Topical Blog Week #12 (Due Thursday)

Chapter 11
I decided to look more into the background of Clark Hull and his contributions to the history of psychology. His background will fit into this chapter because it’s just more extensive material of what information is already provided. I’m intrigued to learn more about Hull because he is an individual that was never really discussed throughout my college career. To be quite honest I have never heard his name mentioned in any of my psychology courses. I’m interested to know more about his contributions throughout the history of psychology.

Something I wasn't aware of was that at age 24, Hull contracted polio and became permanently paralyzed in his left leg, leaving him reliant on an iron brace and cane to walk. He had originally planned to study engineering, but his health struggles led him to turn his interests toward psychology. While his poor health and financial struggles led to several interruptions in his education, he eventually earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Michigan. In 1918, he was awarded his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Major influences on Hull's thinking included the work of Pavlov, Darwin, Thorndike and Tolman. He is best known for his Drive Reduction Theory which postulated that behavior occurs in response to "drives" such as hunger, thirst, sexual interest, feeling cold, etc. Hull believed that human behavior is a result of the constant interaction between the organism and its environment. The environment provides the stimuli and the organism responds, all of which is observable. Yet there is a component that is not observable, the change or adaptation that the organism needs to make in order to survive within its environment. Hull was an objective behaviorist. He never considered the conscious or any mentalistic notion. He tried to reduce every concept to physical terms. He viewed human behavior as mechanical, automatic and cyclical, which could be reduced to the terms of physics. Obviously, he thought in terms of mathematics, and felt that behavior should be expressed according to these terms.

In Hull's time three specific methods were commonly used by researchers; observation, systematic controlled observation, and experimental testing of the hypothesis. Hull believed that an additional method was needed, - The Hypothetic Deductive method. This involves deriving postulates from which experimentally testable conclusions could be deduced. These conclusions would then be experimentally tested. His learning theory focuses mainly on the principle of reinforcement; when an S-R relationship is followed by a reduction of the need, the probability increases that in future similar situations the same stimulus will create the same prior response. Reinforcement can be defined in terms of reduction of a primary need.
Hull's work has been criticized because he assumed that his laws of behavior, which were derived from experiments with rats, would account for all human behavior, including social behavior. While his theory is not considered a major contributor to current understanding of learning, nonetheless he contributed to the methodology for experimentation in learning theory.

http://www.lifecircles-inc.com/Learningtheories/behaviorism/clarkhull.html
There is a lot of material about Hulls contributions on this website. A lot of my information about his contributions was synthesized from this website.

http://www.sonoma.edu/users/d/daniels/hullspence.htm
This webpage went discussed information over Hull's life and theories. This information contributed to this blog through the backgground information and the Drive Reduction Theory.

http://www.slideshare.net/RathiJayan/hulls-theory-of-learning
This webpage shared a slide show discussing the Drive Reduction Theory in detail.

Barrhus Frederic Skinner was born in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania on March 20,1904. His father was a lawyer and his mother was a homemaker. After graduating high school he attended Hamilton College in New York with the intention of becoming a writer. He wrote for the school paper, but he was an athiest and demonstrated strong opinions in his compositions. After graduating Hamilton he attended harvard Univeristy. He graduated from Harvard in 1931 with a Ph.D. After his graduation he continued researching at the University until 1936. He began teaching at the University of Minnesota and then at Indiana University. He was married and also brought two daughters into the world as well. He was a distinguished professor, inventor, author, and social philosopher.

Skinner had many major accomplishments throughout his life as well. He is probably best known for his invention of Radical Behaviorism and alsot he Operant Conditioning Chamber otherwise known as the "Skinner Box." This box was designed for rats. It had a lever and food tray in it,a nd the rat could acquire food by pressing the lever. They pressed the bar by accident when first put in the box, then the pressing of the bar increased after they found out food appeared. Skinner beleived any human action was a result of a consequence of that same action. He also founded his own school of experimental research. Throughout his lifetime he had twenty one books published and one hundred and eighty articles published. He also has recieved numerous degrees and awards, one of the awards being Human of the Year in 1972.

Overall B.F. Skinner had a huge impact on the field of psychology. His ideas and theories on behaviorism helped shape the field into what it essentially is today. He did wonders for this field of study and accomplished many great things throughout his lifetime.

