Cognitive Psychology
is solicitous with advances in the study of memory, language processing,
perception, problem solving, and thinking.
Whereas, behaviorist theories are theoretically different from the
founding theories of cognitive psychology as behaviorism examines how, not why,
learning occurs. History records three
of the most ardent behaviorists as John B. Watson, Edward C. Tolman, and B. F.
Skinner. Although each theorist began
with a fundamentally similar approach, each rejected his introspective
forefathers to advance the assumptions of behaviorism. However, psychology will always maintain all
their significances “[f]or under the surface of contradiction, lies similarity”
(Jordan, 2010, para. 1).
Behaviorist Perspectives
John B. Watson
(1878-1958)
Watson was born into the dysfunctional family of an alcoholic
father and an overly religious mother (Goodwin, 2008). Although he was a presumptuous child,
Watson’s youthful ways improved when at 16 he began attending Furman University. With the inspiration of one of his professors
Watson transferred to the University of Chicago where he studied philosophy and
psychology; however, he was not enamored with the introspective point of view
of the time, but “accepted the general precepts of functionalist psychology”
(Goodwin, 2008, p. 338). Watson obtained
his Ph.D. in psychology in 1903 and began working for the university
thereafter. His early research involved
animal behavior as associated with kinesthetic (muscle) senses in learning
while working with white rats and mazes.
Because of the invasive nature of his studies (e.g., surgical removal of
the eyes, middle ears, and olfactory bulbs in rat’s), it was written that Watson
was a butcher of white rats for the curiosity of science (Goodwin, 2008). In 1908 Watson took a position at Johns
Hopkins in Baltimore, Maryland, as full professor providing him with control of
his own laboratory.
At Hopkins his research helped him to articulate his belief that
human behavior should be studied under exacting laboratory conditions, much
like his animal behavior studies with the article Psychology as a Behaviorist Views It (1913). The following year (1914) he published his Behavior: An Introduction to Comparative
Psychology where he argued conditioned responses is the ideal atmosphere
for psychological study. It was not
until 1918 that Watson’s most infamous research began; Little Albert. When to opportunity arose to study infants,
Watson moved forward with his behaviorist principles of conditioned emotional
responses of which he and his assistants could identify three: fear, rage, and
love. Little Albert, however, was the
infant who Watson used to demonstrate his theories of conditioned behaviors;
instilling phobic responses in an otherwise normal nine month old, much like
Pavlov’s research. Although there is
some question regarding the ethics of the Little Albert research, the results
(that behaviors are a process of learning) made behaviorism a leading
perspective in American psychology (Goodwin, 2008). Watson lost his position at Johns Hopkins
shortly after the Little Albert study went to print in 1920, but quickly moved
into the corporate world of advertising where he put his behaviorist
perspective to use. He continued working
with behaviorist philosophies but not with rat’s, instead he moved into the
area of child rearing; with that, no essay on Watson is complete without his
most famous quote, from his book Behaviorism
(1924/1930), where he states:
"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 [or her] to
become any type of specialist I might select - doctor, lawyer, artist,
merchant-chief, and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents,
penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors" (p. 104).
Watson’s viewpoint eventually became known as classical S-R (stimulus-
response) behaviorism or the first phase of the behavioral revolution (Moore,
2011).
Edward C. Tolman
(1886-1959)
Tolman was the second son of a Massachusetts business executive
and his Quaker wife. Expected to follow
in their father’s footsteps, both boys chose to attend Massachusetts Institute
of Technology. Edward graduated from MIT
in 1911 with a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Electrochemistry; however, young
Tolman decided to pursue his interest in philosophy, which began during his
senior year when he took an interest in the work of William James (Goodwin,
2008). Tolman’s interest in philosophy
and psychology encouraged him to enroll at Harvard where he became enthralled
with psychology after reading Watson’s book Behavior:
An Introduction to Comparative Psychology; earning his psychology degree in
1918. Although Tolman did not
immediately declare himself a behaviorist, his introduction to Kurt Koffka and
to gestalt psychology began to impress upon him the behaviorist theology. Tolman believed, however, that behavior was a
composite between the teachings of his MIT professor, Yerkes, and that of
Watsons S-R framework. He called his new
behaviorist perspective “comparative psychology” (Goodwin, 2008, p. 365). Like Watson, Tolman worked on animal maze
research to develop his unique form of behaviorism. Tolman took a faculty position at Berkeley in
1918 where he continued his research and published several articles, such as A New Formula for Behaviorism (1922) and
Purposive Behavior in Animals and Men
(1932). Furthermore, Tolman proposed
that molar behaviors (muscle memory) are purposive, leading to the formation of
cognitive maps and latent learning.
