Perspectives of John B. Watson, B.F. Skinner and Edward C. Tolman - Essay Example

 Perspectives of John B. Watson, B.F. Skinner and Edward C. Tolman While this paper is to discuss the comparative perspectives of the three personalities, related to modern psychology, a brief detail on the individual perspective makes an introduction to this essay. John Broadus Watson J..B. Watson was born on Jan.9th.1878 and did a commendable research on animal behavior. Watson being an American psychologist established the psychological school of behaviorism. While conducting the “Little Albert” experiment, Watson continued to write on the topics ranging from psychology to child bearing. The author is known to claim that he can turn any twelve healthy infants into the kind of personality he desires by applying behavioral techniques. While Watson graduated from University of Chicago in 1903, he produced a dissertation paper entitled “Animal Education: An Experimental Study on the Psychical Development of the White Rat, Correlated with the Growth of its Nervous System”. This book became the first modern scientific book written on rat behavior. Donald Dewsbury, Psychology historian has described the Watson’s work as a”classic of developmental psychobiology”. Watson did further research at the Chicago University for several years, studying the bird behavior related to its sensory input and learning. .During this period he did a number of ethological studies of sea birds in dry islands of Florida. This laid the basis of perceptions named later as “ethology” or “ethogram”. Watson was famous for his research findings and therefore appointed as full professor of psychology at Johns Hopkins University, at the young age of 29 years, in 1907. Burrhus Frederic (B. F.) Skinner This American psychologist was born in Pennsylvania, in the year 1904 and died in 1990. He studied human non-human behavior and established a psychological theory to under the behavior in scientific and naturalistic terms. For him the behavioral explanation was in terms of public and private events; and not in terms of popular concepts like ego, mind or free will. His contribution led to the foundation for the topic of behavioral analysis. While he was professor of psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement, he invented certain concepts like “operant conditioning” and “radical behaviorism”. While working on his research topic,” the experimental analysis of behavior”, his work “verbal behavior” is the result of such research Skinner was an advocate also while being the most influential psychologist of twentieth century. Skinner also authored other books like “Walden Two, Beyond Freedom and Dignity”. During his research studies on human behavior, Skinner also was instrumental in inventing gadgets like air crib, operant conditioner chamber, cumulative recorder and teaching machine etc.. Skinner did this while working on the topics like developmental psychology, child rearing and education. Skinner also had an influence on education apart from psychology, as he was quoted as saying, “teachers must learn how to teach...” Edward. Chace. Tolman E. C. Tolman was an American psychologist born in April 1886. Tolman conducted research on rats, while studying their learning behavior using mazes. However, his aim was to understand the mental processes of human beings through experimental methods. Tolman proposed a behavior called”Molar” rather then ‘molecular’ behavior. .While Tolman maintained that the psychological explanations based on the molecular components are not adequate; he stuck to his molar level of human behavior, which he looked as an act of defining the proper level of psychological study without having any regard to underlying molecular elements of the study. Using the idea formulated by the behavior of rats in mazes, Tolman introduced the concept of “Cognitive Maps” in1948.Sortly explained, cognitive maps are mental models that compose a series of psychological transformations through which individuals can recall, store or decode information on various aspects like locations and other attributes in their daily life. According to Tolman, cognitive map is a concept where an individual can structure and store the knowledge thereby, reducing the cognitive load on the mind and enhancing the capacity of learning and recalling. During the later part of twentieth century, many animal psychologists took the cue from Tolman’s human cognitive psychology, while looking with interest to his studies on behavior of rats in mazes. Tolman was certainly concerned to apply psychology for solving human problems. His book “Drives Towards War (1942)” typically studies the animal behavior, while searching for motives that drive men to war. Comparative analysis of Watson, Skinner and Tolman in relation to modern psychology Watson’s theories are still practiced in modern psychology. Many current day psychologists will try to correct a patient’s behavior problem with behavior modification, while reversing the cause of the problem. For example if any person is afraid of flying in a plane, he or she will be shown the pictures of the planes and then the psychologist will take him to the virtual heights of the plane. This can be followed by taking the patient to the airport and then sitting in the plane itself, to take a short flight. All this will be done to take the fears out of the mind of the person, with the change in behavior brought by these exercises. However, Skinner gave a different theory, in which he claimed that the behavior was the result of certain consequences. While discussing on Skinners theory Mclntyre says “He rejected the idea of inner causes for behavior, and placed emphasis on observable behavior as opposed to the theorizing, based on unverifiable evidence, often done by others" (Mclntyre, 2003).Skinner believed that the reappearance of a behavior was solely due to the consequences present at the time of reappearance. He firmly believed that the progression of a certain behavior can be hindered with a chain of reinforcements like a behavior pattern being rewarded every time will eventually result in the behavior getting vanished. While Skinner’s theory is still practiced in modern psychology, animal trainers, who take the help of “operant conditioning” to discipline the animals, frequently use it. This will mean conditioning of the animal to produce a behavior motivated by reward. While both Watson and Skinner may have similar outlook on behavior, there is a major difference. Skinner believed that due importance should be given to the inner part of the behavior like thinking, feeling including emotions, while considering overall behavior of the person. Watson was of the opinion that such mental states cannot be studied scientifically and thus should not be used for referencing the behavior patterns. On the other hand, Tolman was not a radical behaviorist like Skinner. Tolman believed that the behavior was not just an automatic response to the stimulation of a reward.. He believed that learning could occur without the use of a rein forcer (as the one needed in operant conditioning). While Tolman had behaviorist views, he was famous for his “Cognitive” theory of learning. “he thought of learning as developing from bits of knowledge and cognitions about the environment and how organisms relate to it" (a2zpsychology, 2006).” While he presented the theory of running rats without the mazes, he believed in latent learning, which may not require any reward. Tolman believed that humans also learn without being awarded and even without being aware of it, as they may know about their learning only at the time when the learned information is needed. He also was a firm believer to suggest that motive drives a behavior and the behavior will be disturbed only if there is a shift in the motive. Such theories of Tolman ultimately lead him to chart cognition that was called “cognition maps” as he suggested these concepts to store the knowledge, thereby allowing the eye of the mind to visualize, recognize and recall the image for reducing the cognitive load. Conclusion Behaviorism, also called learning perspective was the common subject of study for all three psychologists, as they all believed that the behavior was the reason behind any body’s ways to function. However, the Watson, Skinner and Tolman differed on the details to understand the functions and their reasons. Watson, being a classical behaviorist, believed in the connection between response and environment. Skinner had a view that the behavior has relation with the inner elements like emotions and feelings. Tolman was the father of cognitive theory. All three were the originators of their theories in the field of psychology, each of them contributed to the pattern of observing behavior. These three theories will remain embedded in the thoughts of modern psychology, though many new theories may come up or change. Sources http://www.a2zpsychology.com/great_psychologists http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/868885/psychological_perspectives_of_watson.html?page=5&cat=72 Mclntyre, T. (2003). The History of Behaviorism. Retrieved on November 23, 2007 from http://www.behavioradvisor.com/BehavoristHistory.html http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Edward_C._Tolman http://psyc.queensu.ca/~flanagan/PSYC100/lecture6/lecture6.html Read More