chapter. There were also a few things that I did not know previously.
I found it interesting how the majority of psychologists either ignored Watson's Behaviorist Manifesto, or wrote it off as just another person being critical of introspection. I think that this was well illustrated by the fact that at least 12 varieties of non-behavioral psychology were in existence in 1925 and 1930.

There is great significance in Woodworth's assessment that behaviorism would be viewed as a tool for the common good. This is important in analyzing why some forms of psychology stay alive whilst others do not. For instance, although Gestalt psychology had some interesting aspects, there wasn't any ordinary use for it. With behaviorism, we learned how to shape and predict human behaviors, which is a very useful tool in the real world.

One thought that I had during this chapter was an inference based on what we learned in a previous chapter about why Gestalt psychology did not last. I believe that one reason why behaviorism lasted was because it had scientific objectivity, behaviors are clearly observable, Pavlov and Skinner's research was interesting, and finally the original researchers must have taught grad students and passed on the study of behaviorism to subsequent generations.

I really think I understand the concept of logical positivism very well. It is my understanding that this discipline uses logic to hypothesize about something, and then tests to see if the evidence (in psychology's case, an observable behavior) supports the theory.
On the other hand, I had serious difficulty understanding the broad concept of operationism. I don't know if I was thinking too hard about it, but I did not at all like the analogy of measuring the length of something. However, I think that the gist of operationism in the way that it relates to psychology is that it stresses the importance of using specific agreed-upon definitions of terms.

I liked the part on page 363 where the book directly talked about the specific consensus upon which all neobehaviorists could agree. One thing that stood out to me was that neobehaviorists all tended to lean towards the nurture side of the nature/nurture debate. Without doubt, both have some influence on making us who we are, however we evolved to be complex creatures who can manipulate our environments, which is why I believe that applied psychology should focus primarily on the nurture end of the spectrum. On the other end of the spectrum we would find answers such as eugenics and compulsory sterilization. I believe that our brains evolved to compensate for where our unchangeable DNA is lacking in adapting to the atmosphere, and that our brains allow us to adapt the atmosphere to us.

I was amused by the reasons why Hull eventually decided to settle on a career in psychology when his first choice of mining was no longer an option. It is interesting that many of the founders of modern day psychology were "wannabe" philosophers who took advantage of the growing field so they didn't have to wait for their predecessors to die before they got published.

I already know much about Skinner's operant conditioning, so I will not write about that in this assignment. I was amused by his criticism of Boring's course on perception as "simply painful," which makes me think that I would have liked to meet Skinner even more than I did before. I also liked how he called for an attack on "the misguided efforts of cognitive psychologists" (p. 384 Goodwin).

Terms:
Behaviorism, Watson, Behaviorist Manifesto, Introspection, Woodworth, Common Good, Gestalt, Shape, Predict, Behaviors, Scientific, Objectivity, Observable, Pavlov, Skinner, Logical Positivism, Hypothesize, Evidence, Theory, Operationism, Measuring, Neobehaviorists, Consensus, Nurture, Nature, Evolved, Manipulate, Environments, Eugenics, Compulsory Sterilization, Compensate, DNA, Adapting, Atmosphere, Hull, Operant Conditioning, Boring, Cognitive Psychologists

