What we would like you to do is to find a topic from what we have covered in this week's readings that you are interested in and search the internet for material on that topic. You might, for example, find people who are doing research on the topic, you might find web pages that discuss the topic, you might find youtube clips that demonstrates something related to the topic, etc. What you find and use is pretty much up to you at this point. But use at least 3 sources (only one video please and make sure it adds to the topic).
1) Once you have completed your search and explorations, I would like you to say what your topic is, how exactly it fits into the chapter we have covered this week, and why you are interested in it.
2) What are three aspects of the topic you want to talk about for this assignment?
3) Next, I would like you to take the information you found from the various sources and integrate/synthesize them into the three aspects of the topic, and then write about the topic.
4) Finally, at the end of your post, please include working URLs for the three websites. For each URL you have listed indicate why you chose the site and the extent to which it contributed to your post.
Next make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Let us know if you have any questions.
--Dr. M
Blake Wedeking
One of the most influential American psychologists of the 20th century is none other than B.F. Skinner. In this week’s chapter, we had the opportunity to read about his contributions to the field of psychology and how he applied himself in behaviorism. I admire Skinner so much because of his great ideas for the realm of behaviorism. One good reason I consider him an influential figure is because of his invention of the operant conditioning chamber or the Skinner Box as many people refer to it as. I chose to do my blog on him because he has made many strides in the field of psychology with his work with radical behaviorism and his work with reinforcement. Another reason I choose to research him is because he died more recently than other psychologists and therefore it seems we can relate more to his information because of the relativity it has on our generation.
B.F. skinner was a firm believer of the idea that human free will was actually an illusion and any human action was the result of the consequences of that same action. To put it bluntly, if consequences were bad, there was a high chance that the action would not be repeated, but if the consequences were good, then the actions that lead to it would often be repeated in this situation. Skinner referred to this concept as the principle for reinforcement in which we can see these types of results from actions. Skinner innovated his own philosophy of science known to us as radical behaviorism and founded his own school of experimental research psychology. Skinner invented the cumulative recorder to measure rate of responding as part of his highly influential work on schedules of reinforcement. I was surprised to learn that a survey conducted in 2002 announced that Skinner was among the most influential psychologist of the 20th century. Skinner was not only a behaviorist, but also an author, inventor, and social philosopher. Some say he was the Edgar Pierce professor of Psychology at Harvard until 1974.
Much to my astonishment, Skinner was actually an atheist. This was due to a Christian teacher trying to assuage his fear of the Hell that his grandmother described. His younger brother Edward died at the age of sixteen of a cerebral hemorrhage. Skinner was born in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania were he later moved and attended Hamilton College in New York with his full attention on becoming a writer. In 1926 he graduated and went Harvard where he invented his prototype for the Skinner Box. Fred Keller, a fellow student of Skinner’s, convinced he should make an experimental science from the study of behavior. Skinner had his heart set on riding a great novel at a young age but eventually realized that he didn't have enough world-view perspective in order to do so. He did experience some dark years in which he was disillusioned with his literacy skills. When Skinner encountered Watson’s behaviorism it led him into graduate study of psychology and to develop his own operant behaviorism which would prove to be very beneficial for him.
One of Skinner’s least credited and less likely know about inventions was that of the Air Crib. This Air Crib was designed to help with day-to-day tasks of child rearing. It was basically an improvement on the standard crib but was a crib that was easily cleaned, temperature and humidity-controlled crib that aided in assisting the raising of their babies. Skinner designed the initial prototype for his first baby because he thought it would help parents who were awakened by their crying babies at night due to the cold temperatures and a need for essential clothing. Some say that this invention was like his Skinner Box which was a cruel misrepresentation of what it actually was designed to do. This invention was designed to make early child care simpler as it would encourage the baby to be more comfortable, mobile, and confident.
To some, Skinner is seen more of a controversial figure in a sense. He was depicted in many different ways and has been called evil, hateful, but at the same time enthusiastic and warm. Many critics argue that much of Skinner’s professional trouble stemmed from attempting to apply science proven in lab environment at the universal level. His personality seemed to be quite similar of a creative scientist in which he was highly conscientious and open to experience but was in other instances a little bit of a neurotic. He was also a chronic womanizer as I have read in several sources. His contributions can’t go unnoticed as he had many to the field of psychology. He was a very influential behaviorist and his work will always reflect our current understandings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner
I chose this site because it provided great background on Skinner’s life. This site was also helpful in finding Skinner’s inventions as well as his publishing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-d6jypCsUw
This site provided a first-hand look into the work that Skinner has done. This video is meant to provide a representation of who Skinner is and what he stands for. I found it useful for understanding his personality and the way his beliefs are set.
http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesofmajorthinkers/p/bio_skinner.htm
I enjoyed looking at this site because it provided a timeline of Skinner’s life as well as important dates of his well-known accomplishments. This site helped me put the information I had gathered into perspective and look at it more in depth.
1a) State what your topic is.
B. F Skinner
1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter.
B. F. Skinner was one of the main psychologist discussed in this chapter, allow with Clark Hall and Edward Tolman. Skinner disagreed with both Hall and Tolman’s theories. He was more interested in descriptive behaviorism. In this chapter it discusses Skinner’s theories and experiments toward operant conditioning. Operant conditioning focused on the response or also known as the consequence of a certain behavior. Skinner wanted to improve education and society as a whole through behaviorism.
1c) Discuss why you are interested in it.
I am interested in learning more about B. F. Skinner’s childhood and background. Even though I have discussed Skinner in my previous classes, I still find him interesting and think I can always learn something new. I really enjoy learning more about his operant conditioning. Also I am interested to find other studies or research I am not familiar with.
B. F. Skinner was an American psychologist, who was best known for developing the theory of behaviorism. B. F. Skinner is also known as an inventor, author, and social philosopher.
Burrhus Frederick Skinner was born on March 20, 1904 in Pennsylvania. This was just below Binghamton, New York. His father was a lawyer and his mother stayed at home. His mother took care of him and his younger brother Edward. Skinner was known to have a very warm and stable childhood. At such a young age, Skinner started to show interest in building gadgets and contraception. He accidentally built a cart with steering that worked backwards. He also built a cabin the woods and a motion machine with his friends. As Skinner got older, his contractions started to become more intense.
During high school Skinner paid most of his attention to his English class. He was starting to show interest and spoke out in class. After high school, Skinner attended Hamilton University. This is where he decided he wanted to become a writer. In 1926, Skinner graduated and wanted to become a professional writer. Within the next two years Skinner was unsuccessful. He referred to this time as his “dark years”. During this time Skinner discovered books by Pavlov and Watson. He being extremely interested in these books and wanted to learn more about psychology. At age 24, Skinner decided to attend Harvard University for psychology.
While attending Harvard, Skinner looked for more objective and measureable ways to study behavior. He did not argue with other psychologist’s theories on behaviorism and considered them “unintelligent ideas”. Skinner then started to do studies on rats and pigeons based on his operant conditioning theory. One of Skinner’s most famous experiments is known as the “Skinner Box”. This experiment let him study the rats interacting within their environment. Skinner watched how the rats discovered and used the levels in the box to their advantage. The rats were able to learn and repeat their behavior due to the responses of their behaviors. Later on Skinner did a similar study with pigeons, which later led him to believe that some form of reinforcement is crucial in learning new behaviors.
After receiving his doctorate at Harvard University, Skinner published is the results of his operant conditioning experiments. The book he published was known as, “The Behavior of Organisms”. Skinner was able to discuss his theory towards reinforcement and punishment. During his experiments Skinner focused more towards reinforcement. He believed behaviors were more successful when pretended with reinforcement. There were two types of reinforcement, known as positive and negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is giving an additional pleasant reward when a behavior is done. Negative reinforcement is taking away an aversive stimulus when a behavior is done. When using reinforcement the behavior is more likely to occur again. However, when using punishment it is not. There are also two type of punishment, known as positive and negative punishment. Negative punishment is taking away a pleasurable reward when a certain behavior occurs. Positive punishment is adding an additional aversive stimulus. These findings were extremely important to Skinner.
Later on Skinner decided to teach at the University of Minnesota. During this time his second daughter was born. His wife wanted him to invent his own baby crib for his daughter. She did not like the orginal cribs with the bars. She was against using these cribs because their daughter’s feet or arms could get stuck. Also their daughter could suffocate from her blanket. Skinner then involved a baby crib known as the “Baby Tender” . Skinner made the crib heated which eliminated the blankets and also eliminated the bars on the side. He was later criticized for his work. A few years later Skinner decided to go back to Harvard University to teach, where he stayed the rest of his career.
http://www.biography.com/people/bf-skinner-9485671
I chose this website because it provided information on Skinner’s background.
http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html
I chose this website because it provided information of Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning (reinforcement and punishment).
http://www.bfskinner.org/bfskinner/AboutSkinner.html
I chose this website because it provided information on Skinner’s childhood and information about the “Baby Tender”
What we would like you to do is to find a topic from this week's chapter that you were interested in and search the internet for material on that topic.
Please be sure to use at least 3 quality resources. If you use videos, please limit it to one video.
Once you have completed your search and explorations we would like you to:
1a) State what your topic is. B F Skinner
1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter. He was one of the most important behaviorist psychology in America.
1c) Discuss why you are interested in it. I wanted to learn more about B F Skinner because I know I will be teaching about him and his theories as a teacher.
2) Next, we would like you to take the information you read or viewed related to your topic, integrate/synthesize it, and then write about the topic in a knowledgeable manner. By integrating/synthesizing we mean taking what your read/experienced from the internet search organize the information into the main themes, issues, info, examples, etc. about your topic and then write about the topic in your own words using the information you have about the topic.
B.F. Skinner was born Burrhus Frederic Skinner on March 20, 1904. As a child he liked to create and invent things. He would eventually receive a B.A. in English Literature in 1926 from Hamilton College. It was while he was writing that he first came across psychology that inspired him. This was the writing of Watson and Pavlov. After reading about behavioral psychology, he decided to go onto study psychology at Harvard at the graduate level. In his personal life, he married Yvonne Blue in 1936. He and his wife had two daughters. Skinner passed away from leukemia in 1990.
After he graduated from college, he accepted the Psychology Department Chair at the University of Indiana in 1945. He left after three years and then went on to teach at his alma mater, Harvard, where he remained for the rest of his academic career. Skinner was a behavioral psychology, which was a growing field in psychology in America. Skinner liked to look at observable behavior or internal behavior. He suggested that there were more ways to learn beyond classical conditioning. He, instead, suggested “operant conditioning”. This meant in order to understand the cause of behavior, one must look at the causes of an action and the consequences of the action. It is said that his ideas were based on Thorndike’s Law of Effect, and that Skinner added “reinforcement” into the Law of Effect. The idea of reinforcement means that a behavior that is reinforced will most likely be repeated, however a behavior that is not reinforced will eventually cease to exist. This is similar to giving a dog a treat after he does something good. There are three types of responses. They are neutral operants, reinforcers, and punishers. The neutral operants are responses that have no effect on the behavior; they neither increase or decrease behavior. Reinforcers increase a type of behavior, and reinforcers can be either positive or negative. Finally, punishers are to decrease a particular behavior. To test his theory, he made the “Skinner Box”. This is one of his most notable contributions to psychology. In the box there was a lever. If a rat hit the lever a pellet of food would come out. At first the rat accidently hit the lever and the food would come out. It didn’t take the rat long to figure out that if he hit the lever, food would come out. This was a positive reinforcement. One of the website described a negative reinforcement. They used the example that every time a student didn’t do their homework assignment, they would have to give their teacher $5. To avoid paying the teacher $5, they would do their homework. In Skinner’s box he also demonstrated negative reinforcement. Upon getting in the box, the rat would receive an electric shock. The rat would accidently hit the lever and learn that it turned off the electric shock. Rats quickly learned that hitting the lever would turn off the electric shock, and upon entering the maze they would quickly go to the lever and turn off the shock.
3) At the end of your post, please include working URLs for the three websites.For each URL you have listed indicate why you chose the site and the extent to which it contributed to your post.
http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesofmajorthinkers/p/bio_skinner.htm - I used this website for biographic information, such as his early years.
http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html - I used this website to learn more about operant conditioning and reinforcements.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner - I used this website for additional information, such as he background and psychology contributions.
Once you have completed your search and explorations we would like you to: 1a) State what your topic is. 1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter. 1c) Discuss why you are interested in it. The topic that will be discussed is B. F Skinner and the time he refers to his “dark year”. This topic relates to chapter 11 because B.F Skinner was one of the predominant behaviorists of the twentieth century. He was also discussed frequently throughout this chapter as well as all of the contributions he had made to the field of psychology and behaviorism. I chose to write about B. F Skinner because I enjoy reading his ideas regarding reinforcement and conditioning.
Although I wont be going into detail about Skinners contributions I will discuss his “dark year” and why I found it so interesting. One reason I liked to read about Skinners “dark year” because other psychologists we have read about haven’t taken time off from their academic careers in the way that Skinner did. It caught my attention that instead of going to get his PhD right away he decided to take a year off to gather himself and find his identity.
2) Next, we would like you to take the information you read or viewed related to your topic, integrate/synthesize it, and then write about the topic in a knowledgeable manner. By integrating/synthesizing we mean taking what your read/experienced from the internet search organize the information into the main themes, issues, info, examples, etc. about your topic and then write about the topic in your own words using the information you have about the topic.
B. F Skinner is known for having many contributions to the field of behaviorism and being a key founder in the ideas of reinforcement. Although many know of his concepts such as schedules of reinforcement, and different conditioning ideas, few are aware of his love for writing and a time that he refers to as the “dark year”. Even though Skinner is known for several great concepts in behaviorism I wanted to point out the significance of the year that Skinner took off before he went on to continue his education.
Instead of going off into the “real” world, as some may call it, Skinner wanted to practice his love for writing. Although because of his decision many of his close friends and family were leery of him moving back home and not continuing his education. Skinner knew that he needed to take the time off for himself but his closest family and friends did not recognize this. They saw this as Skinner not doing anything with his life and wasting time. During this period of time Skinner tried to write novel and ended up writing several newspaper articles and not necessarily finding the answers he was looking for in regards to his life and where he was going. Towards the end of his “dark year” he was working at a bookstore and stumbled upon some work or Watson and Pavlov. As he began to read their books he became fully intrigued by their work and the ideas they had. This is when Skinner knew he had to return to school, and so he did.
I felt like writing about Skinners “dark year” was significant because I think many college students or even noncollege students can relate to this situation. Many people question whether or not they should take a year off before going into a Graduate program as well as some people decide they want to take a year off before going into college. This doesn’t have to relate to taking time off from education either, however because Skinner took a year off from school I feel it is appropriate to stay related to Skinners life. While reading the text and the different sites regarding Skinner and his year of darkness I thought about the importance of taking that time, no matter the outcome, to find whatever you’re looking for. Although we don’t live forever, we do have a lot of time to fine ourselves. I also thought about how so many people rush into life. Colleagues of mine are trying to graduate sooner then they need to and then jumping right into a graduate program. As well as, getting a fulltime job right out of school, getting married and having kids. Although many would see this as the ideal journey, I think we can learn a lot from Skinner and think about why were rushing. Why are we rushing our lives? What’s the rush?
3) At the end of your post, please include working URLs for the three websites. For each URL you have listed indicate why you chose the site and the extent to which it contributed to your post.
http://www.bfskinner.org/bfskinner/AboutSkinner.html
I chose to use this website because it had great information regarding Skinner and his dark year. It wasn’t my favorite site because the other two had more regarding his year that he took off from school.
http://bernardbaars.pbworks.com/f/Double+Life+Skinner+JCS.pdf
I chose this website because I liked what it had to offer in terms of his dark year and some family history.
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/skinner.htm
This site was my favorite. I chose this site because it went into great detail in regards to Skinner and his year off from acedamia.
Once you have completed your search and explorations we would like you to:
1a) State what your topic is.
Clark Hull
1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter.
Clark Hull was a contributor to behavioral psychology. He created aptitude tests and also talked about how we reduce behavior through primary and secondary reinforcers.
1c) Discuss why you are interested in it.
I found his life to be very interesting. He overcame many odds, such as getting polio when he was 24, he also was from the Midwest which is something that is a commonality between us.
2) Next, we would like you to take the information you read or viewed related to your topic, integrate/synthesize it, and then write about the topic in a knowledgeable manner. By integrating/synthesizing we mean taking what your read/experienced from the internet search organize the information into the main themes, issues, info, examples, etc. about your topic and then write about the topic in your own words using the information you have about the topic.
I love that Hull grew up in the Midwest and he also grew up in an impoverished home so he had that many more obstacles in his life to overcome. He did not get his Ph. D from the University of Wisconsin until he was 34, but he basically paid for his own schooling through teaching and took many brakes rom schooling so he could pay for it. He contracted various diseases in his life. He always had poor vision and that started from birth. He got typhoid fever and almost died as a result, and when he was 24 he got polio and that permanently paralyzed his left leg, so he had to have a brace on his leg and walk with a cane or the rest of his life.
Hull’s major contribution was one of his theories. In this theory he believed that our behavior is the result of a constant interaction between the organism and the environment. But he believed that there was something missing in this. That was that the organism needs to adapt to the environment in order to survive. So when there is a need the organism makes a change to reduce the need. So if the organism is hungry they get food or if the organism needs money they find a job. These needs change the behavior of the organism. He also believed that drive energizes the behavior. He also said that reinforcement occurs whenever the drive is reduced. In his mind the stimulus-response relationship was also called “habit”.
I am so inspired by his life. I just find everything he did amazing and he overcame so much. He ended up being one of the most cited people of his time. His books and ideas are still very relevant, although with the cognitive revolution they have lessened in importance. He remained motivated. He paid for his own school and really earned everything he received. He ended up teaching at the University of Wisconsin for 10 years and then taught at Yale for his remaining years. He also had several students who contributed to psychology, one of them being Kenneth Spence who was actually a professor at the University of Iowa. It was just nice to find people from the Midwest who contributed to psychology and find that they didn’t have to be from the east or west coast to make an impact.
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/hull.htm
This site went into detail about his different theories and contributions
http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesal/p/clark-hull.htm
This site gave more of an overview of his personal life
http://www.sonoma.edu/users/d/daniels/hullspence.htm
This site talked about his contributions, but in easy to understand terms and really laid out the important facts.
1a) State what your topic is.
- Edward C. Tolman
1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter.
- Tolman’s ideas and concepts are one of the main focuses of this chapter.
1c) Discuss why you are interested in it.
- I’m interested in Tolman because I don’t know very much about him. In comparison to other behaviorist like Skinner, and Watson.
2) Edward Chance Tolman was born in West Newton, Massachusetts in 1886, and earned his PhD from Harvard. While at Harvard Tolman entered the graduate program of Philosophy, and Psychology as they were a combined course. Because all PhD tests were being given in either French, German, or Russian Tolman left for Germany. While there he studied under Koffka; there he was introduced to Gestalt psychology. After returning to Harvard Tolman assisted in research on nonsense syllable learning, but he wrote his dissertation on retroactive inhibition. After receiving his doctorate in 1915 Tolman returned to Germany to learn more about Gestalt psychology; however he was fired during WWI for announcing his antiwar views. Tolman then returned to the United States to teach a the University of California in Berkeley (1918). Tolman actually was not a behaviorist, and saw many flaws with their ideas. He combined Watson’s behaviorism with his interests in Gestalt psychology to produce his own unique form of behaviorism that he called neobehaviorism or purposive behavior. The main difference in Tolman’s form of behaviorism is that it utilized introspection. However, he saw the importance of studying animal behaviors (but not animal brains) and saw the whole mind as more important than the elements (following his gestalt roots). Tolman believed that conventional behaviorists do no explain knowledge, thinking, planning, inference, intention, and purpose in animals; Tolman used molar behavior to look into these aspects not accounted for in regular behaviorism. All molar behaviors have a purpose, and are goal-directed, versus the molecular approach behaviorists like Watson, and Skinner were taking. Tolman used rats, and T mazes to study purposive behaviors, using conditions like rewards, to determine if they had an impact on the rats ability to learn the maze; the results were that reinforcing the rats helped them learn the maze. While this seems like behaviorism, it is actually classified as cognitive behaviorism, because Tolman was interested in creating cognitive maps. He theorized that the rats created cognitive maps to reach their reinforcement more rapidly. This idea of cognitive mapping came about from Tolman’s research on latent learning, and he realized that environmental features and landmarks help create a cognitive map. The idea of cognitive mapping itself can be considered latent learning in that it may not always appear to be a learnt skill; but the knowledge will manifest itself later when the right motivation appears. Tolman is also recognized (and later Hull) with using intervening variables, where you use a specifically defined variable (intervening variable) to connect the independent and dependent variables. Today, Tolman is classified as a cognitive behaviorist, and much of his work is still used today. Tolman made great, and lasting impressions in the field of cognitive mapping and concepts of spatial memory and thinking; and much of his work is still used today. Tolman’s impact is made even greater by the fact that he made these cognitive contributions during a time when behaviorism was dominating the field of psychology. “He was not an imperialist and never believed that one view was all encompassing. He was broad-minded and was always willing to change his views and revise his ideas should new evidence arise. He never believed that psychology should be set in its ways and theories; it is ever-changing and should always remain that way” (Muskingum).
3)
http://fac.hsu.edu/ahmada/3%20courses/2%20learning/learning%20notes/9%20tolman.pdf
This website actually provides slides from a powerpoint, however this was usefully in that it explained concepts from our chapter that were difficult to understand. It also provided me with some basic information on Tolman.
http://www.lifecircles-inc.com/Learningtheories/behaviorism/Tolman.html
This website provided me with a lot of great information about Tolman, from his theories, how he developed them, and his biography.
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/tolman.htm
This website gave me information on Tolman’s theories and some life information on him. I used this site as mainly a fact checker.
1a) State what your topic is.
I am doing more research on B.F. Skinner and operant conditioning
1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter.
Most of this chapter talked about Skinner. Skinner had a huge impact on operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is a great way to modify behavior and Skinner was quite passionate about it.
1c) Discuss why you are interested in it.
I am interested in operant conditioning because it can be used every day. It can be used on practically any behavior you want to modify. I think it is awesome that it is so powerful and it can modify an undesirable behavior without using punishment.
2) Next, we would like you to take the information you read or viewed related to your topic, integrate/synthesize it, and then write about the topic in a knowledgeable manner.
Skinner’s views on behaviorism were less extreme than the views of Watson. Skinner believed that the best way to understand behavior is to look at the cause of an action and the consequences that come along with it. This is what he called operant conditioning. Skinner introduced the term, reinforcement. He believed that behavior that is reinforced tends to be repeated or strengthened, and behavior that is not reinforced tends to be extinguished or weakened. Skinner defined operant conditioning as the use of reinforcement which is given after the desired response. Some of the terms that are involved with operant conditioning are positive reinforcement which strengthens a behavior by providing a consequence an individual finds rewarding, negative reinforcement which strengthens a behavior by removing an unpleasant stimulus, and punishment which can either remove a rewarding stimulus or apply an unpleasant stimulus after a response.
Through operant conditioning, an association is formed between a behavior and the consequence. An example may be when a trainer is trying to teach a dog to play fetch. When the dog does not fetch the ball, the trainer does not praise the dog. However, if the dog does fetch the ball then the trainer will praise the dog. This teaches the dog to fetch the ball so he/she will get praised. Eventually the dog will form an association between fetching the ball and receiving praise.
Along with operant conditioning, there are schedules of reinforcement. First, there is continuous reinforcement, which means that every time the subject does the behavior, they get reinforced. There are also schedules of reinforcement. The first one is a fixed ratio schedule which is where there is an association between behaviors and reinforcers. For example, the dog from the previous example would have to fetch the ball 3 times or 5 times before it gets the reinforcement. The next one is fixed interval schedule. Still using the last example, the dog could fetch the ball 1 time or 5 times but either way within a certain amount of time, the dog would only get 1 treat no matter how many times he fetched the ball. Skinner also looked at variable schedules. This means that you change the number of times you have the subject do the behavior before you reinforce the behavior.
3) At the end of your post, please include working URLs for the three websites.
http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html
This website was helpful because it talked about what operant conditioning was and how to use reinforcement.
http://psychology.about.com/od/behavioralpsychology/a/classical-vs-operant-conditioning.htm
This website was helpful because it explained how operant conditioning works and it gave me an example so I could understand what it is better.
http://psychology.about.com/od/behavioralpsychology/a/classical-vs-operant-conditioning.htm
This website was helpful because it introduced the idea of schedules of reinforcement. It was interesting to see different ways you can reinforce somebody to do a desired behavior.
1. The topic that I chose to go into more detail is Molar behaviorism. I chose this because in the chapter it seemed almost like consciousness, which I did more research on earlier in the semester, so it caught my interest because I could identify with it. However, what I would like to know about it is how does it relate and differ to consciousness because they are not labeled the same, what are all of the characteristics to define this type of behaviorism and what does the brain activity look like while performing a task that is defined as using Molar behavior? This relates to the chapter because the term was brought up in the section about Edward Tolman.
2. After reading the first article I see that there is a similarity in consciousness and Molar behaviorism due to the low activity of the brain. It says that people that are driving home and Zebras that are in the same spot that they always like to graze at are less likely to notice differences and the little things because they are so used to the area that they basically wander off. When a car approaches a stop sign, it might run it just because the driver is used to the route that they tune out obeying all of the rules of the road, so when the officer pulls the motorist over, the motorist is honest when they tell the officer that they did not see the stop sign. In a way this part of Molar behaviorism relates to an experience that I had in my old town. I was so used to a route that I would take home from the town that was two away from mine, I would cut through a town when I was driving back due to the lack of traffic and there was no stop signs. I got so used to the route that my mind would drift off on the drive, sometimes I would not pay attention to the road just because I already knew the route so well. One day that town put a stop sign in the middle of town, I did not recognize it because I was not paying attention to details because of Molar behaviorism that I drove through it. I would have still never have noticed I ran a stop sign or that there was even a stop sign there if my friend never pointed it out to me, after that I even wondered how many times I drove through it before he brought it to my attention.
In the second article it showed that they are not similar, but they actually occur for the same events because one occurs due to the other event occurring. For example driving home would be the example of a Molar behavior, but running the stop sign would be the result from the Molar behavior flipping into an unconsciousness state. The behavior all together is a Molar behavior but the low activity of the brain is due to unconsciousness. This finding messed up my hypothesis because I thought I could find a difference between the two, instead I find that they are linked to each other. Even though my hypothesis was messed up due to this finding, it actually makes more sense to me because I can see how they are linked. With looking at Molar behavior as the big picture, it is what drives you to act the way you act and as the book says it is the reason for motivation to certain things. Then unconsciousness happens when that Molar behavior has been performed over and over, it becomes a habit to the point that the organism performing the task starts performing it in an unconsciousness state.
For the last article I decided not to look at brain activity because of how it relates to consciousness, the brain activity would be similar which would be something that I already did research over. Instead I went to find an article that went into more depth of what the differences between molar and molecular were. The results that I got was that they were actually very similar depending on the actions because the actions can be the same. The difference between the two according to this article is that the molecular can be viewed as being a snapshot and molar can be viewed as an extended activity. How I can relate this to my life would be my job. If I were to show up and make one pizza, put it through the oven then leave, that would be considered a molecular or snapshot moment because it was not extensive and did not repeat itself to become a habit. However, if I were to make multiple pizzas throughout the night and run those all through the oven (which is what I should be doing anyways) then it would be considered a molar behavior because it would then become an extensive activity and would be repetitive. So, the activity can be the same in both situations, but the difference is if it is extensive and if it repeats itself or happens once.
3. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3211378/
In this article it discusses Molar behavior and this is how it can relate to consciousness. It was stating that people get in the habit of just normal rides home or the Zebra is used to grazing in the same spot that we do not notice little things like stop signs or a Lion for the Zebra. This is because of how little the brain is being used to perform the task due to it being used to the activity and route.
http://ditext.com/feigl/mp/5e.html
In this article it stated how Molar behavior and consciousness are not just similar but they are related to each other. An example would be an unconscious act came from being unaware or not fully thinking something through due to Molar behavior (drive ect). In this example it says the thing that triggers a Molar behavior then contributes to an unconscious act, it would be like they happen in steps not them being the same thing.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+molar+view+of+behavior+and+its+usefulness+in+behavior+analysis.-a0170020108
This article gave me more of an understanding of what Molar behavior was and how it was related to Molecular behavior. It gave me a better understanding due to providing examples of the two and how they relate but the reason why they are classified as different.
1a) State what your topic is.
B.F Skinner
1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter.
B.F Skinner was one of the prominent psychologists discussed in this chapter on behaviorism.
1c) Discuss why you are interested in it.
I am interested in learning more about Skinner because he seems to be a very influential individual in the evolution of behaviorism.
Burrhus Frederic Skinner was an American psychologist who was most interested in and well known for his contributions to behaviorism. Skinner was born on March 20th, 1904 in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. As a child Skinner enjoyed activities that allowed him to build and invent things. Looking further down the road to his professional life one can see that he still enjoyed doing so. Skinner attended Hamilton College in New York, wanting to become a writer. After receiving his B.A. from Hamilton College, he went to Harvard. This is ultimately where Skinner got the idea for “the Skinner Box”. This was a box that had a key/button that the animal inside could press and they would receive food and water to reinforce the activity, which ultimately was a study of operant conditioning. During said experiment negative reinforcement was also given, there may be loud noises, lights, and sometimes the chamber floor would be electrified. One thing that I don’t think I will be able to get over is the way that animals are treated in some of these experiments, even if it is “just a rat”. Skinner gave his particular type of behaviorism the title “radical behaviorism.” Radical behaviorism looks at behavior as a function of environmental histories of reinforcing consequences. Skinner greatly opposed the approach of humanistic psychology, he “denied humans possessing freedom and dignity.” I find that idea to be incredibly dark and unpleasing to think about. Skinner has contributed around 200 articles and 20 books, showing that he was and is indeed a very important and influential individual in the field of psychology. “In a 2002 survey of psychologists, he was identified as the most influential 20th-century psychologist.”
http://psychology.about.com/od/sindex/g/def_skinnerbox.htm
I chose this link because it had good, brief information on the skinner box.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner
I chose this link because it gave a very good overview of skinners life and ideals.
http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesofmajorthinkers/p/bio_skinner.htm
This link gave some good and not lengthy information
1a) State what your topic is.
1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter.
1c) Discuss why you are interested in it.
I chose to do my topical blog over B.F. Skinner. Skinner relates to the chapter because in the section about Skinner it talks about his work with operant conditioning. I am interested in his work because conditioning is something that is always around us and in our everyday lives.
2) B.F. Skinner was an American psychologist that was known for his work with operant conditioning. He invented the Skinner box, which was essential in studying operant conditioning. One of his works was placing a rat in a box, and in the box there was a lever. Every time the rat would pull down on the lever, a piece of food would drop into the box. This was a way to show reinforcement and the behaviorism of the animal. Skinner also was a huge contributor in determining the differences between classical and operant conditioning. To Skinner, operant conditioning meant slightly changing the behavior of a stimulus. Going back to the rat study, after observing the rat’s behavior, he determined that reinforcement is repetitive. He also noticed that behaviors that are not reinforced repeatedly tend to die out.
During the Skinner Box study, he developed three difference types of responses that relate to operant conditioning. Neutral operants, reinforcers, and punishers are the three terms he developed. Neutral operants are environmental responses that neither increase nor decrease behaviors being repeated. Reinforcers are environmental responses that increase the probability of a behavior being repeated. The behavior can be either positive or negative. Finally, punishers are environmental responses that decrease the chances of a behavior being repeated, and ultimately weakens behaviors.
3) At the end of your post, please include working URLs for the three websites. For each URL you have listed indicate why you chose the site and the extent to which it contributed to your post.
http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html
I really liked this site because it discussed Skinner’s operant conditioning theory. It went into details about the different responses that can happen.
http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesofmajorthinkers/p/bio_skinner.htm
This site was useful in understanding background information about Skinner.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner
This site talked about Skinner’s thoughts about operant conditioning and how he applied them to his theories.
J.P.
1)
I chose to do my weeks topical blog on Burrhus Frederic Skinner or most commonly known as B.F Skinner. Skinner relates to this chapter because he is talked about for the last half of the chapter and has an influential role in psychology. He studied the term operant conditioning rather than classical conditioning; operant conditioning is the approach that looks at actions and the consequences of those actions. This idea plays a major role in behaviorism that is simply why he relates to the chapter that we just read. I am interested in B.F Skinner and his idea of operant conditioning because I think conditioning an action and its consequences is kind of interesting. I want to be able to understand more of this concept.
2) We are born with a “blank slate.” With the right amount of training anyone can behave better and we can be trained.
B.F Skinner was a famous psychologist who studied behaviorism and mostly operant conditioning rather than classical conditioning which other psychologists have before his time. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1904; he tried to become a writer but decided that it was not for him and decided to enroll at Harvard to pursue an education in psychology.
He was the so called father of operant conditioning and based his research and ideas of off Edward Thorndike who used puzzle box mazes to understand the Law of Effect. Skinner then took the idea of law of effect and placed the word reinforcement into the puzzle. When behavior is reinforced, it is said that the actions are repeated then afterwards and the idea is learned through operant conditioning.
Most psychologists use animals for their research and for Skinners research for this operant conditioning he used a lab rat and placed him in the “Skinner Box” which obviously is an idea taken from Thorndike. The Skinner box held the rat inside and when the rat would place his limb onto a bar it would reward him. Just because he did the right action he was rewarded and the reinforcement of this action kept him placing his limb on the bar, which gave him more treats.
