Behaviorism of Pavlov and Watson

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Behaviorism of Pavlov and Watson
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Russian influence on American Psychology

• Early 20th century
• Sechanov - objective measurement of behavior as
  reflexes
• Pavlov physiologist studying dog digestive
  system and the conditioned response
• American behaviorism based upon the S -gt R
  relationship

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Reports of the Conditioned Response

• 1904 Pavlov reported finding the conditioned
  response while accepting a Nobel prize in
  physiology
• However
• 1902 American Edward Twitmeyer reported similar
  behavior in humans in his dissertation
• 1904 He reported these findings at the American
  Psychological Association Conference

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Why Pavlovian Conditioning and not Twitmeyer
Conditioning?

• Related to the discovery process in science
• Discovery usually evolves one discovery leads
  to another as you keep investigating it
• While scientific discoveries evolve, there is no
  clear cut judgment as to the value of the
  evolution like natural selection should it
  continue

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The situation

• Two research findings, both found accidentally,
  both report the same findings, and reported at
  the same time
• One ignored for 70 years
• One continued to become a major foundation of
  psychology

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The Fame of Pavlov

• Pavlov announced his finding and his intent to
  continue his research while accepting a Nobel
  prize
• Twitmeyer a lowly lecturer reported his
  findings as the last speaker at an APA session
  chaired by William James and others who showed no
  interest in his ideas

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Reasons for Twitmeyers obscurity

• Proposed reasons
• Most of his findings were uninteresting to his
  audience
• Twitmeyer unable to promote his ideas
• American psychology not ready to see the
  significance of his discovery
• Poor introduction by James and lack of discussion
• Blaming his obscurity on him personally is
  probably overly simplistic

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Pavlov and Twitmeyer

• Pavlov highly respected scientist
• Established highly productive lab
• Other researchers interested
• Substantial support system encouraged him

• Twitmeyer new with no reputation
• Small lab, no staff, little money
• No colleagues interested
• No security junior faculty position

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Most important reason

• American psychology not ready to see importance
  of his discovery and the need to follow-up on it
• American psychologists were mostly dualists
• Twitmeyers findings that that a mental process
  can cause a physical reaction was unimportant

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Important aside

• Neither Pavlov nor Twitmeyer 1st to report this
  type of conditioning
• Animals salivating at he sight of food was
  reported in 1763, 1803, 1872, and 1878
• Pavlovs fame is due to his continued study of
  the phenomenon and his enthusiasm

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Pavlov, the driven scientist

• Science was important than almost everything else
• 1887-1891 period of poverty did his research
  at home
• Lab assistant ½ hour late one morning during the
  Bolshevik revolution

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Pavlov the surgeon

• Recognized that standard lesion work had limited
  value
• Introduced the use of sterile procedures during
  animal surgery
• Major surgical procedures
• isolation of part of the stomach in a pouch
  outside a dog
• Severed the esophagus so food would not go to
  stomach

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Pavlov and classical conditioning

• 1st noted in 1891 described a nuisance response
• Later studies described what we know about
  classical conditioning generalization,
  extinction, principles of reinforcement, etc.

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Other studies in Pavlovs lab

• 1921 Role of conditioning in neurotic behavior
• Conditioned terror response
• 1925 Conflict induced neurosis
• Pavlovs conclusion was that neurotic behavior
  was an imbalance in the interaction of
  inhibitory and excitatory systems

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Other studies in Pavlovs lab

• Individual differences
• Impoverished versus enriched environments

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John B. Watson

• Adopted Pavlovs objectivism
• 1903 awarded 1st PhD in Psychology from the
  University of Chicago
• Early studies were on the neurological and
  behavioral development of the rat
• Hampton Court Maze

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Watson defines behaviorism

• 1913 publishes Psychology as the Behaviorist
  Views It
• Rejected introspection and all mention of mental
  processing and consciousness
• To be a member of the natural sciences,
  psychology needed to become more objective

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Watson as the founder of behaviorism

• Watson reported that most of the behavioral
  ideals were developed by a colleague, Knight
  Dunlap
• Max F. Meyer published in 1911 Fundamentals of
  Human Behavior stated basically the same thing as
  Watson
• Why is Watson given the credit?

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Watson as the founder of behaviorism

• Chairman of Psychology Department at Johns
  Hopkins
• Good looking and an eloquent speaker
• Able to take many ideas, crystallize them into a
  system of study, and had the position to promote
  it

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Primary principles of behaviorism

• Only study observable behavior
• Verbal reports from subjects can be used, but
  only if supported by observations
• Reaction time studies could be used
• Some mental tests can be used, but not those that
  measure mental processes
• Study of animal behavior is important

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1919 study of the human infant

• Fear conditioning in a human infant
• Conditioning not just a laboratory phenomenon
  with animals
• Attempted to answer 3 questions
• Can an infant be conditioned to fear an animal
  that appears at the same time with a loud fear
  producing sound?
• Would such conditioning be transferred to other
  animals and inanimate objects?
• How long would these fears persist?

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The study

• Albert healthy 9 month old showed no fear of live
  animals and inanimate objects placed near him.
  Showed fear to loud noise
• 2 months later fear conditioned by striking
  iron bar behind his head when he attempted to
  touch a white rat
• 5 days later generalization test Albert shown
  animals and inanimate objects
• 5 days later 1 trial of pairing white rat with
  noise- Albert moved to different room showed
  little fear t rat, rabbit or dog
• 30 days later length of time question

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Inaccuracies about what happened in the study

• Watson forced to leave academia still wrote many
  articles in the popular press without his data
  he burned everything
• Bottom line study poorly controlled and badly
  confounded interesting but uninterruptible

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Watson after academia

• Lost his position at Johns Hopkins due to affair
  with his graduate student Rosalyn Rainer
• Never able to find another position
• Turned to advertising and publishing psychology
  books for the public
• Continued to study children and conditioned fear
  decreasing fears