The first thing that I found interesting about Chapter 11 was the thought behind all neobehaviorists where they believed that there was continuity among species. This was the idea that behaviors that apply to one species should apply, at least to a degree that can be calibrated, to other species as well. This laid ground to the idea that we could use animals in our studies and record their behaviors and assume that it would apply to human beings. I just found this interesting because it’s kind of neat to see how we are the same as other species even though we are more superior in ways.
The second thing that I found interesting about this chapter was the molar behaviors further explained in the molar versus molecular section. This showed how it isn’t really how we look at something individually, but as a whole when we are doing a behavior and working towards a goal and we are not focusing on little things involved. I found this interesting because it was helpful how they explained the behaviors and how we see things we do as a map and not as individual little things.
The final thing that I found interesting in this chapter was reading about Tolman and how he came up with the idea of latent learning. Latent learning was the idea of how we could show that learning was occurring even if the motivation for learning wasn’t present. This was interesting because it kind of defeated the idea that reinforcement was necessary in order for learning to occur in species, rats in particular.
The thing I didn’t really like about this chapter was really nothing because I enjoy reading about behaviorism. So, I decided to write about something else that was different that I hadn’t really seen yet. All of these different researchers work on all their theories and want it to be the best and never be superseded by anybody and their way was right, then it would always be superseded by someone and it would be better than theirs. This is a reoccurring trend in psychology. So the thing I found interesting was Tolman’s approach on his research. It was kind of cool how he took his work not too seriously and knew people would come along with better work and better ideas, this kind of mindset was interesting and I think might have made him a better researcher.
The way this chapter builds on the other chapters was because it kind of was a run off of the last chapter when it talks about more on behaviorism. A topic that I would like to learn more about would be how punishment may affect learning. The reason I thought about this was because we focused on how reinforcement would affect learning positively but what would happen if punishment were the thing that affected learning. Do you think rats would learn mazes faster if every time they didn’t learn it correctly a positive punishment happened? An idea that I had about the chapter was a little odd but I thought about how much of psychology was learned from rats running through different kinds of mazes?
Terms: neobehaviorist, species, behaviors, molar behaviors, molecular behaviors, Tolman, latent learning, motivation, reinforcement, psychology, punishment, learning, positive punishment.

Chapter 11 The Evolution Of Behaviorism.

Before actually reading chapter 11 I thought this chapter would be repetitive and very uninteresting because it is on behaviorism yet again. So I was surprised that I found a few things interesting. The first thing I found interesting was Tolman's research on the reliability of cognitive maps (rat mazes). I found this to be interesting because it shows that even in the 1920's psychologist were still finding ways to improve their research. Most of the time it seems like only in recent decades that psychology has been improving. As any scientist knows in order for research to be accurate the test has to be reliable or repeatable. The mazes became an issue of reliability because there were so many different mazes. Tolman and his students found that error scores should be used instead of using how much time it took for the rat to complete the maze.

Another part of this behaviorism chapter that interested me was Clark Hull's learning tactics. What interested me was that he used Chinese letters as stimuli for learning new concepts. His subjects had to associate a nonsense sound with a certain part of the letter. After several packs of stimuli the subjects could give the correct nonsense sound by looking at the letter. Eventually they could identify stimuli they'd never seen before. From this Hull developed habit strength. Habit strength was Hull's intervening variable that influenced behavior that was direct function of the number of reinforced trials. I found this interesting because I've never really thought about using letters as stimuli. Although it makes sense because that is how as children we learned the alphabet. Learning was also based on habit.

B.F. Skinner is the part of the chapter I thought was least interesting. I feel that operant conditioning has been shoved down our throats since day one. An idea I had was maybe instead of the "major" psychologists research always being taught in class we should learn what new thoughts, research and ideas current psychologist are discovering. It gets old sitting in psychology classes just to feel that I'm relearning everything.

Terms: psychologists, operant conditioning, B.F. Skinner, reinforced trials, function, behavior, intervening variable, habit strength, nonsense sound, stimuli, Clark Hull, behaviorism, repeatable, reliable, psychology, cognitive maps, Tolman, reliability

One thing that I found interesting from this chapter is neobehaviorism. Neobehaviorism is a behaviorist movement that emerged in the 1930’s. This movement looked at the evolutionary assumption continuity among species. This means that the laws of behavior should at least loosely apply from one species to the next. Because of neobehaviorism, there was a dramatic increase in animal studies. Tolman was quoted in the book, “I believe that everything important in psychology…can be investigated in essence through the continued experimental and theoretical analysis if the determiners of rat behavior at a choice-point in a maze.” I found this most interesting because it doesn’t seem likely to me that all of psychology and its concepts can be based on a rat in a maze. I feel there has to be more to it.