Skinner came up with three vocab words to also be placed with his study; neutral operants, reinforcers, and punishers. These three words were used to describe different responses from the environment that increased, decreased, or made the likelihood of a behavior being repeated neutral. The idea of a reinforcer it creates the idea that the action was great and that it can be repeated again, and a punisher would obviously give the participant or person the idea that the action was negative and the participant would most likely not do that again because of the aftermath of the action.
3)
www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html
This website had great information about B.F Skinners operant conditioning and what the Skinner Box had to do with the idea of operant conditioning.
http://www.biography.com/people/bf-skinner-9485671
Every website says roughly the same thing about Skinner and his operant conditioning. So it was hard to find a website that had different information to use about him. This website gave me a little bit more of a background on Skinner and his early years of life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-d6jypCsUw
This video just gave me a better look on Skinner and stated roughly the same idea that every other site had stated. We were born with a blank slate.
For this week’s topical blog post, I wanted to and decided to do more research about Clark Hull and especially his work with hypnosis. I found this to be a very interesting topic because it is not something common to learn about in the history of psychology. I find hypnosis to be a pretty interesting topic because it sounds very compelling to me but it also makes me a little nervous. I would never like to be hypnotized because I do not like the idea of someone being able to “control” my actions, or make me think something different than what is actually going on. This idea of hypnosis is the one that sticks with me and I am interested in learning more behind the concepts than what I just know about it. In chapter 11, the book talks about Hull’s research with hypnosis and how it actually helped further his career and his ideas concerning behavior.
Clark Hull was born on May 24th, 1884 in the state of New York. While in school, he studied math physics and chemistry because his plan was to become an engineer. When Hull was 24 years old though, he contracted polio and was left partially paralyzed. Because of this, his dreams of becoming an engineer was halted, and he switched into studying psychology. Hull showed huge amounts of perseverance in his career choices and because of that, and his research, he made very big contributions to the science of psychology. One of these contributions was his work and research in hypnosis, something not many people had learned about (or learned correctly about) before Hull’s work in the field.
Clark Hull is credited often with being the starter of the modern study of hypnosis. He worked for years on the idea and even wrote a book about the subject. The book is called Hypnosis and Suggestibility: An Experimental Approach and it sounds like it holds a lot of interesting information about what Hull found out on the subject. One of the pieces of information that Hull found out was that hypnosis is not related to sleep and that they are actually two different ideas altogether. Hull’s experiments with hypnosis also found that pain reduction and some memory recall can be gained through the process of hypnosis. I thought it was interesting to see some of the good that can come of being hypnotized, rather than just knowing about the side of hypnosis related to party tricks and getting people to act a certain way.
Through all of Hull’s work, it is apparent that he was only a scientist and an academic rather than a hypnotherapist. His research was run for the purpose of learning, and he did not do any work outside of the laboratory. From reading some of the articles, I got the idea that the readings made it seem like Clark Hull was against the use of hypnosis for any other means besides helping humans and human illnesses. I thought that this was interesting and very mature to Hull to believe this, and only see the good in hypnosis.
Because of the work that people like Clark Hull put into hypnosis, it stills remains a very prominent topic in today’s society. People are very interested in learning more about how this science work and if it really truly does, or if the memories people are bringing up under hypnosis are just made up ones. I think that this is really interesting as well. There has been a lot of work under experimental psychology concerning the topic of hypnosis. Because of the way suggestion works, people that become hypnotized can feel things and see things more clearly, or that weren’t there to begin with. I think that hypnosis is a very interesting topic because of all the different ways it can be thought about. There is a lot more information that we still have to learn about hypnosis, and until we get to the depths of how hypnosis and suggestibility work, the topic will stick around for a long time. It is interesting to see how far it has come from the times of Clark Hull and his mentor, and see all of the research they put into this topic to make it what it is today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_L._Hull
I used the website to learn more about Clark Hull and his life. This website provided me with basis information about Clark Hull and his work in hypnosis. I used this information to further look up other articles and websites about his life and the work that he did with hypnosis and suggestibility. It was really interesting for me to see all the topics Hull had covered in his life time shown in one place.
http://www.historyofhypnosis.org/20th-century-and-beyond/
This website was really helpful with learning more about hypnosis and where it is today. It gave me information on Hull and how he influenced and basically started the modern research in hypnosis. I used a lot of this information in my blog post for how it related to Hull, his life, and his work.
http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~kihlstrm/APAHypnosis07.htm
This last website gave me more information on hypnosis and the work Clark Hull did in the field. The previous website helped me more than this one did, but there was still information I found in this website that was not in the previous two that further helped me write my blog post.
My topic is Tolman and latent learning. In the chapter, Tolman is discussed in regards to his experiments with rats and how they learn mazes. After reading about behaviorism for awhile, Tolman shook up the theory a bit with his discoveries. I enjoyed reading about how he identified as a behaviorist, but modified his approach into what is not considered cognitive behaviorism.
Edward Tolman was born in Newport, Massachusetts in 1886 to an upper-middle class family. Tolman initially studied electrochemistry before switching to philosophy and psychology his senior year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He went to Harvard Grad School and earned his PhD and later landed a job at the University of California in Berkley. It was here that his cognitive theory developed in contrast to the strict stimulus-response connection promoted by Thorndike and Hull. Tolman did not agree that animals and humans respond only to associations with stimuli, but instead proposed that other variables such as motivation affect learning.
To demonstrate this, he put rats in mazes, as nearly all psychologists love to do. After dividing the rats into three groups, he observed how quickly they learned the maze. The first group received food at the end of the maze each time. The second did not receive food until after a few days, and the last one received food only after 10 days. The two groups of rats who did not receive food right away still learned the maze just as the rats who did receive food consistently. This showed that reinforcement was not necessary for learning: though two groups of rats received nothing for days, they still learned the maze. This is called latent learning: when animals or humans learn something without having motivation or reinforcement.
Another notable discovery was that after these two groups did discover food, their speed increased and the number of errors in completing the maze decreased.
In order to test whether rats were simply learning to turn certain directions to complete the maze, Tolman started the rats at different locations. The rats were still able to quickly complete the maze and get to the food. This showed that the rats had formed a cognitive map of their environment. Even before rewarded with food, rats learned the direction of their destination. After getting turned around, they did not turn the same way as they had before, but headed to the proper exit. This shows that there is more than just the stimulus-response model, and that reinforcement is not necessary for learning. This has been confirmed in infants, who responded differently based upon their experiences and associations. One group saw two different hand puppets at once, and responded to the puppets individually later. The other, only saw one puppet at a time, and took more time to respond to the association. Both groups had learned without any reinforcement, and the first group showed this learning more quickly than the second.
Tolman's experiments and discoveries in latent learning and cognitive mapping helped usher in the cognitive behaviorist movement. This new theory of psychology improved on the behaviorist model and eventually surpassed it in legitimacy.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1207/s15327078in0703_2/abstract;jsessionid=8B210017E31DC5A22E1C45BC6A5ED4CA.f01t03
This link talks about how latent learning is present in infants.
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/tolman.htm
This is a short biography on Tolman, describing his life and experiments dealing with latent learning.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2223150/
This goes further in depth into Tolman's experiments with rats which led to the discovery of latent learning.
1a) State what your topic is: My topic for the chapter 11 Topical Blog is B.F. Skinner and his Skinner Box.
1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter:
This topic relates to the chapter because the Skinner Box is discussed in this chapter and how it relates to the neobehaviorists’ movement.
1c) Discuss why you are interested in it:
I am interested in B.F. Skinner and the Skinner Box because I feel the chapter did not explain fully how it worked. I didn’t understand the negative reinforcement of the electrical shock to the rat and at what times it was used.
2) B.F. Skinner was born in Pennsylvania in 1904. He grew up learning how to question authority. Like many of the scientists we have read about in our texts, he began his educational career in something other than psychology. Skinner wanted to be a creative writer and after graduation from Harvard he took a year to write. Robert Frost had liked some of Skinner’s writings and this gave him the incentive to push forward in the field. This year off would change Skinner. He referred to it as the “Dark year.” His parents were on him to get a job and he started to realize he might not achieve the fame of the famous writer like he wanted. During this year, he was also reading about behaviorism and this caused him to pursue studying psychology at Harvard. Skinner would move on to work at the University of Minnesota, University of Indiana, and finish his career back at Harvard.
Skinner coined the term “operant conditioning.” This term describes the conditioning in which the behavior happens. What the behavior brings about in regard to reinforcement will determine how often it will occur in the future. This was an important concept within Skinner’s work. Skinner developed the operant chamber, or what has come to be known as the Skinner Box.
The Skinner Box was an experiment that would condition the behavior of a rat, or in some cases a pigeon. In this box, there would be a couple of lights, a lever, food dispenser, and an electric shock generator. The rat would press the lever, and the pellet of food would come out. At first the rat did this by accident, but quickly learned that the lever needed to be pressed to obtain the food. Skinner could manipulate this process with the lights. In one experiment, the rat would get food only when the light was on. The rat learned to press the lever when the light was on to get the food. The part that confused me was the electrical shock. The book did not explain its use that well and I didn’t know how it was being used. I found that the electrical shock was a separate experiment. In this case, the rat would accidently press the lever and receive an electrical shock. The rat quickly learned not to press the lever.
There are two key concepts that come from these experiments. The first is extinction; this is when the reinforcement (food) is no longer obtained, the behavior used to get it will become absent. The concept of stimulus control was also shown by Skinner dimming the light. When this was down, the rats’ response to pressing the lever was slowed. Eventually the rat learned to only press the lever when the light was on. There was a similar experiment done with pigeons. The results were also similar, showing that these concepts apply to animals other than just rats.
Another important part of this experiment was that the results were not only observable but were also measurable. Skinner had a printout of when the rat was pressing the lever. This was very important in pinpointing when extinction took place. This happened because the food dispenser malfunctioned when Skinner was not present. If not for the printout, Skinner may never have discovered this phenomenon.
With his experiments, Skinner proved the two things he set out to prove. One was that behavior could be predicted and the other was that it can also be controlled. Does this apply also to humans? In some ways, I think it does. We give out positive and negative reinforcement every day. We might not always get the desired behavior, as in Skinner’s experiments, but it does produce a behavior that can often be predicted and controlled.
3) This website gives a great overview of Skinner’s life, studies, experiments with rats, and the Skinner Box:
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/B._F._Skinner
This website focuses on Skinner’s operant conditioning, as well as having a more in-depth overview of the Skinner Box:
http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html
Here is a link to a video showing an example of the Skinner Box in use:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOgowRy2WC0
For this week’s chapter I was most interested in the life and work of Edward C. Tolman. He was one of the three main behaviorists discussed in the chapter. The thing that stood out to me in the chapter was that he tried to apply psychology to a proposal to end war. I thought that was really cool because whether or not it was successful, that is seemingly the best use of applied psychology.
Edward Chace Tolman was born in Boston in 1886. He graduated from MIT with a degree in electrochemistry, a field that he chose not to work in because of his older brother’s success. His brother, Richard Tolman, contributed to the development of the atomic bomb in World War II, a war that Edward felt strongly against. After reading William James’s book he became enthralled with philosophy and psychology and went on to Harvard where he graduated with his doctorate in 1915. He found comfort in behavioral psychology, as he was also opposed to the traditional view of psychology. Tolman was not as radical a behaviorist as some of his colleagues and predecessors. He was especially influenced by the gestaltists, Lewin and Koffka. One of Tolman’s professors, Edwin Holt, believed that previous behavioral theories were too reductionistic and that behavior is instead purposive and goal-directed. This was another main influence on Tolman that contributed to his core beliefs when constructing his theory of learning. He became a very successful and respected psychologist in the years following. He is most commonly known for his work with rats and mazes. His theory of learning stated that learning occurs without punishment or reinforcement simply through experience. He could deduce this from rats that happened to make it through mazes faster on successive tries without reinforcers. This acknowledgement of latent learning led him to be an S-S (stimulus-stimulus) theorist, rather than taking up the commonly held S-R model. Tolman made many contributions to the field and had some very fascinating findings. He developed a field theory, modeled after the gestalt psychologist’s view of the whole being more important than the individual parts, that focused on the broad patterns of behavior rather than isolated behaviors themselves. One of the things I found most fascinating was his identification of intervening variables. Up to this point, psychologists noted only the manipulated, independent variable and the observed, dependent variable. He proposed a third mediating variable that explains unseen phenomena that take place between the stimulus and the behavior. He called this variable an intervening variable and it could be measured when it is operationally defined. Tolman believed psychology could and should be applied to a good number of things. He believed that behaviorism specifically could be applied to parenting to raise future generations to be ideal, upstanding members of society. He was a peaceful man who saw no sense in wars. This had him attempt to apply psychology to ending wars, once and for all, in his 1942 book, Drives Toward War. He claimed the psychological cause of war resulted from the interference or frustration of the biological drives which motivate all behavior. Logically, the first point he made in his three point plan to do away with war involved creating an economic order that would serve to eliminate biological frustrations. The second part of his theoretical plan had to do with creating an educational and social system to ensure that children grow up thinking adversely of war. The third and final tenet of his proposed utopia called for the abandonment of national borders and segregations and the replacement of them with a perfect supranational state. It has been over 70 years since the release of this book and we are still a world at war, but that does not mean there is no hope. Psychology still may hold the answer to the overall end of war, but we have obviously not found it yet. Tolman got recognized for his efforts at being a leader on the forefront of peace and received a number of awards and even an honorary degree. In 1937 he was president of the APA, an organization that gave him the Distinguished Scientific Contribution award in 1957. Edward C. Tolman died in 1959, but his legacy led to many scientific breakthroughs years and years after his death.
Psychnet.apa.org/journals/bul/40/5/381.pdf
This link contains the book review of Drives Toward War by Edward Tolman. It seemed the review of the book would be the best I could find except for the occasional preview or excerpt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_C._Tolman
This link gave a run through of Tolman’s life touching briefly on many things that the book did not while skipping over many things the book included.
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/tolman.htm
This link described more of Tolman’s overall academic work and research.
1a) My topic from chapter 11 this week is on neobehaviorism and their work with animal
1b) This topic relates to the chapter in several ways. The first would be the fact that a section of the text covered the topic of what neobehaviorism includes as a school of thought within psychology. Also, the chapter mentioned that it was the neobehaviorist that inspired more research to be conducted with animals and then apply those findings to humans. I wanted to dig a little deeper into these too areas from the book and see what I could come up with that could expound on what we learned from the textbook this week.
1c) I am interested in how the neobehaviorist influenced the increased use of animal subjects because I would like to eventually see a scientific research approach to psychology that didn’t involve animal subjects. Learning how and why they came up with the influential ideas of working with animal subjects may lead to an answer of how we can work toward research that would even require a subject at all.
2)
Neobehaviorism started in the early 1930’s and continued till the late 1950’s. This approach to the field of psychology was heavily influenced by three major psychologist during that time period. We have learned a little about each one in chapter 11. They are, Tolman, Hull, and Skinner. These influential leaders in the neobehaviorist approach to psychology were also strongly influenced by the Vienna Circle of logical positivists. Overall their goal was to formalize the laws of behavior through observational methods. Their logic was that a physical observation was required to complete the knowledge of how variables were related to eachother. From what I observed in researching this subject, the use of animals as subjects for testing in the psychology field was largely influenced by these main psychologist and their use of animals to test various hypotheses and theories on. Also, they were influenced by researchers such as Thorndike and Pavlov who also were notorious for their use of animals. Using animals to get research results came about because of the idea that animals are cognitively more simple than humans. Research that involved animals would theoretically be more simple due to the fact that a lower level of cognitive functioning would allow for easier observations of behavior.
Since Darwin’s theory of evolution, the idea that we can learn valuable knowledge as it relates to human function by testing it on animals, has sparked the trend that we have seen in the use of animal subjects for scientific research. It is the idea that we share very similar genes, behavior characteristics and mental capabilities with other species in the animal kingdom. Research has shown that animals are able to experience many of the same characteristics of humans and since they respond to many of the same queues as we do, this has led to the continued use of animal subjects in research.
While only about 10% of psychological research involves animal subjects, that is still an estimated 20 million subjects that are used every year for these tests. There is some hope for the decline in using these animals as subjects however. Several sources that I looked up while researching this subject made mention of computer simulation technology that is becoming a little more common and is causing a slight drop in having to use animals for testing. My hope is that the further along society gets in technological advances, the less likely it will be to have to use animals to test out various hypothesis on. I understand how scientists and psychological researchers have utilized these animals because of their similar characteristics to humans. Honestly it is a lot better to have some of the testing that is done, to be performed on animals rather than humans. I am thankful for our ethical laws that prohibit much of the research to be done on humans. However, as we make advances in science, I would like to see the decline in the use of animals because after all, they are creatures that are able to experience feelings, emotions, pain, etc.
http://science.jrank.org/pages/8448/Behaviorism-Neobehaviorism-1930-1955.html
This website was helpful in getting a background of the neobehaviorist movement. It also gave a clear view into who helped start the movement as well as what previous psychological thoughts and ideas influenced the direction that this form of thinking took.
http://graulab.tamu.edu/J-Grau/Psyc606/Papers/Neobehaviorism.pdf
This source helped me to gain a better understanding of why animals started to be used in research to begin with. It also helped me to see the logic behind the early fathers of neobehaviorism and why they found it profitable to test their ideas on animals.
http://psychology.jrank.org/pages/34/Animal-Experimentation.html
This website gave a lot of detail on the history of animals in research. It also gave some insight into the future use of animals in scientific studies and possible replacement options that would allow for more animals to be saved from having to undergo these types of studies.
Once you have completed your search and explorations we would like you to:
1a) State what your topic is. 1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter. 1c) Discuss why you are interested in it.
BF Skinner is known as one of the best psychologists and behaviorist that has ever lived. He opened up doors for our world to learn and for other psychologist to learn from him. He relates to the chapter because he showed a new side of behaviorism with Operant Conditioning and what it meant. Not only was he an influential person in psychology, but also in the real world because he wanted to do what was best for humanity.
2) Next, we would like you to take the information you read or viewed related to your topic, integrate/synthesize it, and then write about the topic in a knowledgeable manner. By integrating/synthesizing we mean taking what your read/experienced from the internet search organize the information into the main themes, issues, info, examples, etc. about your topic and then write about the topic in your own words using the information you have about the topic.
BF Skinner was born on March 20, 1904 in Pennsylvania. As a child he was described as ‘warm and stable’ boy. He also was interested in building and creating new things. This talent of his only progressed into his later life. He went to Hamilton College and graduated with a degree in English. While he was working his career as a writer he stumbled upon works from Pavlov and Watson. This finding he threw away his degree in English, and his writing to go into the world of psychology.
Skinner went into the world of psychology with nothing but left with everything. He is mostly known for his idea of operant conditioning. From the readings of Pavlov and Watson, they had the theory that our behavior depends on the stimulus. Skinner found this not to be true, he found that our behavior depends on what happens after the response. There are key concepts that make operant conditioning. There are reinforcements, and this either makes the behavior stronger or increases it. Along with reinforcements there are punishments that can cause the behavior to decrease and weaken.
Another idea of Skinner’s that is interesting is ‘The Baby Tender.’ He did this for his own child and to comfort his wife. The baby’s crib had a heated bed and was enclosed with Plexiglas. This idea; however received much criticism on what the actual intended use of it was for. This was nicknamed the ‘Baby in a Box.’ Many confused this with the idea of the ‘Skinner Box.’ The ‘Skinner Box’ was a container that held an animal (most of the time a rat) that holds buttons for the animal to press to get food. The animal would get food or water for reinforcement.
3) At the end of your post, pleas, e include working URLs for the three websites. For each URL you have listed indicate why you chose the site and the extent to which it contributed to your post.
http://psychology.about.com/od/sindex/g/def_skinnerbox.htm
This site talked about the Skinner Box and what it the purpose of the box was.
http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesofmajorthinkers/p/bio_skinner.htm
This site showed a brief bio of Skinner and also talked about his major accomplishments.
http://psychology.about.com/od/behavioralpsychology/a/introopcond.htm
This site was a great resource that went into Operant Conditioning and what all it entails.
Topical Blog: B. F. Skinner
"The consequences of behavior determine the probability that the behavior will occur again" --B. F. Skinner
B.F. Skinner described his Pennsylvania childhood as "warm and stable." As a boy, he enjoyed building and inventing thing. He received a bachelor’s degree in English literature in 1926 and spent time as a struggling writer before he discovered the works of Watson and Pavlov. These in turn inspired him to quit his career as a novelist and enter the world of psychology and graduating from Harvard University. This is where he became one of the leaders of behaviorism and his work contributed immensely to experimental psychology. He also invented the 'Skinner box,' in which a rat learns to obtain food by pressing a lever.
B.F. Skinner is famous for his research on operant conditioning and negative reinforcement. He developed a device called the "cumulative recorder," which showed rates of responding as a sloped line. Using this device, he found that behavior did not depend on the preceding stimulus as Watson and Pavlov maintained. Instead, Skinner found that behaviors were dependent upon what happens after the response. Skinner called this operant behavior.
Skinner also invented The Baby Tender when his wife Yvonne was pregnant with another child, their daughter, Deborah. This invention was different from Skinner’s box and was often times called the baby box and was confused with it. He created the enclosed heated crib with a Plexiglas window. This was done in 1943.
http://www.bfskinner.org/bfskinner/AboutSkinner.html
I chose this site because I thought it was neat how there was a foundation dedicated to B.F. Skinner himself. I looked around the webpage and took most information from the about page (the link listed above).
http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesofmajorthinkers/p/bio_skinner.htm
I have always enjoyed the About.com pages and feel like they give me a lot of good information. That is why I chose this site.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUwCgFSb6Nk
I like watching videos because I am a visual learner. This video was long enough to keep my attention but also short enough so I did not stray away in thought. Those are the best types of educational videos (in my opinion).
I enjoyed the reading about Skinner in this week’s chapter. I think it is clear he was one of the biggest influences on psychology in his time and continues to be so. We read about his contributions to behaviorism and this area is what makes him so large to the field of psychology. He came up with operant conditioning and used the “Skinner box”, Skinner made giant leaps forward in the field and without his work we would not be as far along as we are.
Skinner as one of the most influential psychologist to date believed that humans did not have free will as much as we are reinforced into action based on the outcomes of actions. If a person does an act and the reaction to that task is bad we will not repeat the task. However, if someone does something and the reactions are good we are more likely to repeat the action. Upon the look into Skinners background and home life he was an atheist and for this time that was something that was unheard of due to the strong influence of the church. His brother died at a young age due to a brain hemorrhage. I found the fact that Skinner wanted to be an author at first to be very interesting, he wanted to write a great novel but a school mate of his urged him to expand on his Skinner box and study behaviorism. When Watsons studies came to light for Skinner he turned his focus to psychology and worked on behaviorism.
Skinner was also an inventor and one of his inventions that get to some people urging people to compare it to his Skinner box and call it cruel is called that air crib. I feel that Skinner did not mean for this simple invention to help parents sleep at night was cruel. It was simply a crib designed to keep a child sleeping at night at a good comfort level allowing a full night’s sleep and the parents sleeping as well. In closing Skinner was a very strong figure to psychology and science as a whole in general. Without some of his advancements we would not be where we are today and although some people call him and his work cruel I feel that he was more misunderstood and simply was working to understand behaviorism better than ever before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner
Great starting point for my research, I learned a lot about the back ground of Skinner and some of his works.
http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesofmajorthinkers/p/bio_skinner.htm
Provides a detailed, creditable look into people and this site showed me in detail Skinners life.
http://bernardbaars.pbworks.com/f/Double+Life+Skinner+JCS.pdf
This site provided a deeper look into the darker side of skinners history and more into his family.
1a) Latent Learning
1b) This is a discovery of Tolman that could be considered the beginning of learning beyond stimulus-response relationships.
1c) As I have mentioned before I am taking cognitive psychology right now, so it is convenient for me to blend these two classes. From the research I gathered latent learning has obvious cognitive components, but it can still be influenced by the stimulus-response relationship.
When you were sixteen and running out of the DMV with license in hand did you need a map to drive back home? Have you ever taken a test and did not know an answer until you presented a question? These happenings can be explained, at least partially, by latent learning. Latent learning is the exhibition of knowledge without reinforcement. This wonderful feature of our brain allows us to do some pretty amazing stuff. First, being able to learn without reinforcement means it does not cost others for us to learn. We are capable of learning without burning up resources, mainly food. We can retain information without realizing. When studying for a test it is easy to feel a cognitive overload, however latent learning keeps some information below this conscious threshold. Therefore we contain knowledge without the cognitive burden because it is only recalled when situations require it. Tying in with the last point, some latent learning is obtained with us realizing it. For example, whenever I write this papers my girlfriend sits next to me on the couch and cross-stitches. Because sometimes I decide to glance in her direction I pick up some cross-stitching techniques from proximity. This is not to say that latent learning is entirely responsible for knowledge acquirement in these examples, but it does play a major role. It is important to learn how latent learning was discovered.
Edward Tolman, a behaviorist psychologist, was a meticulous experimenter with a fascination with rat mazes. He was responsible for many of the scientific procedures and consistencies we practice today, but his contributions to psychology are equally as important. He was convinced that learning was not based solely on stimuli and responses. So, Tolman devised an ingenious experiment. One group was rewarded with food when they completed the maze, and the control group was not awarded food. This is a typical paradigm experiment for behaviorists, but it is the third group that makes this experiment interesting and important. The third group was not rewarded for the first half of the experiment and as expect they performed as well in the maze as the control group. However at the beginning of the second half of the experiment they found food at the end of the maze. After that the rats in the third group performed just as well if not slightly better than the group that was rewarded from the beginning. This proves that the rats had a command of the maze without being rewarded. Tolman decided that the rats learned the maze without a stimulus-response relationship, but that the S-R relationship motivated the rats to complete it faster. Learning without needing an S-R relationship could be imperative to survival, especially in the construction of cognitive maps. If a rat were exploring an area it would be important to remember it and be able to fluently navigate it. This way it can escape from predators or find a newly arrived food source. In the former case the rat might not have ample practice of the map if it needed an S-R relationship.
Tolman’s groundbreaking experiment added a new dynamic to behaviorism and helped load cognitive psychologists firearms. Tolman’s findings gained support as other psychologists found similar results in separate labs and even under different circumstances. Water mazes and different S-R relationships were used but all found results parallel to Tolman’s original experiment. However when cognitive psychology was blossoming it used Tolman’s experiment as a prime example of the limitations of behaviorism. They claimed that this subconscious learning deprived of an S-R relationship could be explained by cognitive psychologists and that organism can learn without the backbone of behaviorism. But behaviorists were able to retort by saying the an S-R relationship clearly influences the outcome. Thus, this could be one of the mending patches between cognitive psychologists and behaviorists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_learning
This source had a solid definition of latent learning. It also had several experiments about latent learning that went beyond Tolman’s original. One experiment even showed latent learning in infants.
http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples/examples-of-latent-learning.html
This website was purely examples of latent learning. While some examples were stronger than others it helps explain latent learning. I especially learn better with examples.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2223150/
I admit I did not read every bit of text in this article, but it is incredibly extensive and interesting. It goes over nearly very aspect of latent learning and how it has influenced psychology and how it has been interpreted in textbooks.
Operant Conditioning
This topic relates to the chapter, as B.F. Skinner is one of the three men that are really emphasized in chapter 11. B.F. Skinner wrote The Behavior of Organisms, which included Type S conditioning which is the Pavolvian model and Type R conditioning or operant conditioning. In operant conditioning, a behavior is emitted and followed by some consequence and the futures chances of that behavior are determined by that consequence. I was interested in learning more about how operant conditioning plays a role in today’s society. I have heard how it can be related into the field of education but I wondered how else it is or is not being used in other fields as well.
In the 1920s, behaviorists were becoming more influential in the field of psychology. Watson had left a strong mark as he proposed ideas on learning that did not include classical conditioning. Skinner was also very influential with his contribution of operant conditioning and was less extreme with his ideas than Watson. He believed that it is more productive to focus on observable behavior as opposed to internal mental events. Skinner had a similar view of how he thought of himself and organisms in that his behavior was a product of his genes, setting, and his history.
His ideas including that of operant conditioning is still applied in various fields today. Sometimes operant conditioning is compared with classical conditioning as both branched from behaviorists in psychology. One article I read compared classical conditioning and operant conditioning in the field of advertising. For classical conditioning, consumers respond to a stimulus such as a tasty cheeseburger and salivating from the site of it. However, in operant conditioning, the advertisers are trying to change the consumers’ behavior with the use of reward and punishment. For example, they may give the customers a coupon that gives them a free drink with the purchase of fries and a burger.
Another field in which Skinner’s ideas can be applied in the application of education. Skinner claimed that any skill that is appropriate to the right age could be taught. He broke it down into five steps for teaching. The first step is to clearly specify the performance or action the student needs to learn to do. The second is to break the task into small and achievable steps starting from simple to complex. Third, is to allow the student to perform each step and reinforce the correct actions. The fourth step is to adjust so the student is always successful until the goal is obtained. Then the fifth and final step is to transfer the intermittent reinforcement to maintain the student’s performance.
Reinforcement is what set Skinner apart from Thorndike’s law of effect. As behavior is reinforced, it tends to be repeated or strengthened. Whereas, when behavior is not repeated it tends to die out or become weakened. Obviously, good behaviors are what need to be reinforced and bad behaviors are to be punished. In the working environment reinforcement can play a key role in strengthening employees. For example, if an employee is doing a good job at what they are doing, they can be encouraged to repeat or reinforce their good behavior by getting a raise or giving verbal praise.
Overall, operant conditioning is used in many different fields that go beyond what I discussed. I have also learned that operant conditioning can be learned with raising children or training dogs. With this idea of reinforcement being applied in a lot of places, it is hard to imagine a world without Skinner’s major contribution of operant conditioning.
https://www.boundless.com/psychology/learning/operant-conditioning/skinner-s-importance-today/
I liked this website because it included information on Skinner and his ideas and his application to the field of education.
http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html
I enjoyed this site because it gave good detail on Skinner and more about operant conditioning and where it branched.
http://www.ehow.com/info_12030739_operant-conditioning-vs-classical-conditioning-advertising.html
I liked this article because it compared operant and classical conditioning in the field of advertising.
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/operant-conditioning-useful-workplace-18314.html
This website was nice because it applied the idea of reinforcement into the workplace.
1. I chose to do more research on Tolman’s cognitive maps. I thought the concept sounded interesting in the reading on Tolman. I felt the section about cognitive mapping was entirely way too short and needed to learn some more information. I found this interesting because while I was reading about Tolman in the chapter, I kept thinking of my driving route home from school. I can picture just about every mile of the 100 miles I drive home. I found my sources to be very full of good, detailed information.
2. Edward C. Tolman published his paper, “Cognitive Maps in Rats and Men” in 1948. Within his paper, Tolman discussed various experiments in which he and several research assistants created. During these tests, Tolman and other scientists tested the learning of hungry rats in mazes. They would place rats at the beginning of a labyrinth once every 24 hours. A piece of food would be awaiting the rat at the end. Over time, the rats would get faster at concluding. In his paper, Tolman explained how the numerous experiments fell under 5 categories: latent learning, vicarious trial and error, searching for the stimuli, hypotheses, and spatial orientation. In the first, latent learning, the rats were split into 3 groups (a control and 2 experimental groups). The 2 experimental groups had different reinforcement schedules. They psychologists found that the rats became accustomed to the schedule and took their time through the maze when they were not going to be reinforced. However, when they were going to find food at the end, the rats quickly ran through to the end. Tolman believed the rats were storing a map of the maze in their mind for when they needed it. In the second category, researchers believed the rats were learning by trial and error. The rats were given different stimuli and forced to make a decision over one door or another. If the rat chose the wrong door, they would be placed back at the beginning to start over. When the rat chose the correct door, they would receive food. Tolman labeled the third group “Searching for Stimulus.” Experiments in this category include Hudson’s shock cage. Rats in this experiment would be presented with a food cup. When the rats would try to eat the food, they would be shocked. When the surprise occurred, the lights would turn off and the food cup would simultaneously disappear. This confused the rat on what to avoid. Hypotheses is the fourth classification. An example of the type of studies that fell in it was Krech’s study of systematic choices in rats. He found the rats were choosing all “right” doors or all “dark colored” doors. He called the process of making systematic choices “Hypotheses” because he felt the rats were trying all the “logical” options before proceeding to the next. The rats would continue this pattern until they found one that worked for them. The fifth and final grouping was spatial orientation. Tolman writes about how Lashley’s maze experiment in full detail. In Lashley’s findings he commented how the rats would finish a maze, climb the walls to the top, and run back to the finish area to eat the food due to visually identifying the direction in which the end was from the beginning.
Neuroscientists have also done several studies on humans in mazes. “[Epstein and Kanwisher] found that one particular location in the brain within the hippocampus (the Parahippocampal Area or PPA) that responded to scenes, very weakly to objects, and not at all to faces.” These studies have allowed contractors to better create building spaces for physically handicapped people. The concept of cognitive mapping has also allowed researchers inside of how children and people with sensory defects perceive their environment.
3. http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Tolman/Maps/maps.htm
This link will take you to Tolman’s article “Cognitive Maps in Rats and Men”. I found this article to be very detailed in the experiments that Tolman and other researchers did. He did a very nice job describing each of his points in detail. I thought this was helpful to read because it gave me a very detailed background in the subject.
http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/sommerb/sommerdemo/mapping/cogmap.htm
I felt this website was very helpful in understanding how cognitive maps have an effect and can help humans. I thought it was very helpful in being straight and to the point with the important information.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/thoughtful-animal/2011/07/12/rats-bees-and-brains-the-death-of-the-cognitive-map/
This blog was very informational about the studies have been done on humans in mazes. It was also very helpful in understanding the parts of the brain that are active during different learning processes.
My topic and why I found it interesting?
