Psychological Perspectives of Behavior - Term Paper Example

?Psychological Perspectives of Behavior Introduction Psychology is the study of mind and behavior. The scholarly study of history of psychology can be traced back to the history of Greeks India, china, and ancient Egypt. Psychology as a study started in 1879, with the founding of the first laboratory by Wilhelm Wundt, which was exclusively meant for psychological research. Though there were marked developments of psychology in the 19th century like psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud and anthropometrics by Francis Galton, major revolutions and growth in this field were witnessed in the 20th century by studies and perspectives of John B. Watson, Edward C. Tolman and B. F. Skinner. In reaction to Wundt’s imperialism by Thichner Edward’s criticism, behaviorism was formulated by Watson, and further popularized by Skinner. Behaviorism limited the study of psychology to overt behavior, because it was measurable and quantifiable. Behaviorism approach focuses on measuring and describing only the things that are observable. From 1900-1975, according to Lefton & Brannon, (2006) this was the most important movement in the field of experimental psychology. To scientifically achieve, behaviorists associated knowledge of mind to metaphysics. The end of the 20th century marked a major behaviorism decline and emergence of cognitive science. Cruchon & Malone (2001) observed that that the late to mid 20th century psychology took two forms. The first form was radical behaviorism, which was the position of minority, while the other part of psychology was the position of majority. This paper tries to compare and contrast B.F. Skinner, and John B. psychological perspectives to that of Edward C. Tolman. The paper will also show how they relate to modern day field of psychology. Rise of Behaviorism in America The conjunction of many events in the 20th century led to gradual emergence of behaviorism in American psychology that then became the most dominant school. One of these events skepticism, which was fast increasing as many viewed the consciousness concept. The other event was the gradual increase of rigorous psychology. Research of Edward Lee of cats in boxes in 1898 and a research on rats that learnt how to navigate mazes were started by Willard Small in 1900 (Krechner, 2008). This led to the big question in psychology of when consciousness can be attributed to an organism. Consequently, this led to John Watson’s emergence as a major player on his dissertation about the relationship between the white rat learning and neurological development (Krechner, 2008). Henry Donaldson also published an important rat study in 1908, while in 1909; Ivan Pavlov studied conditioning in dogs. The third factor was Watson’s rise to powerfully significant position in the community of psychology. As the head of John’s Hopkins, he launched his book that described psychology as a natural science branch that is purely objective and experimental. The basic tenet of ancient behaviorism viewed psychology as a behavioral science. His perspective rejected like beliefs and desires, together with other internal mental states. Among behaviorists who proceeded with behaviorism research, there were many disagreements on the best way to go about it. Neo-behaviorists like B.F. Skinner and Edward Tolman discussed issues like whether to formulate again the vocabulary of traditional psychology whether learning is a gradual or a once process and if biological drives could be incorporated in the current science so as to motivate behavior have been a source of successful application and creation of theories of conditioning of human behavior in scientific models. Psychological Perspectives of Tolman, Watson and Skinner Though psychological perspective has changed overtime with progress in psychology, some perspectives have remained have remained steadfast because of their core values, even in modern day pool of theories. B.F. Skinner, John Watson and Edward Tolman have seen their theories remain to form a firm foundation in psychology and schools of thought, today. Watson is still known as the behaviorism psychology founder in the school of thought. John B. Watson Krechner, (2008) observed that John B. Watson almost overlooked B.F. Skinner’s work. According to Krechner, the term behaviorism was coined by Watson, who is also for its penetration into American psychology mainstream. Watson was also adamant that in the nurture versus nature argument nurture was the most important and the experiences of a person in their own experiences is what determined their behavior (Lefton & Brannon, 2006). In his explanation of dealing with fear, Watson said that fear could be conditioned, classically, by introducing a white mouse with loud scaring noise to little Albert, while alone. This would condition, classically, to fearing white mouse (Boyd, Wood and Wood, 2006). The learning perspective, behaviorism, is a psychological philosophy that is based on the belief that everything done by organisms like thinking, acting, and feeling should be considered as behaviors. The theory of Watson was regarded as classical behaviorism or classical conditioning. The views of Watson ob behavior were; they were purely elicited. Watson believed that people had no emotional experiences, and that they were responding to some stimuli. His classical behaviorism goal was creation of science that is more objective. His effort of making little Albert fear a white mouse makes his experiment use the most critical element of pairing unconditioned response (cry of little Albert when the steel bar strikes)and conditioned stimulus(mouse) combination with a very brief interval between them (Boyd, Wood and Wood, 2006). After his demonstration of conditioning fear in Albert with classically conditioned fear, he concluded that that this can persist thus modifying a person’s behavior for his entire life (Boyd, Wood and Wood, 2006). In 1913, Watson started a movement into more objective psychology form through the publication of his paper, which described psychology as the views of behaviorist. This expressed that psychology need to be centered on behavioral observations as opposed to consciousness (Brannon & Lefton, 2006). Watson poured his new linguistic and conceptual mold on his empirical observation together with the theoretical views of other people (Leary, 2004). He essentially took other peoples’ ideas and included them in his own mold instead of expanding his theories. Edward C. Tolman At the time when Watson was leaving studying psychology in his academic life, Tolman was emerging in the behavioral study (Leary, 2004). Leary, (2004) assessed that like the aggressive and unbending Watson, he was nondogmatic, open. The behaviorism version of Tolman accorded mentalist a wider berth than understanding of Watson (World of Sociology, Gale, 2001). On the other hand, unlike Skinner and Watson Tolman