Kemunculan Perspektif Behaviorisme

Setiap hari kita cuba menjelaskan tingkahlaku orang yang kita tahu. Kita tanya, "Mengapa Kumar memutuskan hubungan dengan Shanti?" "Mengapa ahli parliamen itu menerima rasuah?". Mungkin kita menjawab Kumar merasa terancam dengan kebolehan academik Shanti. Ahli parliamen itu seorang yang tamak. Walau pun kita tidak boleh nampak Kumar terancam atau ahli parliamen itu tamak kita gunakan tingkahlaku mereka untuk menerangkan tindakan mereka.Bagaimana pun ahli psikologi seperti  Watson, Tolman, Guthries, Thorndike dan Skinner tidak setuju dengan membuat inferen tentang kewujudan sesuatu tingkahlaku atau kelakuan. Menurut mereka, kita tidak boleh memutuskan Kumar 'terancam' kerana tinkahlaku tersebut tidak boleh dilihat. Cuma kita boleh melihat Kumar memutuskan hubungan dengan Shanti dan kita tidak boleh buat apa-apa inferen selain daripada itu.  Inilah yang menjadi pegangan perspektif behaviorisme, kajian harus menumpukan kepada kaitan antara rangsangan dan gerak balas (R-G) dan gerak balas itu mesti boleh dilihat berlaku dan direkod.J.B. Watson (1878-1958)Watson digelar sebagai 'bapa behaviorisme'. Beliau sangat terpengaruh dengan hasil kerja Pavlov dan menerima pelaziman klasik sebagai cara penting pembelajaran berlaku. Oleh kerana dia mengutamakan tingkahlaku yang boleh diperhatikan, beliau mengaitkan segala tingkahlaku dengan pergerakan. Contohnya, dia sifatkan 'perasaan' sebagai pergekaran otot-otot dalam perut dan 'percakapan' sebagai pergerakan otot-otot dalam tekak.

Eksperimen yang jalankan dengan  seorang bayi bernama 'Albert'. Watson memakai topeng untuk menakutkan Albert.Seorang bayi bernama Albert didedahkan kepada seekor tikus. Bayi itu bermain dengan haiwan itu tanpa menunjukkan apa jua ketakutan. Dalam situasi yang berlainan, Albert diberikan tikus yang sama, tetapi kali ini ia diikuti dengan satu bunyi kuat. Setiap kali tikus itu diberikan kepada Albert, bunyi kuat itu terdengar yang membuat bayi itu gelisah dan menangis. Kemudian tikus itu diberikan kepada Albert, tanpa bunyi kuat bayi itu enggan menyentuh tikus itu dan terus menangis. Apakah telah terjadi?Teori Pelaziman Cuba Jaya (Theory of Trial and Error Conditioning ) oleh E. L. ThorndikeThorndike (1874-1949), seorang ahli psikologi Amerika, mendapat ijazah kedoktoran (PhD) pada usia 24 tahun dan mula mengajar di Teachers' College, Columbia University. Beliau tidak begitu setuju dengan teori pelaziman klasik yang diperkenalkan oleh Ivan Pavlov. Beberapa tahun sebelum Pavlov, Thorndike (1874-1949) menjalankan kajian dan menguatarakan apa yang dinamakan 'pembelajaran cuba jaya' (trial and error learning). Baginya, prinsip asas pembelajran ialah pengaruh ganjaran dan denda dan organisme akan membuat sesuatu yang akan membawa keseronokan. Sebaliknya, organisme berkenaan akan mengelakkan melakukan sesuatu yang membawa kesakitan atau membahayakan diri. Menurutnya, ganjaran mendorong organisme mengulangi seusatu gerak balas manakala denda pula boleh menyekat organisme daripada melakukan sesuatu gerak balas.Dialah pengasas awal teori Rangsangan-Gerak Balas (R-G) atau Stimulus-Response (S-R). Dengan perkataan lain, organisme mengaitkan Gerak Balas tertentu dengan Rangsangan tertentu. Thorndike melabelkan jenis pembelajaran ini sebagai 'Pembelajaran Instrumental atau Operan' yang diperluaskan kemudian oleh B.F. Skinner.

Eksperimen ThorndikeThorndike menjalankan berbagai eskperimen dengan menggunakan suatu alat yang direka bentuk dan dipanggil 'puzzle box.'  Manakala Pavlov menggunakan anjing, Thorndike kerap menggunakan kucing. Dia mengurung seekor kucing yang lapar dalam puzzle box yang mempunyai kunci. Jika kucing itu akan cuba dengan mencakar peti itu dan jika ia berjaya menekan kunci peti itu, pintu akan terbuka dan kucing itu akan dapat keluar ke arah makanan yang disediakan. Thorndike telah perhatikan behawa kucing itu telah melakukan bermacam-macam tindakan (proses cuba-jaya) untuk keluar hinggalah haiwan itu tertekan kunci dan pintu terbuka. Masa yang diambil oleh kucing itu untuk membuka pintu puzzle box dicatat.Beberapa jam kemudian kucing yang lapar itu dimasukkan ke dalam peti yang sama. Kali ini, haiwan itu berjaya menekan kuci pntu dalam masal yang lebih singkat berbanding dengan percubaan pertama. Kucing itu dikatakan telah menguasai atau belajar. Iaitu, organisme itu telah mempelajari gerak balas yang betul untuk menyelesaikan masalah yang dihadapi.