I chose Modern Behaviorism as my topic for this topical blog. We spent time reading about behaviorism and its inevitable demise to the Cognitive Revolution; however, I wanted to know how it was handling itself after Cognitive Psychology was deemed king of Psychology. The following is what I have found:
What caused behaviorism to decline?
Behaviorism declined largely during the rise of cognitive thought brought on by the Cognitive Revolution; however, there are several other details that account for its decline. One massive blow to behaviorism was caused by its stubbornness to not allow non-behavioral, such as cognitive processes, into its studies. With a focus on strictly observable behaviors and nothing more, behaviorism gave itself a crack in its ideology that critics shot at. Such critics made mention to the idea that reinforcement history cannot be the only source of our behavior. Just because you see ice cream, as an example, that doesn't mean it will be a stimulus; regardless of past experiences and unconditioned or conditioned responses to it. Noam Chomsky, a notable (and often brutal) critic of behaviorism, points to language acquisition as another problem behaviorists cannot answer. Although behaviorists try to answer it, Chomsky states that behaviorism cannot explain why normal children aged four to five can start producing and understanding sentences that they have never heard before. Not to mention they need no reinforcement to acquire language. The latter clearly pointing to innate faculties of the brain. Lastly, behaviorism declined by the shear popularity of cognitive psychology. So many favored it, that many behaviorists betrayed their studies and left to explore cognitive processes.
Where is Behaviorism today?
The Cognitive Revolution may have sent B.F. Skinner’s Behaviorism running for the hills, but it was never out of the fight completely. For beginners, Behaviorism was never actually refuted out of existence; psychologists merely lost interest in it and left for supposed greener pastures. Since 2007, modern day behaviorism has made a comeback…and has a new name. “Behavior Analysis” has taken the forefront in behavioral therapies and animal learning theories. Many behavioral therapies are gaining immense popularity with the notions of “self-control” and “self-reinforcement”. “No minds…just behavior….” Says the stanford.edu website when addressing said therapies. Not only are they gaining ground in therapy and animal research, but also in education, pet training, and parenting techniques. Many psychologists today catalog cognitive events through behaviors observed. Also, one could say that experimental psychology uses behaviorist measures!
“The science of behavior through research, education, and practice” is the slogan on the ABAI’s homepage. What does ABAI stand for? The Association for Behavior Analysis International, one of several big organizations committed to “Behavior Analysis”, has an impressive presence here in the United States. They have organization Chapters in 46 states including Iowa. As their homepage cant says, they focus on scientific research for behaviorism, education for behaviorism (they even have accredited programs for future Behavior Analyzers), and behaviorism in practice (doggy treats and baby training techniques). This organization has many constituents as well. On the website, you can find a list of 80 plus people who have been considered “Followers”. It is a title given to those who have contributed a lot to the research and development of modern Behaviorism. One such person may sound familiar to the people of U of I. David P. Wacker (I only laughed once…promise) of University of Iowa is one such Follower. In conclusion, one can see that behaviorism still has a lot to say in a nation devoted to cognitive faculties.
Source One: prezi.com/wmkdic_hmaqs/behaviorism-neobehaviorism/
- I used this prezi to help show behaviorism is still thriving.
Source Two: www.pyschologytoday.com/basics/behaviorism
- Used to tell of pet and parent training.
Source Three: plato.stanford.edu/entries/behaviorism/
- I used this site for pretty much everything under the sun. However, big emphasis on Noam Chomsky on this site!
Source Four: www.abainternational.org
- This is the ABAI main webpage. A lot of their information came from this source.
For this week’s blog, I thought that there was plenty of information presented about the three psychologists highlighted in the chapter. I did not feel the need to dive deeper into any of their lives. However, there was one thing that intrigued me: positivism, and the development of operationalism. I had learned about operational definition in both my Research Methods courses for Sociology and Psychology, but we never talked about what operationalsim was or how it came to be. So, I wanted to dive deeper and get some more information about that.
Positivism is an attempt to only accept knowledge that is empirically based as factual, and therefore rejects other types of knowledge (i.e. intuition, philosophical, etc.). Positivists also reject theoretical speculation as a way of arriving at a factual conclusion. Basically, positivism is empiricism, brought to a new, higher extreme. This term was introduced and the idea founded by Aguste Comte, who thought that positivism should first be introduced in the realm of sociology, because he believed that society could be transformed on the basis of science.
With positivism, there were three distinct stages. The first stage, which I introduced a little above, is also associated with J.S. Mill and Herbert Spencer (England), and E. Littre and Laffitte (France). Some of the problems that first arose in positivism were that of the theories of knowledge and logic. The second stage, which was called epirio-criticism, is associated with Mach and Avenarius, and they rejected recognition of real, objective objects. Mach interpreted the problems of cognitions as extreme psychologism, and merged it with subjectivism. The third stage, neo-positivism, is where operationalism comes into play.
Operationalism is based on the concept that one cannot know the meaning of a concept unless they can break it down into functional parts and have a way of measuring it. For example, in the past it has been of interest to measure anger, which is very difficult since emotions are subjective. The operational definition is something that can be measured, so, staying with the anger example, it may be a side-effect of anger, such as aggression or blood pressure. These can be measured, and it lines up with operationalism, but the problem is: is this really an accurate measure of what we are trying to find? Is blood pressure really a good indicator of anger?
In general, operationalism looks really tempting on the surface, but when one looks into it deeper, there are many flaws with operationalism. As the article I listed below in the references says, the great tragedy of operationalism is that it restricts psychologists from being able to create new theories or to even think about it. There can be no innovation, no development of ideas, because positivism (and therefore, operationalism) forces psychologists to only present information that can be proven as fact. We know that since psychology is based out of philosophy, it is very hard to prove ideas about the mind and the psyche to be fact, so operationalism proves to be an impediment to the progress of psychological understanding.
When I learned about operationalism before, I just went through the motions and had not thought about how flawed the practice may be. Now I can see that there are a lot of flaws, and operationalism should not be used because, more times than not, it is not actually measuring what it should be measuring.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/operationalism/
I liked this site because it had a lot of good information about operationalism
http://www.lehigh.edu/~mhb0/Operationalism.pdf
This article had a lot of information about the flaws of operationalism.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/help/mach1.htm
This article reviewed the development of positivism.
1a) State your topic.
Edward C. Tolman
1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter.
Tolman and his ideas are covered heavily in this chapter.
1c) Discuss why you are interested in it.
I was interested in Tolman because unlike Skinner and Watson he is relatively unknown. He made many contributions to behavioral psychology and I was curious why Skinner and Watson have gotten all the recognition.
2)
Edward Chace Tolman was an American psychologist born into an upper-middle class family near Boston in 1886. Tolman’s father was a very successful business man which in turn sparked his need for a reflective life. In 1911 Tolman graduated from MIT with a degree in electrochemistry but chose not to pursue a career in the field because he did not want to compete with his older brother Richard, who was also an MIT graduate. During his senior year at MIT Tolman became more and more interested in philosophy and psychology and after graduating from he enrolled at the Harvard Graduate School as a philosophy and psychology graduate student. At that time the disciplines were a combined department.
Tolman is best known for his studies in behavioral psychology and his research of learning in rats using mazes. Tolman’s major theoretical contributions came in his 1932 book, Purposive Behavior in Animals and Men. Although Tolman was not a radical behaviorist like B. F. Skinner, he wanted to use behavioral methods to gain an understanding of the mental processes of humans and other wildlife. In his studies of learning in rats, Tolman sought to demonstrate that animals could learn facts about their environment and problem solve through cognitive mapping. Rather than learning an automatic response that was triggered by environmental stimuli Tolman argued a concept of a cognitive map, which has found extensive application in almost every field of psychology. During the last quarter of the twentieth century animal cognition study began to become more and more prevalent thanks to the leaps human cognitive research was making. Because of his extensive research with rats and other animals Tolman became a very sought after man and a leader in animal cognition research. It can also be claimed that it is Tolman's legacy and research that is currently the most active among other behaviorist like Hull and Skinner.
3)
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/tolman.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_C._Tolman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4uJFe5Nmgc
1a) State what your topic is.
Operant Conditioning
1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter.
B.F. Skinner was discussed in this chapter and he developed operant conditioning.
1c) Discuss why you are interested in it.
I mostly wanted to look at operant conditioning and compare it to classical conditioning. Also, there are a lot of good examples to go along with operant conditioning because I can look at things that I use at the daycare I work at and other life experiences where I may use operant conditioning.
2.) Operant conditioning was developed by B.F. Skinner. With operant conditioning he would use reinforcement and punishment after a behavior which is still used today. The reinforcement or punishment is used to strengthen or weaken a voluntary behavior. Something that I wanted to look at with operant conditioning was to compare it with classical conditioning. Some key differences are that classical conditioning is involuntary and operant conditioning is voluntary. Also, when using these methods to change or support a behavior we can use incentives or no incentives. A big difference that I find interesting is that classical conditioning is passive for the learner where with operant conditioning the learner needs to be involved so they can be punished or rewarded for their behavior. Classical conditioning has mostly been used for animal training where operant condition can be used for both but mostly for humans. A good example of someone who uses operant conditioning would be teachers. Teachers can reward students with things like tokens to get extra recesses and so on. These tokens could be like stickers or stamps something fun and rewarding for the children so they will continue to do that good behavior. There is positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment and negative punishment. Each one of these involves increasing or decreasing a behavior due to the consequences of that behavior so they would increase or decrease something pleasant or unpleasant. For example, Skinner had a box which was used to condition the rats to push a certain lever to get the reward of food but would avoid another lever which would give a punishment.
http://psychology.about.com/od/behavioralpsychology/a/classical-vs-operant-conditioning.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_ctJqjlrHA
http://www.helpingpsychology.com/operant-conditioning-experiments
All of these were helpful in understanding operant conditioning and comparing operant conditioning to classical conditioning. Also, the youtube segment was on B.F. Skinner talking about his operant conditioning and his work with rats.
For this week’s topical blog I decided to look deeper into Clark Hull and his findings and life story. I didn’t know much about him before reading this chapter and I really want to dig deeper especially since he is directly correlated with the idea of hypnosis which I find to be very controversial and extremely interesting. The topic of Clark Hull is related to this chapter because there was a section about him. I’m mainly interested because he is completely knew to me and because hypnosis is something that I’m still trying to figure out if I believe in 100% or not. So getting more information about it might persuade me one way or another.
Clark Hull is known to be one of the greatest contributions to psychology at the young age. It is crazy to me that he actually grew up being disabled and then later in life around 24 he got polio. I think it is awesome that even though he was handicapped he still managed to be a very successful contributor to the history of psychology. Clark’s family was poor in a sense since he had to stop and start college often but he finally finished with a degree. He was originally going to school for an engineering degree but then fell in love with the field of psychology. He dedicated his work to the concept of hypnosis and suggestibility. Clark did this research for 10 years and he even wrote and published a book about hypnosis. His main findings in hypnosis is that a person who gets hypnotized can actually bring forth memories that have been far suppressed and it could also help with pain management and or reduction. I feel like Hulls main goal with hypnosis was not to benefit himself but to help others who were in need of it not for reasons that wouldn’t make sense. He didn’t think that it would cure the mentally ill or anything like that, he was just a firm believer that it could be a helpful tool. Hypnosis is something that is very iffy with people but after reading about its general being all the chapters I’m truly starting to pull towards it more now. I know it works because my mom did it to stop working but it just doesn’t seem factual because of it magical like feeling.
Websites:
1. http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesal/p/clark-hull.htm This website was very informative and not boring to read. It gave me all I needed to know in a manner where I wasn’t half asleep before reading it all.
2. http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/hull.htm I really liked this website because it gave me everything I needed to know about Clark’s background and brief but informative theories that he came up with.
3. http://www.biography.com/people/clark-l-hull-39480 this wasn’t the best website but it gave a very brief run down on Clark Hull and his idea of hypnosis.
A.S
1a) State what your topic is.
B.F. Skinner
1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter.
Skinner played a major role in guiding and moving forward behaviorism. This chapter discussed the spread of behaviorism, those involved, the experiments conducted, and the new ways of thought, post Watson.
1c) Discuss why you are interested in it.
Skinner rejected the more formal theories of both Tolman and Hull and argued for more inductive, descriptive behaviorism. He also rejected the use of what he called explanatory fictions, hypothetical factors that appear to explain a phenomenon but actually do nothing more than reliable it. He also called for a technology of behavior to improve child rearing, education, and society as a whole through the use of behavioral techniques. All this makes his a very influential and all around interesting person.
2) Next, we would like you to take the information you read or viewed related to your topic, integrate/synthesize it.
Burrhus Frederic "B. F." Skinner was an American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and social philosopher. He innovated his own philosophy of science called radical behaviorism, and founded his own school of experimental research psychology, the experimental analysis of behavior. His analysis of human behavior culminated in his work Verbal Behavior, as well as his philosophical manifesto Walden Two, both of which have recently seen enormous increase in interest experimentally and in applied settings. Contemporary academia considers Skinner a pioneer of modern behaviorism along with John B. Watson and Ivan Pavlov.
Skinner attempted to improve education, through his inventions, conducted experiments on behalf of the government, in all try to improve society as a whole. What he was best known for was his contribution to psychology in way of his research into operant conditioning and schedules of reinforcement. Skinner came up with the term operant conditioning; it means changing of behavior by the use of reinforcement which is given after the desired response. Skinner identified three types of responses that can follow behavior.
“• Neutral operants: responses from the environment that neither increase nor decrease the probability of a behavior being repeated.
• Reinforcers: Responses from the environment that increase the probability of a behavior being repeated. Reinforcers can be either positive or negative.
• Punishers: Response from the environment that decrease the likelihood of a behavior being repeated. Punishment weakens behavior.”
In operant conditioning, schedules of reinforcement are an important component of the learning process. When and how often we reinforce a behavior can have a dramatic impact on the strength and rate of the response. A schedule of reinforcement is a rule stating which instances of a behavior will be reinforced.
In a 2002 survey of psychologists, he was identified as the most influential 20th-century psychologist. While behaviorism is no longer a dominant school of thought, his work in operant conditioning remains a big part of psychology today. Operant conditioning techniques are used among, teachers frequently reinforcing and punishing student behavior, and animal trainers rely heavily on these techniques to train dogs and other animals.
3) Sources:
http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesofmajorthinkers/p/bio_skinner.htm
This link provided the background for skinner
http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html
Thin link contained info on operant conditioning
http://psychology.about.com/od/behavioralpsychology/a/schedules.htm
This link contained info on schedules of reinforcement.
1a) State what your topic is.
B.F. Skinner
1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter.
B.F. Skinner had a major impact on behaviorism in psychology. He had radical thinking about the topic and created a different kind of conditioning that had not been considered at the time. Operant conditioning was different because Skinner suggested that behavior is a response to punishment and reinforcers compared to others that believed in a stimulus-response method.
1c) Discuss why you are interested in it.
Skinner interested me because he subjected theories of behaviorism to rigorous experimental scrutiny in order to arrive at his controversial stance of "radical behaviorism". He was an advocate of behaviorism and he was one most influential psychologists in the field. He was very interesting in the fact that he used gadgets during his experiments with animals like levers and boxes.
2) Next, we would like you to take the information you read or viewed related to your topic, integrate/synthesize it.
Skinner is possibly the most widely known and influential behaviorist psychologists. His arguments based on the results of scientific methodology, tended to involve the use of novel contraptions that the general public found fascinating. He was influenced by Pavlov and Watson, but he saw psychology as following in the scientific tradition and anything that could not be measured or seen was of no interest to him. Skinner did not disagree with a conditioned response could be elicited by repeated training, but felt that this was something of a special case and involved the deliberate, artificial introduction of conditioning stimulus. Skinner would begin experimenting on rats and used his own contraptions called "Skinner's boxes". A rat would be placed in one of these boxes, which had a special bar fitted on the inside and every time the rat pressed the bar, it was presented with a food pellet. The rat began to learn that there would be food that fell to him by pressing the bar on accident. This would be known as positive reinforcement. Skinner concluded that animals are conditioned by the response they receive from their action and environment. Operant conditioning is what came out of this and the difference between classical conditioning and operant conditioning was the OC depends not on a preceding stimulus, but on what follows as a consequence of a particular type of behavior. As many times as Skinner varied and sophisticated the box and the number of times the rat had to press the bar to receiving a pellet, they adapted very quickly. Negative reinforcement was what came out of Skinner's new boxes that had an electric bottom and would shock the rat every once in a while. This would be considered punishment, a distinction that became increasingly important as he examined the implications of his research. Skinner's was true to his behaviorism and coined the term "radical behaviorism" and he believed that psychology should be concerned solely with the study of physical response to prevailing conditions or situations.
http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/Skinner.html
This website gave me a biography of Skinner's life and talked about Skinner's theories and research. Most know Skinner for operant conditioning, but he was also involved with the teaching program and war effort.
http://www.biography.com/people/bf-skinner-9485671#early-life
This website gave me information about Skinner's box and some of his late work.
http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html
This website gave me information about operant conditioning and diagrammed his methods and research.
1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
Drive Reduction: Drive reduction has two reinforces, a primary reinforcers that connect directly with survival, like food and water. The secondary reinforcers are things that are associated with the primary reinforcers. A tone every time you eat lets your animals know it is time to eat, like a cow bell. The primary drives are reduced when the individual receives the primary reinforcers.
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
Cognitive Map: I thought cognitive map was interesting because it seems to use our perception initially and then we obtain the memory of our perception from our previous experiences with the environment we have been at. I wonder if the defa vu feeling is just a memory we sense and cannot fully remember where the experience is from or if it happened or not.
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
Instinctive Drift: I thought it was interesting how Keller and Marian Breland were able to teach many different types of animals to do different types of tasks. For a long time and still today most people believe that we are different from animals in order to keep our rank on top of the food chain/ feed our egos. One main distinction is that we claim that animals only do things within their instinctive behaviors, or they have a lack of conscious ability or to be able to self-identify themselves as the type of animal they are. When Keller and Marian found a way to teach animals things that these types of animals don’t normally do or instinctively do in the wild, but then found certain things they were trying to teach to the animals that eventually the animal instinctively take over and do what they normally behave.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
Operant Conditioning: I find Operant Conditioning because I already learned about it in many of my classes. It makes sense why something we do not like or have the uncomfortable sensation to not do again. I am interested in how this is wrong. When someone is a drug addict they themselves don’t like it but cannot stop, so when does this become irrelevant? I think generally Operant Conditioning is correct, but under certain conditioning like drugs and law does not seem to work in the same way.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think what was most useful in understanding the history of psychology was the bull shit way our political government which is capitalist at the time, now so called “welfare state” made our citizens think that communism is bad. I would have to agree that there are some flaws in communism but it is mostly that you have to trust the government with that much power. We can’t really trust our government either but in this government we have the right to own private property which is mostly looked on as businesses. This is why there was a lot of misconceptions on communism because the big corporations that like use the people to feed their own addiction aka money and power, didn’t want to give it up. So in a sense this is most useful to understand how one political group tries to deceive the people in order to get the things they personally want aka more money and power. If we learned about this in general for the mass population maybe all wars would stop. The deception of what communism was because of Stalin ruining it in practice started the cold war which now we have the capability to destroy the entire planet with one push of a button for no real apparent reason other than the fear of losing our ability to stick to our own old ways and fear of loss of power is apparently greater than losing everything.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
Pavlov Classical conditioning and B. F. Skinner’s Operant Conditioning seem to be pretty similar. Pavlov Classical conditioning results from an unconditioned reflex, when Pavlov looked into it he found what the factor was that made an unconditioned reflex, which is a conditioned stimulus to make a conditioned reflex. Pavlov also noticed the reflex eventually became extinct. In Operant Conditioning Skinner mainly looked at how people respond in certain conditioning behaviors. He believed there were two different consequences a positive and a negative response. A positive response makes someone do the behavior more often and the negative response makes the behavior decline. They are similar because Pavlov looked at what stimulus’s makes a person do a particular behavior and Skinner noticed two types of things that can influence one to do are not doing a behavior.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
I would like to learn more about Instinctive Drift, because I wonder if we humans also have this ability as well. I can see a particular situation where we feel instinctively to do certain behaviors when we get into the routine of things. An example could be if you are used to drinking a couple beers after work then sometimes when you feel like you shouldn’t drink anymore beers every night your natural instinct to drink a beer starts when you pick up the beer and are more likely to start drinking it like you normally do. This would also be an example of stimulus control. Getting done with a hard day’s work can make you want to have a drink of beer to calm down after work.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I was wondering how law enforcement uses operant conditioning. Some crimes you are able to get probation or a couple years in prison. In a since prison is the condition where we want to avoid the types of behavior in order to get in there. When one becomes alright with prison then there personality has probably changed from the influence of the people in there. That in of itself seems like it can hinder this conception of operant conditioning within the prison example. If there was such a way to treat so called “criminals” like people in psych wards, I wonder if that would be any better? At least psychologist would be able to supervise them and not just prison guards who can care less on what goes on. At least they are more naïve in the psychological spectrum.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Instinctive Drift
Drive Reduction
Primary Reinforcers
Secondary Reinforcers
Stimulus control
Operant Conditioning
Cognitive Map
Unconditioned Reflex
Conditional stimulus
Conditioned reflex
Extinction
Classical Conditioning
Operant Conditioning
1a) Clark Hull
1b) Clark Hull relates to chapter 11, The Evolution of Behaviorism, because he is one of the researchers that followed in Watson’s footsteps. He had many contributions to psychology before the development of his learning theory, Hypothetic-Deductive theory of learning.
1c) I am interested in learning more about Clark Hull because he is one of the three research psychologists who I have not heard of or don’t remember reading about in previous classes. I find his background challenging from what I’ve read and I find those stories very impactful. His learning theory, Hypothetic-Deductive is one I want to dig deeper into and find more about. His contributions to psychology and his accomplishments will be fascinating to learn more about.
2) Clark Hull was born into poverty on a farm in New York. His family then moved to Michigan where he was raised on a farm as well. He was early educated in a one-room schoolhouse. He missed school because he would have to help his high temper dad on the farm. After graduating he passed the teachers examination test and became a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse similar to the one he was in growing up. He then went on to finish high school and then went on to study at Alma Academy. Clark almost died when he contracted a horrible case of typhoid. This delayed his college, but eventually continued on with his education. He then moved to Minnesota and worked as an engineer and he contracted polio where he was then paralyzed with one leg at age 24. Hull designed his own leg brace, which I find very fascinating. He finished college at the University of Michigan where he was going to continue in studying engineering but his health issues led him to turn his interests toward psychology. Through all these struggles he eventually graduated from the University of Michigan with his bachelors and masters and was awarded his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Clark taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and published a text called Aptitude Testing. He then moved to teach at Yale University studied hypnosis. He was inspired from Darwin, Pavlov, Waston and Thorndike. He believed behavior could be explained by condition and created this drive reduction theory. He discovered that biological deprivation creates needs; these needs activate drives which then motivate behavior. “He suggested that learning occurred when reinforcement of behaviors resulted in meeting some type of survival need.” His contributions to psychology helped inspire others with his theory of learning. Clark studied how we process new information. He also studied hypnosis and created aptitude testing. How we reduce behavior and the amount of time it takes in order to get ones response/ reaction are also areas of study that Hull researched. I find him very interesting to learn about everything he went through and all the different areas of psychology he studied. Through his hardship he was inspired which led to accomplishments in Clark Hulls life. He inspires me to never give up and go after what you want and what interests you.
3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_L._Hull - very good outline of his life, easy to follow
http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesal/p/clark-hull.htm - straight and to the point, well put facts of different areas of his life
http://www.intropsych.com/ch09_motivation/hulls_theory.html - helped me grasp a better understanding of his theory
1a) James Rowland Angell
1b) James Angell was a psychologist at Yale at the time Hull established his more analytic approach to research. Angell, on the other hand, looked at it with a functionalist view and in turn challenged Hull’s thinking. Angell was also a supervisor of the famous John Watson, which the chapter touches on.
1c) James Angell interested me because he was a stepping-stone in the chapter. He didn’t get mentioned for contributing much to the field, but I believe that isn’t necessarily the case. Instead, I wanted to find out if he really did contribute and just how much. Granite he may not have been as influential as Hull, Watson, or Tolman, but was he influential to a greater degree than the book gave him credit for?
James Angell was born and raised in Vermont where his father worked at the University of Vermont as the president. His family contains a long line of scholars and educators, which is not necessarily surprising because of the intelligence of Angell himself. Angell studied at the University of Michigan as well where he received his Bachelor’s degree. Interestingly enough he married a woman from Des Moines, Iowa who was his peer during his undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan. He remarried after his wife had passed to a woman who founded the Culinary Institute of America. He was a colleague of John Dewey at his master’s program, but he didn’t stop there, he soon traveled to Harvard where he received another master’s in psychology. John Dewey later offered him a spot at the University of Chicago; here he got busy publishing work. By his work being published he was also establishing functionalism. At Chicago he published Psychology: An Introductory Study of the Structure and Functions of Human Consciousness, which was a textbook that focused on this functionalist approach. Functionalism speaks about mental operations and it touches on the need for mind-and-body relationship to occur and the ability to control the environment. Later Angell became the head of the psychology department at Chicago and then was promoted to Dean at Chicago. Angell worked under Walter Dill Scott, who was mentioned last chapter when discussing Watson and his contributions to the advertising world. Even though these are major positions and titles, Angell was appointed to an even larger position. He was named president at Yale University in 1921. He remained here until the end of his career.
I chose this website because it talked about functionalism in a little bit more depth.
http://peace.saumag.edu/faculty/kardas/Courses/HP/Lectures/angell.html
I chose this website because it spoke about different psychologists he worked with and the importance of their interactions.
https://www.brocku.ca/MeadProject/Angell/Angell_1961.html
I chose this website because it gave a great outline for James’ life.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Rowland_Angell
1a) State what your topic is.
Drive-Reduction Theory
1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter.
This topic is related to the chapter because it deals with people’s behavior and how to change some habitual behavior by finding out what the drive of the habitual behavior is in order to reduce the behavior. Operant Conditioning uses different techniques to change the drive of a behavior.
1c) Discuss why you are interested in it.
I am interested in this topic because I want to know what are we most likely drived to behave and what are some ways of reducing the drives that can produce bad behavior.
2) Next, we would like you to take the information you read or viewed related to your topic, integrate/synthesize it, and then write about the topic in a knowledgeable manner. By integrating/synthesizing we mean taking what your read/experienced from the internet search organize the information into the main themes, issues, info, examples, etc. about your topic and then write about the topic in your own words using the information you have about the topic.
Drive Reduction Theory was a theory formed by Clark Hull in 1943 and it is one of the first theories of motivation. Motivation usually has two types, one is drives which describe the acts of motivation that have primarily biological purposes, like thirst and hunger. Hunger and thirst are motives that fuel primary drives through social and psychological mechanisms. The secondary drives are learned by conditioning such as the desire of wealth. The main idea in drive reduction theory is that if your body wants something, the want is the drive, which in turn motivates you to reduce the drive of wanting that something. The end result that reduces the motivation for a certain time is when you hit your homeostatic norm, the equilibrium, you are not thirsty or hungry anymore. The state of tension is when your biological needs are in a high state where you need the needs in order to survive, so in order to survive we try to reduce the drives that warn us that we are hungry or thirsty. Not all drives are for purely survival. When a person is used to a drug, or a drug that can be life threatening like heroin it becomes their primary drive. In a sense it is a secondary drive which produced you to get high, a drive you do not necessarily need at first and is shifted to a primary drive were if you get so far into the drive that motivates you to get high it is a matter of life or death. This is called homeostatic shift, when your body begins to crave a substance it does not originally need and becomes dependent on it. Heroin is a good example because it is one of few drugs that you can actually die from the complete absence of heroin aka cold turkey. If you get in a bad enough state of usage you not only might die from the tolerance that naturally happens and overdose but also die from just quitting altogether. Another common drug that does this but is not as common is alcohol. The factors that Hull mentions are factors such as the excitatory potential which is the likelihood the organism will produce a response to a stimulus. He also mentioned the habit strength which is established by the previous conditioning and memory plays a role in it. The drive strength which can change with the amount of biological deprivation. The incentive of the motivation the size of the goal. The delay of seeking a reinforcement to obtain the same reaction. The reactive inhibition. The Conditioned inhibition which is the lack of the reinforcement to drive your motivation. Overall the drive reduction theory is a basis of motivation there are newer motivation theories that explain more complexes motivations. There are some flaws of the drive reduction theory such as, that it does not explain how secondary reinforcers reduce the drive. Money does not in of itself give any biological or psychological need, but it reduces other drives from a pay check. That might also be because we got lazy and decided to make a money system so people didn’t have to gather their own food and resources. The second one is it has trouble explaining why humans and other animals voluntarily increase tension by exploring the environments for other reasons other than primary drives and secondary drives.
3) At the end of your post, please include working URLs for the three websites.For each URL you have listed indicate why you chose the site and the extent to which it contributed to your post.
http://psychology.about.com/od/motivation/a/drive-reduction-theory.htm
I chose this website because it had the general information on who thought of the theory and some of Clarks Hulls mathematical equations or at least the symbols he used and what they mean.
https://www.boundless.com/psychology/textbooks/boundless-psychology-textbook/motivation-12/approaches-to-explaining-motivation-65/drive-reduction-theory-250-12785/
I chose this website because it showed some flaws of the drive reduction theory.
http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/drive-reduction-theory-of-motivation-definition-examples-quiz.html#lesson
Even though this site needs an account for the entire texts, I thought it had a sufficient amount of information to explain the Drive reduction theory. I mainly chose this web site is because it did not only talk about normal biological needs, it also explained how a drug addict would create their secondary drive aka the drug, into their primary drug in a motivational sense.
1a) State what your topic is.
The Skinner Box
1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter.
This chapter is about Post-Watsonian Behavioral Psychology, and focuses majorly on BF Skinner, Clark Hull, and Edward Tolman. BF Skinner used the Skinner Box to create an extrememly controlled environment in order to practice ideas pertaining to Operant Conditioning, particularly with reinforcement schedules
1c) Discuss why you are interested in it.
I’ve heard a lot about the Skinner Box, but I am interested to learn how this idea has been used past Skinner’s time.
2) Before Skinner, behaviorism was majorly focused on conditioning reactions, but Skinner was more interested in conditioning how people make choices. The Skinner Box (this name actually coined by Clark Hull) was created by BF Skinner in order to put Thorndike’s “law of effect” into action and observe operant conditioning in very controlled environment. This Skinner Box was comparatively very similar to Thorndike’s Puzzle Box. It was set up in a way that the animal (Skinner used both mice and pigeons) had to press a bar inside the box in order to receive food or water. The idea was to operantly condition the animal so that a particular reaction would be paired with a particular reward. Skinner also dimmed the light to see if the animal could demonstrate generalization, and reinforced bar presses only when the light was on, which demonstrated differentiation. He also hooked up audio to the box to see how often the animal would hit the bar, and included a shock generator on the floor to see the affect of punishment on the animals choices. Skinner also chose to manipulate the reinforcement schedule to see if this would have an effect on the animal, which it did. Skinner found that manipulating the reward schedule worked better than simply giving the subject a primary reward every time because there is a, “Diminishing effect once a person reaches satiation” as described in the youtube video, “Extra Credits: The Skinner Box”. This reward schedule idea is built into most popular games today, such as Farmville, Candy Crush, etc. This is especially built into role playing video games. Role playing game elements (RPGe) is being incorporated into most video games nowadays. When combined with mental and execution challenges, this works great. But too many games seem to be using RPGe. Overall, the Skinner Box proved BF Skinner’s theory that personal choices could be manipulated based on reward systems and better influenced with reward schedules.
http://psychology.about.com/od/sindex/g/def_skinnerbox.htm
(this source gave basic information about the Skinner Box, and explained that the basis of it was a bar for the animal to press, lights, audio, etc.)
http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html
(This website had a great picture that showed exactly what the Skinner box looked like, and pointed out various parts of it. This source also talked about Thorndike’s influence on the Skinner Box)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWtvrPTbQ_c
(This video discussed ideas of operant conditioning learned from the Skinner Box and related this to video games. I picked this video because it applied Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning to something relatable among many college students)
1a) State what your topic is.
Clark L. Hull
1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter.
Clark L. Hull and Tolman had made huge contributions for neo-behaviorism, Hull's work had centered around motivation and learning.
1c) Discuss why you are interested in it.
Aside from my interest in metacognition, reading about Hull's life was admirable in the way that it he had shown perseverance in not only life but in his educational prowess.
2)
Hull was born from a modest background, dealing with a violent father and a passive father while growing up in Michigan. Living on a farm in a relatively rural area, Hull "attended" a one-room school house but mainly spent his time helping around the farm. Hull's academic abilities were shown in his early proficiency at math, which could have explained his initial studies as an engineer. His desire to break away from the religion that he'd been forced into had led to his true spark of interest for education, fueling his drive to pass a teacher examination.
Hull moved onto college to study as an engineer with an emphasis in geometry, particularly due to the his fascination about how the mind can associate with new things based on pre-existing knowledge. Near graduation, Hull contracted typhoid which nearly caused him to die, then upon graduating and finding a job, he contracted polio leaving him paralyzed in one leg and permanent amnesia. Hull was forced to reconsider his life goals and occupations, and eventually found psychology as his next path.
Amongst small contributions of aptitude training and hypnosis, Hull found his place in neo-behaviorism after learning about Pavlov and Watson. Hull had a primary interest in psychology theories that dealt specifically with learning, ending with his development of the famous drive-reduction theory. In drive-reduction theory, concepts like hunger and thirst are distinguished as innate drives, leaving other motivations like money or jewelry to be distinguished as secondary drives. These drives, some more than others, are necessary for learning but stimuli and responses must be actively picked up by the subject for learning and conditioning to properly occur.