Free will is a topic that has been mentioned here and there throughout this textbook. It came up a little bit here in Chapter 11 with the mentioning of the Skinnerian Utopia and his Walden books; describing his perfect society and in a way, limiting free will. There is, and has been, much controversy on whether or not free will exists. Keeping the Skinnerian Utopia in mind, I am also taking biopsychology this semester. Our most recent lecture talked about free will and split-brain experiments. All of this information was very interesting to me, which is why I chose to research both the topics of free will and split brain experiments for this week’s topical blog.

For starters, what is free will? Free will can be defined as the ability to choose between various alternatives, despite various intervening factors. In other words, free will involves making choices based on your own personal thoughts and values that come from within your own mind, rather than being influenced by external forces. To relate to the Skinnerian Utopia, how would we behave if we had a totally new form of government? Would behavior currently labeled as illegal still be frowned upon by the general public?? It is interesting to think about. Free will, for quite some time now, has been closely related to moral responsibility. It is believed that people act upon free will in order to uphold their own moral responsibly. For instance, I may choose not to drink at a party because I feel as though drinking is harmful to my body and personal life. Other people may choose to drink at a party because they feel as though letting loose is what they are supposed to do as young adults in the college world. There has been plenty of research done on two factors directly relating to free will. Some researchers focus on trying to unravel the mystery of whether or not free will exists. Other researchers dive into the realm of how the belief of free will affects individual behavior. Both forms of research are interesting, at least to me.

One study took participants and measured their belief in free will with a questionnaire. Their belief in free will was then altered, either to reduce it or to increase it. The outcomes of this study showed that individuals who had stronger beliefs in free will were less likely to conform. Individuals who had weaker beliefs in free will, due to the manipulation (which was a discussion showing evidence on why free will may or may not exist), were more likely to conform to the group, even though they were encouraged to think for themselves. It just so happened that they believed that by doing what the group was doing, they were indeed doing the right thing (directly relating to moral responsibility). This discussion led me to wonder then, does free will exists? Being prepped by today’s lecture in biopsychology, I researched split brain experiments.

The brain is comprised of two hemispheres, the right hemisphere and the left hemisphere. The corpus callosum transfers information between the two hemispheres. In general, the right hemisphere controls the left side of the body and the left hemisphere controls the right side of the body. When a stimulus is registered by the right eye, for example, the left hemisphere is what registers this information. Some individuals have their corpus callosum severed, blocking the passing of information between the two hemispheres. Why would anyone have the corpus callosum severed?? In patients who have severe epilepsy and experience seizures, severing the corpus callosum alleviates these seizures, if not stopping them all together. Much research has been done examining the effects of living with a severed corpus callosum or in other words, a “split brain.” What they find is that, for split brain individuals, if information can get to the left hemisphere, objects can be named and properly use. For instance, if an individual is given information about a comb via their right side, their left hemisphere registers this information and the comb can be properly named and used. However, if the left eye is given information about a comb and then later asked to recall, split individuals cannot do this (because the information was registered in the right hemisphere, not the left). Even more interesting, in some experiments, individuals who are about to have their corpus callosum severed will undergo surgery wherein the surgeon removes a section of the skull, with the patient CONSCIOUS, to stimulate different parts of the brain. This is done to make sure that the surgery will not result in adverse effects such as the inability to form language. What they found is that, no matter the external forces, each part of the brain would result in the same response. For instance, when one part of the brain is touched by the surgeon, the patient will laugh, no matter what. When asked why he or she laughed, they will simply make something up; such as “oh I remembered something funny from yesterday.” This sheds light on the topic of free will because perhaps the reasons why we believe we behave in a particular fashion are in fact not the reasons at all, and rather it is the wiring of our own brain that makes us behave the way we do, not free will.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103112001825#
This is a research article from The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. This article discussed the study examining how the belief of free will affects behavior.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMLzP1VCANo
This YouTube video shows a man with a “split brain.” You can see some of the affects that I discussed in this blog. It is important to remember that these affects can only be seen through a research study like this one. If we were to see this man in a normal everyday setting, we would not know that his corpus callosum has been severed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain
Here, I got added information about split brains, the two hemispheres of the brain, and the corpus callosum.

