Perspectives of Watson, Tolman, and Skinner - Research Paper Example

? Perspectives of Watson, Tolman and Skinner Introduction Any serious of Psychology would observe that ‘behavior’ was not a topic that was discussed in detail during the early days of Psychology as a separate discipline. Behavior as something that is observable was never analyzed as a separate and important constituent of psychology in the initial phases of this discipline. However, behavior found its due place in treatises of psychology since the beginning of 20th century and has since been occupying a central place in the entire framework of psychology as an independent field of enquiry. It might be of some interest to note that that not only ‘behavior’ but also ‘learning’ was not given much importance by early day psychologists. Possibly they concluded that ‘behavior’ was something that could neither be quantified nor categorized and thus did not merit any special investigation. However, at the beginning of 20th century some psychologists felt that ‘behavior’ indeed identifies a man and makes him stand out in his interactions with fellow humans and therefore can very well be considered as an outward manifestation of an individual’s psychological constitution. Though, they did agree that it cannot quantified and thus cannot be measured or compared in absolute terms. Thus, a small band of psychologists took it upon themselves to study ‘behavior’ in intricate detail while the majority continued to stick to the earlier stance of not giving ‘behavior’ that much importance. In this paper the perspectives of Watson, Skinner and Tolman are compared and contrasted and an attempt has been made to relate their perspectives to modern day approach to psychology as a separate discipline. John B. Watson Watson is widely believed to be the father of the term ‘behaviorism’ and is credited with the introduction, or should we say, infiltration of this term in mainstream psychology. Watson also took a distinctly adamant stand in the age old nature versus nurture debate in that he believed that nurture, which is, how a person is brought up and his experiences since childhood, plays a distinct role in shaping his approach and attitude and nature has very little role to play in such formation. As a proof of his contention, he conducted the famous experiment of white rat and how fear got instilled in the psyche of Little Albert when a loud frightening sound accompanied every time the rat was shown to the child. As a further proof of his contention, in a slightly changed scenario, he showed the white rat to the child who was struck with a steel bar a little while after he observed the white rat. Thus fear acquired two connotations to Albert, one is the sight of the white rat and the other was the sound of his crying as he was struck by a steel bar. By this combined exposure to conditioned stimulus of the white rat and unconditioned stimulus of getting struck by a steel bar Albert was conditioned to be perpetually afraid of white rat. Watson reasoned that fears that are conditioned remain with a person and modify his behavior for the rest of his life (Leary, 2004). By the end of the first decade of 20th century Watson published his classical treatise Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It where he made a tersely woven logical case for behavior to be considered as an integral part of psychological analysis. He started his argument with the assumption that was never doubted or challenged by any scholar that psychology is a scientific discipline on its own merit. As psychology is a separate science it needs to be based on empirical data that could be independently verified through experiments. Facts that are observed during experiments are by definition observable and could be codified. The only publicly observable aspect of psychology is behavior and not consciousness that can neither be observed nor codified. Therefore, the most popular method at that time of studying consciousness, that is, introspection cannot be termed as a scientific approach to the study of psychology. So, if psychology is to retain its status as a separate scientific discipline it must forsake study of consciousness and concentrate on study of behavior instead (Leary, 2004). Edward C. Tolman As Watson was thinking of retiring from the active pursuit of study of behavior as a means to unearth the riddles of human psychology, Tolman entered the arena of behavioral psychology. He was never as unyielding in his approach as Watson and did not consider it demeaning to incorporate ideas of other psychologists to enrich and widen his area of understanding the subject. This is perhaps the basic difference between Watson and Tolman. While Watson tailored and creatively edited ideas of other psychologists to fit those into his framework and mold of thinking, Tolman modified his basic framework and approach as he included ideas of other fellow researchers. Thus, Tolman’s ideas kept on being modified and enriched and became a representative specimen of what behavioral psychology should really be. Tolman integrated some internal capabilities and phenomenon like purpose, expectancy, cognition and a cognition map that arose from all these three facets as the basic foundation stone of behavior of a human being or an animal. Thus, Tolman included some elements other than only experience and conditioned responses as being the ingredients that formed the publicly observable phenomenon called behavior. In his seminal work, Purposive Behavior in Animals and Men, he forwarded his novel concept which was surely an attempt to fuse the best of both schools of Psychological