3) At the end of your post, please include working URLs for the three websites. For each URL you have listed indicate why you chose the site and the extent to which it contributed to your post.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tev11a3Kqtk
Brief overview of Tolman and Hull and their contributions to neo-behaviorism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive_reduction_theory_(learning_theory)
Offers a more indepth look at Hull's drive reduction theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_L._Hull
An overview of Hull's personal life, contributions to psychology, and academia.
1a) Burrhus Frederic Skinner
1b) This topic relates to the chapter because it is dealing with how learning occurs and how a behavior can be influenced by the reaction. Behaviors are something that is learned over time and for every action there is a cause to why the action occurred. This chapter was focused on why the actions occurred in the first place, something that Skinner was able to elaborate on.
1c) I am interested in Skinner because he was the founder of some of the basic concepts of learning. Things such as positive reinforcement which is still used today. Skinner was so influential when it came to learning how to control behavior and why behavior is important as well as controlled.
2) Burrhus Skinner, or more commonly known as B.F. Skinner was the father of operate thinking. Skinner was born in Pennsylvania in 1904. Skinner studied under John B. Watson when pursuing his academic career but broke of later in life. Skinner was interested in learning about the causes of peoples actions, what makes them do what they do. In this he created Skinner’s box; upon observation of animals in Skinner’s box Skinner was able to identify 3 different responses (operant) that will follow a behavior. The first is natural operant; this is something that occurs in the environment that has no definite repeated action. Then there is reinforces; now reinforces are when a behavior is rewarded, it is the result of a behavior that causes the individual to want to repeat it. Finally there was punishers; now punishers just like the name are a negative action because of a behavior, usually after exposure to a punisher the action was not repeated again. Upon discovering these three responses Skinner was able to develop the theory of operant conditioning even further with what he called positive reinforcement. While doing his studies he discovered that he was able to teach an action by giving a reward; for example was when he conducted a study with hungry rats. Skinner would place a hungry rat in a box, upon entering the box there was a lever that would trip. When the lever went down a small pellet of food fell down. After a few times the rat caught on and when he wanted food he would go to the lever. The fact that the rat was rewarded for using the level helped to induce the rats desire to push the lever, therefore positively reinforcing the behavior. But whenever there is something positive there is also something negative that goes along with it, which is where negative enforcement comes into play. A negative reinforcement can be a negative reaction that causes positive results. Such as keeping the rats on track when they were in the box. The rat that would linger and wouldn’t go directly to the switch would receive an electrical shock, after so long the rat would go straight to the switch instead of lingering in fear of the shock. Finally there are actions that are positive and that should be repeated but in learning there are also actions that should not repeat, with punishments it teaches the individual not to do it again. By exposing someone to a negative response they are much less likely to repeat the action and therefore the action is deterred in the future. Now all of these forms of molding actions were not observed and studied for no reason, upon learning of each level of learning Skinner was able to develop what he called behavior modification. In behavior modification people uses different forms of operant conditioning in order to change behavior or modify the behavior.
3) http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html
I chose this site because it went in depth about the different forms of conditioning that were developed by Skinner. It explained what the differences were and how behavior could be influenced by the different types of reinforcement.
http://www.biography.com/people/bf-skinner-9485671#synopsis
I used this site because it also talked about Skinner’s work once he became an established psychologist but also gave a little bit of background information on Skinner’s early life.
http://io9.com/why-b-f-skinner-may-have-been-the-most-dangerous-psych-1548690441
I used the site to better understand the reinforcements, this site provided examples of why these concepts were so influential as well as how Skinner was one of the greatest psychologists.
1. This week I have chosen to write about operant conditioning and the skinner box. This topic relates to the chapter, because B.F. Skinner, one of the founding fathers of behaviorism is the one who invented the Skinner Box, as well as distinguished the differences between operant and classical conditioning. I am interested in this topic, because by the curiosity of one male, a few rats, and schedule of reinforcement, a huge breakthrough in behaviorism was made.
2. In the late 1940’s a behaviorist, known as the father of Operant Conditioning, but more so as B.F Skinner, short for Burrhus Frederic Skinner, introduced a term into the Law of Effect – Reinforcement. (www.simplypsychology.org) This basically stated that behaviors that continued to be reinforced were more likely to be repeated opposed to behaviors that were not reinforced. Skinner was able to come to this conclusion after his experiments conducted by the Skinner box. In simple terms, the skinner box was a chamber that contained a bar waiting to be pressed by an animal (most likely a rat) and a unique device that was able to record the type of reinforcer used as well as the response the animal demonstrated. From all of Skinners conclusions from this study he was able to record over 900 different types of scheduled reinforcement, as well as the behaviors exhibited by them and distinguish the differences between operant and classical conditioning. He was also able to identify three different types of responses that follow each behavior: Neutral Operants (responses that neither increase nor decrease a behavior) , Reinforcers (responses that increase the likelihood of a behavior being repeated), and Punishers (responses that decrease the likelihood of a behavior being repeated). Without Skinner’s findings from his Skinner Box, behaviorism might not be where it is today. We might not known why or how a behavior becomes learned or what we can do to control behavior.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber
This website gave me detailed information on the purpose of the skinner box as well as it’s effects on psychology today.
http://psychology.about.com/od/sindex/g/def_skinnerbox.htm
This website provided the in and out details of the skinner box, such as how it worked and why it’s results were so important.
http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html
This website gave me in detail information about what exactly Skinner found within his research as well as the terms he discovered during this experiment.
1a) State what your topic is.
Vienna Circle
1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter.
The Vienna Circle came up with the idea of logical positivism which the chapter touches upon in the early pages.
1c) Discuss why you are interested in it.
The idea of logical positivism was intriguing to me, it also made me wonder why these brilliant minds were getting together and what the purpose of their meetings were.
The Vienna Circle was a gathering of 15 philosophically gifted minds in the early 20th century. Not all the people were philosophers; some were physicists, some mathematicians. These minds were some of the brightest minds that each area had to offer, and each member was sympathetic to the aim of the group. Beyond just members, they also had others that were interested in the final goal who were not quite qualified or justified in being there and each person was accepted. These meetings were held weekly and in coffeehouses within Vienna. The group eventually gathered more people and had quite a large world following. These 15 members influenced academia as we know it and it all began over a cup of coffee.
These minds met to uphold a fairly new movement in Europe that was focused on using logic and science to understand what was around us, and not to give into metaphysical theories. This was a motion that affected psychology, but this was not the initial intent it seems. The group, being heavily philosophical, wanted to spread the use of logic and facts to back up arguments. This movement spread rapidly after the group came out to the public in 1928 and the use of logic and ignoring statements of experience was taking the world by storm. The main idea the group brought to the public was logical positivism. This was the idea that only empirical data would be legitimate in discoveries and was the only way for knowledge to be meaningful. This idea was heavily formed with logic undertones as can be seen by the name, but in logic statements that cannot be qualified tend to go to uncogent arguments.
The group within the first few years, as many do, split on ideals and theories. The left “radical” side of the group believed in empiricism, which is following the sense and experience notions. The right “conservative” side of the group was stuck on the idea of logical positivism. I found this interesting because even a small group of individuals eventually led to the same issues that politics has. Two sides that debate over what’s “right or wrong.” This was something I did not expect such a famous group to have issues with, the splitting of the fundamental belief.
Overall the Vienna Circle affected the world of academia in a great way. This was not a purely psychological based argument; instead it was a view of knowledge that affects every field of study to this date. These were brilliant minds that even after weekly sit downs could not determine which route of knowledge is the best to take, experience and sense, or empirical. These problems remind me greatly of debates between two sides such as Political or Religious debates. Right or wrong, these minds changed the textbook and they were a fascinating set of people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e1gdGluXI8 – This site gave a brief detailed description of what the Vienna Circle was, and gave some in depth information on a few of the members that were more prominent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Circle#History_of_the_Vienna_Circle – This site gave a very detailed overall description of the Vienna Circle.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/vienna-circle/#Per – This site gave a more philosophical based description of the Vienna Circle.
1a) B. F. Skinner
1b) B. F. Skinner was one of the most if not the most influential behaviorists in psychology, and the chapter spoke a lot about him.
1c) I’m interested in what he has done throughout his life and where he came from, also his skinner box and all that entailed.
2) B.F. Skinner was born in Pennsylvania in in 1904, he was born to a Lawyer and a very hard working housewife, and he was raised with the mindset of being a hard worker, not having things handed to him. His hard-working mind set led him to college where he attended Hamilton College where he received his Bachelors in English, this is surprising since he was such an influential psychologist. He actually had a love for writing at first, he wanted to be a writer and tried really hard, he sent out a lot of his poems and writings hoping to get published. After his failed writing career he decided to go back to school, this time he attended Harvard where he got his masters in psychology and then his doctorate the next year. He went on to teach at the University of Minnesota, University of Indiana, and then eventually back to Harvard where he stayed for the rest of his days.
Skinner’s most famous theory and finding was that of operant conditioning, this is somewhat of an extension of Thorndike’s Law of Effect. His operant conditioning was giving a reward or as he called it a reinforcement stimulus. He showed that once you give someone a reinforcement after an action they are more likely to do that action or not do that action, depending on what you want the end result to be. Skinner then thought that there should be a variance of the reinforcer given to the subject because in real life we don’t always get a reinforcement for our actions, he called this schedules of reinforcement. What Skinner sought to do was to apply his operant conditioning to education to improve students learning, reinforce the good behaviors while getting rid of the bad ones. This was a very groundbreaking discovery using a varying schedule of reinforcement to show a better understanding of learning.
What Skinner is known for is operant conditioning, but how he became so well-known with it was his box, or better known as Skinner’s Box. With this he sought out to prove he could control the behavior of his subjects or anyone for that matter with the proper training. He wanted to improve human kind to its full potential, not just accepting it for what it could be. He wanted to show that environment was everything, if the environment changed you will see the individual change with it. He did this, not by using humans, but by using pigeons, what inspired him was war. Other countries had seals to blow up mines and dogs as well, Skinner invented a pigeon guiding device to guide missiles to enemy territories. So he thought he could shape pigeons to also show that repetition could show reinforcement. So he would have a pigeon do an action and then once they would do it the pigeon would get a reward. He would do this with a series of different tasks that would be difficult and even what people thought to be impossible by pigeons. This showed you can make anyone do whatever you want with giving a reward after a certain action.
http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/Skinner.html
This was a very insightful website showing what his life was like at the beginning before he was so well known.
http://www.lifecircles-inc.com/Learningtheories/behaviorism/Skinner.html
This website was good because it talked all about Skinner’s operant conditioning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-RS80DVvrg
This video showed what the Skinner box was like and what the experiments he did with the pigeon.
1a) State what your topic is.
My topic is Clark Hull
1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter.
Clark Hull was an American psychologist who studied behavior and learning processes. He was influenced by the work of Pavlov and Watson. This chapter highlights the evolution of behaviorism in psychology. Hull to the work of previous researchers and expanded it. Pavlov may have classically conditioned the dog in his studies, but Hull to it further by trying to grasp how the dog’s learning process affected its behavior.
1c) Discuss why you are interested in it.
I am interested in this topic because Clark Hull did not start out down the path of psychology. Due to certain circumstances, Hull had to give up what he believed he was destined for. His story inspired me that after all this man has went through, he was still a great guy who finally found his niche. His family was poor, and his father was highly uneducated. Hull was determined to make a name for himself. He inspires me demonstrating that you should never giving up on your dreams regardless of what hand you are dealt.
Clark Hull was born in May of 1884, in a log cabin located in New York. His father was very uneducated, and was known for his bad tempter. Clark’s father married his mother when she was only fifteen years old. Due to his lack of education, Clark’s father did not know how to read when he got married. His wife was the one who taught him to read. When Clark was about three or four their family picked up and moved to a farm in Michigan. Clark was educated in the one-room schoolhouse there in the village. The small village where Clark and his family lived was only inhabited by 20 to 30 people. Clark would often miss school to help with chores around the house. At the age of 11 or 12, Clark was forcibly converted religions by a group called the Christian Crusaders. This made Clark despise religion later in life; it even led him to not believe in God at all. While in school, Clark grew fond for mathematics, especially geometry. Clark passed the teacher’s examination test when he was 17 years old, and became a teacher in a similar one-room schoolhouse.
Teaching made Clark want to further his education. To do this he attended a high school in West Saginaw County. The superintendent of the school let Clark live with his family in exchange for household chores. Clark almost got kicked out of the superintendent’s house due to being atheist, but was given another chance by the superintendent’s wife. After high school, Clark kept in touch will the superintendent and his family. Clark furthered his education by attending Alma Academy. Clark attended a banquet before he was about to graduate from the academy. The banquet’s food happened to be contaminated, and Clark got the deadly Typhoid fever. Due to the circumstances, Clark took some time off of school. He returned to Alma awhile later after almost dying from the toxic fever. The lethal disease left him with permanent amnesia, and a general trouble for remembering names. Clark was determined to become a mining engineer, and wanted to qualify in a mining engineer program at another institution. Clark Hull moved to Minnesota after two years at Alma. In Minnesota, Hull worked as an apprentice-mining engineer. Two months later, he contracted polio. This life changing disease left Clark with one of his legs paralyzed. This condition made it impossible for Hull to pursue a career as a mining engineer, so he decided to look into another career. He decided to teach back home, which he met his wife, Bertha Lutzi. They both attended the University of Michigan. Clark’s love for philosophy is what led him to psychology. He graduated in 1913 with his bachelor’s in psychology. Clark wanted to advance his knowledge and obtained his doctorate under Joseph Jastrow at the University of Wisconsin.
Clark Hull believed that psychology is a true natural science. The work he was primarily known for is titled, Principles of Behavior. He was also known for his debates with Edward Tolman. Clark Hull died in May 1952 in Connecticut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_L._Hull
This article provided me with insight regarding Clark’s upbringing and family life.
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/hull.htm
This article informed me about Clark’s research, and his findings.
http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesal/p/clark-hull.htm
This article gave me information regarding what Clark was primarily known for, and his best works.
This week I chose to discuss the IQ zoo located in Hot Springs Arkansas. The IQ zoo was opened on the idea that operant conditioning can be used to train animals by reinforcement. Operant conditioning is a well known theory of behaviorism, and is widely connected with B.F Skinner. Since this week’s text was that of behaviorism, the IQ zoo fits right in. My love for animals and use of reinforcement rather than punishment made me very interested in this topic.
Before the IQ zoo, two students at the University of Minnesota were working under B.F Skinner to help in the war efforts during WWII. Keller and Marian Breland were both separately attending the university when they met and married. Under Skinner and along with others, their plan was to sell the idea of missile trained pigeons to the United States Navy. While their efforts with the war never paid off, their time and application of using operant conditioning in animals did. The Breland’s then left the university without completing their degrees with hopes that operant conditioning would pay off. Soon after their failed attempt at the Navy birds, they were contacted by General Mills to use their trained animals in their farm advertisements. Their dream of using operant conditioning as a career worked out. Over the years the Breland’s traveled across the nation teaching animals to do various tricks by use of operant conditioning. Starting with farm animals, they went on as far as marine animals who would be star attractions in places such as SeaWorld. Their contribution to the teaching of animals was huge for animal attractions across the nation. Their use of reinforcement instead of punishment like those earlier made their way of training different and more effective.
Eventually, the Breland’s opened their own animal attraction in Hot Springs Arkansas in 1955. What was known as the IQ Zoo, held hundreds of animal boxes much like the well known Skinner boxes, and were used to show animals doing various tricks. The boxes were air conditioned and the animals would work a few hours a day and then were replaced with other animals that were trained as well, keeping the animals in good condition and not overworked. Animals such as chickens, bunnies, raccoons, cats and dogs are just a few of the animals that the zoo consisted of. Chickens hitting a ball with a bat, or racoons giving out prizes are just a few examples of the attractions taking place. Like the animals trained before in other attractions, they were trained using reinforcement. A variable ratio schedule worked best, keeping the animals guessing when the reinforcement would come. The Breland’s loved their animals and made sure they were taken care of very well. It is said that over their careers, the Breland’s trained over 15,000 animals. Sadly in 1965 Keller Breland died and left Marian to run the attraction herself. She continued on with the zoo and remarried in 1976 to Bob Bailey who became a large part of the attraction as well. The IQ zoo closed in 1990, and an exhibit known as the Bird Brains box that was used at the zoo was donated to the Smithsonian Institution where it remains today.
https://www.uakron.edu/chp/abe/the-iq-zoo/
Very informational documentary over the IQ zoo, how it was founded and what it was all about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_Breland_Bailey
The link above was very useful in information about the Brelands themselves, such as their life before the IQ zoo and their home life.
http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=2538
This link was useful in getting additional information on the IQ zoo as well as the Brelands additional contributions.
Terms: Reinforcement, Operant Conditioning, B. F Skinner, Skinner Box, Punishment, Variable Ratio, Schedule of Reinforcement, IQ zoo,
The topic I chose to write about Edward C. Tolman who is a psychologist, mostly known for his research on behavioral psychology. I chose to write about him because I like to learn about people’s pasts, and I’m interested in behavioral psychology myself. Tolman is from Massachussets. He was born there and he went to school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Then he went to Harvard where he received his Ph.D. He went on to teach psychology at the University of California in Berkeley. His mom was stuck with her Quaker background while his dad was worked at a manufacturing company where he was the president.
Tolman made huge contributions to research in motivation and learning. For learning Tolman had the theory that is came from pieces of knowledge and cognitions about the environment and how we relate to it, which contradicted previous theories about learning. What Tolman was really interested in though was behaviorism. His theories were around the ideas that there was molar over molecular behavior, goal directedness behavior, and the use of intervening variables. A lot of Tolmans studies were done using rats. For the molar behavior he used rats to show that they would find the place where they knew they would get rewarded rather than learn the right movements to get there. With the experiments Tolman hypothesized that the rats were developing cognitive maps in order to find their food.
With his rats and the maze experiments he discovered latent learning. This is where learning occurs even if there is no reward offered. You may not notice latent learning right away, but it will show up later in other situations.
All throughout his life Tolman contributed a lot and succeeded at what he did. He won an APA award for distinguished scientific contributions, got an honorary LL.D. degree from the Univ. of California, wrote the book “Purposive Behavior in Animals and Men,” and a paper “There is More than One Kind of Learning.” He was known as a broad-minded man who was open to a lot of different views and would always listen to the argument of the opposing side. He lived a very full life with a lot of accomplishments.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_C._Tolman
I used this website to get an insight on Tolmans background.
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/tolman.htm
I used this site because it had good information on Tolman’s research.
http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesmz/fl/Edward-C-Tolman-Biography.htm
This site had some info about latent learning and more of his achievements.
1a) The Pigeon Project
1b) This topic relates to the chapter because Skinner used conditioning to get these pigeons to perform a certain behavior/task. One of the major components of this chapter was conditioning and about Skinners contributions to behaviorism.
1c) I was interested in this because it relates to the military and U.S. history, and it was curious how pigeons were used instead of rats or monkeys that are typically used in experiments.
This idea was created by Skinner. During World War II, a guidance system was needed so the Allies could target the Axis powers war ships. The military looked to Harvard and B.F. Skinner, because of his expertise in conditioning and animal training, and his expertise and knowledge in psychology. He believed that pigeon could be the smart tool to use in the military. Skinner received full military funding for this project. He believed this because pigeons have excellent eye sight and they are very easy to train. Also pigeons are capable of processing information three times quicker than us. To train his pigeons he used positive reinforcement to get the birds to do what he wanted. A reward was given out to the pigeon if they pecked the right area correctly. Through this process the pigeons were trained to complete intricate jobs. One of the ones I thought to be very interesting was he even taught the birds to play ping pong. What Skinner worked on was training the pigeons to set off the missiles. This was done by having the pigeon put into a sock, and then placed in the missile. From this point in the missile the pigeon can see the enemy/target ships. When the missile starts to get off course, the pigeon pecks at the target needed. From this pecking it moves the tail fins of the missile and aligns it right. A metal piece was placed on the bird’s beak to control the “guidance system”. From Skinners testing with pigeons, it was discovered that pigeons were very accurate in aiming the missile on target. When this idea was brought up to the heads of the military it was shot down. They could not trust this idea, and the project was defunded. The reasons that the pigeons were chosen for this project was because of how light they were, their intelligence, and they could be used to peck to align the missile. Another thing that I found to be very interesting was that Skinner kept the pigeons around for years, and he would re-test them again, and they were still very accurate.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/bf-skinners-pigeon-guided-rocket-53443995/?no-ist
– This website was great for finding out some interesting facts and background.
http://cyberneticzoo.com/bionics/1940-project-pigeon-1948-project-orcon-b-f-skinner-american/
-This website was very useful for finding out what the project actually was and explaining it
http://www.military.com/video/operations-and-strategy/second-world-war/project-orcon-pidgeon-guided-missile/897399315001/
- this website was great in explain and showing how the pigeon project worked. It was great to actually see a video so I could get a better understanding.
My topic is Animal Magnetism
This topic relates to the chapter because animal magnetism became a treatment for all kinds of ailments including mental illness. While the ideas behind animal magnetism came to be debunked, the practice of it and the results it produced were invaluable to the development of other psychoanalytic practices used to treat mental illness such as hypnosis.
I found this topic interesting became it is absolutely absurd. To think that a guy once went around in a robe and magnetic rod (essentially a wand) curing people of the most extreme maladies is absurd. It is even crazier to think that many people were actually cured. It reminds me of those crazy church people who get the sick to come to the alter and they use the power of the savior to miraculously cure them in front of the masses. It just is not logical, but then again if it produced the right results I can understand why so many people sought out the treatment.
Animal magnetism is a theory and style of healing created Franz Anton Mesmer in the mid to late 18th century. Franz Anton Mesmer started his career path studying theology and law but eventually found himself studying medicine. The origins of his theory first emerged from his doctoral thesis. It is said that Mesmer was greatly influenced by the Theory of Gravity put forth by Issac Newton and his Theory encompassed his beliefs that the human body was also influenced by the same tidal influences as planets. His thought was that the human body was composed of two magnetic poles and that our bodies were full of what he deemed “magnetic fluid”. When a person had an ailment he believed that it may be because our magnetic fluid was out of balance. Mesmer went on to craft a technique that could remedy the out of balance fluids in the human body, thus curing any ailments. His technique was rather extravagant. When Mesmer put his theory into practice it was said that he would wear a flashy robe and wave a magnetized iron rod (or have his patients grab iron rods) putting it over the spot of the ailment to disperse the out of balance fluids. Believe it or not, many patients who went to Mesmer saw their symptoms dissipate almost instantly. His first client was a woman by the name of Oesterline. She had what Mesmer deemed a, “convulsive malady” in where blood would rush to her head causing tooth aches, nausea, dizziness, etc. Apparently her ailment was so bad that she wound up actually staying with Mesmer for a period of time so as he could take care of her around the clock. What wound up happening is that his patient emerged from her illness and was apparently cured. From the reports I read it said that Ms. Oesterline believed that a magnetic fluid was expelled from her and it took her illness with it! Mesmer had many other patients he practiced on and many of them claimed he had cured them as well. From blindness to hemorrhoids Mesmer’s “mesmerizing” as it came to be called, seemed to be a cure all for any malady. He went about his practices for a while setting up a clinic in his home of Vienna. Mesmer came to realize that waving a magnetized rod really did not produce the effects, but what really caused his curative powers was his abundance of animal magnetism and his patients lack thereof. He believed that what really happened is that during that curative process he would transfer his animal magnetism over, inducing the patient into a trance or shock like state where upon emerging from that state their ailments would be eliminated. Mesmer truly believed in his craft and tried tirelessly to garner support from the scientific community. After gaining some popularity in the alternative medicine scene of the era Mesmer’s ideas finally came under wide spread scrutiny of the scientific community. His home country of Vienna was the first to dispute his findings as nothing more than pseudo-science, and from what I read he was actually chased out in a sense by the scientific community and found himself taking his practices to France. He found a niche in France and his methods continued to expand in popularity. Imitators even emerged in England and the United States with reports of many patients touting the miraculous healing powers of “mesmerizing”. It reached a point of absurdity when the French Royal Commission set about to actually conduct a review on the theory of Animal Magnetism. The Royal Commission was made up of some the great thinkers of the time such as Benjamin Franklin and Jean Darcet. The commission concluded that while the results were indicative of the patient actually being cured that there was absolutely no scientific evidence supporting Mesmer’s methodology or even the theory of Animal Magnetism in itself. The scientific community espoused that the curative powers were most likely just the effects of the power of suggestion. Being completely debunked by the very community he so wished to receive recognition from did little to quell the beliefs of Mesmer. He continued to practice, and believe in, his animal magnetism until his death in 1815. The introduction of using trance like states in therapy settings by Franz Mesmer was the beginning of what would come to be known as hypnosis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_magnetism
This website helped in that it laid out the basic information about the history of animal magnetism and of Mesmer himself.
http://www.anton-mesmer.com/magnetic.htm
This website helped in that it discussed and described the techniques Mesmer used to conduct his therapy.
http://www.historyofhypnosis.org/franz-anton-mesmer/
This website helped me in that actually gave me some examples of the people Mesmer cured and the ailments they had.
1a) B.F. Skinner and his contribution to neobehaviorism
1b) How does it relate to the chapter? Chapter 11 deals with the progression of the behaviorist movement detailed in the previous chapter and the psychologists that shaped its development. Skinner was mentioned near the end of the chapter for his achievements in comparative psychology and the study of behavior; these topics are central concepts in behaviorism and neobehaviorism and in this way display his connection to the chapter.
1c) Why interested? I found the section on Skinner to be particularly interesting because while I had heard his name mentioned numerous times throughout my studies, I had never really studied him in any depth and I was anxious to see why he had procured such an established place in the annals of the discipline. I also felt a bit of a personal connection with the circumstances surrounding his entrance into psychology as I also had wanted to be a writer for most of my previous academic career.
2a)Synthesis. During his early years B. F. Skinner was an extremely resourceful child who was constantly creating new inventions. His ingenuity continued into his college life as he attended Hamilton College and later Harvard for his graduate studies where his career in psychology began. While at Harvard he worked in conjunction with both the physiology and psychology departments in order to conduct his experiments with rats. In these tests Skinner was able to observe and manipulate the rodent’s behavior within his apparatus and found through this research that what had previously been believed due to Pavlov and Watson may not have been correct. After his college years he continued researching animal behavior and conditioning and worked on numerous experiments including some particularly interesting research for the government during the second World War involving missile-homing pigeons.
As for his contributions to neobehaviorism, he was very much a proponent of many of the key elements of the discipline, one of these being striving for the legitimization of the discipline. This is where Skinner’s preoccupation with observing behavior comes into play because he believed that visible events were the only things that could be considered scientific because they could be directly studied through observation. He wrote extensively on numerous topics ranging from his topic of choice of behaviorism, to subjects as broad as the philosophy of science or utopian society. He also lectured on application of comparative psychology to therapy and taught briefly at Harvard. B.F. Skinner was active academically even into the late stages of his life and was even working on articles up to the day he passed. B. F. Skinner was definitely one of the leading contributors to neobehaviorism but he did so in his own way; by looking at the work of the behaviorists and understanding their short comings to put together a stronger, more legitimate movement.
http://science.jrank.org/pages/8448/Behaviorism-Neobehaviorism-1930-1955.html
I decided to use this source because while it doesn’t go into a great deal of depth about B. F. Skinner himself it does provide information about the movement of neobehaviorism and how Skinner and others contributed to it.
http://www.bfskinner.org/archives/biographical-information/
This article is from the B.F. Skinner Foundation and provides the in depth biographical information that I was hoping to uncover in this assignment.
http://youtu.be/7VZUjncC_SY
This is part 1 of 7 of a series of videos that details a lecture given by Skinner directed towards professionals on topics such as comparative psychology and human behavior. I used this source in an effort to understand Skinner’s perspective more directly.
This week I am going to talk about Edward Tolman and his theory of cognitive maps. This is a concept that was presented in the textbook but I wanted to learn more about, as there was only one page on cognitive maps. Tolman was also one of the main focuses in the chapter.
Edward C. Tolman was an American psychologist whose main contributions were to the areas of motivation and learning. Tolman was born in 1886 to an “upper middle” class family in Massachusetts. Tolman’s education was received in the public school system in his hometown. Tolman’s father was the president of a manufacturing company and he grew up with the knowledge that it was expected that he and his older brother would go into the family business. However, both Tolman and his brother decided to seek out careers in the academic setting instead. During his time at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he decided to focus on philosophy but after graduation during summer school studying philosophy and psychology, he decided that psychology was more for him. The next year he enrolled at Harvard and it was in class on ethics that he discovered his interest in motivation.
Some of the main contributions in the field of psychology made by Tolman were in the areas of learning and motivation. During his time at Berkeley, he developed a cognitive theory to learning. He believed learning to be developed from small pieces of knowledge and understanding of the environment. This idea was in contrast to the theories by Hull and Thorndike. He also believed that the cognitive control of learning was not restricted solely by the evolutionary abilities of the species.
One of Tolman’s major contributions was the development of an idea that he called cognitive mapping. Cognitive mapping is an conscious or unconscious process in which we picture in our mind the way that something works or goes. This can be the imagining of your route to or from work or how the inside of a grandfather clock works. I also kind of relate this idea to highway hypnosis. We already know the route that we are taking and our brain is aware of the things that we should do when we approach a red stoplight or when the car in front of us brakes. That is why we sometimes end up going long distances without even realizing it. We can picture the map of the roads that we take to get home, so when we arrive it’s not surprise as to how we got there. The idea of cognitive mapping can be related to things other than just the actual functioning. This term can be related to other general value systems as well. They can also be based on things such as values, logic, feelings, or quality. For example, it is easy for the human mind to distinguish between conceptual and contextual maps.
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Tolman/Maps/maps.htm
I chose to use this source because it was Tolman’s exact published work on his idea of cognitive maps.
http://richarddagan.com/cogmap.php
This source gave an in-depth look into the mechanisms of cognitive maps.
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/tolman.htm
This source gave a brief biography on Tolman.
1a) State what your topic is.
I decided to research B.F. Skinner
1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter.
B.F. Skinner is one of the most famous of the behavioral psychologists, and he was discussed at length in the chapter for his radical behaviorism theories and ideas, and used operant conditioning.
1c) Discuss why you are interested in it.
I am interested in Skinner because I have always liked his research, and in the chapter I learned that he and I also share a passion for creative writing, and that he abandoned this for psychology, much like I have (I still hope to be published someday, but I know the reality of being successful is fairly slim). Because he and I have a lot of similarities, I wanted to learn more about him and his studies.
Burrhus Frederick Skinner was born in 1904 in a small town in Pennsylvania, and went to Hamilton College for his B.A, which he majored English literature and wrote for the school paper, with high hopes of becoming a creative writer. He frequently sent stories to Robert Frost, who encouraged him to continue to write creatively, but Skinner did not feel that he would measure up to some of the other literary figures of the time. He went on to study psychology at Harvard, and while he was there, he made the first prototype for the Skinner box. Skinner got his Ph.D. from Harvard, and went on to teach at the University of Minnesota, Indiana University, and finally at Harvard, where he remained until the end of his life. He died of leukemia in 1990, a few days after receiving the lifetime achievement award from the American Psychological Association. His brand of behaviorism is called radical behaviorism, and it is the philosophy behind the science of behavior. Skinner developed several different kind of reinforcement throughout his research, and used fixed or variable schedules of reinforcement including continuous reinforcement, interval and ratio schedules. Some of his more controversial studies include the invention of the Air Crib, a crib that was created originally to help parents by making a crib that was atmosphere controlled in order to help the child sleep through the night without getting cold or having to wear too many clothes or blankets. It was controversial, however, because it was compared to the Skinner box. The Air Crib was designed to make childcare easier while encouraging the baby to be more confident and mobile, as well as comfortable and thus, less prone to cry. The Skinner box, also known as the operant conditioning chamber, was used to measure responses in animals and ordered interactions within their environment, and they would either get positive or negative reinforcement for what they did. Another invention that B.F. Skinner created was the cumulative recorder, which automatically graphs out behavior using a rotating drum and a marking needle. Yet another was the teaching machine, which was to give a programmed instruction, and would ask questions in which the leaner could answer, and if answered correctly, they were rewarded, and these machines could be adjusted based on the student’s performance. Another interesting thing that Skinner was a part of was a pigeon-guided missile, which was called Project Pigeon, and was brought on by the need for a weapon that could be used against German battleships. This system, which would use trained pigeons to guide these missiles to the battleships, proved to be effective, although the project was ultimately abandoned. Trained pigeons would peck towards an object on the screen, and would guide the missile to its target. He also trained pigeons to play ping pong for rewards, among other things. Skinner also had a big influence on education with regards to his research on operant conditioning. The theory is that a person learns as a change in their behavior, and that they are the results of a person’s responses to stimuli in their environment. Their responses to the environment produces a consequence, either good or bad, and this is what conditions someone to behave a certain way. This has been used in the clinical setting, as well as teaching and instructional development.
http://www.goodtherapy.org/famous-psychologists/bf-skinner.html
Background info, Air Crib, animal training
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner
Inventions, additional background information
http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/operant-conditioning.html
Operant conditioning
1a) Edward Tolman
1b) Chapter 11 was all about the furthering of the study of behaviorism. Edward Tolman provided a number of contributions to this area of psychology and helped build a better understanding of the “what is happening” part of behaviorism.
1c) I chose to research Tolman because I found his background story very interesting, and although his research wasn’t particularly fascinating to me, I would like to gain a better understanding of his discoveries.