Skinner's Utopia was a really interesting concept for me. While reading about the main concepts of Skinner's novel, Walden Two, I found myself intrigued and wondered if a society like this could function. I actually ordered Walden Two on Amazon because I wanted to know exactly what Skinner was proposing. The entire concept of this Utopian society seemed ideal, and in some ways, much better than society today. However, there are no doubt unforeseen consequences to a society like Walden Two and the idea never took flight in the United States despite Skinner's firm beliefs that it could work.
Walden Two explores a society where everyone gets to enjoy benefits like health care and education by working collectively. Each member of society is required to work for a specific number of work credits. Children were not raised by individual parents, but by the community, and there was equality between the sexes. This community abolishes the idea of free will.
Skinner did not think very much of the concept of free will. He proposed that everything we do is based on the idea of rewards and punishments. Because of this line of thinking, there was nothing stopping him from supporting this idea whole-heartily. However, to many people at the time of the release of the novel the ideas seemed to model those of Communism. How dare someone suggest that Americans do not have free will! The basis for our society is that everyone is told that they can do exactly what they want when they want. It is no surprise that reaction to this society that is so radically different, despite it being possibly better or worse than current society, was negative and inevitably ignored.
One of the main critiques of Walden Two is that is suggests people being brain washed into acting and behaving in certain ways. I do not believe that is what it means at all. When I was reading about this society, I did not feel like people were unable to think for themselves. It actually states that people were able to choose the jobs that were interesting to them. I think that we equate too much structure and rules with a loss of freedom and free will. This society provides communal benefits if everyone contributes like they should. I personally do not see anything wrong with that.
In 1967, there was a real life experiment call Twin Oaks that set to mimic Walden Two society in the real world. Twin Oaks ultimately failed, but I think that it was because there was very little planning in the development in the community. Also, Twin Oaks was constructed and left to its own devices. I feel like if the community was run by psychologists then there may have been a different outcome.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2778813/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden_Two
http://www.twinoaks.org/culture-government/walden-two-community.html?start=5

I decided to do my research on latent learning as it was studied by Tolman. I think it is an interesting notion that we can still learn without reinforcement. This is the basis of what Tolman was trying to figure out when he was working with rats and reinforcement. Tolman was coming up with no theories on reinforcement and motivation. It was a new idea that he had little evidence to support. He needed to come up with an experiment and record his data. I really wanted to see if there was any other work done regarding latent learning and what we have found out recently about it. Anytime something sways from the norm, and has some validity, I find it to be very interesting and worth while to study. I think sometimes we get so locked in on what we know that we forget that we do not know everything. No one theory is 100% correct and working on all of them together can make a more complete, better theory of learning.

What interests me in that the reinforcement does not occur immediately. I really like the phrase, beneath the surface learning. The learning does occur but it is not immediately obvious. The reinforcement will occur somewhere down the line when the individual has to emit the behavior previously observed or unconsciously learned. I think this type of learning is interesting because you might now even realize that you learned something until you are forced to do it in the future. It is stored away somewhere in our brains for later use. I also think it would be interesting to research and try to find out where/what structure our brain stores this learning in. It could be up to a year later before you have to emit the behavior but you still remember it and, in turn, are reinforced when you re-emit the behavior because it was successful in the specific task.

I do not think that Tolman was trying to prove Pavlov and other psychologists wrong. I just think he was interesting in this type of learning. He refused to believe that all learning required reinforcement. I think that is it interesting that once the one group of rats started getting reinforced, their motivation (or something of that matter) increased. They were still learning without reinforcement but at a lower rate. As soon as the food was administered, their errors in the maze decrease dramatically. This shows that they were learning but had no motivation to learn fast. As soon as they did, they were able to learn and emit faster than any other group. This is an interesting find because it shows that learning can occur without reinforcement, but something about it makes us learn faster. Reinforcement, according to these finds, can be a learning tool or a motivator depending on the tasks and the type of reinforcement.

Tolman also discovered that these rats were making cognitive maps of these mazes even when no reward was imminent. This is important because it shows that they are not running aimlessly through the maze. They have remembered the outline of the map and when the food is present, they run it faster. This shows how the reinforcement can motivate an organism to emit the learned behavior faster and more precise. Latent learning is an important concept because we must remember that learning can take place with no immediate reinforcement. In some cases, the reinforcement can be used as a motivator to do well. This illustrates positive reinforcement, which is very beneficial to learning.

http://www.ajbasweb.com/ajbas/2011/August-2011/1554-1561.pdf this link showed the relation between cognitive maps and latent learning

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2223150/ this link explained how the theory, in a way, goes against Pavlov and his conditioning theories

https://www.boundless.com/psychology/learning/cognitive-learning/latent-learning/ this link gave me more information on the concept of latent learning, kind of going in a different aspect than the book and Tolman

I chose to learn more about Edward C. Tolman and his research on latent learning. This fits into chapter 11 because, we learned about behaviorism and this seemed to be Tolman's major contribution to behaviorism. I found it interesting that he was able to come up with new research to do with rats and mazes. I would have thought that people would have began thinking they had researched all their was to research about rats running mazes, but Tolman was able to think like a scientist and develop new theories to test. I just find it incredible to be able to continually question past experiments and try to build off of it by asking questions, and then simply trying to answer them.