discovered that condition and purposive as well as observable behavior were in similar category. Tolman, like Watson, Incorporated other people’s insights. However, unlike Watson, he did this through his system enlargement in order to include these insights of others, instead of shrinking their insights in order to fit his system (Leary, 2004). Tolman advocated for latent learning, learning that occurs without reinforcement, which he says was not a type of observable behavior (Brannon & Lefton, 2006). The theory of Tolman developed internal concepts of cognition, purpose, expectancies and cognitive maps in behavior explanation (Elsevier, 2006). While doing his laboratory work with rats together with their learning ability, he introduced this thinking method. This work is what made him discover that humans and animals create their own world maps (Brannon & Lefton, 2006).his psychological system came to be called purposive behaviorism. Here, he recognized four factors that lead into the production of behavior: heredity, stimuli, psychological state and training (Brannon & Lefton, 2006). Tolman’s system keystone is well illustrated in his book that explains the purpose of behavior in men and animals. Abstracted from the needs of human behavior, and behavioral capacities of all humans, he believes that we can not, do not, and need not to know, what outside really is. B .F. Skinner B.F. Skinner is another key player in the behaviorism field. In the 1940s, he developed the operant conditioning theory (Kretchmar, 2008). Skinner tried to explain what causes behavior by describing and cataloging environmental events (stimuli)relationships and animal’s or person’s reaction, (response) and the determining the connection learnt between them (conditioning) (Brannon & Lefton, 2006). Like Watson, Skinner believed that what causes behavior in a certain environment are not determined by inner mental events like feelings, thoughts, or perceptions (Boyd, Wood and Wood, 2006). However, contrary to the views of Watson on nurture versus nature, Skinner strongly believed that behavior is shaped by environment. The belief is what shaped his experiment, Skinner box, and where it originated from, which was very famous. The Skinner box consisted of inner mechanism that signaled response together with the ability of delivering the response each time it made a desired response to an animal (Brannon & Lefton, 2006). Skinner, regarding to Tolman, he wrote that this approach believes that what cannot be measured or observed does not exist. The approach also rejects the ill defined and fuzzy concepts in psychology like free will, mind, personality, feelings and self, even if it allows the “private world” of an organism to be scientifically studied (Elsevier, 2006) in reference to his theory of radical behavior. Unlike Tolman and Watson, he was accepted into the psychological mainstream but his psychological system of behavior lasted longer than those of Watson and Tolman (Leary, 2004). Modern Day Psychology When Skinner died in 1990, many psychologists have tried to pursue behaviorism study in biological, theoretical, teleological as well as research projects that push methodological and conceptual limits of operant psychology that is more traditional, which show that is not about to die (Leary, 2004). Environmental understanding within which early 20th century that lead to the development of psychology helps to explain fast sea dynamics from age-old talk concerning n\mind and soul to new talk kinds about behavior and behavior prediction and control (Leary, 2004). The evolution and historical study of behavior for the past century is very important. Many people understand operant conditioning even without its realization because it has widely influenced parenting practices, American education, and business management approaches (Boyd, Wood and Wood, 2006). It permits us to respect pioneers of the behaviorism perspective while at the same time launching today’s behaviorists into the challenges of their time with a different attitude. With his emotional and classical conditioning, Watson, and Tolman’s cognitive maps and latent learning together with Skinner’s operant conditioning, all contributed important perspectives to the behaviorism table. Their passionate seeds on behaviorism all changed into the individual branches of today’s psychology that is used today. Leary, (2004) elaborates this by saying that these challenges, at minimum, include our continuing need to understand the relationship between behavior and consciousness relationship between man and universe, and relationship between these relationships and our evolution’s participation, preferably amelioration of the world’s many cultures and societies. Conclusion In absorbing psychological theories of many psychological researchers, a person’s insight at any time and over time scientific understanding of behavioral perspective will continue changing. The perspectives of Tolman, Skinner and Watson relate to modern day psychology in a way that leaves an impact, as Leary asks. Leary asks that it does not matter if the research was conducted on animal’s cognition, consciousness, and decision making, but the issue is how far it has, or is taking us (Leary, 2004). Definition of Psychology was changed by behaviorism to science behavior. In United States, this school became very popular and until today, it is still persistent as a useful force, despite cognitive movements and humanistic challenges (Brannon & Lefton, 2006). The theory of behaviorism is still influential up to today even after facing major criticisms in 1960s. Generally, behaviorist theory served as an alternative studying and explanation orientation in the experiences of one’s consciousness and it originally refused tenets and methods of mentalist (Elsevier, 2006). References Elsevier, E.D. (2006). Dictionary of Psychological Theories: Behaviorist, behaviorist, and behaviorism theory. Retrieved from http://www.credoreferenc.om/entry/estpsyctheory/behaviorist_behavioristic_and_behavirism_theory. Brannon, L. & Lefton, L. A. (2006). Psychology (9th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Cruchon, N. M. & Malone, J. C. (2001). Radical Behaviorism and the Rest of Psychology: A Review/Precis of Skinner's about Behaviorism. Behavior and Philosophy, 29(1), 31-57. Boyd, D., Wood, S. E., & Wood, E. G. (2007). The world of psychology (Portable). Boston, MA: Pearson Education Kretchmar, J. (2008). Behaviorism. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx? direct=true&db=e0h&AN-27577949&site=ehost-live. 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. . Bibliographies Tolman, E. C. (2010). Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science. Retrieved on 7th June, 2011 from http://www.credoreferenc.com/entry/wileycs/tolman_edward_c Tolman, E. C. (1932). Purposive Behavior in Animals and Men. New York and London: The Century Psychology Series, The Century Co. Read More