2) Edward Tolman was born in Newton, Massachusetts in 1886 to an upper middle class family. His father was the president of a manufacturing company, and his brother, Richard, later went on to help develop the atomic bomb during World War II (Muskingum). He and his brother both graduated from MIT, but instead of following the career path that his degree gave him, electrochemistry, he decided to study psychology. It is said that he did not go this route because he did not want to compete with his talented brother (Goodwin 2012). After leaving MIT, he enrolled at Harvard where he started studying philosophy, but ended up in the psychology department researching under Hugo Munsterberg , and received his PhD in 1915 (About Psychology).
Tolman is most known for his challenges to the stimuli-response theory. He believed that behavior was more cognitive than anything. Tolman suggested and firmly thought that humans and animals have active information processes and do not simply follow a pattern. Each individual acts upon different beliefs and past retrieval to determine the best path to choose (Simply Psychology).
To prove this theory, he developed a maze to study rats’ reaction to stimuli. According to Watson, once the rats learned that say turning right would lead to the food, they would automatically turn right every time. Tolman hypothesized that the rat would develop a cognitive map, or an overall image of the maze, and learn how to get there no matter where it started from. He began his study by putting the rats in point A and the food into point B. Once the rats learned how to get to that point, he switched it around and started them at point C and put the food in point D. If Watson was indeed correct, the rats would follow the pattern they used to get from point A to point B and end up not being able to, or have a harder time, finding the food. If Tolman was correct and the rats indeed had a cognitive map of the maze, the rat would have no trouble getting to point D from point C. The test failed to disprove Tolman’s theory and the rat successfully reached point D with no trouble (Simply Psychology).
Out of Tolman’s research with maze-running rats came the term Latent Learning. When Tolman was studying the rats, he discovered that even when there was no reinforcement, learning was still taking place (About Psychology). Latent behavior is learned behavior that is not visible in the individual, but is still taking place. It manifests itself when necessary to the individual (Simply Psychology).
Even though my first read through in the text about Edward Tolman did not feel as interesting to me, I learned a lot and gained a better understanding of his research by reading about his work outside of the text.
3) http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesmz/fl/Edward-C-Tolman-Biography.htm
I started with this website because it has been reliable for me in the past. I decided to use this website for my post because it helped a little with background, and gave me a better grasp of Tolman’s work.
http://www.simplypsychology.org/tolman.html
Although this one was a little short, I appreciated the simple way of explaining Tolman’s complicated research. This website helped me understand Tolman’s theories.
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/tolman.htm
I used this website because it did a really nice job of laying out Tolman’s contributions.
I decided to research the reinforcement used in operant conditioning and to understand which types of reinforcement seem to be more effective.
This relates to the chapter because this chapter continued to talk about early behaviorism. One of the major pioneers in the field of behaviorism was B.F. Skinner. His theory of operant conditioning is still used today.
I chose this topic because the chapter didn’t go into a lot of detail in regards to reinforcement used or which ones seemed the most effective. I really like both classical conditioning and operant conditioning so I would like to see what type of reinforcement proves to be the best.
B.F. Skinner created a theory called operant conditioning. This theory which is different from Pavlov’s classical conditioning model is a method of learning behavior that changes based on the consequences whether rewards or punishments. Skinner describes these consequences into three categories; neutral, reinforcement, and punishment. Neutral consequences are just how they sound they neither increase or decrease a subject’s behavior in the given environment. Reinforcement increase behavior and this can be broken down into two different parts. There is positive reinforcement which means adding something to produce or increase the desired behavior. Then there is negative reinforcement which mean subtracting or taking away something to increase the desired behavior. Punishment decreases behavior and this is also broken down into two parts. Positive punishment is the adding of a stimuli to decrease a behavior and negative punishment is taking away of a stimuli to decrease a behavior. It is also advised that these are also paired with schedules of reinforcement. There are five different types of schedules and these are; fixed interval schedule reinforces a behavior after a specific period of time, fixed ratio schedule reinforces a behavior after a specific number of responses, variable interval schedule reinforces a behavior after unpredictable periods of time, variable ratio reinforces a behavior after an unpredictable number of responses, and continuous reinforcement is the reinforcement after each response. An example of a positive reinforcement would be to give a kid a cookie after behaving well at the grocery store. An example of negative reinforcement would be to put on sunscreen to avoid getting sunburned. An example of positive punishment would be spanking a child for acting naughty in the grocery store. An example of negative punishment would be to take away a child’s favorite toy because they acted naughty in the grocery store. I couldn’t find a specific set of data to prove which type of reinforcement or punishment seems to be more effective in strengthening or weakening a certain behavior.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning
I used this website to understand the types of consequences of a given behavior and specifically the two types of reinforcements and two types of punishments.
http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html
I used this website to understand what operant conditioning was and the three broad categories of consequences of a behavior.
http://psychology.about.com/od/operantconditioning/f/reinforcement.htm
I used this website to understand the schedules of reinforcement and how they are used and to help give examples of reinforcement and punishment.
1a) State what your topic is.
The topic I chose to take a closer look at was B.F. Skinner’s operant conditioning.
1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter.
Chapter 12 discusses ‘the evolution of behaviorism’. In the development of behaviorism, operant conditioning was furthering the development of how behavior can be controlled. Skinner was using ideas and studies of those before him to continue to expand how reinforcement, consequences, and environment can change behavior.
1c) Discuss why you are interested in it.
I have always been very interested in the study of behavior itself. Reading again about the discoveries Skinner made during his time, I believe is one of the most useful tools still used today in understanding behavior. I am interested to read further into the development and findings of operant conditioning and how these studies are still influencing people today.
Throughout Skinners Academic and professional career, he moved around many times, but eventually in 1948 he took a position at Harvard and continued there until he passed away in 1990. Most influenced by the work of Thorndike on reinforcement, Skinner was interested in taking it above and beyond. Skinner developed a theory he called, operant conditioning. In this, he believed behavior could be best understood by studying the antecedent of a behavior and the consequence that follows, or learning from association. The term “reinforcing” was also coined by Skinner to better explain the process of strengthening and extinguishing behaviors. To increase a consequence or action you reinforce the behavior and to decrease a response you do not reinforce the behavior. Skinner used this theory as a the basis for his experiment of the ‘operant chamber’ or ‘Skinner Box’.
He created a box to put rats in where he could test his theory of operant conditioning. The box had a lever in it, two lights, a dispenser for food, and a metal floor that was able to deliver a mild metal shock. To display positive reinforcement Skinner would put the rats in the box and when the hit the lever food would come out of the dispenser. The rats quickly learned to push the button anytime they wanted food. To show negative reinforcement, Skinner associated the electric shock with pushing on the lever (the push of the lever would turn the shock off). After learning this the shock was delivered only after the light was turned on. Quickly the rats began to switch the lever when they saw the light, eliminating their chance of being shocked.
His findings within reinforcement and punishment led the way for behavior modification today. Many therapies and treatments are designed by the basis of what Skinner found in this operant conditioning experiments. By reinforcing good behaviors the association is rewarding. By using a negative response to undesired behaviors a extinguishing association will occur, making those behavior associations eventually cease.
I think this type of learning is very useful today and if done correctly has the power to really change how behaviors and associations are made. Skinner led the way for many of my interests in behavior today and I will continue to use his methods as I pursue my own career.
http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html
This site broke down each part of Skinners operant conditioning and had examples and diagrams that were very helpful in understanding it in modern terms.
http://psychology.about.com/od/behavioralpsychology/a/introopcond.htm
This site focused on really defining the terms and making sure examples were also modern. It also was very helpful when listing the steps of operant conditioning.
http://www.lifecircles-inc.com/Learningtheories/behaviorism/Skinner.html
This site gave me background on his early life and career that the others did not provide.
Clark Hull was born in New York in 1884, but he was raised on a farm in Michigan. His life was cursed with different illnesses starting with typhoid fever after graduating high school and progressed to polio at the age of 24. The polio left Hall paralyzed in his left leg, causing him to be dependent on a brace and a cane to walk. After high school, Hall’s original plan was to become an engineer, but the struggles with his health led him into the field of psychology. He obtained his Master’s Degree from the University of Michigan after a few brief interruptions in his education due to financial issues. Hall then went on to receive his PhD from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, where he remained to teach. At this time, he eas also researching the measurement and prediction of aptitude. This was later published in the book Aptitude Testing. A year after the book was published, Hall went to Yale University to teach and continue researching. During this time, Hall developed his drive theory of behavior. Hull believed that all behavior could be explained by conditioning principles. According to his drive reduction theory, biological deprivation creates need and those needs may activate the different drives that create behavior. An example of this would be hunger or thirst causing a person to seek out food or water. This theory was influenced by Darwin. This theory also helped to inspire the work of other researchers. Hull’s theory helped others to look at social learning and imitation differently. Hull’s influence spread throughout the 40s and 50s when he was the most cited psychologist. His work continues to be important for the work o others and his influence continues to be prominent.
http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesal/p/clark-hull.htm
This is one of my favorite websites to go to when looking at psychologists biography. Very clear and clean cut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_L._Hull
This had more detail on his workings.
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/hull.htm
This cite had more information about his life that the other ones did not.
1a) State what your topic is:
B.F. Skinner and Operant Conditioning
1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter.
Skinner was discussed in this chapter because of his behaviorism studies, more specifically radical behaviorism.
1c) Discuss why you are interested in it.
Skinner was the psychologist I was familiar with from the chapter. I wanted to learn more about his ideas on operant conditioning because I feel like it’s very important for the study of behavioral psychology.
Burrhus Frederic Skinner, more commonly known as B.F. Skinner, was born on March 20, 1904 in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. Skinner loved school as a child and hoped one day he would become a writer. He went to Hamilton College in New York in order to pursue his writing career. He would come to find that writing wasn’t for him. Still, he finished out his English literature bachelor degree in 1926. He moved back in with his parents so he could attempt to write poetry and short stories. Despite the encouragement he received, becoming a writer did not work out for Skinner.
Two years after earning his degree, Skinner attended Harvard where he became interested in the study of psychology. During his time at Harvard, he designed what would be known as the “Skinner box”. Skinner teamed up with one of his classmates, Fred Keller, to create a branch of psychology that focused on behavior.
In 1931, Skinner got his Ph.D. from Harvard. He continued researching there until 1936. In 1938, he wrote the book “The Behavior of Organisms” which contained all of the operant conditioning research Skinner conducted.He taught at both University of Minnesota and Indiana University before returning to Harvard in 1948 where he would continue to teach for the rest of his life.
Skinner studied behavior using an operant conditioning apparatus, also known as a Skinner box. All of the conditions within the box could be controlled by the experimenter. Within a fully controlled environment, the rats and pigeons would be easier to study. The animals’ actions were also recorded by the apparatus.
In his first experiments, he placed a rat in the box. The goal was to get the rat to pull a lever that would release food. Later on, he studied the behavior patterns of pigeons. The pigeons would have to peck at a disc in order to get a food reward. Ultimately, Skinner found that reinforcement was needed in order to learn a new skill or develop a habit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_ctJqjlrHA
I chose this video because it explains how Skinner studied his pigeons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning
This site had lots of information about what operant conditioning is and how it came about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner
This page gives an overview of Skinner’s life and career.
http://www.biography.com/people/bf-skinner-9485671#synopsis
This source also contained useful information about his life and career.
1) Once you have completed your search and explorations, I would like you to say what your topic is, how exactly it fits into the chapter we have covered this week, and why you are interested in it.
This week I want to look into Tolman’s Cognitive maps. These were maps that helped him understand how rats learned. He did not agree with some of the other psychologists of his time, and made his own arguments for what the rats did to memorize the map. This fits into our chapter of the evolution of behaviorism very well because behavioralism is centralized around controlling their behaviors. Not only does it fit into our chapter well but it fits into our everyday lives. I was interested in this topic because in biopsychology we learned information on how rats learn, cognitive mapping was one of the examples but was never went into detail. I also was interested in cognitive mapping because we can learn a lot from behaviorism about our everyday lives, I was interested to see if cognitive mapping would be the same.
2) What are three aspects of the topic you want to talk about for this assignment?
First I would like to explore how Tolman’s findings are different than the previous findings or psychologists of his time, next I would like to connect what we learn from the cognitive map and how we apply it to how we learn today, finally I would like to explain deeper the findings of Tolman’s experiments.
3) Next, I would like you to take the information you found from the various sources and integrate/synthesize them into the three aspects of the topic, and then write about the topic.
What is a cognitive map? It is a mental picture or visualization of the area around you, this helps you to understand your area around you. One of my further readings gives the example of when someone asks you for directions you use the cognitive map to picture the location you are giving directions to. When you are picturing the location you then also use the things around the location to help give the best directions you can.
Unlike other Psychologists at the time Tolman believed that rats could learn another way other than just by reward. Tolman believed that this was not true, he believed that they could learn their location based on social cues. He found that he was correct, in his experiments he had many different arms of the maze, though each arm was different he made the cues in the arm the same to the ones that lead to food. No matter what arm was in front of the rats they were able to know if there would be reward at the end of the arm.
By doing these experiments we can apply it to how humans learn as well, and we can see that humans omit certain information that isn’t important to remembering a location, while at the same time remembering certain aspects that help us remember. In one of my readings I learned that architects and city government officials use cognitive maps to help build more effectively. Not only that but they can use it for those who are blind or even hard of hearing. The factors that can influence better remembering are proximity, size, location, shape, and social cultural factors. Not only can it be used to better effectively build in cities, Tolman’s cognitive maps help us see how children mature and learn. In my reading they give the example of a 5 year old and how they understand the space of their home, they would later on measure the same thing to see how their understanding changes. I believe that we can learn a lot from Tolman’s cognitive mapping not only about how rats learn but also how we learn about the space around us.
Cognitive Maps are used by both animals and humans to remember places in the environment that are important. Tolman made his experiments originally to see how rats learn.
4) Finally, at the end of your post, please include working URLs for the three websites. For each URL you have listed indicate why you chose the site and the extent to which it contributed to your post.
http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/sommerb/sommerdemo/mapping/cogmap.htm
I used this source to find out what cognitive maps are and, also how Tolman ran his experiments.
http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Cognitive_maps
I learned what experiments Tolman did and how it was different from other psychologists at the time. I also was able to learn information about what exactly he did in the experiments.
http://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Cognitive%20Map
I used this to get a well rounded picture of what Cognitive Maps are and how we use them.
1) My topic is Neobehaviorism, which was a new topic for me within this chapter. I choose this topic because it was new and very intriguing within the text. I agreed with a lot of their topics and points within the book so I wanted to learn more about the topic in order to see if I continued to support Neobehaviorism.
2) Three aspects of this topic that will be covered in this assignment are the early stages of Neobehaviorism, radical behaviorism and Skinner, and purposive behaviorism.
3) Neobehaviorism is a fairly unknown topic to most people, but is considered to be the second phase of behaviorism. In the early stages of Neobehaviorism, neobehaviorists believed that studying learning and focusing on rigorous objective observational methods were the two keys to scientific psychology. The psychologist associated with Neobehaviorism were more adamant on trying to formalize the laws of behaviors than the behaviorist before them. The early stages of Neobehaviorism were greatly influenced by logical positivists and based a lot of the field around an observational base. There were interested in behaviors influence that expanded beyond just stimuli and response, but their main focus was always constructing a formal theory of behavior. Other motivators for Neobehaviorism was learning more about the fundamental laws of learning and forming habits. Skinner is one of the most famous neobehaviorisits because he argued that behavior can be shaped and controlled with the use of rewards and reinforcements to evoke the desired results. A reoccurring theme within Neobehaviorism is controlling the environment and the large influence it has on behaviors.
As Neobehaviorism emerged, it branched off into radical behaviorism and purposive behaviorism. Skinner was the main person associated with radical behaviorism and its focus of offering an experimental analysis of behavior. It was called radical behaviorism because the Latin meaning of radical is root and Skinner said that type of behaviorism was focused around figuring out the reason that people act and respond the way they do. This type of Neobehaviorism was greatly influenced by the topic of evolution and how organisms learn to repeat adaptive behaviors. Radical behaviorism is very much dependent on respondent behaviors and operant behaviors and tries to explain the environment’s impact on the behavioral responses that are evoked in certain situations. However, this form of behaviorism did gain a little bit of grief due to the fact that many people said Skinner’s analysis were limited in their ability to explain very complex behaviors like creativity or very simple behaviors like remembering one’s name.
The second branch of Neobehaviorism was purposive behaviorism. This type of behaviorism focused greatly on cognitive functioning and the impact it had behavior. If focused on behavior helping to accomplish a certain purpose and to achieve something. Creating cognitive maps was a significant area of focus for this type of Neobehaviorism. Learning the relationships among physical signs and reinforcements were a key element to the development of cognitive connections to behaviors within purposive behaviorism. The researchers within this field discovered that in order for organisms to reach a goal, they rely heavily on hypothesis testing or a method of trial and error learning. Interestingly, the need of the organism, what they are trying to obtain on a cognitive level, do not influence the development of cognitive maps, contrary to researchers’ predictions. Purposive behaviorism worked mainly with intervening variables and believed that even though the environment changed, people’s behaviors would still react in a way until they receive what they are in need of.
4) URLs:
http://science.jrank.org/pages/8448/Behaviorism-Neobehaviorism-1930-1955.html
This first website gave me information about the early stages of Neobehaviorism as well as information on Skinner.
http://www.academia.edu/3391303/FoundationsofBehaviourismClassicalandNeo
My second website was very helpful in learning about Skinner and how he developed radical behaviorism.
http://www.lifecircles-inc.com/Learningtheories/behaviorism/Tolman.html
The final website gave me information on purposive behaviorism and its influence with Neobehaviorism.
5) Terminology Used: Neobehaviorism, neobehaviorisits, objective observational methods, scientific psychology, behaviorist, logical positivists, observational, stimuli, response, theory of behavior, rewards, reinforcements, evoke, results, radical behaviorism, purposive behaviorism, Skinner, operant behaviors, respondent behaviors, cognitive, trail and error learning, hypothesis testing,
1) For this assignment, I chose to do some more research on Tolman’s discovery of Latent Learning. It fits into this chapter because this chapter was all about the neobehaviorist movement and Tolman was a neobehaviorist who discovered that reinforcement does not necessarily need to happen in order for learning to occur. I found this topic interesting because in the early behaviorist movement, there was a big emphasis on reinforcement and learning. Tolman’s discovery of latent learning changed the belief that reinforcement was necessary to learn.
2) Three aspects of this topic I want to discuss are how latent learning was discovered, why it is important and what impact it has on learning, and examples of latent learning in real-life situations.
3) Tolman found that not all learning is immediately apparent. Sometimes, learning only becomes apparent when reinforcement is offered. This idea was not totally original to Tolman, Hugh Blodgett did a lot of work with latent learning, but he did contribute a great deal to our understanding of it. Tolman began his work with latent learning by working with rats and cognitive mazes. He separated the rats into 3 groups, “Rewarded”, “Delayed-reward”, and “No reward”. Over a 17 day period, the rats were each allowed in the maze once a day and their progress through the maze was recorded. The “Rewarded” group was rewarded with food every time they reached the end of the maze. The “Delayed-reward” group was only taken out of the maze when they reached the end on days 1-10, and on days 11-17 they were rewarded with food when they reached the end of the maze. The “No reward” group was just taken out of the maze when they reached the end. What Tolman found was that the “Reward” group learned the maze the quickest initially, however, the “Delayed-reward” group appeared to catch up with the “Reward” group in days 11-17 when they were reinforced with food. Tolman hypothesised that in days 1-10, the “Delayed-reward” rats created a cognitive map of the maze in their minds, so that when a reward was introduced they had a higher motivation to perform and complete the maze.
This can also be applied to humans because we have similar motivational influences. If there is no reward and we don’t appear to get anything out of completing a certain task, than we have a lower level of motivation to actually complete the task. Latent learning is a little hard to understand when you just look at rats finishing a maze, it’s when you can apply it to real-life human situations that it becomes obvious just how important Tolman’s discoveries are. For example, think about when you are driving around your hometown. Unless you are from a large city, you’ve driven around your hometown enough to know how to get to the places you go to most often. This is a form a latent learning because the routes around town are not used most of the time, just when you need to get somewhere or need to show someone a particular route. There is a reward that stimulates a response and allows you to demonstrate what you’ve learned. Other examples of latent learning include: learning how to sew but not demonstrating your abilities until you need to sew a button back on your shirt; a college students has been taught study skills but does not study and fails multiple exams, once he actually uses the study skills he was taught he does better on his exams; a person learns to wash dishes but does not actually wash any dishes until she lives on their own and there is no one else to do it for them. Latent learning ultimately suggests that we learn as we go and not just simply when we are reinforced. Certain tasks and information are learned over time, but are demonstrated when their is some kind of reinforcement or reward associated with it.
4) Sources:
http://www.simplypsychology.org/tolman.html
This resources was very useful when it came to understanding Tolman’s rat-maze experiment, there was a video provided that demonstrated latent learning, allowed me to visualize it, and gave me a better understanding of the topic.
http://psychology.about.com/od/lindex/fl/What-Is-Latent-Learning.htm
This site also gave a good amount of basic, background information on latent learning and how the discoveries associated with this topic can be used in real-life situations.
http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-latent-learning.html
I used this source to see examples of how latent learning happens in real-life. It gave good examples of latent learning that contributed to my overall understanding of the topic.
Terminology: Tolman, Latent Learning, reinforcement, Hugh Blodgett, stimulus, reinforcement, reward.
1) My topic for this week is going to be B.F. Skinner. He is one person talked about in this chapter that had a great influence on the history of psychology. He is the most known for his ideas about operant conditioning but I want to know other reasons why he is so important in the psychology world and why I have learned about him before but not the other people mentioned in the chapter.
2) The three aspects about B.F. Skinner I am going to talk about are how Skinner got into researching within psychology, what some contributions he had within psychology, and how his ideas have influenced modern times.
3) Skinner was born in 1094 and actually did not live his life wanting to research things and be involved in psychology. He actually graduated college to be a writer and then moved on to Harvard for more schooling. That is where he was introduced to the idea of experimental science and behaviorism. While at Harvard dealing with his interest in behavioral science, he originally came up with his idea of the Skinner box. His ideas were mainly focused a lot on John Watson’s concepts of behaviorism and that is what got him to dig deeper in the world of psychology. Eventually he went to graduate school for psychology at Harvard and graduated in 1931. After graduating he taught at many schools and received awards like the American Psychological Association before his death.
Even though Skinner was very well known throughout his career for his concepts of psychology one stands out past them all, operant conditioning. His idea of operant conditioning is contradictory to Ivan Pavlov’s classical conditioning. He argued with how Pavlov’s conditioning worked so he made his own his own idea of conditioning based on the ideas of Thorndike. He had different kinds of reinforcers and punishers in order to get the desired behavior. Depending on the behavior emitted the use of reinforcement or punishment would be used in order to correct their behavior. This idea is still good today and many people who are studying and researching different ideas use this to conclude their studies. Along with operant conditioning he also has had many other big contributions to psychology. For example, his idea of schedules of reinforcement and how he contributed to behavior modification, and the air crib. His schedules of reinforcement were probably the second best contribution Skinner had to psychology because they are used with behavior modification. The intervals are continuous variables, interval schedules, and ratio schedules that are all used in his operant conditioning. He looked at those intervals in order to keep track of the behaviors that he wanted modified. Behavior modification all in all came from his ideas of operant conditioning, reinforcement, schedules, etc. The air crib was a big contribution in psychology because it had conclusions that helped with developmental psychology.
Skinner has been very influential with modern psychology, especially education. He is the one that started the idea of getting children to behave by using reinforcements. Children learn better and have more motivation when they are reinforced for things and so they do it more often without even having to think about it. It is very beneficial to both the students and the teachers. Another thing in schools that has been influenced by Skinner is how the teachers interact with the students if they are doing something wrong. The teachers usually get upset or angry in certain situations that are difficult when dealing with children. Skinner says that with his techniques of having small steps towards the big goal, having the goal be specific, and using reinforcement when they do something right is the best way to handle things instead of punishing the kid by yelling at them in front of everyone or using aversive techniques to get around the situation at hand.
4) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner - I chose this URL because it has a lot of useful information about Skinner’s life as well as what most of his contributions were to psychology. It also has information about how he has influenced modern psychology
http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html - I chose this URL because it has information about Skinner’s ideas behind operant conditioning and has specific content about what his conditioning entails.
http://www.psychologistanywhereanytime.com/famous_psychologist_and_psychologists/psychologist_famous_b_f_skinner.htm - I chose this URL because it has information on the different contributions Skinner had to psychology and why those made him so famous. It was interesting to me and I learned a lot from it to write about.
Terms: B.F. Skinner, operant conditioning, John Watson, behaviorism, Skinner box, classical conditioning, Thorndike, Ivan Pavlov, schedules of reinforcement, continuous reinforcement, ratio reinforcement, interval reinforcement, air crib, reinforcer, punisher
1) the topic that I chose for this weeks blogs was B.F. Skinner. I chose him because the whole chapter this week seemed to focus on how things in behavioral psychology were changing and he played a role in that change. not only do I want to talk about skinner in general but also talk about the contributions he made to the field such as operant conditioning and how that played a role in changing behavioral psychology.
2/3)B.F. Skinner was born in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania on March 20, 1904, he was then raised there by his father who was a lawyer and his mother who stayed home to take care of him and his brother. at an early age skinner took interest in building different gadgets and contraptions. as a student at Hamilton college he developed a passion for writing so upon his graduation in 1926 he decided to try to become a professional writer but had little success so two years later he decided to enroll at Harvard university and study psychology. while at Harvard he took interest in finding a more objective and measured way of studying behavior. to do this he built what he called an operant conditioning apparatus which became more popularly known as a skinner box. with this box he could study how animals interact with their environment. his first experiments in the box were with rats. with the rats he watched how the rodents discovered a level in the box that would dispense food and different intervals of time. he then studied pigeons in the box. to gain access to food the pigeons had to peck at a disk. due to these experiments skinner came to the conclusion that some form of reinforcement was necessary. after completing his doctorate degree and working as a researcher at Harvard skinner published the results of his operant conditioning experiments in The Behavior of Organisms in 1938. his work was very similar to that of ivan Pavlov but his involved learned responses to an environment not involuntary responses to a stimuli. these experiments were his major contributions to operant conditioning. there were also some other things that skinner did during his career. for example while working at the university of Minnesota he attempted to train pigeons to become guides for bombing runs during world war two. this project was cancelled but he was able to teach them how to play ping pong. skinner then turned to more domestic endeavors during the war. for example he built a new type of crib for his second daughter. the crib was called a baby tender and was heated so that the baby did not need blankets and there were no slats in the sides so that there was no risk of injury. in 1945 he became the chair of the psychology department at Indiana university. he then left two years later to return to Harvard as a lecturer and got a professorship there in 1948 where he then stayed for the rest of his career. while his children were growing up he became interested in education. he then developed a teaching machine to study learning in children and later published the technology of teaching. this goes to show that skinner was not only a brilliant psychologist but he also invented many little different contraptions in his career and was a man of many talents.
4)http://www.biography.com/people/bf-skinner-9485671#the-skinner-box
on this site I found a lot of information on skinners life.
http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html
on this site I found information about skinners operant conditioning experiments.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/bhskin.html
on this site I found information about things that skinner did during his career.
This week I decided to do research on Edward C. Tolman. He was one of the behavioral psychologists that this chapter discussed. I am interested in learning more about him because I had never heard of him before reading this chapter, but it seems like he contributed a lot to behaviorism. I would like to discuss Tolman’s life and how he got started in this field, his theories on latent learning, and his sign theory of learning.
Tolman was born in Massachusetts in 1886. His father was the president of a manufacturing company, and both Tolman and his brother were expected to take over the family business. Both of them went against their family’s wishes and went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to pursue careers in academics. His brother ended up being a world famous physicist and chemist. Edward Tolman originally wanted to earn his degree in electrochemistry, but changed his mind after reading some of William James’s work. He then started studying philosophy and psychology, but decided he wasn’t smart enough for philosophy. He ultimately decided that he liked to study psychology better. He ended up going to Harvard to study psychology. Taking a course in ethics led him to an interest in motivation. He spent a summer in Germany to study for his PhD. This was where he learned about Gestalt psychology, which he used concepts from to form his own theories. After receiving his doctorate degree, he was a teacher at Northwestern University for about three years. He was fired for talking about his pacifist views during World War I. He then started working as a professor at Berkley in California.
While at Berkley, Tolman created a cognitive theory of learning. He thought that learning developed from cognitions about the environment and how that person relates to the environment. This was a different theory about learning. Before this, psychologists such as Clark Hull and Edward Thorndike thought of learning as more of a stimulus and response connection. To study his theories about learning, Tolman did many rat studies. In one of these studies, he looked at the role that reinforcements play in a rat’s ability to run in a maze. This led him to his theory of latent learning, which is learning that occurs without an obvious reinforcement. To study latent learning, Tolman had three different groups of rats to run in a maze with food at the end. One group was reinforced every time they found the food. Another group was not reinforced at all for the first half of the experiment, but were reinforced with the food every time they found it for the last half of the experiment. The last group was never rewarded for finding the end of the maze. They were taken out of the maze every time they reached the food. The group that had reinforcement every time gradually improved in the maze over time, and the group that had no reinforcement didn’t show much improvement over time. The group that had delayed reinforcement was the most interesting. They didn’t show much improvement in the first half of the experiment, but once they started being reinforced they ran in the maze much quicker. This showed that they were making a cognitive map of the maze, which is an internal representation of an external feature or landmark. This cognitive map was what helped them to run the maze so quickly after they started getting the reinforcements. Tolman argued that humans engage in latent learning every day as we walk or drive the same route to work or school. He says that we don’t notice that we are learning the locations of certain buildings along our usual route until we actually need to go to those places. He believed that we did this by making cognitive maps. For example, when thinking about the best or fastest way to get somewhere that we are familiar with, we can see the landmarks that are on that route without actually being there. Tolman thought that humans take in a large number of cues from the environment and we use these cues to make a mental image of the environment.
Tolman’s combination of behaviorism and Gestalt psychology led him to create his sign theory. He was one of the few psychologists that didn’t believe that behavior was as simple as a response to a stimulus. He believed that humans act on beliefs, attitudes, changing conditions, and work towards their goals. Tolman thought that behavior was holistic and purposeful. He thought that a behavior is not simply a response to a stimulus, but more like a cognitive coping with a pattern of stimuli. His sign theory states that there are three parts to learning that work together. These three parts are the goal of the action, the signal for action, and internal processes or relationships. Tolman believed that these three things combined could form cognitive maps, as described above. He also believed that the environment played a big role in behavior.
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/tolman.htm
This website had a lot of information about Tolman’s biography and his theories on learning.
http://www.simplypsychology.org/tolman.html
This website had information about the experiments on latent learning.
http://www.lifecircles-inc.com/Learningtheories/behaviorism/Tolman.html
This website talked about sign theory.
Edward C. Tolman, behaviorism, latent learning, science, philosophy, Gestalt psychology, motivation, William James, cognitive theory of learning, Clark Hull, Edward Thorndike, rat studies, reinforcement, cognitive map, environmental cues, sign theory, stimulus, response, goals
1) The subject that I would like to look further into is Edwin Guthrie. He was briefly mentioned in the chapter. When I think of behaviorism, what comes to my mind is Watson, Pavlov and Skinner. It was refreshing to read more about behaviorism, and learn some new faces. Even reading about Edward Tolman was interesting. This pertains to the chapter because he did help push behaviorism along. The main reasoning I wanted to know about him is because he is ‘new’ and he conducted an experiment with George P Horton with cats. Guthrie was not the only person to use cats as part of their experiments or theories. I also found Edward Thorndike’s cat puzzles boxes to be captivating and let’s not forget about Schrodinger’s cat.
2) The three main aspects that I would like to go over is to learn more about his life, to have a better understanding on his education and how he got to where he is mentioned in out text book and finally to see if he has any other contributions. I really have noticed a running them, I seem to find new or unmentioned people interesting. Why were they worthy enough to mention but not enough to give more of a detailed background?
3) The first thing I would like to discuss is about his life. He was born on January. 9, 1886, in Lincoln, Nebraska, he was one of five children. His mother was a schoolteacher, and his father owned a store that sold pianos and bicycles. Guthrie attributed his early success to when he had read Darwin’s, “Origin of Species and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals”. I find it funny how almost everything ends up coming back to Darwin or Descartes. He soon graduated at the early age of 17 after writing a senior thesis that argued "That both science and religion, being dependent on words, and words being symbols dependent for their meanings on the experience of their users and auditors, would have no chance at expressing Absolute Truth". His next step in his academic career was at University of Nebraska where he graduated with a master's degree specializing in mathematics, philosophy, and psychology. After that he went to the University of Pennsylvania as a Harrison fellow in 1912, and earned his doctorate. He went on to teach high school mathematics for 5 years. He was known as a behaviorist, he mainly focused on theory instead of research. In 1903 he published book called “The psychology of Learning”, it explained his theory on contiguity. He believed that contiguity lead to conditioning. He referred to it as “a combination of stimuli which has accompanied a movement will on its recurrence tend to be followed by a movement”. Basically that translates to that if a certain stimulus is followed by a movement, that same stimuli’s on a different occasion should still have the same movement. To help build his theory, Guthrie and Horton studied cats as they escaped out of puzzle boxes. The box had clear glass walls and a pole in the middle. Hitting the pole would open the box. The cat on the first trial, would hit the pole and escape. Since the first time it escaped it would continuously do so, this is called the one trial learning. This one trail theory went against Watson and his classical conditioning and skinners operant conditioning. Now he was also known for having some really odd ideas about forgetting and punishment. For forgetting he would argue that in reality memories never really faded away. Forgetting was just a new learning. For example if a teacher forgets its student’s names from a class last semester, it is because he has to make room for the students name in this new semester. He did not really have any other publications, he had a lot of writing, but his book on contiguity was the most known one. He was very vague, and his theory did not truly have any research to back it up. It was often based on ambiguous observation. I feel that Guthrie was truly a devil’s advocate to Watson and Skinner, which really helped the movement of behaviorism as a whole. I find that it is a running theme that someone, somewhere has this idea that they can prove or disprove the upcoming ideologies.