Tolman did a number of experiments with rats, as did most scientists studying behaviors, but the experiment that I found interesting was about a maze running study. His goal from this study was to see whether or not rats needed a reinforcement to help them successfully run a maze. In this experiment he created three separate groups. The first group would receive food every time they completed the maze. The second group would never receive food after finishing the maze. The third group would not receive food after finishing the maze until the eleventh day when they would receive food.

The first group ran quickly to finish the maze every time to receive their reward. The second group wandered through the maze and never really finished the maze. The third group also wandered the maze and rarely finished the maze until the twelfth day. The eleventh day they received food for finishing the maze. On the twelfth day these rats in group three ran the maze with a very low error rate, and faster than the first group of rats.

The results were quite interesting. At first when I read about the first two groups I was not surprised because that was exactly as I had expected, but the third group was really surprising. I was surprised that they were actually faster than the first group because the first group had been sprinting to the finish line the whole time, so I would have that they had the maze well thought up. The third group did better because the whole time they were wandering throughout the map they were creating a mental map. When they received the reward it gave them a goal. So now that they new how the maze was set up and they new where they needed to go it greatly benefitted them in finding the finish line.

This proved Tolman to be correct because it showed that the rats were learning the whole time they were wandering throughout the maze not receiving food. After this finding by Tolman he termed the concept of learning without being rewarded for the action to be latent learning.

All in all I really enjoyed learning more about Tolman and latent learning. We learned about latent learning when we watched the video about the computer in poor countries where children self taught themselves to work the computer even though they were not being rewarded for it. I liked how I can relate what we are learning back to previous stuff in the semester because it means I can actually keep using the information I am learning instead of reading it once and then never really using it again.

http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/tolman.htm
This site talked briefly about the experiment Tolman did with the rats.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2223150/
This is probably the site I used the most for this assignment. It was the full article about Tolman's research.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_learning
This site gave the background of latent learning and how Tolman was a part of it.

For this week's topical blog I decided to look more into BF Skinner. He was discussed in this chapter, and what I read about him interested me, so I decided to learn a little more.

Skinner was born in Pennsylvania in 1904. Skinner's brother died at age 16 from a cerebral hemorrhage. Skinner was also an atheist. He received his bachelors from Hamilton College and wanted to be a writer. After getting his BA Skinner tried to be a writer but felt that he wasn't very good. He then went to Harvard and got his PhD in psychology. In 1936 Skinner married Yvonne Blue. The couple had two daughters together. BF Skinner died in 1990 of leukemia.

One of Skinner's inventions was an air crib. This was built in order to help his wife take care of their oldest daughter. The crib was temperature and humidity controlled. This was intended to keep the baby comfortable and prevent it from crying. Skinner was given a lot of criticism for the air crib. People thought it was a way to neglect a child. Skinner said that this was only to be used for playtime and was not to be used continuously.

Skinner is probably most famous for creating the operant conditioning chamber, or Skinner box. This box was used to influence animal behavior and show how they act in certain scenarios or conditions. If a rat pushed a lever, it would be given food. The rat would then continue to push the lever until it was no longer hungry. Skinner also ran a current through the lever, causing it to shock the rats when it was pushed.

BF Skinner also wrote several books for the public. The most famous of these are Walden Two and Beyond Freedom and Dignity. Walden Two is about a utopia created from operant conditioning. In Beyond Freedom and Dignity, Skinner discusses how technology could be used to improve society.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner
This site was used to learn about the skinner box, the air crib, and the books Skinner wrote.

http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesofmajorthinkers/p/bio_skinner.htm
I used this site to learn about Skinner's upbringing and college years.

http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/skinner.htm
This site taught me more about Skinner's inventions and personal life.

After reading this week’s chapter I decided to do some more research on nature vs. nurture. After reading about neobehaviorism in the chapter I was intrigued by how they believed in nature vs. nurture. I learned about the basics of it in developmental psychology but I thought this is a perfect time to learn more about
it.