I also found intervening variable to be interesting. Intervening variables are hypothetical factors that are not seen directly but are inferred from the manner in which independent and dependent variables are operationally defined. This theory reflects logical positivism which was just positivist thinking. An example used in the book was thirst. You cannot directly see thirst but you can deduce that it is there.

The last thing I found interesting from this chapter is B.F Skinner. Skinner argued Tolman and Hull’s theories. Skinner focused more on that behavior could be manipulated and predicted. He is best known for his distinction between operant and classical conditioning. To do this, Skinner was concerned with the response rate of a rat in a chamber.

I was not fond of the section on Molar vs Molecular behavior. I found it to be long, drawn out and boring. I really liked this chapter overall because it is directly related to what we have learned this semester in Bmod. This chapter really relates to chapter 10 and expands on behaviorism. I would like to so more research on B.F. Skinner. While reading this chapter, I couldn’t help but think about all the animals that have been experimented on. I feel bad for then and really hope more care is provided during research.

Terms: Neobehaviorism, behavior, laws of behavior, intervening variables, Tolman, Hull, Skinner, Molar vs Molecular

The first interesting topic from chapter 11 was Edward C. Tolman, who was born in1886 to an upper-middle class family in Massachusetts. Tolman was intelligent; he had a scientific mind for physics and chemistry. However he did not want to follow in his older brother’s footsteps and instead paved his own trail in psychology. Tolman had anti-war beliefs which make me wonder what his relationship was like with his older brother Richard Tolman, who was one of the physicists to have been involved with the creation of the atomic bomb during WWII. Tolman’s passion for behaviorism grew after taking philosophy and psychology. It is fitting that as an intelligent student Tolman had Yerkes as his professor of psychology. It was interesting to learn that Tolman’s way of thinking was influenced by many different great minds. He studied William James’s approach to psychology, Gestalt psychology, Watson’s behaviorism, and Edwin Holt’s ideas of exploring the purpose of behaviorism. He was able to combine his psychological influence and develop his own unique version of behaviorism. Tolman applied the Gestalt theory towards animal behaviorism and came up with Molar behavior, in which he believed the focus on behavior should be as a whole not just the response from on particular moment. Tolman also believed having purposiveness would help motivate the subject to learn in order to achieve a goal. Tolman applied a scientific approach to psychology by measuring and observing variables that cause learned behavior.

The second interesting topic was Clark Hull, he was considered to be one of the leading research psychologists of his time. Hull was born on the east coast in 1884; he grew up in poverty and overcame many obstacles to become successful. He was inflicted with disease two different times in his life, typhoid almost killed him and polio partially paralyzed him. He did not let his disease hold him back; he created a brace for his leg and continued studying for his career in psychology. Aptitude testing for vocational guidance was one interest of Hull’s, he created an automatic calculating machine to help measure and validate test scores. Another interest was hypnosis and suggestibility, Hull thought hypnosis was similar to our consciousness. I found it interesting that as a graduate student Hull was rejected at Yale University, and in 1929 he became the President of Yale University. While at Yale, Hull was able to develop his theory of learning. Over time these theories were tested, modified, and revised. For Hull the most important elements were contiguity and reinforcement, together they increase habit strength in which creates the motive for learning.

