Hergenhahn's An Introduction to the History of Psychology - Chapter 13 PDF

Hergenhahn’s An Introduction to the History of Psychology Eighth Edition Chapter 13 Neobehaviorism © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Positivism Positivism – Defined: The belief that...

Hergenhahn’s An Introduction to the History of Psychology Eighth Edition Chapter 13 Neobehaviorism © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Positivism Positivism – Defined: The belief that science should study only those objects or events that can be experienced directly.  All speculation about abstract entities should be avoided. – In various forms had been active for centuries – Important to avoid, or at least minimize, theoretical speculation from the data. © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Logical Positivism (1 of 5) Logical positivism (developed by the Vienna Circle) – Defined: The philosophy of science according to which theoretical concepts are admissible if they are tied to the observable world through operational definitions. – Divided science into empirical and the theoretical.  It wedded empiricism and rationalism. – Accepting theory as a part of empirical science, however, did not reduce the importance of empirical observation. – Abstract theoretical terms were allowed only if such terms could be logically tied to empirical observations. © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Logical Positivism (2 of 5) Operationism – The insistence that all abstract scientific terms be operationally defined.  An operational definition is the defining of an abstract, theoretical concept by the procedures used to measure it. o Operational definitions tie theoretical terms to observable phenomena. o No ambiguity about the definition of the theoretical term. – Once operationism was presented, most psychologists agreed with the logical positivists that unless a concept can be operationally defined it is scientifically meaningless. © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Logical Positivism (3 of 5) Physicalism – The desire for the unification of and a common vocabulary among the sciences including psychology.  One outcome of logical positivism was that all sciences were viewed as essentially the same: o Following the same principles, with the same assumptions and all attempting to explain empirical observations.  Why shouldn’t they use the same terminology? © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Logical Positivism (4 of 5) Neobehaviorism – The combination of behaviorism and logical positivism is neobehaviorism. – Though there were major differences among the neo behaviorists, they all tended to agree on a few important issues.  If theories are used, they must be used in ways demanded by logical positivism.  All theoretical terms must be operationally defined. © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Logical Positivism (5 of 5) – (continued)  Nonhuman animals should be used as research participants for two reasons: o Relevant variables are easier to control in animals than when using human subjects. o Perceptual and learning processes in nonhuman animals differ only in degree from those processes in humans  Learning processes are of prime importance because learning is the primary mechanism by which organisms adjust to a changing environment. © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Edwin Ray Guthrie (1 of 6) Emphasized accessibility in writing and lecturing. Believed all learning could be explained by: – Aristotle’s Law of contiguity  Stimuli which accompanies a movement will on its recurrence, tend to be followed by that movement. o In other words, what you do last in a situation is what you will tend to do if the situation reoccurs (Watson’s recency principle). o “What is being noticed becomes a signal for what is being done” – Rejected Law of Frequency  The theory rejected the law of frequency (employed in various forms by most all other learning researchers) and postulated one-trial learning. © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Edwin Ray Guthrie (2 of 6) Distinction between Movements and Acts – To explain why practice improves performance, even though one trial learning occurs, Guthrie distinguished between movements and acts.  Movement o A specific response to a configuration of stimuli in which an association is learned at full strength after one exposure.  Act o Made up of movements and a skill is made up of acts © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Edwin Ray Guthrie (3 of 6) The Nature of Reinforcement – “Reinforcement” changes the stimulus situation and thus preserves the association that preceded the reinforcement condition.  Think of that dog who can open doors o Upon first opening, they experience a “satisfaction”, which acts as a reinforcer. o When “reinforcement” occurs, the stimulus situation changes and thus the last response made will not be associated with other situations, and when the situation occurs again the response will occur again. © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Edwin Ray Guthrie (4 of 6) Forgetting – Occurs in one trail due to an old S-R association being displaced by a new one.  Forgetting requires learning that interferes with the original S-R association. Breaking habits – The rule: observe the stimuli, which elicit the habitual behavior and perform other behavior in the presence of those stimuli.  Breaking a habit requires learning new reactions to old cues. © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.  Edwin Ray Guthrie (5 of 6) Effectiveness of Punishment – Determined not by the pain it causes, but by what it causes the organism to do it the presence of stimuli that elicit undesirable behavior. – If punishment elicits behavior incompatible with the undesirable behavior in the presence of these stimuli, it will be effective.  Punishing a dog as it is tearing up the trash is more effective than punishing them well after the act has occurred. © 2019 Cengage. All rights reserved.