Introduction;
To understand the
One is Stimulus-Response association, and other is Gestalt field theories.
Watson psychology was known as behaviorism while Thorndike psychology was called connectionism, although the psychological systems of Thorndike and Watson no longer advocated in their original form, but many contemporary psychologists have orientations sufficiently similar to theirs, are called Neo Behaviorist. Some leading contemporary behaviorists are E.R Guthrie, C.L Hull, B.F Skinner and K.W Spence.
Emergence of S.R Association;
The early associationists were interested in mental phenomena (John Calvin, J. Edwards). In contrast modern associationism tends to be rooted in a different kind of interest i-e the behavior of bodies. During the first half of nineteenth century experimental psychology got it’s started with in experimental physiology. For instance physiologist Bell Muller made experiments on working of nervous system in seeing and hearing, Wilhelm Wundt was trained in medicine. He turned to medical, to physiology and from physiology to psychology. As interest in bodily functioning become apparent among many psychologists late in 19th century. This group of physiological psychologist argued that psychology could become a true science only if it switched its focus to bodily process. Thus they begin to focus their attention on objects or events which could be observed with the five senses be studied in the same manner by any number of trained investigators and led to uniform conclusion.
To a growing number of psychologist the only logical alternative to the method of introspection was to focus on observable form of behavior such behavior include not only bodily movement as seen by observer, watching a subject but also internal physical processes related to overt bodily behavior.
Gradually a large number of psychologists had come to feel that psychology in time could be come as scientific as physics. A few of person who contributed to the development of physiological psychology was Marshal Hall (1790––1857), worked on neural basis of reflex behavior, Pierre Flourens (1794––1867) demonstrated that different parts of the nervous system have different functions and identified the function of each part. Some of notable animal learning experiments of the late 19th and early 20th centuries were conducted by Russian psychologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849––1936). Pavlov put food before a hungry dog and sounded a bell, he found that if this procedure repeated for several times the sound alone would cause the dog to salivate.
Thorndike animal experiments, making use of chickens, dogs, and cats were possibly more comprehensive than Pavlov’s. Thorndike’s famous laws of learning were derived mainly from his interpretation of how cats behave when placed in a cage from which they do not know how to escape until they learn.
Watson much more strongly, than Thorndike, felt the need to base psychology exclusively on the concept of physics and chemistry.
Watson drew heavily upon Pavlov’s work and became convinced that learning was as Pavlov described it namely, a process of building condition reflexes through substitution of one stimulus for another. Watson and other “pure behaviorists” rejected certain Thorndike’s ideas like “mental units”, “satisfaction” and “annoyance” which seemed to be mentalistic concepts and should be disregarded in a truly scientific psychology. Thus Watson confined his study to only those aspects of animal life which were sufficiently overt to make possible highly objective observation and measurement of them.
The Emergence of
Neo-Behaviorists;
It was observed that the precise nature of neural mechanisms was largely irrelevant to an understanding of learning. A strong interest in neural physiology and the physical mechanics of S––R linkages was developed and the behavior of the organism became the focus of the analyses, instead of neural mechanism behind it.
Studies were carried out to show how S’s and R’s are linked rather than the precise operation of the physiological mechanism which lies between the S’s and R’s. this gave birth to the term Neo-Behaviorists.
Classification of
Neo-Behaviorists
The neo-behaviorists may be divided in to three groups,
1. Conditioning independent of reinforcement
2. Conditioning governed by principles of reinforcement
3. The two factor theory.
C.L Hull belong the second group how focus on conditioning governed by principles of reinforcement and is known as “Deductive Behaviorism or Reinforcement theory”.
About hull Clark Hull grew up handicapped and
contracted polio at the age of 24, yet he became one of the great contributors
to psychology. His family was not well off so his education had to be stopped
at times.
His theory
Clark Hull's
Mathematico Deductive Theory of Behavior relied on the belief that the link
between the S-R relationship could be anything that might effect how an
organism responds; learning, fatigue, disease, injury, motivation, etc. He
labeled this relationship as "E", a reaction potential, or as sEr.
sEr = (sHr x D x K x
V) - (sIr + Ir) +/- sOr
as the Global Theory of Behavior. Habit strength, sHr, is determined by
the number of reinforces. Drive strength, D, is measured by the hours of
deprivation of a need. K, is the incentive value of a stimulus, and V
is a measure of the connectiveness. Inhibitory strength, sIr, is the
number of non reinforces. Reactive inhibition, Ir, is when the organism
has to work hard for a reward and becomes fatigued. The last variable in his
formula is sOr, which accounts for random error.
Although
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