Nature vs. nurture is a debate in determining individual differences in physical and behavioral traits. Nature is an individual’s innate qualities such as nativism or innatism. Nurture is a person’s personal experiences such as empiricism or behaviorism. The term “nature vs. nurture” was invented by the English Victorian polymath Francis Galton. He was influenced by the book Origin of Species written by his cousin Charles Darwin.
The idea that humans get all their behavioral traits from “nurture” was invented by philosopher John Locke. He proposed that humans develop from only environmental influences. In social and political sciences, nature vs. nurture debate is also known as structure vs. agency debate. To try and put the debate to rest of nature vs. nurture behavioral geneticists perform adoption and twin studies. They distinguish shared family factors and non-shared factors. They found that certain traits are affected differently; such as IQ is affected by both nature and nurture. It was discovered that neither one is right but a combination of both affects a person and behavioral traits.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture
http://psychology.about.com/od/nindex/g/nature-nurture.htm
http://www.simplypsychology.org/naturevsnurture.html#sthash.IfuqIP4y.dpbs

I didn’t write my first blog of this week about Tolman, but after doing a little bit of research, I think I will be doing my second blog post on him and his work. Tolman did work with latent learning in his work with rats and mazes. Tolman is also known for many of his contributions to behaviorism. He talked about purposeful behaviorism as observed in his rat studies. Even though I don’t agree with some of his views of humans and the breakdown of their actions, I can appreciate what he has done for the field of psychology.

I think one of the most recognizable achievements of Edward Tolman was his contribution to latent learning. In fact, he was (to my knowledge) the first to do any tests in attempt to show latent learning. Latent learning is a learning style that isn’t backed by an obvious reinforcement. The reward of learning is also delayed and the subject might not be aware of learning, it could be a passive observation. For example, think of when you drive to four queens. You know the way that you always go, but today there is construction and you take a different way. You go back to your old way. But once you see a construction sign not even obstructing your original route, you take the new route that you learned when there was construction previously. You didn’t study this new way; you just remembered it for no apparent reason. You learned a new path without being aware of it or having an immediate reward.
Edward Tolman came across latent learning when he observed 3 different groups of rats attempt many trials of some mazes. Their behavior was observed was every day for two weeks. Each group had a different stimuli and the dependent variable was how quickly they did the maze. The first group received food after each time they got to the end of the maze, the second group never found any food, and the third group didn’t find any food until after the 10th day. The first group learned the maze shortly as expected, group two wandered aimlessly throughout the maze and group three acted the same as group two. That is, group three wandered aimlessly until the 11th day when they received the reward of food. After the rats found the food once, they were as good as the rats who had been finding food for 10 days.

What I found coolest about Tolman was when he made the claim that this latent learning could be applied to learning. It was done in 1946 in a paper called “Cognitive Maps in rats and men”. In this paper, he argued that both rats and humans have spatial maps that help them understand where they are in space. He also argued that this mental map could help humans understand where they stood in a social map, emotional relationships, and even to the point of understanding empathy. I thought it was pretty crazy that he derived all this just from studying rats and their behavior in a maze. This paper is what made me have the most respect for this man; he was in fact a genius.

Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_learning - this article helped me get a better understanding of latent learning and helped me form my own example. In my mind, if you can explain a concept, then you understand it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_C._Tolman - This website helped me get a rounder understanding of Tolman and his work. This Wikipedia page also directed me towards my final link.
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Tolman/Maps/maps.htm - this was by far the most helpful link. This is Tolman’s original paper “Cognitive Maps in rats and men”. It really helped me understand how he came to the conclusion that humans and rats are similar in their spatial maps. I suggest giving it a read because it is very insightful.

RB
Although chapter 11 wasn’t as intriguing to me as the previous chapter 10, I still found a couple of things that were interesting to me. The one topic that I decided to look more into is that of B.F. Skinner. I chose Skinner because of the outstanding contributions that he has made to operant conditioning and behaviorism. B.F. Skinner fits in with the chapter as some of his contributions to psychology reflected on behaviorism, which is the central theme of the chapter.
Burrhus Frederick Skinner was born on March 20th, 1904, in Pennsylvania. His father was a lawyer and his mother was a housewife. As a boy, Skinner enjoyed building things. A skill he would later apply in his experiments. Some of Skinners more successful builds were a floatation device that separated ripe from green elderberries that he and a friend sold door to door. He also devised a contraption that helped brooms pick up dirt by spreading green dust to reveal any dirtiness. Skinner went on to attend Hamilton College and received a B.A in English literature there. After abandoning his writing career, Skinner went enrolled in the psychology program at Harvard University. Skinner soon became interested in the findings of Pavlov and Watson. In 1945, Skinner moved to the University of Indiana to become the head of the psychology department. In 1948, Skinner moved back to Harvard to become one of the leaders in behaviorism in experimental psychology.
Probably one of the things that B.F. Skinner was most famous for was his experiments on operant conditioning and the “Skinner Box.” In this study, Skinner would place hungry animals, such as rats, in his specially designed box. In this box there would be a lever. In moving this lever, the rats would trigger I piece of food to fall into a trough next to the lever. Over time, the rats would become conditioned to pull the lever if they wanted to receive food. It was through these experiments that B.F. Skinner would come to be known as the father of operant conditioning.