thought by coining the new term purposive behaviorism (Tolman, 1932). According to Tolman there are four basic forces that interact to form the basis of outwardly observable behavior. These forces are; heredity, physiological state, training and stimuli. There is an intermediate zone of purposes and motivation that lies over these four basic forces and it is the complex interaction of these basic forces and the intermediate influences that finally produce the publicly observable behavior of men and animals. According to Tolman, every man and animal possesses a cognition map of their own and they view the outside world through the prism of their individual cognition maps and consequently form their own perspectives about reality. What is the actually reality is not known to anybody and there is perhaps no real need to know what the actual reality is as it varies from individual to individual and from each animal to the other animal depending upon their needs and capabilities (Lefton & Brannon, 2006). Tolman reached his conclusions through elaborately conducted and painstakingly documented research with rats. B. F. Skinner Skinner is another pioneer in the field of behavioral psychology. He postulated like Watson that publicly observable behavior has its roots in environment in which an individual is brought up and cannot in any way be traced back to the internal activities of mind as perceptions, feelings and thoughts. He coined the term operant conditioning which attempted to investigate the causal relationship between external events and responses of an individual to those events and a consequent body of learning that evolved out of those interactions which finally shaped the publicly observable behavior of individuals. However, he differed from Watson in taking sides in the debate of nature versus nurture where he was of the firm opinion that external environment has a very strong influence on human behavior (Malone Jr. & Cruchon, 2001). Possibly this conviction led him to create what is popularly known as Skinner Box which is a laboratory equipment that has the capability of sending a response and recording a counter response from the observed animal and also the capability of delivering another response when the counter response conforms to some predetermined standard (Lefton & Brannon, 2006). Skinner tried to punch a hole in Tolman’s theory by arguing that while Tolman postulated that what cannot be measured does not exist and summarily dismissed all unquantifiable concepts as mind, feelings, personality and free will; he still granted each individual their personal world where they were entitled to have their own personal perspectives about everything that the external world has on offer. Skinner was, however, never granted as much recognition as Watson or Tolman, but his theories outlived the postulates of those two stalwarts of modern psychology. Modern Psychology Modern psychology has traveled a long way from unquantifiable abstract concepts as mind and soul that permeated early 20th century psychological discourse. After Skinner’s demise in 1990, interest and research on operant conditioning has taken on newer forms and directions in teleological, theoretical and biological behaviorism with constant emphasis on behavior and means to predict it and adequately temper or control it. The concept of operant conditioning has permeated the spheres of education, business management and even parenting practices in United States of America with many people embracing the concept without even being consciously aware of the existence of it (Wood, Wood, & Boyd, 2007). The attention and enthusiasm that is presently observed in the study and analysis of behaviorism can be credited to all the three pioneers – Watson and his emotional conditioning, Tolman and his purposive behaviorism and Skinner and his operant behaviorism. The modern day psychologist is enriched by the contributions of these stalwarts and equipped with acquired knowledge he proceeds to unravel the newer problems that have cropped up with the progress of time. Conclusion The basic focus on the study of Watson, Tolman or Skinner should not be limited to a discussion of what they contributed but how far those contributions have taken us in our arduous journey of understanding human behavior and predicting possible responses in the face of conditioned or unconditioned stimuli. It must, however, be admitted that behaviorism indeed drew out psychology from the musty closet of consciousness and mind into the bright light of modern day scientific rigor and enquiry and it still remains a dominant school of thought in modern psychology. As it depended entirely on quantifiable and verifiable data and completely rejected the presence of vague, unquantifiable and unverifiable notions, it stood the test of rising tides of criticism during 1960s and is still the most popular approach to explaining behavior or conscious experience. References Leary, D. E. (2004). On the conceptual and linguistic activity of psychologists: The study of behavior from the 1890s to the 1990s and beyond. Behavior and Philosophy, 32 , 13-35. Lefton, L. A., & Brannon, L. (2006). Psychology (9th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Malone Jr., J. C., & Cruchon, N. M. (2001). Radical behaviorism and the rest of psychology: A review/precis of Skinner's about behaviorism. Behavior and Philosophy, 29(1) , 31-57. Tolman, E. C. (1932). Purposive behavior in animals and men. New York and London: The Century Psychology Series: The Century Co. Wood, S. E., Wood, E. G., & Boyd, D. (2007). The world of psychology . Boston MA: Pearson Education. Read More