Tolman (1948) explains it:
"The stimuli which are allowed in are not connected
by just simple one-to-one switches to the outgoing responses. Rather the
incoming impulses are usually worked over and elaborated in the central control
room into a tentative cognitive-like map of the environment. And it is this
tentative map, indicating routes and paths and environmental relationships, which
finally determine what responses, if any, the animal will finally make" (p. 192).
Tolman’s work with rats running mazes continued with and without
reward (e.g., food, and water), reinforcing his theory of latent learning,
which suggests that learning occurs even in the absence of reward.
B.F. Skinner
(1904-1990)
Skinner began his career at New York’s Hamilton College,
graduating in 1926. During a brief
hiatus after graduation, he became intrigued by the writings of Watson and
Pavlov and soon found himself enrolled in Harvard’s psychology program
(Goodwin, 2008). Although Skinner became
an ardent follower of Watson and the behaviorist perspective, he believed that
behaviors are learned dependent on one’s environment and experiences, whether
they be positive or negative. He called
this form of learning operant conditioning.
Furthermore, he suggested that changing negative behaviors is possible through
reinforcement principles, earning him the honor of becoming a radical
behaviorist; Skinner himself explains:
“I don’t believe
I coined the term radical behaviorism, but when asked what I mean by it, I have
always said, ‘the philosophy of a science of behavior treated as a subject
matter in its own right apart from internal explanations, mental or
physiological’” (Skinner, 1989, p. 122 as restated by Moore, 2011, p. 456).
Skinner was also responsible for introducing the operant learning
theory, however. Furthermore, he
discloses that type S conditioning, as stated in the Pavlovian model, is an
identified stimulus (e.g., food, and a tone), he believed the type R
conditioning is the operant condition (Goodwin, 2008). Skinners main focus was on how someone’s
environment shapes his or her behaviors and he describes the process in his
1953 book Science and Human Behavior.
Skinner, like Watson and Tolman, worked
with rats (and pigeons), which helped him to control his experimental
environment. Choosing to further the
theories of behavior, Skinner designed an operant chamber allowing him to
record subject behavior and the stimuli creating it.
Because of Skinners automation processes, it was quite by accident
that he discovered extinction; a gradual decline in response rate when
reinforcement is withdrawn, resulting inevitably in no response. This led Skinner to work with a schedule of
reinforcement suggesting that patterns of behavior vary as a function of
various reinforcement schedules. Like
Watson, Skinner published his ideas on child-rearing in his 1948 fictional book
Walden Two reflecting his desires for
a kinder, gentler world order (Goodwin, 2008).
Although he did not elaborate further on child behaviors, Skinners ideas
of operant conditioning dominated American psychology for decades.
Contrasting
Perspectives
Although it is clear that behaviorism has become an accepted
norm by American psychologists, it has within its structure many perspectives. Watsonian behaviorism or classic behaviorism,
as it is known, suggests that behavior is a learning process and can be altered
by modifying ones conditions. Tolman maintains
that the presence or absence of reward affects behavioral learning, and that
learning continues without the knowledge of it occurring. Furthermore, his theories take into account
cognitive mapping processes within a subject; whereas, Skinner rejects the
inner causes of behavior placing his theories on observable behaviors. He also suggests, unlike Tolman that
continually rewarded behaviors will extinguish eventually, but he still
believes that behaviors are derived by motivation.
Applied Behaviorism
Behaviorism as a perspective studies the different processes
of learning and the effects of the environment on how, when, and why learning
takes place. In the 21st
century “the assumptions, methods, and practices of behaviorism make it an ecological
model of learning” (Daly, III, n.d., para. 8).
Behaviorist perspectives have been applied in learning models within the
educational system, teaching adaptive behavioral skills (e.g., self-help,
safety behaviors, vocational training), and within behavioral treatment
facilities (e.g., antecedents, reinforcer’s, and punishers) to modify the
environmental stimuli providing more effective treatment designed to the
individual not the facility. As
demonstrated by Skinner, behaviorism is also applied in the corporate world
(e.g., advertising, architecture, ergonomics, employee relations) to enable
individuals to function in his or her surroundings and be more productive.
Although psychology is the science of the mind and its
processes as related to human and animal behavior, behaviorism, specifically
looks at the relationship between the behavior and the environment. Watson believed that behaviors can and are
the response to one’s environment and by changing his or her stimulus so to
changes the response. Tolman’s form of
behaviorism takes into account Watson’s theories and goes a step further
suggesting that behaviors once learned are kept as cognitive maps, which are then
brought forth when needed. The most
radical behaviorist is undoubtedly B. F. Skinner who believed that behaviors
are observable experiences to specific stimuli. Regardless of their differences
their foundations remain the same, behaviorist psychology can be adapted to
bring practical techniques to any situation.
The last century of behaviorism has brought significant insight into human
behavior, perhaps the next will allow man to discover even more about human
psychology.