http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesofmajorthinkers/p/bio_skinner.htm
http://www.bfskinner.org/bfskinner/AboutSkinner.html
These two sites provided background information on Skinner

http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html#sthash.5lVS5W8F.dpbs
This site provided some good facts about Skinner and operant conditioning

http://www3.niu.edu/acad/psych/Millis/History/2003/cogrev_skinner.htm
This site just gave me a lot of general information on Skinner

RB
Although chapter 11 wasn’t as intriguing to me as the previous chapter 10, I still found a couple of things that were interesting to me. The one topic that I decided to look more into is that of B.F. Skinner. I chose Skinner because of the outstanding contributions that he has made to operant conditioning and behaviorism. B.F. Skinner fits in with the chapter as some of his contributions to psychology reflected on behaviorism, which is the central theme of the chapter.
Burrhus Frederick Skinner was born on March 20th, 1904, in Pennsylvania. His father was a lawyer and his mother was a housewife. As a boy, Skinner enjoyed building things. A skill he would later apply in his experiments. Some of Skinners more successful builds were a floatation device that separated ripe from green elderberries that he and a friend sold door to door. He also devised a contraption that helped brooms pick up dirt by spreading green dust to reveal any dirtiness. Skinner went on to attend Hamilton College and received a B.A in English literature there. After abandoning his writing career, Skinner went enrolled in the psychology program at Harvard University. Skinner soon became interested in the findings of Pavlov and Watson. In 1945, Skinner moved to the University of Indiana to become the head of the psychology department. In 1948, Skinner moved back to Harvard to become one of the leaders in behaviorism in experimental psychology.
Probably one of the things that B.F. Skinner was most famous for was his experiments on operant conditioning and the “Skinner Box.” In this study, Skinner would place hungry animals, such as rats, in his specially designed box. In this box there would be a lever. In moving this lever, the rats would trigger I piece of food to fall into a trough next to the lever. Over time, the rats would become conditioned to pull the lever if they wanted to receive food. It was through these experiments that B.F. Skinner would come to be known as the father of operant conditioning.

http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesofmajorthinkers/p/bio_skinner.htm
http://www.bfskinner.org/bfskinner/AboutSkinner.html
These two sites provided background information on Skinner

http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html#sthash.5lVS5W8F.dpbs
This site provided some good facts about Skinner and operant conditioning

http://www3.niu.edu/acad/psych/Millis/History/2003/cogrev_skinner.htm
This site just gave me a lot of general information on Skinner

The topic I choose to talk about for this Thursday’s blog was Edward Tolman. Due to his tremendous work in the field of cognitive behavior. Bringing a number of new concepts and vocabulary to the field of psychology Tolman’s theory’s help improve and refine psychology. From intervening variables, reliability, through to latent learning and the creation of cognitive maps, Tolman was one of few in my opinion that tried to not only work with other pre-existing theory’s but to make them work together in a better way. That is why I chose to talk more about Edward Tolman and his contributions to the field.

Tolman was born and raised in a “upper middle” socioeconomic class family in the state of Massachusetts. His father a president of a manufacturing company, was expecting him and his older brother Richard to take on the family business. Going against family wishes both Tolman and his brother pursued an academic career, Richard into a career of academics and Tolman in electrochemistry. During his last year at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Tolman changed his degree to philosophy, where he finally graduating in 1911. Which after words he attended summer school where he took courses in both philosophy and psychology, but concluded psychology was more his level of learning. It was once he enrolled in Harvard Graduate School that Tolman was turned toward the teachings of motivation after readings of McDougall. To get his PhD Tolman went to German, were all PhD examinations were held at the time, it was there he was introduced to the Gestalt movement.