The third interesting topic was Burrhus Frederick Skinner who was born in 1904 in Pennsylvania. Skinner began questioning authority when he was young, these questions would eventually evolve into behavioral research. Until then creative writing became his escape from reality. Although Skinner went through with what he called a “Dark Year” he would become enlightened through studying behaviorism. Skinner became influenced by Pavlov and Watson’s views on conditioning and behaviorism. Around 1930, as a graduate student Skinner began working in the laboratory at Harvard University. He developed a system of behaviorism that focused on operant conditioning. Skinner thought Type R-Conditioning should be explained as a form of association between the behavior and the consequences. The Type S-Conditioning was when both stimuli produced the same response. Skinner also learned by studying Pavlov to, “control your conditions and you will see order.” Skinner created a controlled environment designed for rats. It had different chambers with levers that when pressed by the rat either gave them the positive consequence of food or a negative consequence of a mild electrical shock through the floor. He also did a similar experiment with pigeons. The chambers have become known as the Skinner box. Skinner’s chambers and measuring devices have allowed him to use operant conditioning in a controlled environment in order to explore a radical new form of behaviorism.

This chapter relates to previous chapters by further exploring the possibilities and the concepts of behaviorism. Studying behaviorism was becoming more popular in twentieth century America. Psychology was once again evolving.

The topic I would be interested in learning more about is Skinner’s story of Walden Two. I like the idea of having free health care and free education!

Terms: Edward C. Tolman, molar behavior, purposiveness, Clark Hull, habit strength, B.F. Skinner, type r-conditioning, type-s conditioning, operant conditioning

The first interesting thing I found in this chapter was the idea of goal directedness or purposiveness. Edward C. Tolman believed that this was a universal feature of learned behavior. One example of this is a rat running in a maze. The rat is running the maze in order to get the food at the end. The food is his goal, or purpose.

I found this section interesting because, without thinking about it, most or all of the things we do as humans is because of some goal. We work because we want money. We eat because we are hungry. We watch TV because we want to relax. All of these actions have some goal in mind. I never put much thought into this, but it makes a lot of sense. It probably had an evolutionary purpose as well. I also thought it was interesting that animals do this as well.

Another section I found interesting was the one on latent learning. Tolman did not believe that it was impossible to learn something without reinforcement. He believed that learning without reinforcement was possible, and called it latent learning. To prove this, Tolman needed to show that learning was happening even if there was no reinforcement. He did this using rats in a maze. Some rats were not given a reward after completing a maze, others were. After a few days the no reward rats found food. After this they improved quickly. This showed that learning occurred the entire time, and not just once food had been found.

I found this interesting because I take it for granted that latent learning is a thing. We don't need to reward people in order for them to learn things. I'm sure there have been lots of things I've learned that I haven't been rewarded for. I do think, however, that in order to keep people or animals trying to do something you do need to encourage them or reward them for their efforts, otherwise they might give up or not work as hard.

Another section I found interesting was the one on the utopian book BF Skinner wrote, Walden Two. This was about a professor who visits this utopian society. Each member in society has to work a certain number of credits in order to receive benefits such as healthcare and education. The whole community raises children together, and the children are raised using positive reinforcement. The members of this community are considered equal, no matter their sex. Sales for this book weren't very good at first. People didn't like the communist seeming ideals of the story. They did increase later on, however.

This interested me because it seems really strange. You don't think that a psychologist is going to write a work of fiction. You expect them to publish their work, or maybe write a book applying their work to the general population. This story did use his conditioning methods, so it was somewhat related to his work. It seems like propaganda for his theory to me.

One section I was not interested in was the one on Hull's system. Hull really liked Isaac Newton and used Newton's approach to physics as a model for his own approach to psychology. He believed, like Newton, in the importance of theory. This cause him to constantly edit and revise his ideas and work. This was called the hypothetico-deductive system. Hull believed that ideas about human behavior are thought to be correct, but cannot be tested directly. Experiments can be use to support these ideas or prove them wrong.

This section didn't interest me because nothing really happen. I don't know of any implications of this idea and there were no examples of experiments given.

This chapter told me more about behavioralism and gave me a deeper understanding of it. This chapter went beyond what we learned about in other classes. I think this will give us valuable insight into psychology as a whole.

This chapter is about the evolution of behavioralism and so it built on the previous chapter, which introduced behavioralism to us.

I would like to learn more about BF Skinner. He seemed to have an interesting childhood and I would like to learn more about his life in general.

