Five Schools of Behaviorism PDF

The Five Schools of Behaviorism Chapter 1, Part 2 Watson’s Methodological Behaviorism  Excludes all internal events from study and analysis  No subjective information  Subjective information too difficult to be measured  Only those behaviors that can be DIRECTLY observed  All beh...

The Five Schools of Behaviorism Chapter 1, Part 2 Watson’s Methodological Behaviorism  Excludes all internal events from study and analysis  No subjective information  Subjective information too difficult to be measured  Only those behaviors that can be DIRECTLY observed  All behavior is essentially reflexive and involves the development of associations between a specific stimulus and a specific response (S- R theory)  Complex behaviors involve chains of S-R connections Watson’s Methodological Behaviorism Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select—doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-  Cons: chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief,  A little mechanistic regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors.  Pros: (1930)  Allowed psychology to break free from mentalism  Findings helped to further reform movements against racism  Interesting Side-Notes about Watson… Hull’s Neobehaviorism  Operational Definitions and Mediating events  Intervening variables  between the environment and behavior  Usually physiological  E.g., hunger  Drive-reduction  theory Tolman’s Cognitive Behaviorism  Took a more holistic approach  NOT just a series of S-R connections  Intervening variables can be important  Allowed for more mentalistic intervening variables, like motivation, expectation, etc. (only if they can be inferred) Tolman’s Cognitive Behaviorism Cognitive map Latent Learning Learning vs. Performance Bandura’s Social Learning Theory  Emphasizes the importance of observational learning and cognitive variables  More holistic approach  Also emphasizes the difference between learning and performance  Self-referent thoughts about our abilities and accomplishments can promote learning  Reciprocal Determinism Skinner’s Radical Behaviorism  Return to stricter behaviorism  Internal events are covert (private) behaviors that are subject to the same laws of learning as overt (public) behaviors (they’re ruled by environment)  Internal events can be measured but are unreliable as explanations bc they depend on early labeling (e.g., pain) and we’re not sure of the order of events Skinner’s Radical Behaviorism  Advocated changing our environment to change our behavior, but emphasized the importance of the environment as the ultimate cause for behavior  Only classically conditioned responses are reflexive; operant behaviors are driven by reinforcement  Different from Tolman bc of “expectation of reinforcement” vs. “history of reinforcement” Summary Watson Hull Tolman Bandura Skinner