After returning home from Germany, Tolman studied under Hugo Munsterberg in nonsense syllables while also working on his PhD dissertation, earning him his doctorate in 1915. He later returned to Germany to learn more about Gestalt psychology where he became an instructor at Northwestern University for three years. It wasn’t long until his pacifist views got him fired from his job during WWI, when the Dean for anti-war statements reported his claims in the student publication. Having no job over seas Tolman returned home to become an instructor at the University of California in 1918 where he remained till his death. Before that Tolman being the passionate truth seeker he was, refused to sign the California loyalty oath during the “Year of the Oath”, an attempt by the university to impose loyalty on the faculty in compliance with state law. In this act Tolman told others to sign and leave the contest leaving him and others that could afford the fight to stay, giving him tremendous recognition.

Tolman left a lot behind for the field of behaviorist psychology before his passing. Going from electrochemistry, philosophy, and finally to psychology Tolman still had his dislikes. When it came to adopting the gestalt concept with his own, he developed a dislike for Watson’s behaviorism due to the fact of his mechanistic behaviorism approach. When it came to Tolman’s sign-gestalt theory he focused on three things; significant, sign, and means to an end relation compared to that of merely responding to stimuli, like of Watson’s theory.

http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/tolman.htm
Was used for the background history on Edward Tolman
http://www.lifecircles-inc.com/Learningtheories/behaviorism/Tolman.html
Reading on Tolman’s work in sign theory
http://fac.hsu.edu/ahmada/3%20Courses/2%20Learning/Learning%20Notes/9%20Tolman.pdf
Used as an outline of Tolman’s life and work

I decided to research more latent learning, brought about by Tolman , because I get where he was coming from with his thinking. So often I feel like as a society and individuals we think that in order for someone to learn something they have to be reinforced to do so. I think that just makes things more complicated in the long run, just like when I was growing up I was rewarded with money for grades but eventually that didn’t matter any longer. The money no longer played a role of reinforcement, and in some sense it became aversive and taught the wrong lessons about education. Today, I hate grades; I think they really don’t have any meaning on regards to how much someone may know. I think Tolman and his theory of latent learning really focuses on looking outside the ‘theory’.
Tolman grew up in a middle socioeconomic household and really wasn’t supposed to pursue an academic career but rather take over the family business along with his older brother. Even in his academic career he was set out to be an electrochemist or something like that, but during his senior year stumbled upon readings published by William James, which pushed him to become a philosopher. I thought this action fit his theory of latent learning perfectly because he was no interest in the field of psychology, but then challenged or opened his mind of thinking when stumbling along some random research and decided to challenge him.

http://www.psychologyconcepts.com/latent-learning/
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/tolman.htm
http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072490462/student_view0/chapter8/chapter_outline.html

The topic I chose from this chapter is Clark Hull. I was intrigued by his hypothesis that perseverance and hard work are the main factors that can overcome any adversity. He also focused on motivation and drive. After researching him I learned much more on his drive theory, background, and some of the research he performed. The prediction of behavior is his main overall topic of research. He made me think of the idea to question what drives action in humanistic levels. Why do we do things, what motivates us to behave, sometimes I think it is fear that creates drive to have a behavior. During class today we had someone speak out and say they do not agree with putting a formula into human behavior, however, we are discovering more to discover ways to predict behavior. He studied experimental research to associate behaviors with sources. The three basic needs were what he focused in on, including; hunger, sex, and thirst. Hull also participated in hypnosis. He pushed the distinction of sleep and hypnosis through experimental theories. The most surprising thing that I found out about Hull is that he grew up disabled. He had polio, and this put together why he claimed that hard work and perseverance could overcome anything. It also came as a surprise to me that he came from a lower social economic status level. This was a surprise because most historic psychologists come from wealthy families with the correct resources. He was a great example of someone who took other areas of studies and applied them to psychology. His mathematical knowledge helped him apply a formula for behavior. The second website broke down his formula for the global theory of behavior. Within the formula the factors in the following; drive strength, reinforces, deprivation, incentive, stimulus, consecutiveness, and strength. This formula made me think my individual behaviors and why they are done. I think on of the main factors of my behavior involves reinforcers. His theory was also criticized by several other psychologists at the time. He was majorly criticized for his theory not being applicable to real life scenarios. He researched a system for learning that showed great successes in lab, yet struggled in real life areas. Although, his theory conflicted with others he started a progression towards understanding behavior based off his own adversity. I find him as a courageous, intelligent individual who progressed the study of psychology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_L._Hull

http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/hull.htm
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Hull/Conflict/

1a) This week I decided to do my topic on Clark Hull.