1) Hukuman Kesediaan (Law of Readiness)Organisme bersedia bertindak ====> Organisme bertindak  ====> Organisme puas

Organisme bersedia bertindak ====> Organisme TIDAK bertindak ====> Organisme kecewa

Organisme TIDAK bersedia bertindak ===== Organisme dipaksa bertindak ====> Organisme kecewa

2) Hukum Latihan (Law of Exercise)Kaitan antara R-G akan menjadi lebih kuat sekiranya organisme melakukan atau melatih seberapa kerap yang boleh. Jika latihan berkurangan, kaitan R-G akan mula menjadi lemah.

3) Hukum Kesan (Law of Effect)Ikatan antara R-G akan bertambah kukuh jika terdapat kesan yang memuaskan apabila sesuatu gerak balas dihasilkan. Iaitu, ganjaran bertindak menguatkan kaitan R-G. Sekiranya, organisme mengalami keadaan yang tidak selesa akhibat daripada tindakannya, kaitan R-G akan menjadi lemah.

Edward Lee Thorndike1874 - 1949

Berdasarkan kajian-kajian yang dijalankan (pada 1913, 1932, 1933), Thorndike mencadangkan prinsip-prinsip berikut mengenai pembelajaran:RUJUKAN:

Connectionism (R-G Asas Teori Thorndike)

E.L. Thorndike (1874 - 1949)Teori Thorndike dan Aplikasi dalam Pembelajaran.Bagaimana teori Thorndike cuba menerangkan pembelajaran manusia?

Teori-Teori Cadangan Thorndike

Latar belakang Thorndike dan teori-teori yang diperkenalkan.

Major Phenomenon of Classical ConditioningBaca bahagian bertajuk 'Thorndike & the Law of Effect'

Kemunculan Perspektif Behaviorisme

Setiap hari kita cuba menjelaskan tingkahlaku orang yang kita tahu. Kita tanya, "Mengapa Kumar memutuskan hubungan dengan Shanti?" "Mengapa ahli parliamen itu menerima rasuah?". Mungkin kita menjawab Kumar merasa terancam dengan kebolehan academik Shanti. Ahli parliamen itu seorang yang tamak. Walau pun kita tidak boleh nampak Kumar terancam atau ahli parliamen itu tamak kita gunakan tingkahlaku mereka untuk menerangkan tindakan mereka.

Bagaimana pun ahli psikologi seperti  Watson, Tolman, Guthries, Thorndike dan Skinner tidak setuju dengan membuat inferen tentang kewujudan sesuatu tingkahlaku atau kelakuan. Menurut mereka, kita tidak boleh memutuskan Kumar 'terancam' kerana tinkahlaku tersebut tidak boleh dilihat. Cuma kita boleh melihat Kumar memutuskan hubungan dengan Shanti dan kita tidak boleh buat apa-apa inferen selain daripada itu.  Inilah yang menjadi pegangan perspektif behaviorisme, kajian harus menumpukan kepada kaitan antara rangsangan dan gerak balas (R-G) dan gerak balas itu mesti boleh dilihat berlaku dan direkod.J.B. Watson (1878-1958)

Watson digelar sebagai 'bapa behaviorisme'. Beliau sangat terpengaruh dengan hasil kerja Pavlov dan menerima pelaziman klasik sebagai cara penting pembelajaran berlaku. Oleh kerana dia mengutamakan tingkahlaku yang boleh diperhatikan, beliau mengaitkan segala tingkahlaku dengan pergerakan. Contohnya, dia sifatkan 'perasaan' sebagai pergekaran otot-otot dalam perut dan 'percakapan' sebagai pergerakan otot-otot dalam tekak.

Eksperimen yang jalankan dengan  seorang bayi bernama 'Albert'. Watson memakai topeng untuk menakutkan Albert.Seorang bayi bernama Albert didedahkan kepada seekor tikus. Bayi itu bermain dengan haiwan itu tanpa menunjukkan apa jua ketakutan. Dalam situasi yang berlainan, Albert diberikan tikus yang sama, tetapi kali ini ia diikuti dengan satu bunyi kuat. Setiap kali tikus itu diberikan kepada Albert, bunyi kuat itu terdengar yang membuat bayi itu gelisah dan menangis. Kemudian tikus itu diberikan kepada Albert, tanpa bunyi kuat bayi itu enggan menyentuh tikus itu dan terus menangis. Apakah telah terjadi?Rujukan:

Conditioned Emotional Reactionsoleh J.B.Watson & Rosalie Rayner (1920)Baca tentang eksperimen ke atas 'Albert'.