While reading this chapter I thought about the ways we can use behavioralism to influence how people act. I thought about how you use conditioning and rewards a lot with children because they are learning a lot of things in a very short amount of time.

terms:
directedness, purposiveness, Tolman, learned behavior, latent learning, reinforcement, BF Skinner, Walden two, positive reinforcement, conditioning, Hull, Isaac Newton, hypothetico-deductive system, behavioralism

The first thing I found of interest was how operational definitions came into the study and use of psychology. That it originated from a small group consisting of philosophers, mathematicians, and scientists that meet on a regular bases just for a cup of coffee, where they essentially called themselves based on their meeting place the Vienna Circle. What was just a gathering to discuss the logic and philosophy of sciences they came up with a new positive way of thinking known as logical positivism. Which turned into a way to extend positivist(ism) thinking, of a knowledge that is assumed to be obtained through objective, publicly observable events; by trying to describe ways of connecting theoretical and observable events through operational definitions. A no easy task with most positivists taking a empiricist approach that knowledge of the world is based off of one’s own experiences in it. This philosophy sat just fine with Watson, in the fact that it supported his belief in psychology that things must be observable and not subjective, a task in itself that proved difficult when it came to unobservable concepts such as hunger or thirst. That is when logical positivists was able to apply physics to the problem by applying abstract concepts into a scientific theory, saying as long as the concepts had close ties to some observable events. It was this up bringing that allowed a place for operationism to provide the link between the two events. To provide the concepts with a definition with reference to the operation used to measure them, but in no means in absolute terms in regard for the many operations that could be used to measure the events. The same was brought up about pseudoproblems, questions that might be interesting to ask but would yield no answers by means of a scientific observation. It wasn’t until a S. S. Stevens that operational definition was introduced to the psychologist field. A developer of the classification scheme for the measurement scale, Steven was the one that introduced an answer to the logical positivists problem. Definitions involving precise descriptions of procedures for measurements and for the specifying of the variables in an experiment, like that of hunger and aggression. By defining a motivational state by the set of operations that were assumed to bring them about, all while staying to true to a positivist philosophy. With the more precise descriptions other researchers are more likely to produce a more successful replication of the study, producing increased confidence in the research.

The next thing I found interesting was the writings of Tolman and his outtake on the complex interplay between empirical research and logical positivism. His first was that of a molar behavior versus a molecular behavior, in that the learning of something is more than just the kinesthetic responses within the body. That the individual has to derive meaning from their actions as a whole in how it effects their movements, in other words that of a gestaltist. He went on to call this a field theory, like that of Lewin’s theory of knowing about all the forces acting on a person at a particular time, Tolman say it in a way that neobehaviorism was influenced by gestaltists. Proposing the brain as more like a ….“map control room than it is like an old-fashioned telephone exchange” and during learning a ….”filed map of the environment” (Tolman, 1948, p. 192). For the molar behavior to take effect it has to be directed with some sort of goal, it was this thinking that lead Tolman to goal-directedness or purposiveness. It is this purpose that derives a behavior to get-to or get-from some place, a behavior that could be considered adaptive and therefore a survival value. When I came across his writing on intervening variable I knew right away what it was, hypothetical internal factors, like thirst, that intervene between stimulus and response. I never knew who came up with the term just how and what it was used in.

The thing(s) I found the most useful in this chapter were the steps relating to the process of measuring a study. From Steven’s operational definition, Hilgard’s replication, and Tolman’s intervening variables and reliability. All psychological tools in setting up a reliable study that can be repeated without difficulty by anyone. This chapter builds upon the last in the field of behavior and gestaltist. Bringing about a more positive precise way of defining a research study and looking at a behavior as a whole. The topic I would like to learn more about it that of Steven’s operational definitions, but more in the sense of how he came to the concept. While reading this chapter I actually had a few ideas, for the most part those of recognizing were they were going with the methods/theory and relating to how I have used them in the general field.