1b) This chapter discussed a lot about Hull. It mentioned things such as his influences like Isaac Newton. It also discussed the Hull-Spence theory. The text also went on to talk about his influence on behaviorism. It discussed things from his life such as contracting typhoid and being paralyzed after getting polio. It also went on to talk about his contributions and mentioned things like between 1940-1950 about 70 percent of all research articles published in the areas of language and motivation referred to and referenced Hull’s work.


1c) He seemed like he influenced many people and contributed a quite a bit to the field. I had heard his name briefly in a course or two but wanted to learn a bit more as he seems like such a prominent individual within psychology.

2)
Clark Leonard Hull was born on May 24 in the year of 1884. Hull was an American psychology who used scientific laws of behavior by explain the areas of learning and motivation. Today he is best known for debates he had with Edward Tolman along with work he did regarding drive theory. Most of Hull’s career was spent at Yale University after being recruited by the president who was also a former psychologist. Some of his most important works include Mathematico-Deductive Theory of Role Learning and Principles of Behavior. Hull however is best known for his “goal gradient” effect which is though little referenced due to behaviorisms lack of popularity in modern contexts.
Clark L. Hull was born in Akron, New York in a log home. His father was a powerful man, known for his aggressive temper. He was very uneducated and went on to marry Hull’s mother from Connecticut when she was just fifteen years old. His fathers lack of education was due to all the work he did as a child. He was never able to read until meeting Hull’s mother who taught him. When Hull was a young child, around three, his family moved to a farm in Michigan. Along with his brother, they helped out on the farm doing chores and manual labor.
Hull received his schooling in a small, one room building with about twenty to thirty others. He however had to miss many days to help out on the farm. Hull though showed much proficiency in mathematics. At the age of 11 he was forced to convert by a religious group who were known as the Christian Crusaders. This made Hull think a lot concerning his religious identify and he ended up renouncing it entirely. At just 17 he passed a teacher examination test and was able to become a teacher in a schoolhouse like the one he attended. This experience influenced Hull to seek out furthering his schooling. He went on to attend high school, living with the superintendent. His stay there required household chores. His atheism however almost led him to be kicked out of the house. After graduating he left his life with the superintendent but stayed in touch until his death.
After graduating he went to continue his studies at Alma Academy where he excelled in mathematics. His interest in math inspired his question of how the mind creates new connections based on what one already knows. One day after attending a banquet with contaminated food, Hull contracted typhoid which delayed his college return. His health did improve and he was able to go back to Alma, studying math, physics and chemistry with the intention of becoming an engineer. Two months after moving to Minnesota to work as an apprentice mining engineer he got polio, leaving him partially paralyzed. After this incident he once again reconsidered his life path.
He always had a love of philosophy which eventually led to his psychology interest which he began studying during his recovery from polio. He took on a great interest in both Watson and Pavlov. His mother would often read to him their works until his eyes became strong enough again. The following year he decided to once again teach in the one room schoolhouse. After teaching here for two years he married Bertha Lutzi. The two went off to attend the University of Michigan where he formally began his psychology studies. He eventually accepted a teaching assistant position at the University of Wisconsin.
He went on to teach as a full time instructor at the University of Wisconsin before he went on to Yale University. He taught an aptitude testing course and an introductory class for premed students. While teaching this course he took interest in hypnosis. This marked the beginning of his experimental testing in the field. During the year of 1929 he started his employment with Yale and remained there until his death on May 10th of 1952. He was one of the most frequently cited psychologists during the 40s and 50s. aptitude testing became a greatly quoted text and his work Hypnosis and Suggestibility was studied to a great extent. He inspired many students and psychologists who revised his theories and made their own contributions to the field including individuals such as Kenneth Spence.

3)

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_L._Hull

This site included a ton of great in depth information. It started off with a nice summary of Hull’s life, included a table of context and presented information chronologically regarding his early life, higher education, later life, research, influence, awards and recognition.

2. http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Clark_L._Hull

This site didn’t have the most information but it was all really informing. It as well started off with a brief summary and presented a table of contents as well. It then got into his life, work, hypnosis research, habit formation research, critiques and legacy. It also had a section on his students and major publications.

3. http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Clark_Leonard_Hull.aspx

Like the first site, this one included a lot of great information. It went over Hull’s education, evolution of concepts, his work with learning, his behavior system, and ended with his legacy. It as well had a section which showed all of his important works.