Thesis on "BF Skinner John Watson and Edward C. Tolman"

Thesis 4 pages (1635 words) Sources: 3

[EXCERPT] . . . .

B.F. Skinner, John Watson and Edward C. Tolman.

Skinner, Watson, and Tolman:

comparison of the founding fathers of behaviorism

Despite the fact that other approaches are now favored in modern psychotherapy, including psychopharmacology and humanistic psychology, to name only two, the infamous 'Skinner box,' created by B.F. Skinner, still exists in the modern lexicon. Skinner's 'box,' which transformed Pavlov's use of classical conditioning, was eventually and controversially imposed upon the experimental therapist's own daughter. No modern therapist, fortunately, would dare to do something like this today, but it is still important to critically evaluate Skinner and other scientists of the behaviorist school, including John Watson and Edward C. Tolman, to fully understand how their theories have impacted modern learning and psychological observations about human behavior.

Skinner's use of operant conditioning has its roots in classical conditioning. Through classical conditioning, an animal such as a dog is taught to associate one, usually instinctive and unwilled behavior (salivating for example, at the smell, sight, and taste of food) with an unrelated stimulus (like a bell). Ring a bell every time you feed a dog, and the dog will salivate even when no food is present, because the dog associates one stimulus with another stimulus. Anyone who feeds their dog canned dog food and opens a can of coffee one morning, to be greeted by a hungry pet expecting Alpo has unintentionally engaged in classical conditioning, which was scientifically confirmed in an experiment done by the Russian Ivan Pavlov.

Skinner, however, refined the learning theory of Pavlov to use operant conditioning to 'shape' behavior rather than to merely elicit behavior already exhibited by the test subject. By dispensing food every time a rat pressed a lever, the rat's behavior was 'shaped' to expect food, where once the rat only accidentally touched the lever (Skinner 2008). Skinner also introduced the behavior of negative shaping, whereby, for example, an animal can be conditioned not to do something by receiving a mild shock. Then, even in the absence of the negative stimulus, an animal like a dog will avoid, for example, leaving the yard after being shocked several times by an invisible electronic fence, just as the conditioned rat will press the lever even in the absence of food. Similarly, humans can be rewarded through praise, food, or 'gold star' stickers to do something good and will continue to do that behavior, even if the reinforcement does not occur consistently. Skinner thought that much of human culture and behavior could be attributed to operant conditioning -- we are conditioned by parents and teachers to observe certain rules, and obey those rules, often without thinking. "We take advice, heed warnings, observe rules, and obey laws, and our behavior then comes under the control of consequences which would otherwise not be effective" (Skinner 2008).

At first, for example, we are praised for obeying our parents, turning in our homework, putting on makeup (if female), stopping at stop lights, agreeing with the government. Now we go along with these things even though we are not praised every time. There must be some regular reinforcement, however, otherwise in the absence of reinforcement, or the replacement of positive with negative reinforcement the behavior will cease. For example, take a child that screams for candy every time he or she accompanies a parent into the supermarket. The parent created this behavior, unwittingly, by giving the child candy when the child screamed over and over again in this situational context. Now, in an effort to end the behavior, the parent does not give the child candy -- except on days when the parent is tired and cannot endure the sound of the child's voice. Since the child's behavior is occasionally reinforced by a positive stimulus, he or she continues, even if the reward is not always given. Only by never giving a reward or reliably giving a negative reinforcement (no dessert upon arriving home) can the child be de-conditioned, according to Skinner. Examples such as these confirm that Skinner's theories at least sometimes have validity.

Some conditioning and uniform behavior is necessary for society to function, obviously, but not all conditioned behaviors are positive. Because of the unthinking nature of conditioned human obedience, there is always the threat of being conditioned the 'wrong' way. Worse, because our responses are so deeply conditioned, we might 'feel' free when behaving in a certain manner, even though we are not free. We might be told we are free by some philosophers, wrote skinner, but it is really a combination of environmental shaping and the satisfaction of biological drives. And today the "modern" behaviorist in the tradition of Skinner sees human beings as only a "behaving biological organism" (Zimmer 1999). Skinner controversially argued that because human nature could not be altered from this impulse to be conditioned, the goal of the educational system should be to institute conditioning of external behaviors in a positive manner, rather than to strive to encourage independent thought. For Skinner, the founder of behaviorism, the "question always remained just who would decide what Man should be, how he should act, and who would control the controllers. This view postulates that the subject matter of human psychology is only the behavior of the human being" (Zimmer 1999).

In his equation of 'self' with action and his view of human selfhood as pliable, Skinner seems almost postmodern in his belief there was no inherent soul or universal sub-consciousness beyond the surface of culture and biology, although his enthusiasm for the order he believed a rigid mode of schooling could produce would horrify contemporary humanist educators. Also, the degree to which biology and genetics can impact one's ability to be conditioned has been emphasized more in modern behavioralist interpretations. But Skinner was not the first psychologist to coin the term 'behaviorism.' Skinner's work can be seen harkening back to a movement of "the methodological proposals of John B. Watson, who coined the name. Watson...proposed abandoning...attempts to make consciousness a subject of experimental investigation to focus instead on behavioral manifestations of intelligence" (Hauser 2006). The behaviorist's lack of belief in the internal nature of consciousness is seemingly confirmed in the behavior of rats and dogs -- the animals do not do these actions because they think they are 'good' or 'bad,' or because of traumatic events in their childhood like Freud. They do so because of external stimulus and positive and negative reinforcement. Previous schools of introspective psychology had," in Watson's estimation, miserably failed in its attempt to make experimental science out of subjective experience, the laboratories of animal psychologists, such as Pavlov and Thorndike, were already achieving reliably reproducible results and discovering general explanatory principles" (Hauser 2006).

Unlike Skinner, Watson was more apt to allow that certain complex behaviors had some roots in internal processes, although Watson believed because they could not be studied, they were of limited interest to science, as they could not be reliably reproduced, tested, and confirmed. Skinner believed that even the most apparently complex human responses were the result of conscious or unconscious environmental conditioning of which the actor was often unaware. While this extreme idea has fallen out of favor, Watson's belief that what can be measured and reproduced externally through experimentation is the proper focus of science is reflected in the current focus on psychological drug trials, and the quest measurable results for psychological experiments -- and in the enthusiasm for standardized testing in schools.

Therapists did strive to find a middle ground between a focus on internal and external behavior in the philosophy of Edward C. Tolman. Tolman was more willing to allow for "internal mechanisms" or "intervening variables" in a stimulus and response relationship (Hauser 2006). Human behavior could have a larger purpose and exhibit goal-directed behavior in a meaningful way; it was not simply an… READ MORE

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