Terms: operational definitions, Vienna Circle, logical positivism, positivist, empiricist, operationism, pseudoproblems, replication, Tolman, molar behavior, gestaltist, field theory, Lewin, neobehaviorism, goal-directedness, purposiveness, Hilgard, reliability

I was most interested in B.F. Skinner and his book, Walden Two. Dr. Skinner’s ideas that operant conditioning (presented in fictional form) could be used to train a society to live in Utopia may have spawned any number of cults in our society. In the novel, the main character is visiting Walden Two with the idea that the village is a cult, and the inhabitants are brainwashed. Skinner presented a society that was perfect, and the members were cooperative and conditioned to work together without antagonism, jealousy, or power struggles. The managed community had many different job opportunities and no one was stuck in any one job, but could rotate throughout the jobs, as long as work was done each day. The entire village raised the children, and I have read about similar child-rearing in the Pacific Islands, so that was not an original idea or unheard of in a society. In our society, parents are technically in charge of their own children and usually have the help of extended family members and neighbors. Walden Two did seem like a paradise, but I am skeptical because humans notoriously abuse power when given too much of it. Eventually, an elite group will emerge as in cases of nepotism or cronyism throughout the world’s history. However, if people were actually conditioned to not take advantage of others in such a situation, the world could be very ideal and cooperative. I am afraid that our society is still far away from anything close to Utopia.

I was also interested to read that Dr. Skinner was not highly regarded in his own time because his ideas were considered outside the norm and radical. He was inspired by Pavlov and Watson. Skinner was a proponent for behaviorism and operant conditioning and eventually did begin to rank in the psychological community as being very influential. The behaviorist ideas that Skinner put forth are very effective in many arenas in life, including two of the most important institutions in people’s lives, the workplace and schools. Dr. Skinner’ abilities to apply his techniques of conditioning were unmatched, and even though his Project Pigeon was scrapped, he became more convinced that behavioral psychology could be readily applied to many areas of society, especially in child rearing.

Another interesting subject in this chapter was the dissertation presented by Clark Hull. Dr. Hull did research about the way people learn new concepts. He used Chinese characters to show that subjects learning these characters could develop “habit strength” of learning through a process of sight recognition and correction. The experimenters would flash the characters and have the subjects guess what the characters were, then correct them. Eventually the subjects were able to guess the sight letters correctly and were able to figure out the characters which they had not yet seen. Dr. Hull was gratified to see that learning in this manner was gradual but improved steadily. I was fascinated to see that Dr. Hull was also an inventor, of sorts, because he developed a calculation machine to calculate correlations. The text stated that his machine never caught on because it was too bulky. That made me think of the IBM computers and how bulky they were, and now we have laptops and IPads.

I enjoyed reading about Dr. Edward Tolman and purposiveness – where behavior is always directed with some purpose in mind. Purposiveness is the very reason that humans came out of the caves, and here Dr. Tolman came up a simplistic but exact evolutionary explanation for most conscious and unconscious behavior.

I did not care much for the section about Dr. Hull and reaction potential. I was not surprised to learn that Dr. Hull’s theories were too complex and misunderstood, because he seemed to be very mathematically inclined and his reaction potential reminded me of game theory, which was introduced by a mathematician. When the graphs go 3D, it causes my eyes to glaze over and I am sure I am not the only person who thinks that way.

This chapter built on previous chapters by showing how psychologists began expanding on the ideas developed by Watson. The psychologists in this chapter were behaviorists and they seem to use a lot of statistical calculations to formulate their ideas. They used the principles of operant conditioning to prove their theories and they became known as neobehaviorists. Skinner seems to be the most remembered of the three neobehaviorists in the experimental psychology presented in this chapter.

Terminology:
B.F. Skinner, Walden Two, operant conditioning, game theory, reaction potential, neobehaviorists, Dr. Edward Tolman, purposiveness, Dr. Clark Hull, Project Pigeon, habit strength