4) Urls: This website gave me a great timeline of events for Guthrie, it broke down how him and Horton conducted there experiment on one trail learning. http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/guthrie.htm
This website mostly focused on his life, from birth to death and his education. http://biography.yourdictionary.com/edwin-ray-guthrie
This website gave me information on the types of publications he made, and any other contributions he had made.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Ray_Guthrie
Terminology: Edwin Guthrie, contiguity, one trail learning, George P Horton, Schrodinger’s cat, Edward Thorndike, Behaviorism, Watson, Skinner, Pavlov, Edward Tolman.
1) The topic that I chose to research and look more into is Skinner’s approach to operant conditioning called shaping. I decided to go with this topic because I briefly learned about the term in my high school psychology class but we didn’t go into much detail about it. The chapter that we read this week talked about shaping and how Skinner used this technique on rats in his Skinner box and rewarded rats with food when they did something that related to a lever. He ultimately taught them how to press down the lever in order for them to get food. I wanted to know more about how the process of shaping works and the complexity of it all.
2) The three aspects I am going to talk about for this topic are what shaping is and how it works, how successive approximation works especially for complex behaviors, and examples of shaping, more specifically using shaping to train your dog. These elements are important to look into because it helps show why shaping is an effective way to perform operant conditioning, how it can work on complicated behaviors, and how to use it in everyday life.
3) As discussed earlier, in his operant conditioning experiments, Skinner would used an approach called shaping. Instead of rewarding only the target, or desired behavior, the process of shaping involves the reinforcement of successive approximations of the target behavior. The method requires that the subject perform behaviors that at first merely resemble the target behavior; through reinforcement, these behaviors are gradually changed, or shaped, to encourage the performance of the final target behavior itself. So as the subject moves through each behavioral trial, rewards for old, less approximate behaviors are discontinued in order to encourage progress toward the desired behavior. Shaping is useful because it is often unlikely that an individual or animal will display anything but the simplest of behaviors spontaneously. So this way, will lead the subject towards any type of behavior without confusion, or without waiting for them to do it on their own.
Shaping is a form of operant conditioning that uses successive approximation to help lead and modify the subjects behaviors towards the ultimate goal. These little steps towards the final desired behavior are what makes shaping one of the best ways when trying to reach a complicated or difficult target behavior. Successive approximation helps what could be a huge change in behavior or behavior desire outside of the norm become a more accessible behavior by building up to it. Few people succeed by going cold turkey and animals are highly unlikely to perform complex tasks on their own. Rather than looking at the final outcome as a major hurdle or difficulty, we see that breaking down the final desired behavior into smaller steps can increase the likelihood that the behavior will change.
Shaping is also a useful technique in human learning. For example, if a father wants his daughter to learn to clean her room, he can use shaping to help her master steps toward the goal. First, she cleans up one toy and is rewarded. The next steps may be that she cleans up five toys; then chooses whether to pick up ten toys or put her books and clothes away; then cleans up everything except a couple toys; and finally picks up and cleans her entire room. Through a series of rewards and small tasks that slowly get bigger, the daughter finally learns to clean her room like the father wanted.
One of the most common examples on the internet of shaping is the training of a dog to do a specific task such as learning verbal commands, becoming house-trained, or even fun things like fetching your shoes or picking up their toys. But one of the best videos that I saw was one of a dog being taught just the simple task of ringing a bell through successive approximation. The video clearly shows the steps that the owner takes when getting the dog to ring the bell. It starts out with the dog unsure of what he is doing, but when the pup acknowledges or basically looks at the bell on the floor, a clicker goes off, and he is given a treat. This continues for a while, until soon he is putting his nose down next to the bell which he receives treats for. Now placing his nose near the bell or even so much that he slides it across the floor a bit is what gets him a treat. When the dog just sits there and stares at the bell, he is not rewarded with a treat, so he goes back to interacting with the bell. He begins to hit it with his paw, which gets him some treats. After being rewarded for this behavior over and over again, his paw hits the bell ringing it, which the owner then showers the dog with treats because he has reached the final goal. It takes a few more tries but finally the dog learns that ringing the bell is the behavior he needs to emit in order to get treats. This was a really good example that shows exactly how the process of shaping works.
4) Links:
https://www.boundless.com/psychology/textbooks/boundless-psychology-textbook/learning-7/operant-conditioning-47/shaping-198-12733/
This link helped me understand more about shaping as operant conditioning, and what the process actually looks like
https://blog.udemy.com/successive-approximation/
This link helped me understand more about successive approximation and how the small steps are useful for complex behaviors
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0awwdWsDDug
This link gave me a great example of shaping being played out with a dog being taught how to ring a bell
Terms: Skinner, operant conditioning, shaping, Skinner Box, reward, reinforcement, behavior, target behavior, desired behavior, successive approximation, emit
1) Once you have completed your search and explorations, I would like you to say what your topic is, how exactly it fits into the chapter we have covered this week, and why you are interested in it.
I chose to research more about Edwin Guthrie and the works he has done. It fits into this chapter because he was the psychologist who studied one-trial learning and the contiguity theory. I am interested in this topic because I think it is remarkable that Guthrie made such a large impact by only producing one study during his career.
2) What are three aspects of the topic you want to talk about for this assignment?
The three aspects I am going to discuss are the contiguity theory, one-trial learning, and how Guthrie impacted the field of psychology.
3) Next, I would like you to take the information you found from the various sources and integrate/synthesize them into the three aspects of the topic, and then write about the topic.
Contiguity theory states there is a stimuli that has been paired with some sort of movement that will recur if the stimulus is presented in the future. Guthrie argued that stimuli and the response that followed some certain sensory-motor problems. He also argued that movements are learned, not the behaviors. In this theory, punishments and rewards do not have an effect of the learning process because they occur after the connection between the stimuli and response has be made. This theory also states that forgetting happens because of an inference, and not because of the amount of time that has passed. Stimuli can become associated with new response as time keeps passing. Conditioning that has already been learned can be changed by becoming associated with inhibitory response such as fatigue or fear. The application of this theory was intended to be a good learning theory. Even though Guthrie did most of his studies on animals, Guthrie was able to apply his theory to personality disorders. There are four main principles of this theory. The first theory is that in order for conditioning to occur, the organism must actively respond. The second theory is that since learning involves the conditioning of specific movements, instruction must present very specific tasks. The third theory is that exposure to many variations in the stimulus patterns is desirable in order to produce a generalized response. The fourth, and last principle is that the last response in a learning situation should be correct since it is the one that will be associated.
Guthrie was very much preoccupied with objectivity and the observable aspects of behavior. Guthrie believe that when learning a bond between the stimulus and response was made of the first time they occurred together. He stated that one habit could be replaced a more desirable one. He goes on to say that the old habit will not be forgotten, but just replaced. There are three methods in which a habit can be replaced. The first method is know as the fatigue method. This method states that after several repetitions an animal becomes so tired it can no longer produce the response it wants, therefore a new response will be formed. The second method is know as the threshold method. This method gradually introduces another version of the stimulus until the intensity of the stimulus can be tolerated without the undesirable response being elicited. The last method is know as the incompatible stimuli method. This method occurs when the animal is placed in a situation where it can not produce the undesirable response when the stimulus is presented.
Even though Guthrie only produced one experimental study in his career he is still considered one of the most important learning theorists of the twentieth century. Guthrie firmly believed that psychology should be the study of observable behavior that is measurable and subject to the correct experimental procedures. On top of this he also played a very critical role in the development of the contiguity learning theory.
4) Finally, at the end of your post, please include working URLs for the three websites. For each URL you have listed indicate why you chose the site and the extent to which it contributed to your post.
http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/contiguity-theory.html -- I used this website because it had good information about the contiguity theory.
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Edwin_Ray_Guthrie -- I used this website because it talked about the contribution that Guthrie made to the field of psychology.
http://www.lifecircles-inc.com/Learningtheories/behaviorism/guthrie.html -- I used this website because it gave me some very good information about the one-trial learning theory.
Terms: one-trial learning, Edwin Guthrie, stimulus, response, contiguity, learning theory, psychology, behavior, fatigue method, threshold method, incompatible stimuli method
What we would like you to do is to find a topic from what we have covered in this week's readings that you are interested in and search the internet for material on that topic. You might, for example, find people who are doing research on the topic, you might find web pages that discuss the topic, you might find youtube clips that demonstrates something related to the topic, etc. What you find and use is pretty much up to you at this point. But use at least 3 sources (only one video please and make sure it adds to the topic).
1) Once you have completed your search and explorations, I would like you to say what your topic is, how exactly it fits into the chapter we have covered this week, and why you are interested in it.
Edward Tolman
2) What are three aspects of the topic you want to talk about for this assignment?
• Early life
• Purposive behaviorism
• Goal directedness
3) Next, I would like you to take the information you found from the various sources and integrate/synthesize them into the three aspects of the topic, and then write about the topic.
Edward Tolman was a psychologist who was born and raised in Massachusetts. He came from an upper middle class status. His father was a president of a manufacturing company. He and his older brother were expected to continue this family business, although that did not happen. They both went to Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Edward first went for a degree in electrochemistry. He changed during his senior year deciding to become a philosopher. He eventually found he wasn’t smart enough for philosophy and he went with psychology instead. He attended Harvard as a philosophy and psychology graduate student. He moved to Germany to study for his PhD and that is where he came in contact with Gestalt psychology.
Tolman took behaviorism into his own hands. He decided that the theory of purpose was something to note along with Watson’s theory. He defined his purpose as being persistence until we define a purpose. He began his work with rats running through a maze. He found that the movements of the rats were persistent until the end-object was found. The end object meaning food. This is how he found the basic goal oriented idea. He found that by doing this, an organism will work hard until the goal is achieved. It then will stop what was needed to get to the goal and not start that act again until wanting the goal again.
4) Finally, at the end of your post, please include working URLs for the three websites. For each URL you have listed indicate why you chose the site and the extent to which it contributed to your post.
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/tolman.htm
This site gave me a simple idea of Tolman’s life. It stated how he started his life, his education, his accomplishments. It gave me a basic understanding of the connection of early life to his later life.
https://principlesoflearning.wordpress.com/dissertation/chapter-3-literature-review-2/the-cognitive-perspective/purposive-behaviorism-edward-chance-tolman-1922/
This site talked more specifically of purposive behaviorism. It went into more detail than what I learned in the book.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purposive_behaviorism
This site talked some on goal directedness. It was difficult to look into goal directedness but this site covered more of it while still touching on purposive behaviorism.
Next make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
• Tolman
• Purposive behaviorism
• Goal directedness
• Gestalt psychology
• Watson
1) The topic I’d like to discuss is misbehavior in organisms, or the instinctive drift.
2) The first aspect I’ll discuss is where this concept of misbehavior originated from and what the instinctive drift is, who came up with it and who they were. The second aspect I’d like to discuss is the study that the text book briefly touched on as well as the other findings of that study that support what was found. The third aspect I’d like to discuss is how this all fits into the chapter.
3) The instinctive drift is the behavior or an animal. The animal has learned a behavior, conditioned to learn, and eventually looses that ability due to going back to intuitive behavior. Despite reinforcements or punishers, the learned behavior deteriorates and goes back to the original behavior. Keller Breland and Marian Breland discovered this concept and published The Misbehavior of Organisms in 1961. The Breland’s had been former students of Burrhus Frederick Skinner. Keller Breland never actually got a PhD, he left school to become an animal trainer. He trained thousands of animals and was very good at it. He wrote an article that clearly attacked his former teacher 15 years after being Skinner’s student. The article written by the Breland’s it discusses the underlying problems or weaknesses that go with operant conditioning. It points out that behavior can’t be completely predicted or controlled. The first instance that they found the instinctive drift was with a chicken. It would turn on a jukebox and “dance.” The trainers wanted the chicken to dance longer but when they attempted to teach the chicken to do so, it would scratch more constantly and wouldn’t leave the dance floor. It would also begin to peck at the floor as if it were trying to eat. Scratching at the floor and pecking were instinct behaviors when looking for and eating food. Because the trainers tried getting the chicken to scratch the floor for longer intervals, it resorted back to its instinct behavior. With the raccoon, they trained it to put coins in a metal box with . When they added a second coin, the raccoon began rubbing the coins together. It also only dipped the coins in the bank rather than just dropping them in. This behavior was consistent with the instinct behavior of washing its food before consumption. The article goes on discuss multiple other cases where animals derived back to their instinctive behaviors. This all connects back to the chapter we had read. Conditioning in a sense had been disproved to a certain extent. What they had found in these cases wasn’t relatable to what had been found previous to the study. It was surprising to them at the time. It didn’t fit what they had known as behaviorism. The chapter mostly discusses researchers that supported it.
4) http://www.niu.edu/user/tj0dgw1/pdf/learning/breland.pdf
This website was the actual article that the book cites on.
http://www.intropsych.com/ch08_animals/instinctive_drift.html
This gave the definition of instinctive behavior.
http://clickandtreat.com/wordpress/?p=84
This gave background information on who Keller Breland was.
1) Once you have completed your search and explorations, I would like you to say what your topic is, how exactly it fits into the chapter we have covered this week, and why you are interested in it.
My topic this week is B.F. Skinner. He fits into the chapter because of his idea of operant conditioning. I am interested in learning more about Skinner because his theory of operant conditioning is interesting. I want to know more about the theory and how we have applied it to our everyday lives. I would also like to learn more about Skinner when he was growing up and what kind of influence he has had on society today.
2) What are three aspects of the topic you want to talk about for this assignment?
Three aspects of the topic that I will talk about are Skinners early life and education, his operant conditioning theory, and his impact on today’s society.
3) Next, I would like you to take the information you found from the various sources and integrate/synthesize them into the three aspects of the topic, and then write about the topic.
Skinner was born in Pennsylvania in 1904. His father was a lawyer and his mother was a stay at home mother. He attended Hamilton College in New York with the goal of becoming a writer. He joined a fraternity and also wrote for the school paper. In 1926 he received his B.S. in English literature. After graduating from Hamilton he decided to go study at Harvard. While at Harvard Fred Keller convinced him that he could make a science out of studying behavior. This lead him to create tools that he would use for experiments, his most famous was the Skinner box. After he graduated from Harvard Skinner returned home to write a novel. His novel would fail and Skinner would refer to that year as the Dark year. He read Watsons book on behaviorism and that is what got him into the study of psychology. In 1931 Skinner received his PhD from Harvard. He stayed as a researcher at Harvard until 1936. He then went on to teach at the University of Minnesota and later at Indiana University. He returned to Harvard in 1948 as a professor. He remained at Harvard for the rest of his career. Skinner died of leukemia in 1990. A few days before his death he was given the lifetime achievement award by the American Psychological Association. He was also able to deliver a 15 minute speech at the award ceremony talking about his life’s work.
Skinner believed that classical conditioning was too simplistic to explain all complex human behaviors. This lead skinner to come up with a theory to describe the other events. Skinner believed that the best way to look at behavior was to look at the causes of an action and look at the consequences of that action. He called this approach operant conditioning. He used the term operant because it describes actions that have an effect on the environment. Skinner wanted to know what would make some operant behaviors more predictable. Skinner would test his theory in boxes that came to be known as Skinner boxes. He adapted Thorndike’s puzzle boxes to fit his study. What he did was put a pigeon in the box and would have a target for the pigeon to peck at. If the pigeon pecked the target it was rewarded with food. Skinner realized that when the behavior was reinforced it began to happen more frequently. He also realized that if a behavior was not reinforced it would become extinct. He called this theory the Law of Effect. Skinner also coined three other terms; neutral operants, reinforcers, and punishers. Neutral operants were things that happened in the environment that would neither strengthen nor diminish a response. Reinforcers were rewards received from a certain behavior and would increase the likelihood of the behavior. Punishers were negative responses from the environment that would decrease the likelihood a behavior was repeated. Skinner was also interested in the schedule of reinforcement. He made it so that when the pigeon would peck the target it would have to do it so many times before it would receive the reward or the reward was on a time clock. He had many different ways of scheduling the reinforcement. He used continuous reinforcement, fixed ratio reinforcement, fixed interval reinforcement, variable ratio reinforcement, and variable interval reinforcement. Continuous reinforcement was a reward for every successful attempt. Fixed ratio reinforcement was after the behavior had occurred a certain number of times the reward was then received. Fixed interval reinforcement was after a certain amount of time the reward was given after a successful behavior. Variable ratio reinforcement was when behavior was rewarded after a random number of times. Variable interval reinforcement was when a behavior was rewarded after a random number of time passed. While using these different variables Skinner would analyze the response rate and extension rate of the animal. The response rate was how hard the animal would try to get the food. The extinction rate was how quickly the animal would give up. He noticed that each different variable would produce different rates of response and extension. Because of these experiments Skinner thought it would be possible to shape and modify behavior of humans.
Skinner has made a valuable contribution to today’s society. Because of his work with operant conditioning we know how to shape certain behaviors in animals and even humans. For example you can use his operant conditioning theory to train a dog to do behaviors that you want it to do. Also his theory produced the reward system that you see at the casinos. The casino gaming systems have adapted his research and made it useful to shape human behavior to play their games. We also see Skinners work being used in advertisement. Different advertisements use his theory to shape people’s behavior to make them more apt to buy their products. Skinner made a huge contribution to psychology by coming up with the operant conditioning theory. I believe that if Skinner didn’t come up with the theory someone else would have. Skinners idea of operant conditioning is still widely talked about and used in today’s society.
4) Finally, at the end of your post, please include working URLs for the three websites. For each URL you have listed indicate why you chose the site and the extent to which it contributed to your post.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner this site helped with his early life and his contribution to today’s society.
http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html this site helped with his theory of operant conditioning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_ctJqjlrHA this site helped with his theory of operant conditioning.
- B.F. Skinner, operant conditioning, Watson, American Psychological Association, classical conditioning, Skinner boxes, puzzle boxes, Thorndike, Law of Effect, neutral operants, reinforcers, punishers, continuous reinforcement, fixed ratio reinforcement, fixed interval reinforcement, variable ratio reinforcement, and variable interval reinforcement.
1) The topic that I wanted to discuss for this blog was Guthrie and his ideas on educational learning. This fits into the chapter this week because there was a big section talking about Guthrie and his explorations with learning. I found this to be interesting because Guthrie is not someone I had previously learned much about in other classes so it was a topic I knew I would be able to find new information about that I had not previously known.I have learned a lot about Watson and Skinner in previously classes and their contributions to psychology, but I thought it would be more interesting to learn about Guthrie since it would be a lot of new information and contributions I did not know as much about.
2) Three aspects I want to talk about for this topic are contiguity theory, one-trial learning, and also some of the criticisms of Guthrie and his impacts to psychology.
3) Guthrie was a psychologist that came at a time after Watson and helped revolutionize psychology even more. Guthrie developed a learning theory in the 1930s discussing the concept of contiguity. This theory discusses experiencing things in combination. Guthrie said that all learning was done through pairing stimulus and response and associating the two. He said that in this theory rewards and punishment made no difference. He talked about stimulus and movement, saying that if a stimulus and movement occur in close proximity that is what is needed to learn. Although many believed this theory to be too simple, Guthrie felt that it was accurate. This contiguity theory was a theory Guthrie made for the general theory of learning. He did apply this a lot to animals and later on tried to apply it to personality disorders as well. Four principles of this theory that Guthrie developed were that in order for something to be conditioned the organism must be able to respond, the instructions must be very specific tasks, many variations in stimulus can lead to a generalized response, and finally that the last response in a learning situation will be the one associated. Guthrie's primary focus in psychology was more about theory rather than research. Only one of the things he was noted for in psychology was actually done through research. This was his study of cats and their escaping behaviors in connection with his theory of contiguity. Guthrie and his partner Horton studied cats in puzzle boxes. They watched as the cats tried to escape from this box, a box that had clear walls with a pole in the center. Guthrie was able to photograph the movements of the cats by having a camera near the box. If the cat touched any part of the pole in the middle of the box, a door would open and the cat could escape (as well as a picture would be taken.) Once the cat escaped from the box and was put back, the cat would do the same movement in order to escape. Guthrie concluded that learning had occurred and that this learning only took one-trial. This developed into Guthrie's theory of one-trial learning. Guthrie did not believe in the idea of frequency or trial-and-error learning. He thought that because the cat escaped the first time and then repeated the behavior again, the cat learned from simply doing something one time. Although many other psychologists believed that learning required multiple times of doing something or needed reinforcement, Guthrie disagreed and said a strong association could be formed from even just one time of doing something. Guthrie said that reinforcement was unrelated because it was a new stimulus being presented. Similarly, he said that reinforcement occurred after a behavior had happened already so it was not related to the learning that occurred. Guthrie also believed that punishment was not an effective motivator or reason for learning. He said that punishment would encourage a different or new response but did not work simply because of the punishment itself. Another aspect of Guthrie's idea of learning was the idea that we do not truly forget things. Guthrie believed that memories and forgetting involved a new type of learning. If a new stimulus occurs then there is a reason for the past stimulus response to go away. He describes this with professors learning names of students but then those names leaving their memory once new students come into a classroom and they learn those names. He said that if a stimulus and response pair is not experienced for a long time it can still be remembered. The only time that this would change is if the stimulus response pair is swapped with a new stimulus or broken apart. He also discussed how breaking bad habits involved pairing the stimulus with a new behavior rather than just trying to stop any behaviors associated with it. One example would be addiction or someone eating too much. If they always pair watching TV with eating food they have to start to pair watching TV with some other response, such as painting their nails or doing something else at the same time. Another important aspect of Guthrie is the criticisms of his theory and methodology. Guthrie, as I mentioned, was a man who did not believe in research or heavy experimentation on ideas. Many psychologists and others at the time argued that Guthrie's theories and ideas were much too vague and did not really describe processes in enough detail or depth. Similarly, Guthrie did not define his terms very well and made it very difficult for his theory to be tested or prove falsifiable. Guthrie did not explain in his theory why behaviors occur originally at all. His cat box experiment was also heavily criticized because many believed that a cat would naturally rub against a pole which would cause them to be able to escape, and that this did not occur because the cat knew to do so in order for a door to open. His theory of contiguity was also challenged frequently because humans often behave differently in different situations. Guthrie's theory seemed to say that if something was learned it would be repeated and there would be learning and a strong association. This does not apply very well to humans, however, because humans often do not do the same thing over and over even if they have been in a situation previously and knew that behavior would work there.
4) http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/contiguity-theory.html - This website was able to provide information on the contiguity theory and different aspects of it.
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/guthrie.htm - This website also gave more information on contiguity as well as his cat puzzle box experiment and some background information on Guthrie.
http://www.lifecircles-inc.com/Learningtheories/behaviorism/guthrie.html - This website gave additional information as well as discussing many of the criticisms about Guthrie and his research.
5) Guthrie, one-trial learning, contiguity theory, behaviorism, Watson, Skinner, stimulus, response, association, cat puzzle box
1. Edwin Guthrie stressed that contiguity was key to learning. There are a variety of learning theories around today, but I would like to discuss particularly this theme of continuity according to Guthrie and also his one-trial learning theory as well. This chapter not only discusses the evolution of behaviorism and how it has been established, but also learning theories that come with it. These psychologists such as Guthrie expanded on Watson’s ideas of behaviorism in many different, and productive ways. I think it is important to note what these psychologists have done with behaviorism and learning theories in order to understand why behaviorists think it is important to take this route in studying people. The reason I am so interested in Guthrie’s work much more than others mentioned in the chapter, is because I do not necessarily agree with his ideas, particularly his one-trial learning theory. Yet, it is important to see both sides to everything. He might be correct in some stances, but incorrect in others, and that’s why I would like to discuss his work and contributions.
2. Guthrie stressed contiguity, so he obviously thought it was very important when it comes to learning. Contiguity means experiencing things together. His idea is that if we experience things together, we can use association as a learning strategy.
Edwin Guthrie was a man who did not do much work in the field, but one experiment he performed was a cat puzzle box, which illustrated one-trial learning. It is important to note that he didn’t get involved much with experiments, but when he did this one time, it ended up being a very important aspect to the field of psychology.
Lastly, I would like to discuss other’s thoughts about Guthrie and his work. We know he had to have some impact on psychology or he wouldn’t be mentioned in a psychology textbook. But, was his work really worth mentioning? How much did it actually contribute to psychology? And, was he wrong or right with his ideas? Did his methods work?
3.The idea of contiguity states that “a combination of stimuli which has accompanied a movement will on its recurrence tend to be followed by that movement.” (Goodwin, p.307) This is really basic actually if you think about it. If a stimulus occurs and is followed by a movement, the movement is likely to occur again if the stimulus also occurs again. So, we learn by experiencing things together. It relates to Watson’s little albert study because the stimulus which is a tone, is accompanied by a movement, this movement is the fear of the toddler. So, yes I agree that we learn things together. If you put your hand on a hot stove, it will result in a movement of moving your hand away. If these two things occur together again, the same reaction will occur. An interesting thing that I learned that was not in the textbook was that Guthrie did most of his studies with animals, so can we even apply this to humans? I think we can. He did apply this particular framework with personality disorders. This idea of contiguity is supposed to be applied to learning theories, and I think it is a great way to learn. We learn from our mistakes, which then in turn condition us to not make those mistakes again, like putting your hand on a hot stove.
As we know, Guthrie did not have much to do with field work and experiments. But, one study he did participate in dealt with cats trying to escape a puzzle box. Guthrie had the idea that we can learn by doing something one time, that we can figure a problem by attempting it once. I do not necessarily believe this. I think we have instincts that would contribute to solving a problem in one trial, but there is no way we can learn something in one try if we have not background knowledge or instinct. The cats in his experiment got out of the box in one try because of instinct, they did what was natural to them. “Flank rubbing”, is something that cats do to greet something or someone. So, I do not think this can be applied at all to humans because there are always factors that contribute to learning something once. It just does not happen.
Indeed, Guthrie has made major contributions to psychology dealing with behaviorism and learning theories. His theory of contiguity I believe was important and did make sense. On the other hand, his thoughts of one-trial learning were not appealing to me because we cannot really apply it to humans. I’m sure if he tested other species he would have different results, but because he only experimented with cats, I don’t think we can use this theory in real life.
4. www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/contiguity-theory.html
This website was very useful because I found out a lot of things about Guthrie that were not mentioned in the book, so this helped me elaborate in more detail his thoughts and ideas of leaning theories.
psychnet.apa.org/books/11178/008
This article was very useful. It discussed in more detail how one-trial learning is applied and why it can be useful, and also the cons of using this theory.
www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psychweb/history/guthrie.htm
This provided me with a more detailed biography of Guthrie, and this helped me to understand his work better, and why he thoughts was he thought.
5.Edwin Guthrie, Behaviorism, John Watson, One-Trial Learning, Contiguity
1). I am going to talk about skinners inventions for my topical blog this week. This relates into this weeks reading because we talked about skinner and operant conditioning in this chapter. Skinners research is very interesting; I think his inventions make up a large part of his research. His inventions are very interesting and they weren’t discussed as much in the reading. I would like to learn more about these main inventions and research done with different areas of skinners work in psychology
2). The three topics that I am going to talk about in this blog are the Skinner Box, Skinner Air Crib, and the cumulative recorder. These topics grabbed my attention when I was reading about skinners research online doing the research for this blog.
3). The Skinner Air Crib was invented in 1944 when skinner was having his second child. The air crib is a climate-controlled environment to make the newborns experience better and easier on the parents. Back then keeping a child warm but not to warm was the biggest priority and the air crib was supposed to help with that. The air crib consisted of metal walls, a ceiling, a safety glass pane where you would slide it to let the baby in and out, and a canvas base that was the bed with sheets. There was a control box that the parents used to control the temperature and the humidity inside the crib. The cribs were commercially made after Skinner tested it using his own child. It was believed then that this crib was superior to the alternative cribs. The crib was thought to be an experiment and no commercial company would get behind the movement because of the potential risk of bad publicity. There were some strong positives related to the crib the air crib never really took off because of the speculations between using it as an experiment and people associated it with the Skinner box. The Skinner box is chamber in which there is a key that the animal within can manipulate to produce reinforcement such as food or water. The size of the boxes can range depending on the size of the animal being used for the research. The purpose of the box is to let the researcher observe and study animal behaviors in controlled environments. Skinner developed this box while he was researching operant behavior and reinforcement schedules. He also used this to test positive reinforcement. He also created the cumulative recorder while he was researching schedules of reinforcement. The cumulative recorder is designed to examine the how rate of responding varies over time with different schedules of reinforcement. This recorder created automatically a type of graph that he named the cumulative record. How it works is every time there is a response the pen movies vertical one small notch while the pen moves slowly across the paper horizontally. All the vertical movements of the pen symbolize all the responses; the horizontal lines on represent the time between each response. The pen movement and the movement of the paper under the pen at the same time causes a line that directly indicates the rate of response. Steeper slopes indicate the higher rate shallower slopes indicate lower rates.
4). Skinner, Skinner box, operant chamber, cumulative recorder, Skinner Air Crib, reinforcement schedules, positive reinforcement cumulative record.
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/observer/2010/september-10/skinner-air-crib.html
This link really helped me learn about the skinner air bed and it was very easy to understand and I learned a lot about the skinner air crib that I didn’t know before I read about it on this website.
http://psychology.about.com/od/sindex/g/def_skinnerbox.htm
This link really helped me find out about the Skinner box I didn’t know much about it and it did a really good job explaining things and it really helped me expand my knowledge. It really helped me build this topical blog and learn more about Skinner.
http://users.ipfw.edu/abbott/120/Schedules.html
This link really helped me learn about the cumulative recorder and it did a great job explaining it with out being to complex. It also gave me good information to learn more about skinner and reinforcement outside of what I needed for this blog.
My topic is over ABE/IQ Zoo and how it grew into the training that we see in modern day Sea
how exactly it fits into the chapter we have covered this week
Why was it interesting to me?
It was of interest to me in part, because i find animal training interesting, and what they trained some animals to do sounded like it would be fun to watch and learn how to do.
What are three aspects of the topic you want to talk about for this assignment?
What Keller and Marian Breland accomplished in their training of animals.
The struggles they faced with the training
How their techniques used with Marianland of the Pacific translated over to modern day Sea World.
Using the techniques Keller and Marian Breland learned from Skinner, they trained animals to do things not normally in their behavior. They called their “business” Applied Behavior Enterprise (ABE). It started out small, teaching chickens to dance and role woden eggs into a basket for an advertisement. After this, Applied Behavior Enterprise took off, so to speak. They went from chickens to teaching a pig to turn on a radio, vacuum, and get her favorite food. From the pig it went back to chickens for a bit getting them to walk a tightrope,” “The IQ Zoo housed chickens that walked tightropes, dispensed souvenirs to paying customers, danced to music, and played baseball. Rabbits kissed their girlfriends, rode fire trucks, sounded sirens, and rolled wheels of fortune. Ducks played drums and pianos, while raccoons played basketball...Marian applied operant conditioning to over 150 species.” Later would come their most remembered feat, dolphins and working with Marianland of the Pacific after which Sea World (for which you may love, hate or have no opinion) is modeled after. They even had a chicken so good at tic-tac-toe that Skinner could not even beat it. All of this was done through operant conditioning which Keller and Marian Breland learned from Skinner and Project Pigeon.
Now even with everything they accomplished there were some behaviors they could not condition certain animals to do, contrary to what their previous optimistic research said. These cases were found when trying to condition an animal into doing something that reflected or interfered with their natural instincts. In such a situation their instincts would take over no matter how much conditioning went into trying to override this. They called this Instinctive Drift. “Although humans, animals, etc., can learn to perform different behaviors, there are times when they stop performing those behaviors in the way they learned and start reverting back to their more instinctual behaviors - this is the basic premise of Instinctual Drift. The animal no longer performs the behaviors it has been taught, but goes back to behaviors that are in its nature. It begins to do what it is driven to do regardless of the resulting punishment.” Sure this did limit them a little in what they could train the animals to do, but realizing this allowed them to consider the limitations of operant conditioning. This was first brought to their attention when trying to condition a raccoon to pick up a coin and put it in a piggy bank, which they could get it to do, but when they tried to get it to do more than one coin they couldn’t get around an instinct known as a washing responce. Which is an instinct for the Raccoon to rub crayfish together to remove the shells which it was compelled to do once it had two or more coins. This ruined their idea of the Raccoon as an exhibit putting his “loot” into a piggy bank as a raccoon is often called a little bandit.
Operant Conditioning is used at Sea World even today in their animal training some 80 years later. At SeaWorld they use Operant Conditioning by conditioning the animals with positive, negative, and scheduled reinforcement to influence the behaviors they desire or extinguish (to a certain effect) the behaviors they deem undesirable. Positive reinforcement at SeaWorld can include food, prase, tactile stimulation, and mating opportunities. Negative Reinforcements include things like sounds that are of equal annoyance as a baby crying that only stop when the desired behavior is demonstrated, this is not punishment, as that requires giving an unfavorable consequence. Scheduled reinforcement have to occur on certain schedules in order to maintain the desired behavior: those four schedules are Fixed interval, Fixed ratio, Variable interval, and Variable ratio. F.R. is when the reinforcement happens after a fixed amount of behavior displays, such as every four displays of the desired behavior you get a fish. F.I. is when the reinforcement happens after a fixed amount of time, you get one fish for every fifteen minutes of continued good behavior. V.I. is when the behavior is experienced over time and is reinforced at random intervals. V.R. reinforcement happens after a varying number of behavior displays, so the animal never knows when it will or will not be reinforced for its behavior.
