Mainstream BehaviorismNeobehaviorism

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Mainstream Behaviorism/Neobehaviorism
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Edward Chance Tolman (b. 1886)

• 1915 Ph.D. from Harvard (some contact w/ Koffka
  in Germany)
• 1918 UC-Berkeley
• 1950s refused to sign loyalty oaths
  (McCarthyism)

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Purposive Behaviorism

• Opposed to Watsons mechanism
• Believed that behavior is related to goals
• Organism behaves as if it has a purpose
• Motivation produces a behavior and the goal that
  concludes the behavioral episode

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Learning

• Learning did not take place through associations
• What is learned is
• meaning of the cue or stimulus
• expectancies
• where things are in the environment
• Learning builds up expectancies
• Learning can happen in the absence of reward

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Learning Experiments

• 1928 Tinklepaugh
• Memory span of monkeys
• Monkeys didn't learn an S-R response they
  learned to "expect" something
• 1930 Tolman/Macfarlane
• Rats learning something cognitive..

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Tolmans Contributions

• S intervening variable R learning
• Said that motivational concepts of drive and
  incentive are important
• Introduced mentalistic concepts into behaviorism
• Work on cognitive maps, but was criticized
  because did not explain specifically how this
  happens

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Clark L. Hull (b. 1884)

• 1918 Ph.D. Wisconsin
• 1929 Yale
• Early research on aptitude testing and hypnosis
• 1935 Wrote review of a book by Thorndike

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1943 Principles of Behavior

• Committed to instrumental learning and effects of
  reinforcement
• 1st quantitative theory of learning thought
  learning could be explained through equations
• Noted influence of drive and incentive
• Strength of the S-R connection (habit strength)
• Habit strength drive potential

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Drive Reduction

• Drive is based on animal's need-state hunger,
  thirst, sexual arousal, etc.
• Drive activates behavior
• Reinforcement occurs whenever drive is reduced
• Reduction in need serves as reinforcement and
  produces reinforcement of the response that leads
  to it

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The Hypothetico-Deductive System for Research

• Begin with a behavioral principle deduced from
  postulates
• Formulate precise hypotheses
• Test the hypotheses assess success or failure
• Revision of postulates
• Said a theory must be quantitative and have
  well-defined concepts

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Hypnosis Research

• 1933 Hypnosis and Suggestibility
• Hypnosis is hyper-suggestibility differing from
  normal state quantitatively

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Hull Becomes King of Psychology

• 1950's 50 of all papers published in JEP cited
  Hull
• Why?
• Paradigm Shift (Kuhn)
• It was the "right kind" of theory explicit and
  testable, could provide predictions

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Impact of Hull

• Concepts of drive reduction and habit strength
• Explicit hypothesis-testing system
• Hull said that the brain functioned like a
  machine and that learning principles apply to
  rat, man, and machine

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Burrhus Frederic Skinner's (b. 1904)
Radical Behaviorism

• From Susquehanna, PA
• Hamilton College (NY)
• Skinner Clip

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• 1931 Ph.D. Harvard
• Skinners Dissertation Should only talk about
  S-R reflex
• Avoid physiological explanations
• No mentalism
• Eventually called radical behaviorism

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Operant Behavior

• Emphasis on the consequences correlated with a
  response
• Didnt care about neurons, connections,
  motivations
• Control the reinforcers and you control behavior
• Behavior brought control of an external stimulus
• The Skinner Box

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1938 The Behavior of Organisms

• Described operant behavior shaping

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1939 Project Pigeon
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1945 The Baby Box
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Social Engineering

• 1948 Walden Two
• 1971 Beyond Freedom
• Dignity

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Ayn Rands Criticism of Skinner

• "Boris Karloff's embodiment of Frankenstein's
  monster a corpse patched with nuts, bolts,
  screws from the junkyard of philosophy,
  Darwinism, positivism, linguistic analysis, with
  some nails by Hume, threads by Russell and glue
  by the New York Post."

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1957 The Good, Bad and Ugly for Skinner

• Schedules of Reinforcement
• Verbal Behavior
• Noam Chomsky Syntactic Structures

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Applications of Skinner by 1960

• Clinical Psychology systematic desensitization
  token economy
• Education - reinforcement techniques effective
  with children
• Child Care and Parenting

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Overall Impact of Skinner

• His behaviorism dominated Psychology for many
  years
• The power of reinforcers
• Perspectives on punishment
• Practical applications