ABE, IQ Zoo, Skinner ,Project Pigeon, Instinctive Drift, Fixed interval, Fixed ratio, Variable interval, Variable ratio,Operant Conditioning,positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, scheduled reinforcement
URLs for the three websites-
http://www3.uca.edu/iqzoo/iqzoo.htm
this is what is left of the IQ Zoo with pictures of their original Exhibits.
http://seaworld.org/animal-info/animal-infobooks/animal-training/animal-training-basics/
this shows SeaWorld's way of training still relies heavily on operant conditioning when training their animals.
http://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Instinctual%20Drift#ixzz3rDdRzY8X
this provided an excellent explanation of instinctual drift, and made the concept easier to comprehend
1) One topic that I found interesting is the use of the Skinner box and its demonstration of operant conditioning. This topic fits into the chapter because one of the sections of the chapter involved B.F. Skinner and his creation of both operant conditioning and his use of the Skinner box. I am interested in this topic because operant conditioning is one of my favorite aspects of psychology and behavior modification. I think its applicability to real life situations and the way that Skinner was able to demonstrate this phenomenon is fascinating.
2) Three aspects of this topic that I would like to discuss are; what exactly operant conditioning means, what the Skinner box is and what it demonstrates, and the real world applicability to this idea.
3) Operant conditioning is an advancement of behavior modification created by B.F. Skinner. His idea of operant conditioning is that behavior can be predicted to occur more or less in the future given the consequence that the subject experience. The types of consequences can be narrowed down to reinforcement, punishment, or extinction. There are two types of reinforcement and punishment; positive and negative. For positive, something is introduced to the subject after the behavior has occurred. For positive reinforcement there is an addition such as money or food which will encourage the behavior to occur more in the future. Positive punishment would be something like an electroshock which will most likely decrease the behavior in the future. The other side of the coin to this is negative reinforcement and punishment. This is when something is taken away from the situation. For reinforcement something negative is taken away such as something uncomfortable or painful. Thus the behavior will occur more in the future if every time the behavior occurs something negative is removed. For negative punishment, something positive is taken away from the subject, things such as money or TV privileges. Another consequence is extinction. This is when a behavior that was previously reinforced no longer becomes reinforced. Once this behavior is no longer reinforced, the behavior will no longer occur or become extinct. Taking Skinner’s rat for an example, if every time the rat pressed the lever it received a food pellet then at a certain point it no longer received any food, the rats behavior of pressing the lever will no longer occur since it is no longer being reinforced. The way Skinner demonstrated this idea was the use of what he called a Skinner box The Skinner box is much like a Thorndike puzzle box in the sense that they were both boxes in which an animal was placed inside and the purpose was to demonstrate some type of behavior or learning. In Skinner’s case this box had a floor which had the ability to shock the rat inside if Skinner wanted to administer punishment. It also had a lever or bar which when pressed food was dispensed thus reinforcing the behavior. It also contained lights and a loud speaker. The purpose of these was to train the rat to omit the behavior of pressing the lever after certain bell tones or when a certain light turned on. If the rat pressed the lever at a time other than a specific one that Skinner intended then the rat would not receive any food. If the rat pressed the lever after a specific amount of bell tones or when a certain color light turned on then the rat would receive food. As discussed before Skinner used the food to reinforce the rat’s behavior and the electroshock to punish behavior. One concept that Skinner also coined the concept of scheduled reinforcement. This is when reinforcement is not given every time the behavior is exhibited but rather at different intervals or at random points in time. So say the rat would normally press the lever and receive food, with scheduled reinforcement the rat would have to press the lever 5 times to receive a food pellet or once the lever is pressed the rat would not receive food for a certain amount of time. What Skinner found with this is that a behavior will take a slower amount of time to go extinct if there is a schedule of reinforcement rather than continuous reinforcement. This is the case because if a subject is rewarded every time a behavior is demonstrated then they will continue to demonstrate that behavior due to the reinforcement but if that reinforcement is then removed, the subject will quickly stop demonstrating that behavior. For schedules of reinforcement however, the amount of time for a behavior to go extinct is much less. This is because the subject is not being reinforced each time the behavior is demonstrated. This means that if it does not happen at a specific time then the subject is still likely to demonstrate that behavior because they know at a certain point they will receive that reinforcement. As interesting at this concept is, it does not really show much if it cannot be applied into real life scenarios. One way this can be applied is parenting. As parents you expect certain types of behaviors out of your child. As cruel and basic as it sounds, you can condition your child to demonstrate desirable behaviors and extinguish undesirable behaviors with reinforcement and punishment. If your child is acting up or demonstrating undesirable behaviors you can punish them either positively or negatively by either adding a negative consequence to the behavior or taking something positive away. By doing this right away and consistently the child will soon learn not to demonstrate that behavior. On the other hand, reinforcing desirable behaviors will increase those behaviors. It can be something as simple as an atta boy to as grand as buying them a car. Another applicable situation is the pay schedule of employees. The best application to this is the schedule or reinforcement. Depending on how you set up your schedule, the more or less likely your employees will continue to work without receiving the reinforcement.
4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning#Concepts_and_procedures
This website helped explain what operant conditioning was and broke it down so I was better able to understand it.
http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html
This site was able to give me real life examples of how this concept can be applied and elaborated on schedules or reinforcement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber
This site helped explain how the Skinner box was set up and the purpose of it.
Terms: B.F. Skinner, Skinner box, Thorndike puzzle box, positive and negative reinforcement, positive and negative punishment, extinction, behavior, operant conditioning, behavior modification,
1) Once you have completed your search and explorations, I would like you to say what your topic is, how exactly it fits into the chapter we have covered this week, and why you are interested in it.
Edwin Guthrie, he was a major focal point in chapter 11.
2) What are three aspects of the topic you want to talk about for this assignment?
His early life, history, and what he studied.
3) Next, I would like you to take the information you found from the various sources and integrate/synthesize them into the three aspects of the topic, and then write about the topic.
Edwin Guthrie was born in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1886, which I found very exciting as I am a huge Nebraska fan and love Lincoln. His father owned a store selling pianos and bicycles and his mother was a school teacher. He has stated that his theories started early on after he and his friend read Darwin’s Origin of Species and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals while they were in eighth grade. He then graduated when he was 17 after he wrote his senior thesis in which he argued “that both science and religion, being dependent on words, and words being symbols dependent for their meanings on the experience of their users and auditors, would have no chance at expressing absolute truth.” Guthrie obtained his degree in mathematics and then received his degree in philosophy, both at the University of Nebraska (Go Big Red). He credited the university with helping him pursue his varied interests because "the university had none of the present apparatus of required courses and set curricula. This freedom made possible the inclusion of courses in both Latin and Greek which had been begun in high school; mathematics through calculus."After he completed his masters he taught math at several high schools, while he worked on his doctorate in Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. After he received his doctorate he was hired as an instructor in the department of philosophy at the University of Washington. It wasn’t until five years later that he moved to the psychology department. He received the winner of second gold medal awarded by the APA for outstanding lifetime contributions, which included the areas of the philosophy of science, abnormal psychology, social psychology, educational psychology and learning theory.
Guthrie’s law of contiguity states that a combination of stimuli which has accompanied a movement will on its recurrence tend to be followed by that movement. He said that all learning is based on a stimulus-response association. Movements are small stimulus- response combinations. These movements make up an act. A learned behavior is a series of movements. It takes time for the movements to develop into an act. He believed that learning is incremental. Some behavior involves repetition of movements and what is learned are movements, not behaviors. Guthrie stated that each movement produces stimuli and the stimuli then become conditioned. Every motion serves as a stimulus to many sense organs in muscles, tendons and joints. Stimuli which are acting at the time of a response become conditioners of that response. Movement-produced stimuli have become conditioners of the succession of movements. The movements form a series often referred to as a habit. Our movements are often classified as forms of conditioning or association. Some behavior involves the repetition of movements, so that conditioning can occur long after the original stimulus.
Guthrie argued on philosophical grounds that the simple association in time of an external stimulus and a behavioral response was sufficient for an animal or human subject to connect the two mentally. This view contrasted with that of other psychologists who felt that some form of reinforcement, either positive or negative, was necessary to establish the association between stimulus and response. Guthrie also denied the reinforcement theorists’ contention that the association must be repeated several times before it is established as a behavioral pattern; on the contrary, only a single incident was enough for the association to be learned, he argued. Guthrie gathered experimental data to support his theory and presented his views in The Psychology of Learning (1935).
4) Finally, at the end of your post, please include working URLs for the three websites. For each URL you have listed indicate why you chose the site and the extent to which it contributed to your post.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Ray_Guthrie
This site gave me information on his early life, high school and college years.
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/guthrie.htm
This site provided me with more early life information and also information on his theories.
http://www.britannica.com/biography/Edwin-Ray-Guthrie
This site provided me with information on his theories.
This week I chose to do further research on B.F. Skinner and some of his contributions that weren’t so prominently featured in the textbook. This man is extremely important to the history of behaviorism as he was the first to coin the term operant conditioning, with operant meaning a behavior operates based on the environment. His contributions were far and wide with most psychology students recognizing the famous Skinner box. However, I was interested in delving further into the history to see if there was anything not mentioned by the author of our text but is useful to know in the history of psychology. And low and behold, I found much more information about this remarkable, if quirky, man we call B.F. Skinner. First, I discovered some more information which builds on the operant conditioning discussion we covered this week which relates to behavior shaping and behavior modification. Secondly, I was fascinated by some of the lesser known inventions and experiments conducted by Skinner some of which we briefly learned about, some of which weren’t mentioned at all. This includes Project Pigeon, the air crib, the teaching box, and the verbal summator. Finally, I wanted to explore one of Skinner’s famous novels, Walden Two, further and look into the implications it had and continues to have on society.
Two topics not discussed in our text but which relate very much to the study of behaviorism are behavior shaping and behavior modification. Both of these ideas were developed by B.F. Skinner and are important in understand psychology as they continue to be used today. The first of these, behavior shaping, is the act of producing a desired behavior by rewarding any small act close to that behavior and then continuing to reward any act that comes closer to the desired behavior. Before long, the behavior will come closer and closer to what you want it to be. This can be seen today in a type of therapy for phobias known as systematic desensitization. If an individual is scared of heights, you produce many scenarios which spark this fear. This could be just thinking about a high place, to climbing one step on a ladder, to going to the roof of a very tall building, and maybe finally bungee jumping off a bridge. A therapist then teaches the individual ways to reduce anxiety when put in these situations with the ultimate goal of eliminating the fear of heights altogether. Each step towards that goal is rewarded until the final goal, elimination of the fear, is achieved. Behavior modification is a second important aspect of behaviorism which is used in many areas of society including many institutions. Instead of rewarding each successive step toward a desired behavior, the individual is negatively reinforced for a certain behavior while positively reinforced for another. Eventually, the “bad” behavior is changed (modified) and a “good” behavior is left in its place. An example of this is a token system in a school. If a child is constantly yelling at you to get your attention and instead you would like them to raise their hand (you want to modify the attention-getting behavior), then the child may be given slips of paper with “points” on them when they raise their hand and these pieces of paper may be taken away if they yell at you. The “points” may then be redeemed at the end of the week for a small prize. Eventually, you will see the child replace the undesired behavior with the more socially acceptable one. Both of these phenomena as discussed by Skinner continue to be important in the most practical everyday situations.
In addition to his production of a theory and various phenomena related to behaviorism, Skinner also developed many useful devices or mechanisms in the process of his research. One of these mechanisms was the use of pigeons to direct missiles in what came to be known as Project Pigeon. Skinner believed that pigeons were even better subjects than rats and trained them to perform many different tasks. In this use of the bird, Skinner was able to get the pigeon to peck at a dot on a screen thousands of times in an hour. His theory was that if they saw an incoming dot (missile) they could peck at a screen which would then guide the missile in one direction or another to intercept the enemy fire. Despite this promising application of conditioning, the military never actually used Skinner’s technology, but it is useful in recognizing practical applications; different animals can be trained to perform highly specialized tasks using reinforcement. The following three devices were not mentioned in the text but reflect Skinner’s constant experimentation with different technologies and never-ending desire to improve society around him. He invented what was known as the “air-crib” which was a climate controlled crib for babies which he thought would lead them not to wake up as much at night. Skinner also created what is called the teaching box. This teaching box was a tutor of sorts which presented information to the student and would then require a response. The child would not be allowed to move onto the next set of information until they passed the current stage. Hints were given along the way and the child was rewarded for any response close to the correct response until they reached the right answer. Although this invention is not, of course, used in classrooms today, there are many learning programs (computer games, programs, or apps) which still use this type of reinforcement to teach students different information. Finally, one of the lesser known contributions Skinner made was the verbal summator. In effect, this was an auditory inkblot test. Individuals thus listened to a sound and then said whatever came to mind as a way to assess subconscious thoughts. Although minor, all of these projects have contributed to the realm of psychology as we know it.
The final topic I explored related to B.F. Skinner was his novel, Walden Two. This book was based off od Henry David Thoreau’s Walden and featured a utopian society based in part on operant conditioning. Skinner believed that with the knowledge of how behavior worked and the ability to control it, it was possible to create a utopian society. Like many utopian societies, Walden Two relates a story about individuals simply working to create the most ideal form of living with a focus on health, wealth, and wisdom. Many of the ideas seen in Skinner’s Walden Two continue to persist today even if they are slightly modified. Society is constantly seeking ways to better its health, and this does not simply mean physical health but also mental, community, and environmental health. All four of these elements were present in Skinner’s utopia as citizens of this community worked to provide time for exercise and nutritious meals, made use of one’s skills in their work to make it meaningful and made time for leisure activities to reduce psychological stress, encouraged cooperation among members of the community, and exhibited sustainable practices. In terms of wealth, that is something which our society continues to struggle with. In Walden Two, as in many utopias, wealth was equally distributed to all members of the community to ensure a reasonable standard of living for all. Today programs exist to help those in financial need to reduce the amount of poverty monetarily and by connecting individuals with resources to help them out of poverty (getting a job, affordable healthcare). Thus, although not all wealth goes to a common pool to then be distributed equally, we still see evidence of the desire to maintain a standard of living above the poverty line for all. Finally, in Walden Two, there is an emphasis on knowledge by offering an equal education for all and encouraging continued research into ways to improve the society. This is still a priority in the United States today as is evidenced in such recent movements in education like No Child Left Behind and the Common Core. IEP were developed to help those with learning disabilities get an equal education. And training is present in many jobs to enhance the knowledge of employees. Thus, although utopian societies certainly don’t exist in very many places, we find evidence of those societies, like the one in Walden Two, even today.
http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/skinner.html
This website gave me great information and modern-day examples of behavior shaping and modification.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/bf-skinner-the-man-who-taught-pigeons-to-play-ping-pong-and-rats-to-pull-levers-5363946/
From this website, I was able to gain information about some of Skinner’s less well-known contributions such as the air-crib, teaching box, and verbal summator.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2778813/
This link gave a critical review of the elements present in Walden Two and where we can still see these today.
Terminology- B.F. Skinner, behaviorism, operant conditioning, Skinner box, behavior shaping, behavior modification, systematic desensitization, negative/positive reinforcement, token system, Project Pigeon, air-crib, teaching box, verbal summator, Walden Two
1) This week I decided to conduct further research on Edwin Guthrie and his contiguity theory.
2) In my post I will be talking about Guthrie’s theory and what it said. I will also be talking about what experiments he performed that enhanced this theory. I will then be talking about how Guthrie used this theory.
3) Edwin Guthrie developed a theory known as the contiguity theory. In this theory he said that if a stimulus is followed by a movement, that movement is likely to occur the next time the stimulus is present. Guthrie believed that movements were basic stimuli and response combinations. As long as the stimuli and response are contiguous, the pairing will only need one trial to be learned. He therefore believed that movements were learned and not behaviors. Guthrie believed that a set of movements made up an act. While it only took one-trial to learn the movement, an act took time to develop. When movements happen often in a series they are referred to as habits. Guthrie didn’t believe that reinforcers encouraged the bond between the stimuli and the response. He thought that reinforcers were anything that altered the relationship between the stimuli and the response. Even though he didn’t believe in the law of frequency, he still believed in the law of recency. He agreed that when a pairing is new it’s association between the stimuli and response is stronger.
Guthrie tested his theory with George P. Horton. In this study Guthrie and Horton had cats in glass-paneled puzzle boxes. The glass panes allowed them to be able to take pictures of the cats’ movements. The cats could only open the door by touching a post. The first cat took 15 minutes to first bump up against the post. When the cat was put back into the box, it repeated its movements. This illustrated to Guthrie that an animal can learn a response to a stimulus after only one trial.
Guthrie believed that an old habit could be replaced, but not forgotten. Instead it is replaced so the newer response takes place in the future. Guthrie developed three different methods to replace an old response with a new one. The first method was the fatigue method. In this method the subject becomes so fatigued with the old response that it cannot respond to the stimuli the same way anymore. Instead a new response must be introduced or the subject will do nothing. The second theory is the threshold method. The threshold method introduces the stimuli at very small levels and gradually increases these levels, as long as the subject does not respond with the undesirable response, until the stimuli is at its full level without the old response from the subject. The third and final method is the incompatible stimuli method. In this method the subject is in a situation where they cannot respond the way they have been conditioned to with the stimuli. Guthrie also used this theory to teach at the University of Washington. He used it to further his student’s learning, by allowing his students to make the desired responses without stimuli from him. Guthrie also applied this theory to personality disorders.
4) http://www.lifecircles-inc.com/Learningtheories/behaviorism/guthrie.html I chose this website because it gave good details about the theory. I used this website to learn about the theory and how to use it.
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/guthrie.htm I chose this website because it had all the components I wanted to talk about in my blog. I used this website to learn about the different components of Guthrie’s theory.
http://tecfa.unige.ch/themes/sa2/act-app-dos2-fic-contigui.htm I chose this website because it talked about Guthrie’s experiment. I used this website to learn about Guthrie’s experiment and theory.
5) Edwin Guthrie, contiguity theory, stimuli, movement, response, one-trial learning, law of frequency, law of recency.
1) Once you have completed your search and explorations, I would like you to say what your topic is, how exactly it fits into the chapter we have covered this week, and why you are interested in it.
For this week’s blog post, I decided to research the IQ Zoo which was founded by B.F. Skinner’s student Marian and Keller Breland. It fits into Chapter 11 of our textbook because the I.Q. Zoo was briefly talked about in the paragraphs about Skinner. I am interested in it because I’ve always been interesting in how we train animals. I wanted to learn more about the I.Q. Zoo because if it was still around today, I would definitely attend.
2) What are three aspects of the topic you want to talk about for this assignment?
I would like to go into more detail about Marian Breland and Keller Breland’s life. I also would like to discuss how operant conditioning changed how we conduct animal research and what the I.Q. Zoo did to help get psychology into the public’s eye.
3) Next, I would like you to take the information you found from the various sources and integrate/synthesize them into the three aspects of the topic, and then write about the topic.
Marian Ruth Kruse was born to Christian and Harriet Kruse and grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Marian was valedictorian in her high school graduating class and went on to attend the University of Minnesota for Greek and Latin studies. There she became a research assistant for B.F. Skinner. She graduated from there with an A grade average, again top of her class. She was definitely one smart woman. During her time at the University of Minnesota, she met Keller Breland. Marian Breland and Keller Breland became a team of husband and wife psychologists. They married on August 1st, 1941 and had three children together. To date, they are considered the “first applied animal psychologists.” They both played key roles in developing humane animal training techniques and also promoted their implementation.
What are they most well-known for? The Breland’s bailed on earning their doctorate degrees and instead founded Animal Behavior Enterprises (ABE). Skinner begged them not to do so and even one classmate bet them ten dollars they would fail, but they did just the opposite. They succeeded. They focused on the use of positive reinforcement to shape the behaviors of animals. Before the Brelands, many trainers used punishment to decrease the likelihood of a behavior to occur. The approach the Breland’s took helped them to understand patience is key. When a behavior is given by an animal, seize it, shape it, and use it. They were able to create commercials using animals. This also supported their animal behavior research. The first commercial to use an operant conditioned animal was for Coast Federal Bank. They training a bunny rabbit to pick up coins and place them into a piggy bank. This commercial ran for over 20 years on the television. Another commercial included a pig who could push a shopping cart while walking on two legs. The pig was young enough that the shopping cart behavior could be reinforced with a bottle of milk.
In 1954, they created dozens of coin operated animal shows which really looked like large “Skinner” boxes. Basically, the equipment tells the animal what to do and when to do it. The equipment also helps monitor behavior and reinforce those behaviors when appropriate. Each coin operated show cage was air conditioned and transportable making it easy to set them up at local fairs or other get-togethers. This caught the public’s attention. How amazing to see a dancing chicken! Between 1967 and 1975, this operation expanded to over 400 units of animal show cages. They even had replacement equipment and replacement animals if such a situation arise. In order to maintain order and to be sure the animals acted how they were trained, each show case was identical. Making it possible for the animals to emit the trained behavior despite which show cage they were placed in. One interesting thing they observed was extinctive drift or superstitious behavior. A chicken would dance even when the reinforcement was not present.
In 1967, they created an automated animal show the size of a small house which included a variety of different animals. Each show was seven minutes long. They performed about 100 shows a day, seven days a week. In 1955, the I.Q. Zoo was opened. It was a permanent showcase of animal behavior in Hot Springs, Arkansas. A few animals which was always on display included a groundhog who celebrated groundhogs day and a basketball playing raccoon. A bird who could ride rollerblades. A rabbit who could teach children the color names. A drum playing duck. A bunny photographer who would snap a photo of the I.Q. Zoo guests as a souvenir of the trip. I honestly would love to give a rabbit the opportunity to photograph me. The Brelands even had the opportunity to train a dolphin! It’s pretty easy to say the Breland’s succeeded and proved their classmate and Skinner wrong.
The biggest impact the Breland’s and the I.Q. Zoo had on the public was giving them the knowledge to understand operant conditioning. The public was given a firsthand experience at viewing and understanding how operant conditioning can be used to create behaviors by reinforcement. The Breland’s believed patience is better than brute force. I think this way of thinking can also be applied to how we raise our children. Patience and positive reinforcement will create longer, more noticeable effects than punishment would. I think often time to a lay person, the idea of reinforcement is “too wimpy”. I’ve heard countless people say that everyone who is in trouble with the law needed to spanked more as a child. Without the knowledge of how negative and positive reinforcements work, it might be easy to make that assumption. Reinforcement increases the likelihood a behavior will occur again. It can be positive and negative, meaning you can add something or take something away in order to increase that behavior. So, really, it can be aversive and distasteful in some aspects. Their biggest impact was teaching their viewers the power of operant conditioning and showing animals can be trained in a humane manner. This also shaped how other psychologists viewed these topics as well.
4)
URL 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Egm_98WbE4s. This link is to a short YouTube clip about the I.Q. Zoo. It provided me with more in depth information on how the I.Q. Zoo evolved and what impact it had on society and psychology as a whole.
URL 2: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Breland/misbehavior.htm.This link is to an article called The Misbehavior of Organisms published by Breland and Breland in The American Psychologist Journal in 1961. It provided me with firsthand information on how the Breland’s work with animals and operant conditioning.
URL 3: http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=2538. This link is to an Encyclopedia of Arkansas. It gave me detailed information on both the Breland’s and the I.Q. Zoo, specifically one types of shows exhibited.
Terminology: Marian Breland, Keller Breland, B.F. Skinner, animal research, applied animal psychologists, Animal Behavior Enterprises (ABE), positive reinforcement, punishment, operant conditioning, extinctive drift, superstitious behavior, I.Q. Zoo.
Word Count: 1206
1) Once you have completed your search and explorations, I would like you to say what your topic is, how exactly it fits into the chapter we have covered this week, and why you are interested in it.
I am going to discuss cognitive maps.
2) What are three aspects of the topic you want to talk about for this assignment?
I will provide a rough definition of cognitive maps and why I find them interesting (a connection to the University of Iowa). I will then discuss a key researcher, Edward Tolman, and his experimentation with rats as well as latent learning. I will then discuss how cognitive maps are used by humans in everyday life.
3) Next, I would like you to take the information you found from the various sources and integrate/synthesize them into the three aspects of the topic, and then write about the topic.
Cognitive maps are mental representations of space (Link 2). Humans create a sort of road map, or frame work, in their minds to try and create a chart of the surrounding space. Cognitive maps serve the function of telling people where they are. It informs people of their current location and it can also explain how to get to a certain location. A cognitive map is simply a device that can be used to determine where we are and how we can move from one location to another location. An interesting fact that I found on the internet was a connection to Iowa. Two researchers, Spence and Lippitt at the University of Iowa, apparently did a fairly good experiment with a simple Y maze (Link 4). They had water on one side and food on the other side. The rats were first exposed to the maze when they were satiated. The researchers trained them to associate absence from the maze with a “living cage,” which the rats associated with companionship. After two trials on the right and two trials on the left one group was deprived of food (they were hungry) and the other group was deprived of water (they were thirsty). Spence and Lippet’s experiment supported the idea that rats created cognitive maps, because, despite the fact that the previous training was done without the need for reinforcement (i.e. a reward), the rats were equipped with a cognitive map and discovered the right paths to satiate their needs (the rats that were hungry created a cognitive map for the specific part of the maze that had the food; the same was true for the thirsty rats). Both groups of rats were successful in achieving in quenching their thirst or satiating of their hunger (Link 4).
Instead of the S-R model, Edward Tolman believed that animals, rats in particular, created a mental, spatial map that they used to solve mazes. The process of forming a cognitive map include processing incoming stimuli into a “central control room” where the simple impulses would form a “map” of the environment (Link 1). Tolman also studied latent learning, which showed that learning can occur without being immediately obvious; latent learning can be interpreted as later learning (as in it is learned but the evidence of the learning appears later). I found it most interesting that he connected it to the human need for viewing as the world as a large maze. I feel that this is applicable in the sense of a student. There is a maze of school—finding one’s way through elementary, middle, and high schools and possibly to college. There are many turns and pathways in life and at times one can come to a halt, reevaluate, and take a different path; perhaps Tolman meant for it to be evaluated as a metaphor as well.
Cognitive maps can be formed to explain how far away a location is from the current location. For example, I may have a cognitive map of how to get to a grocery store. I can visualize the route to Hy-Vee and find my way back by using landmarks, or signs, or from other visuals on the way to a location. Humans use cognitive maps to recall and store environmental stimuli (Link 3). I found it interesting that researchers found that college students who walked or rode their bicycles around campus, rather than driving, had better knowledge of their campus. According to the third link I found regular transit users (bus, car/taxi, train, etc.) who rely on other individuals for transportation have more “empty spaces” in their mental maps than those who walk or drive themselves.
Link 1: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Tolman/Maps/maps.htm (I used this article to provide general information about Edward Tolman and his experiments with rats)
Link 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYGusyQ-aS8 (I used this article to provide basic definitions of cognitive maps and a few everyday applications)
Link 3: http://www.accessmagazine.org/articles/fall-2013/going-mental-everyday-travel-cognitive-map/ (I used this article to describe the everyday applications to cognitive maps)
Link 4: www.lmsd.org/staff/.../Tolmanarticle.ppt (I used this article to provide an interesting fact and connection researchers at the University of Iowa)
Terms: cognitive maps, Edward Tolman, latent learning, S-R model, impulses, satiation vs. deprivation, maze experiment, latent learning, mental map, visualization, empty spaces
1) Once you have completed your search and explorations, I would like you to say what your topic is, how exactly it fits into the chapter we have covered this week, and why you are interested in it.
-I chose B.F. Skinner and his method of conditioning. This fits in with the chapter since he builds off from Pavlov’s classical conditioning. This method of conditioning is an example of his experimental analysis of behavior, so it ties in perfectly with this chapter of behaviorism. He was a rising star which created a problem for Hull, Guthrie, and Tolman since he built off of John Watson. He was creative, had work ethic, and attracted talented students that matched the other three men.
2) What are three aspects of the topic you want to talk about for this assignment?
-The first of the three aspects is the biography of Skinner, and how he became the man he is notorious for in psychology. The second aspect is his operant conditioning with Type S and R conditioning. The last aspect is an example of how his operant conditioning works with his Skinner box for rats.
3)
-Burrhus Frederick Skinner is one of the most notorious behavior psychologist, and known for his Skinner Box, and operant conditioning. He first went to college for his passion for writing at Hamilton College, then had little success with that career. He later on decided to go on to discover his new passion at Harvard, psychology. At Harvard he looked for a way to measure and study behavior. He developed his system of behaviorism while there as a graduate student, then a prestigious University Fellow. He was not too impressed with E.G. Boring and found his classes painful. He decided not to be like other behaviorists and just do classical conditioning that Pavlov is known for, but he and others were interested in other types of behavior learning. What is so admirable about him is that even after retirement, he still was an inspiration. Right before he did sadly from leukemia, he addressed the opening session of the APA’s annual meeting in Boston. What makes him so notorious in the psychology world of behaviorism is his operant conditioning methods, and Skinner Box. He has accomplished many other things like publishing books as well. Before one can understand the concept of the Skinner Box, they have to understand Type R and S conditioning. In his book The Behavior of Organisms, he distinguished Type S and R conditioning. Type S conditioning is the Pavlovian model. A stimulus elicits a response through the process of pairing two stimuli, one that elicits the response like food, and another that does not, like a noise. This is type S because when they are both paired together, it produces the same response, like a dog salivating. Some behavior is emitted by in this case the dog, and is controlled by the instant consequence, not by an eliciting stimulus. Type R conditioning, which is also known as operant conditioning, a behavior is emitted, then followed by a consequence. If the consequence is positive, which is a reward, then it is strengthened. Most know this as positive reinforcement and it is used in real life constantly. I use it myself at my coaching job, when my athletes perform their skills proficiently, then I reward them with a special treat after practice. However, if the consequence is negative, punishment, then the behavior is weakened. If the athletes do poorly with their skills, I make them drop down and do 30 pushups. Skinner chose the word operant since it is a form of behavior that “operates” on the environment. This makes for a predictable outcome. He believed that psychology should have two goals, prediction and control the behavior. I can also use this concept for my HR management job to get the employees to do the behavior I want, I can punish them, and reward them for their work ethic. Now that one can understand the concept of operant conditioning, it can be applied. For example, the Skinner Box. It is a chamber that contains a bar or key that an animal can press or manipulate in order to obtain food or water as a type of reinforcement. The Skinner box also had a device that recorded each response provided by the animal as well as the unique schedule of reinforcement that the animal was assigned. As paper fed out at a constant rate, a pen moved across the paper by a small distance each time the bar or key is pressed. This shows the rate of response, which is what he also cared a lot about. The measurements can be determined by the slope of the line. When the behavior is reinforced, the pen makes a short downward vertical line. If it reaches the top of the paper, it then returns to the baseline and starts over. He also did this similar method with experimenting on pigeons, rather than rats.
4)
-http://www.biography.com/people/bf-skinner-9485671- I chose this site since it seemed credible and I usually use this site for biographies since they are clear and easy reads. This site helped with my understanding of all the aspects since it covers his biography and operant conditioning and his Skinner Box.
-http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/behavior/operant.html /- I chose this site to understand better about the concept of Type R and S conditioning for my second aspect.
-https://www.boundless.com/psychology/textbooks/boundless-psychology-textbook/learning-7/operant-conditioning-47/basic-principles-of-operant-conditioning-skinner-197-12732/- This site helped with my better understanding of my third aspect for this blog about the Skinner Box.
-Terms-B.F. Skinner, Pavlov, operant conditioning, classical conditioning, type S conditioning, type R conditioning, operant, Hull, Guthrie, Tolman, Skinner Box, E.G. Boring, positive reinforcement, punishment
1) Once you have completed your search and explorations, I would like you to say what your topic is, how exactly it fits into the chapter we have covered this week, and why you are interested in it.
The topic I have chosen to write about is Clark Hull and his work in the psychology field. There was a big section in our chapter that was dedicated to Hull and his hypothetico-deductive system and his drive reduction theory. I am interested in him because he had an interesting life and I have never heard of him until now so I want to know more about his work.
2) What are three aspects of the topic you want to talk about for this assignment?
The three aspects I will cover is Hull’s life, his contributions to the field of hypnosis, and his drive reduction theory.
3) Next, I would like you to take the information you found from the various sources and integrate/synthesize them into the three aspects of the topic, and then write about the topic.
Clark Hull had a rough life. He was born in the state of New York and was raised in Michigan. He was plagued by health and financial problems during his education. He almost died from typhoid fever before he entered college and during his second year of college, he contracted polio. At the age of 24 he was half paralyzed as a result of getting polio so he could not continue in the field that he wanted to, which was mining engineering. He then decided to get a Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Wisconsin and taught there for ten years. During his ten years at the University of Wisconsin, he started his research on suggestion and hypnotism. By 1929 he was put into a research position at Yale and stayed there for the rest of his career doing further research and developing the hypothetico-deductive system and the drive reduction theory.
Hull wrote a book on his scientific findings on hypnosis. He was one of the first people to apply experimental psychology techniques to hypnotism to find out how valid it was and what it could be used for. Hull took a random sample of people to test rather than patients that were easily accessible. Previous research on hypnosis by other people often used patients that were readily accessible, for example, one doctor took hysterical patients, did some experiments on them and then concluded that hypnotism was just a state of hysteria. Hull also started the “State/Non-state” debate in the field of hypnotism. The state theory is that hypnotism is a different conscious state and the non-state theory is that a trance is not a different state of mind and can be explained through psychological mechanisms. One of these mechanisms would be suggestibility, hence the name Hypnosis and Suggestibility, for the name of Hull’s book. So not only did Hull contribute to finding how valid hypnotism was, he also contributed more to experimental psychology.
The most important contribution Hull made to behavioral psychology was his drive reduction theory. The theory is that behavior happens to reduce a drive or need for something. Primary drives are things that you need to survive so a primary reinforcer would be something like food or water. When receptor activity and effector activity contiguity and reinforcement happen, it increases habit strength which means that the subject has prior training (or has learned something). In one of the websites I found, their example of this theory was that scientists hid a piece of candy from a little girl and told the girl that it was hidden under one of the books on a book shelf. The girl begins to pull the books off of the shelf in a random order to find the candy. Her drive is the want for candy and her attempt to lower drive is looking under the books for the candy. She was then sent out of the room and the candy was hidden under the same book and she took less time to find the candy. After 9 times of doing this, it took her two seconds to find the candy due to habit strength.
Clark Hull seems to be overlooked in most of our psychology classes but the reason he was not looked over in this class is because his contributions to behaviorism and motivation were pretty significant. Not only that, but he did apply experimental psychology concepts to accurately look at hypnotism. He has an inspiring background because he came from nothing and fought through sickness and financial problems to get to where he was despite not choosing the field of psychology right away. He also worked on aptitude tests and found ways to better those. So in conclusion, I said on an earlier assignment that I didn’t understand why he was in our chapter but now I do. He contributed to experimental, behavioral psychology, added validity to aptitude testing and hypnotism, and also made it a point to call psychology a science.
4) Finally, at the end of your post, please include working URLs for the three websites. For each URL you have listed indicate why you chose the site and the extent to which it contributed to your post.
http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/drive-reduction.html I used this site because I needed a better understanding of drive reduction theory and I wanted a better example of how it is used. This helped me write and understand habit strength and when a drive was being reduced.
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Clark_L._Hull I used this site to get more information on Hull’s life and I also used this for some elaboration on his education and when he started the research on hypnotism.
http://www.historyofhypnosis.org/20th-century-and-beyond/ I used this site to see his contributions to the field of hypnotism. I wanted to see how much he really did for the subject and how he applied experimental psychology differently than his predecessors did in the field.
Terms: Clark Hull, hypothetico-deductive system, drive reduction theory, experimental psychology, Hypnosis and Suggestibility, behavioral psychology, primary drives, primary reinforcer, habit strength.
Chapter 11 focuses on behavior and reinforcement, which I in general find to be some of the most interesting aspects of Psychology itself. While reading through this chapter, I found myself most interested in the topic of Operant conditioning. I found this topic of the chapter to be most interesting to me because of the complex experiments and observations that led to this term’s discovery. Not only does Operant conditioning relate to Chapter 11 because it revolves around behavior, but it was a major discovery in the explanations of behavior. Operant conditioning was a term developed by Psychologist, B.F. Skinner, which occurs when a behavior is shaped by an immediate consequence. If a consequence of the action is positive, the behavior in the current environment is more likely to occur in the future. If the consequence of the action is negative, the behavior becomes less likely to occur.
In this essay, I will talk about three different aspects of operant conditioning. These three aspects are extinction, discrimination, and stimulus control. These three categories are subcategories that make up operant conditioning as a whole. To end the essay, I will end it with how I think this helps the field of psychology, and the things we can learn from this research.
Extinction is an aspect of Operant conditioning that occurs when a trained behavior is no longer reinforced, or the reinforcement being used is no longer rewarding. Extinction was accidently shown during a study on Operant conditioning and behavior that was done by psychologist, B.F. Skinner. The term was discovered while studying rats and their response to pressing a lever and receiving food. The lever became jammed, however the rat continued to press although no food pellets were being rewarded. Extinction is most likely to occur when the reward to removed abruptly. After extinction occurs there may be something that occurs that is referred to spontaneous recovery, in which there is a sudden reoccurrence of a behavior after it had been extinct. However, this behavior is short if the reward is still not enforced.
Extinction leads into the topic of discrimination, which is the ability to distinguish the difference between a learned, voluntary response, and an irrelevant, non-learned response. Discrimination involves a behavioral response only in the presence of a specific discrimination stimulus, and not in the presence of similar stimuli. For example, if you were to train your pet to “lay down” in order to receive a reward, your pet would not listen if you were to say, “bay down”. The subject discovers the difference between behaviors that they have previously been rewarded for, and behaviors that they are unfamiliar with.
The two topics tie together to create the term “stimulus control”. Stimulus control is a term used to describe situations when a behavior is triggered by either the presence or absence of a certain stimulus. When a behavior occurs under the presence of the stimulus, but not in the absence of the stimulus, the behavior is then considered to be under the “control of the stimulus. Behaviors can be considered to be under “good” stimulus control, in which when a cue for a behavior is given, it is responded to quickly every time.
This information can be used greatly in the field of psychology in terms of motivation. In the society that we live in, we need things done, and we need them done effectively and efficiently. One way that things get done is by people doing their jobs in the careers that they are in. The problem is nobody just wants to work, or really do anything that is taxing or draining on the body, if there isn’t a reward for it. This is what Skinner found out. He found that with a reward we can motivate people and animals to do the things that we want them to do. So, the most common reward for humans is money. Unfortunately it seems like this world revolves around money, and money motivates people to do things that they don’t like to do. Our society needs a lot of goods and services to survive however, and we need people to work at those places that provide these goods and services. So, one of the best ways that Skinners operant conditioning has benefited society, is by finding a way to get people to willingly work at places that get people the things they need. This however is just one of many examples of why operant conditioning, and the work of Skinner was important to psychology, and to our society as a whole.
Terms: B.F. Skinner, operant conditioning, extinction, discrimination, stimulus control, conditioned stimulus, unconditioned stimulus, spontaneous recovery
Extinction:
1)http://psychology.about.com/od/eindex/g/extinction.htm
For the website provided above, I did an overview of the definitions that they provided for extinction.
2)http://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-extinction-in-conditioning-definition-lesson-quiz.html
For the website provided above, I used information about spontaneous recovery in relation to extinction. This website was one of the few that I had looked at that provided an inside on extinction and possible aftermaths which contributed to my focus of this response.
Discrimination:
http://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Discrimination
For the website provided above I used information in regards to the definition of discrimination and went off of the example that they provided, to give a better understanding of the subject.
Stimulus Control:
http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Stimulus_control
For the website provided, I used basic information on stimulus control.
) Operant Conditioning. What I like about B.F. Skinner’s work is the universality that it has. We can take what we learned from his pigeon experiment and apply it to all different kinds of animals out there, even humans. This process of learning is all about the behavior modification that we use on any organism if we want a continued behavior to continue. In this particular write up I will refer to his pigeon operant conditioning box where Skinner took hungry pigeons and made them peck on a red dot for food. He used positive reinforcement to get the pigeon to associate the learning to peck with receiving food. After which he got the association he was able to modify the consistent behavior through a process of schedule reinforcement.
2) Positive Reinforcement, Negative Reinforcement, Schedule of Reinforcement,
3) Positive Reinforcement
When we look at either types of these reinforcements we are INCREASING behavior we want. I want to make an obvious point to say reinforcement both negative or positive follow this. When we start to elicit behaviors to deplete the frequency of a behavior we are using punishment which is not a form of reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is the increased frequency of something pleasant to increase behavior. For example your mom gives you a cookie for finishing your homework. In this example we see that your mom gives you something pleasant in the hopes that you will continue to do homework to gain more pleasant things. Skinner used this technique in his pigeon boxes. What he did was put the pigeon in a box where the pigeon would have motivation to follow the behaviors that gave the bird food. In a result the bird was able to learn words and connect them to actions to further those behaviors.
Negative Reinforcement
When we look at negative reinforcement we need to keep in mind that it is another way of increasing behavior. The only difference is that instead of the addition of something pleasurable we actually take away something that is aversive. If we take the educational example, let’s say the kid continues to do his homework and eventually he goes to mom with his test results and gets an ‘A’. Mom decides to tell the boy not to worry about raking the leaves tonight because of how good his results were. What happened here was that the kid didn’t have to rake the leaves Instead of the kid receiving a cookie which he wanted thus results in a pleasurable stimulus, he gets the removal of something bad, a thing he didn’t want to do, which results in again a pleasurable stimulus change. How might a researcher use this? An experimental researcher might have a bad smell in a box. If a bird was to peck a red circle they would remove the smell resulting in a removal of the stimulus and giving a pleasurable response.
Schedules of reinforcement
When looking at the schedules it is best to start with 2 different types of trial measurements. In trial one we use time to measure the trial, we call this Interval. In trial 2 we use actually attempts to measure a trial, we call this Ratio. Now that we got that we can move into the next terms to use. For this we are going to focus first on ratio. For the example we say that for every 10th attempt we award the pigeon pecking for food with a piece of food. When we have a set number of attempts for a reward we call this fixed, because the number between rewards will never change for a trial. The full name for this example is a fixed ratio schedule. Let’s say we want to mix it up and randomly pick from each set of ten numbers one number. On the 7th of the first ten tries the pigeon gets rewarded, for the next set we reward the pigeon on the 5th try and randomly choose from there. This is called a variable ratio in which the number for the reward varies dependent on which set of ten attempts we are on. This can be applied in the same way with time. For every 15 seconds we reward the pigeon food would be fixed interval and if we decide to pick a number second from each set of 15 seconds with each one being different we would call it variable interval. The type of scheduling most always starts with a fixed dynamic and moves from there.
4) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_ctJqjlrHA
This video provides a good demonstration of the operant chamber. The video includes interviews from skinner himself and gives good information about how the chamber works. Form this video I took what I learned from skinner’s interviews and applied it to the process of the learning.
http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/behavior/operant.html
This site is useful in that it provides numerous amounts of examples and graphs. It gave the background for Skinner and how he got to this learning style but the main focus was on the schedule of reinforcement. This website I used to give a good representation of how the breakdown of the schedule of reinforcement looked like. I used it as a framework for the aspect section and gave information about the learning.
http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html
I almost always have a web source from Simply Psychology. I like how they take a complex subject and make it easy to understand and comprehend. Here they take Skinner give a very brief history and dive into the Operant Chamber experiments it is well organized and I used it to really think of an organization for my paper and to apply it to greater lengths.
Terminology: Operant conditioning, operant chamber, BF Skinner, Aversive, Pleasurable, Leaning, Behavior Modification, Reinforcement, Positive negative reinforcement, fixed ratio/interval, Variable Ratio/interval.
1) Once you have completed your search and explorations, I would like you to say what your topic is, how exactly it fits into the chapter we have covered this week, and why you are interested in it.
My topic I would like to discuss this week is B.F. Skinner who makes up a large selection of this weeks chapter. I found him so interesting because of his revolution in the field of behaviorism.
2) What are three aspects of the topic you want to talk about for this assignment?
The three aspects I want to go into more detail about are: Skinner's take on operant conditioning, Skinner's schedules of reinforcement, and the Skinner box.
3) Next, I would like you to take the information you found from the various sources and integrate/synthesize them into the three aspects of the topic, and then write about the topic.
Operant conditioning is a term that was coined by Skinner since he views on how to exam behavior from the norm of the time differed. He believed that behavior should be viewed externally, rather than internally with thoughts and motivation. Operant conditioning is an act that is followed by either a positive or negative reinforcement that will then cause the act to be more likely to be preformed again. Some of the key features of operant conditioning is reinforcement and punishment. Reinforcement can be both positive and negative. With positive reinforcement there is a pleasant even or reward that is given in response to a certain action or behavior, such as a rat receiving a piece of cheese for pushing a orange button. A negative reinforcer is the opposite in which a negative event is removed to order to strengthen behavior. Punishment also comes with two sides, positive and negative. Positive punishment seems to be a contradictory term, and it sort of is. With positive punishment a unpleasant even is presented in order discourage a certain response. Negative punishment is removing a pleasant even after a certain, negative, behavior occurs. Reinforcement is the key to successful operant conditioning, however there is a process that needs to be followed in order for the conditioning to succeed. Continuous reinforcement is the most basic type of schedule of reinforcement because every time the desired behavior is preformed there is praise or a reward given to reinforce this behavior. This type of reinforcement is most effective in the beginning stages or learning, such as with potty training. The second type of reinforcement is partial reinforcement which is when a behavior is only reinforced part of the type. Partial reinforcement can be broken down into four schedules: fixed-ratio schedules, variable-ratio schedules, fixed interval schedules, and variable-interval schedules. The fixed-ratio schedule is a behavior that is reinforced only after a specific number or responses, such as a rat getting a food reward after pressing a button four times. A variable-ratio schedule is similar to fixed ratio, except the reward comes at a random response, for example the rat would get rewarded after pressing the button once, then three times, and the next five times and never at a fixed increment. The third schedule is fixed-interval which is the same as fixed-ratio, but the reward is delayed after the response.For example the rat would be rewarded with food always a minute after pushing the button, but not right away. The last schedule of reinforcement is variable-interval schedules the similar to fix where the reward is delayed but the time elapsed after each response varies, meaning that after the rat pushed the button he would be rewarded two minutes after, another time three minutes after, and another time half a minute after, and so on and so forth. All of these means of testing behavior had to be measured in order to prove their validity, to achieve this goal Skinner invented a box that held key that the test animal could push in order to receive a reward [reinforcement] such as food or water and a device or some sort to record all of the data. This sort of study was helpful in the research of finding out which sort of reinforcement schedule worked the best by evaluating which one received the most responses from the test subjects.
4) Finally, at the end of your post, please include working URLs for the three websites. For each URL you have listed indicate why you chose the site and the extent to which it contributed to your post.
http://psychology.about.com/od/behavioralpsychology/a/introopcond.htm
This website went into greater detail about Skinner's work with operant conditioning.
http://psychology.about.com/od/behavioralpsychology/a/schedules.htm
This website went into greater detail about Skinner's work with schedules of reinforcement.
http://psychology.about.com/od/sindex/g/def_skinnerbox.htm
This website went into greater detail about the Skinner Box
Next make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
operant conditioning, schedules of reinforcement, Skinner box, B.F. Skinner, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, negative punishment, continuous reinforcement, partial reinforcement, fixed-ratio schedules, variable-ratio schedules, fixed-interval schedules, variable interval schedules
1) Once you have completed your search and explorations, I would like you to say what your topic is, how exactly it fits into the chapter we have covered this week, and why you are interested in it.
My topic is operant conditioning. It fits into the chapter because it was introduced in discussion of the development of behaviorism and B.F. Skinner. I am interested in operant conditioning because it is something that is briefly discussed in my education courses and I want to know more about its relevance in the classroom setting.
2) What are three aspects of the topic you want to talk about for this assignment?
I would like to discuss the following:
What is operant conditioning?
What are reinforcers and punishers?
How is this relevant to classrooms? Should it be used in classrooms?
3) Next, I would like you to take the information you found from the various sources and integrate/synthesize them into the three aspects of the topic, and then write about the topic.
B.F. Skinner is considered the father of operant conditioning. However, it is important to realize that Skinner based his ideas and studies on the work of Thorndike and the law of effect. Operant conditioning is different from classical conditioning. Classical conditioning recognized a stimulus and a response to the stimulus. Operant conditioning recognized a response and a consequence, or stimulus, and depending on what the consequence was, the response may or may not repeat itself. For example, Skinner studied rats. Every time a rat pulled on a lever, food appeared. As a result, the rat pulled on the lever a lot. He did not necessarily learn that pulling the lever provided him food, but was trained to pull a lever to receive food. Operant conditioning focuses on observable behavior.
Reinforcers and punishers are the two different kinds of stimuli that can follow an action. Reinforcers are environmental factors that increase the likeliness of an action repeating itself. Punishers decrease the possibility of an action repeating itself. Reinforcers can be positive or negative. An example of positive reinforcement is getting paid to do a task. If you are paid, you are likely going to do the task again. A negative reinforcement is when an unpleasant reinforcer is removed when a certain task is completed. For example, a student has to pay a dollar until homework is completed. Once the student completes their homework, they no longer have to pay a dollar. This negative reinforcer is removed, as a reward. An example of a punishment is a student calls another student a name and has sit in time-out for two minutes. The student will not likely call another a name again. Obviously, it is clear that operant conditioning can be used in a classroom setting.
Operant conditioning can be and is used in classrooms. Should it be? Are teachers manipulating their students? Is it ethical? A lot of times operant conditioning is not used for teaching reasons but for classroom management, for getting students to behave well. I think parts of operant conditioning are more suitable to use in the classroom than others. By this I mean that positive reinforcers, rewards for good behavior, are more effective in the classroom than punishments. This considered, too many rewards minimize the importance of learning and turn the students' focus onto the rewards. A reward could be an A on an assignment. The students goal is not to learn from the assignment but to get an A. This leads to the difference of intrinsic and extrinsic reinforcers. Intrinsic reinforcers are reinforcers within a person. The student wants to learn something because of their interests and own self-motivation. Extrinsic reinforcers are reinforcers in the environment. The student wants to do something because of an outside motivation, a reward from the teacher, a good grade, etc. Some educators believe extrinsic reinforcers receive the best results from students, but some educators believe it is more important to teach students how to motivate themselves, develop, and use intrinsic reinforcers.
4) Finally, at the end of your post, please include working URLs for the three websites. For each URL you have listed indicate why you chose the site and the extent to which it contributed to your post.
http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html
This source was probably most useful to my post. It very clearly explains reinforcers and punishers.
http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/behavior/operant.html
I chose this site because its focus is on operant conditioning from an educational viewpoint. It was helpful in its examples.
http://study.com/academy/lesson/operant-conditioning.html
This source provided a couple new ideas, not mentioned in the other two sources, such as extrinsic and intrinsic reinforcers.
Next make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
B.F. Skinner
Operant conditioning
Behaviorism
Reinforcers
Punishers
Extrinsic reinforcers
Intrinsic reinforcers
1) The topic I researched was the IQ zoo and the Brelands. I choose this topic because I have always has a great love for animals. This fits in the chapter because the Brelands used behavior modification and operant conditioning on the animals to get them to do what they wanted them too.
2) The three aspects I am going to discuss are the Brelands themselves, how they used and treated their animals, and what kinds of things their animals got paid to do.
3) Both Keller and Marian worked with BF Skinner and were some of his first students. They also both worked on the pigeon project that tested pigeon driven missiles at the University of Minnesota. Although the military never used the pigeons peeked their interest in the behavior modification and conditioning of animals for commercial uses. The Brelands opened ABE, Animal Behavior Enterprises, in 1943. In 1955 the couple opened the IQ zoo in Hot Springs Arkansas. Keller died of a heart attack in 1965 but Marian continued working. Marian remarried a chemist/zoologist named Bob Bailey in 1976. The government sponsored their work with marine mammals. Together they opened Animal Wonderland in Hot Springs, it was a place to educate and entertain people with animal behavior and training. Marian also did work outside of just animals she opened programs for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities that taught them self care skills. Bob Bailey donated the ABE collection to the Center for the History of Psychology, where the collation is open to researchers today.
Marian always advocated the humane treatment of animals and didn't believe in using punishment in her conditioning. She wanted to show just how affective positive reinforcemnet can be.
The first animals that the Brelands put into the spotlight were a pair of chickens to sell feed for General Mills. One could pull a string on a cannon and the other could drive a mini car. By the end of their work they had worked with and trained over 140 species of animals. They trained bunnies to take photographs, chickens to use calculators, ducks to play the drums and guitar,
4) http://www.apa.org/monitor/2008/09/animals.aspx
gave a good timeline of what the Brelands and Baileys did
http://www3.uca.edu/iqzoo/Exhibits/exhibits.htm
list of exhibits at the IQ Zoo and includes a lot of media relating to the exhibits
https://www.uakron.edu/chp/abe/the-iq-zoo/
talks about ABE's collection and donation to Center for the History of Psychology
Terms
IQ Zoo
Keller Breland
Marian Breland
Bob Bailey
Animal Behavior Enterprises
Operant Conditioning
Behavior Modification
zoologist
punishment
positive reinforcement
The topic I chose this week was Edward Tolman. Tolman was one of the few who continued the practice of behaviorism covered in this chapter. However, the reason why I chose Tolman was because I was specifically interested in how he changed the outlook on stimulus-response theory and behaviorism. Though Tolman was a behaviorist, he was not in agreement with all of their ideas. He specifically wanted to prove against the stimulus-response theory held by behaviorists. While researching, I found information on Tolman’s cognitive map theory, how the cognitive map theory is highly applicable to humans, and his sign theory.
Edward Tolman was the only behaviorist of his time to not accept the stimulus-response theory. Tolman believed individuals do more than respond to stimuli. He believed that they act on beliefs and attitudes and they strive toward goals. Tolman thought that reinforcement was not necessary for learning to occur. Instead, he believed behavior was mainly cognitive. He thought that individuals acquire large numbers of cues from the environment and use these cues to build a mental image of an environment. He terned the mental image the cognitive map. While working on his cognitive map theory, Tolman also worked on latent learning. The idea of latent learning was not created by Tolman, but he developed it further. According to the latent learning theory, learning is not apparent in the learner's behavior at the time of learning, but manifests later when a motivation and circumstances appear. Tolman had one famous research study on cognitive maps and latent learning. Tolman and his colleague, Honzik, built a maze for rats. In their study 3 groups of rats had to find their way around a complex maze. At the end of the maze there was a food box. Some groups of rats got to eat the food, some did not. The results were that delayed reward group learned the route on days 1 to 10 and formed a cognitive map of the maze. They took longer to reach the end of the maze because there was no motivation for them to perform. From day 11 onwards they had a food motivation to perform and reached the end before the reward group. The study also shows that rats actively process information rather than operating on a stimulus response relationship.
Though Tolman was the first to use the idea of cognitive maps, the idea persisted and can be highly applicable in everyday life. At first, cognitive maps were strictly used to explain how rats learned the locations of rewards in a maze. A cognitive map provided the rat with a useful model of the environment. Unimportant information was excluded from the mental map. From these experiments, it was learned that the differences between the mental representation and the physical characteristics of a location may reveal what humans and animals consider important. When applying cognitive maps to humans, you could start by asking them to sketch a map of a certain location. Their cognitive map will show you what is important and what is less important to them. For example, you might ask a kid to map his way from home to the school. They would point out the right and left turns, the different buildings or landmarks, the stop signs, the crosswalks, etc. We can all apply this to our life. We have cognitive maps about school, work, the grocery store, the mall, our home, etc. Sometimes landscapers make these sketches to know more about how a space could be or is used. One particular population that uses cognitive maps is the individuals who have sensory deficits and physical handicaps. These individuals make more use of sound and touch cues than other people.
While researching Tolman, I also found another important contribution to psychology. Tolman's sign theory, was a bridge to cognitivism, which is also known as cognitive behaviorism. While Tolman was doing research his rats, he introduced a set of environmental and individual difference variables. Individual difference variables are heredity, age, previous training and drug or vitamin conditions. According to Tolman, learning occurs as learners follow signs to a goal. He believed that learning was about finding a way instead of reproducing behaviors. In the end of his studies Tolman concluded there are six forms of learning: Cathexis, Equivalence Beliefs, Field Expectancies, Field Cognition Modes, Drive Discrimination, and Motor Patterns. After these discoveries, Tolman intended to apply his theory to human learning, but most of his experiments were conducted only on rats. An important conclusion of his researches is that reinforcement may serve as motivation, but is not a crucial factor affecting learning.
http://www.simplypsychology.org/tolman.html - I chose this website because it had a nice visual of Tolman’s theory. It furthered my idea of his theory. I used a moderate amount of information from this to build on what I learned in the chapter.
http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/sommerb/sommerdemo/mapping/cogmap.htm - I chose this website because it gave me some interesting examples and a different incite to cognitive maps. I used small portions of this website to build on the information I learned in the chapter.
http://teorije-ucenja.zesoi.fer.hr/doku.php?id=learning_theories:sign_learning –I chose this website because it was something I did not learn about Tolman in the reading. I got the most information from this website. This is something I stumbled on while researching Tolman, and I found it interesting.
Terms and Terminology: Edward Tolman, behaviorism, stimulus-response theory, cognitive map, latent learning, sign theory, cognitive behaviorism
1) This week I decided to conduct further research on Edwin Guthrie and his contiguity theory.
2) In my post I will be talking about Guthrie’s contiguity theory and what it was about. I will also be talking about what experiments he performed that enhanced this theory. I will then be talking about how Guthrie used this theory.
3) Edwin Guthrie developed a theory known as the contiguity theory. In this theory he said that if a stimulus is followed by a movement, that movement is likely to occur the next time the stimulus is present. Guthrie believed that movements were basic stimuli and response combinations. As long as the stimuli and response are contiguous or successive, the pairing will only need one trial to be learned. He therefore believed that movements were learned and not behaviors. Guthrie believed that a set of movements made up an act. While it only took one trial to learn the movement, an act took time to develop. When movements happen often in a series they are referred to as habits. Guthrie didn’t believe that reinforcers encouraged the bond between the stimuli and the response. He thought that reinforcers were anything that altered the relationship between the stimuli and the response. He didn’t believe in the law of frequency, which is the belief that learning increases with repetition of a process. However, he still believed in the law of recency, which is the belief that the items presented last in a list are more likely to be recalled than the ones towards the center of the list. He agreed that when a pairing is new it’s association between the stimuli and response is stronger.
Guthrie tested his theory with George P. Horton. In this study Guthrie and Horton had cats in glass-paneled puzzle boxes. The glass panes allowed them to be able to take pictures of the movements of the cats. The cats could only open the door by moving a post. The first cat took 15 minutes to first bump up against the post. When the cat was put back into the box, it t more quickly found that it needed to bump the post. Eventually the cat figured out the post was the solution to all of the boxes and was able to escape them all quickly. This illustrated to Guthrie that an animal can learn a response to a stimulus after only one trial.
Guthrie believed that an old habit could be replaced, but not forgotten. Instead it is replaced so the newer response takes place in the future. Guthrie developed three different methods to replace an old response with a new one. The first method was the fatigue method. In this method the subject becomes so fatigued with the old response that it cannot respond to the stimuli the same way anymore. Instead a new response must be introduced or the subject will do nothing. An example of this is when someone is listening to their favorite song. They will listen to it constantly, with a happy response, until they have listened to the song so many times that they cannot respond with a happy response and instead respond negatively. The second theory is the threshold method. The threshold method introduces the stimuli at very small levels and gradually increases these levels, as long as the subject does not respond with the undesirable response, until the stimuli is at its full level without the old response from the subject. For example, when trying to get a friend to listen to the music you like, you would play one song for them. After a few neutral songs you might slip in a few more that you want them to hear. Hopefully they start to like the music that you’re playing because they have the same response as the music they were listening to before. The third and final method is the incompatible stimuli method. In this method the subject is in a situation where they cannot respond the way they have been conditioned to with the stimuli. An example of this is when you want to respond negatively to a disturbance in public, but you know that if you were to react that people would judge you negatively. Guthrie also used this theory to teach at the University of Washington. He used it to further his student’s learning, by allowing his students to make the desired responses without stimuli from him. Guthrie also applied this theory to personality disorders.
4) http://www.lifecircles-inc.com/Learningtheories/behaviorism/guthrie.html I chose this website because it gave good details about the theory. I used this website to learn about the theory and how to use it.
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/guthrie.htm I chose this website because it had all the components I wanted to talk about in my blog. I used this website to learn about the different components of Guthrie’s theory.
http://tecfa.unige.ch/themes/sa2/act-app-dos2-fic-contigui.htm I chose this website because it talked about Guthrie’s experiment. I used this website to learn about Guthrie’s experiment and theory.
5) Edwin Guthrie, contiguity theory, stimuli, movement, response, one trial learning, law of frequency, law of recency.
1. My topic was on neobehaviorism. This chapter concentrated on the development of the behaviorist movement discussed in the previous chapter and the psychologists that shaped its development. Skinner was mentioned near the end of the chapter for his achievements in comparative psychology and the study of behavior; these topics are central concepts in behaviorism and Neobehaviorism. I found the section to be particularly interesting because even though I had heard his name mentioned a number of times, I didn’t really know much about him. The chapter also mentioned that neobehaviorist were the ones to inspired more research to be conducted with animals and then apply those findings to humans. What I would like to do is to study a little deeper and see what I can add on to what I already know.
2. In the early 1930’s Neobehaviorism approach started and continued till the late 1950’s. It was heavily influenced by three major psychologist Tolman, Hull, and Skinner, who were mentioned in the previous chapter. These leaders were also strongly influenced by the Vienna Circle of logical positivists. Their overall goal was to reinforce the laws of behavior through observational methods. Their reasoning was that a physical observation was required to complete the knowledge of how variables were related to each other. From what I researched on this subject, the use of animals as subjects for testing in the psychology field was largely influenced by these main psychologist and their use of animals to test various hypotheses and theories on. They were influenced by researchers such as Thorndike and Pavlov who also were notorious for their use of animals. Using animals to get research results began because of the idea that animals are cognitively simpler than humans. Research that involved animals were ideally simpler because animals have a lower level of cognitive functioning which allowed for easier observations of behavior.
Darwin’s theory of evolution, the idea that we can learn valuable knowledge as it relates to human function by testing it on animals, sparked the trend that we have seen in the use of animal subjects for scientific research. The idea is that we share very similar genes, behavior characteristics and mental capabilities with other species in the animal kingdom. Research has shown that animals are able to experience many of the same characteristics of humans.
Ten percent of psychological research involves animal subjects and while that may not seem like a lot the estimate of number of subject is at about 20 million subjects that are used every year for these tests. We may start to see a decline in using these animals as subjects however. Several sources indicated that there is a computer simulation technology that is becoming a little more common and is causing a slight drop in having to use animals for testing.
Skinner was very much a advocate of many of the key elements of the discipline, one of these being striving for the legitimization of the discipline. Skinner believed that visible events were the only things that could be considered scientific because they could be directly studied through observation.
3. http://science.jrank.org/pages/8448/Behaviorism-Neobehaviorism-1930-1955.html
This website gave a clear view into who helped start the movement.
http://graulab.tamu.edu/J-Grau/Psyc606/Papers/Neobehaviorism.pdf
This source helped me to better understand why animals started to be used in research. It also helped me to see the reason behind the early founder of neobehaviorism and why they found it to be more appealing to test their ideas on animals.
http://science.jrank.org/pages/8448/Behaviorism-Neobehaviorism-1930-1955.html
This source was helpful because it provided information about the movement of neobehaviorism and how Skinner and others contributed to it.
1) Once you have completed your search and explorations, I would like you to say what your topic is, how exactly it fits into the chapter we have covered this week, and why you are interested in it.
My topic for this week's blog is Edward C. Tolman. He was one of the neobehaviorists discussed in the chapter for this week. I chose him because I liked his how he explains behaviorism and his theory on it.
2) What are three aspects of the topic you want to talk about for this assignment?
The three topics I would like to talk about are Molar vs. Molecular behavior, Intervening variables and latent learning. All three of these things are aspects of Tolman's theory.
3) Next, I would like you to take the information you found from the various sources and integrate/synthesize them into the three aspects of the topic, and then write about the topic.
Initially when reading about it, I was very confused by what the difference even is between molar and molecular behavior. The textbook explains molar behavior to be derived from Gestalt psychology because it looks at behavior as a whole instead of in parts. The molecular view of behavior is said to be made popular by psychologists such as B.F. Skinner. This view says that behavior can be broken down into atomistic parts. This view could look at one example of a person exemplifying a specific behavior and try and elaborate on it. The molar view explains that a person's behavior needs to be looked at as a whole, not at one specific time. This is because there are many factors that influence behavior at one point in time. That's why the molar view would say just because a person was late to work once does not make them a slacker, instead we should focus on the person showing up 5 minutes early every other day insinuating this person is punctual.
Intervening variables were interesting to me because the focus of behaviorism was to shift away from subjectivity, introspection and unobservable events. This caused a problem though, when identifying hunger as the incentive for a specific behavior it is shown that hunger isn't tangible. This makes it hard to because although not directly observable, it causes the relationship between the dependent and independent variables. For example let's say we placed a rat in a maze and rewarded the rat with food at the end of the maze and see how long it takes the rat to complete this maze. You could then not feed a rat for 24 hours and then place it in a maze with food as the reward at the end, if found that the starved rat finished faster than the control group we could say that the independent variable is the time and the dependent variable is whether the rat had been fed or not, therefore the intervening variable would be hunger. It is not directly observable but it is shown through the rats higher incentive to finish and get to the food.
Lastly I would like to talk about latent learning, this aspect of Tolman's theory was very interesting to me because of the experiment done to examine this. Tolman had two control groups of rats in a maze. One group was rewarded with food at the end of the maze (R) and the other group was never rewarded(NR). Initially both groups made roughly the same amount of errors but the R group gradually made less and less errors compared to the NR group. Then a third group was introduced. This group was not rewarded for the first ten days of the maze but on the eleventh day they introduced the food at the end as a reward(NR-R). The results showed that on the 11th and 12th days the NR-R rats were making less errors than both the NR and R groups. This shows that although this was not apparent in the first 10 days of the NR-R group they had learned the maze, they just had no incentive to finish it more quickly. I think this could be called the Karate Kid theory because although he didn't know it, Mr. Miagai was teaching Daniel-son how to fight and Daniel was learning to fight by waxing a car. This is an easy example to explain latent learning or learning something without an overt response that said behavior has been learned.
4)Finally, at the end of your post, please include working URLs for the three websites. For each URL you have listed indicate why you chose the site and the extent to which it contributed to your post.
http://www.innovativelearning.com/teaching/behaviorism.html
This website went very in-depth about behaviorism and had a section specific to the difference of Molar versus Molecular behavior to help give me a stronger grasp on this concept
http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Intervening_variable
This website basically took how the book explained an intervening variable and put it into easier terms to understand.
http://psychology.about.com/od/lindex/fl/What-Is-Latent-Learning.htm
This website explained latent learning in a way that made perfect sense and that cause me to make the Karate Kid reference which is how I would now explain it to someone who didn't know what latent learning was.
Next make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Terminology: Edward Tolman, neobehaviorists, Molar behavior, molecular behavior, intervening variables, latent learning, Gestalt psychology, introspection, control group