Behaviorism - The modern note in psychologyoleh J.B. Watson (1929)Eksperimen Thorndike

Thorndike menjalankan berbagai eskperimen dengan menggunakan suatu alat yang direka bentuk dan dipanggil 'puzzle box.'  Manakala Pavlov menggunakan anjing, Thorndike kerap menggunakan kucing. Dia mengurung seekor kucing yang lapar dalam puzzle box yang mempunyai kunci.

Jika kucing itu akan cuba dengan mencakar peti itu dan jika ia berjaya menekan kunci peti itu, pintu akan terbuka dan kucing itu akan dapat keluar ke arah makanan yang disediakan. Thorndike telah perhatikan behawa kucing itu telah melakukan bermacam-macam tindakan (proses cuba-jaya) untuk keluar hinggalah haiwan itu tertekan kunci dan pintu terbuka. Masa yang diambil oleh kucing itu untuk membuka pintu puzzle box dicatat.

Beberapa jam kemudian kucing yang lapar itu dimasukkan ke dalam peti yang sama. Kali ini, haiwan itu berjaya menekan kuci pntu dalam masal yang lebih singkat berbanding dengan percubaan pertama. Kucing itu dikatakan telah menguasai atau belajar. Iaitu, organisme itu telah mempelajari gerak balas yang betul untuk menyelesaikan masalah yang dihadapi.

Berdasarkan kajian-kajian yang dijalankan (pada 1913, 1932, 1933), Thorndike mencadangkan prinsip-prinsip berikut mengenai pembelajaran:

1) Hukuman Kesediaan (Law of Readiness)Organisme bersedia bertindak ====> Organisme bertindak  ====> Organisme puas

Organisme bersedia bertindak ====> Organisme TIDAK bertindak ====> Organisme kecewa

Organisme TIDAK bersedia bertindak ===== Organisme dipaksa bertindak ====> Organisme kecewa

2) Hukum Latihan (Law of Exercise)Kaitan antara R-G akan menjadi lebih kuat sekiranya organisme melakukan atau melatih seberapa kerap yang boleh. Jika latihan berkurangan, kaitan R-G akan mula menjadi lemah.

3) Hukum Kesan (Law of Effect)Ikatan antara R-G akan bertambah kukuh jika terdapat kesan yang memuaskan apabila sesuatu gerak balas dihasilkan. Iaitu, ganjaran bertindak menguatkan kaitan R-G. Sekiranya, organisme mengalami keadaan yang tidak selesa akhibat daripada tindakannya, kaitan R-G akan menjadi lemah.

Edward Lee Thorndike1874 - 1949

RUJUKAN:

Connectionism (R-G Asas Teori Thorndike)

E.L. Thorndike (1874 - 1949)Teori Thorndike dan Aplikasi dalam Pembelajaran.Bagaimana teori Thorndike cuba menerangkan pembelajaran manusia?

Teori-Teori Cadangan ThorndikeLatar belakang Thorndike dan teori-teori yang diperkenalkan.

Major Phenomenon of Classical ConditioningBaca bahagian bertajuk 'Thorndike & the Law of Effect'

Classics in the History of PsychologyAn internet resource developed by

Christopher D. GreenYork University, Toronto, Ontario

(Return to Classics index ) 

CONDITIONED EMOTIONAL REACTIONSBy John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner(1920)

First published in Journal of Experimental Psychology, 3(1), 1-14.

In recent literature various speculations have been entered into concerning the possibility of conditioning various types of emotional response, but direct experimental evidence in

support of such a view has been lacking. If the theory advanced by Watson and Morgan [1] to the effect that in infancy the original emotional reaction patterns are few, consisting so far as observed of fear, rage and love, then there must be some simple method by means of which the range of stimuli which can call out these emotions and their compounds is greatly increased. Otherwise, complexity in adult response could not be accounted for. These authors without adequate experimental evidence advanced the view that this range was increased by means of conditioned reflex factors. It was suggested there that the early home life of the child furnishes a laboratory situation for establishing conditioned emotional responses. The present authors have recently put the whole matter to an experimental test.

Experimental work had been done so far on only one child, Albert B. This infant was reared almost from birth in a hospital environment; his mother was a wet nurse in the Harriet Lane Home for Invalid Children. Albert's life was normal: he was healthy from birth and one of the best developed youngsters ever brought to the hospital, weighing twenty-one pounds at nine months of age. He was on the whole stolid and unemotional. His stability was one of the principal reasons for using him as a subject in this test. We [p.2] felt that we could do him relatively little harm by carrying out such experiments as those outlined below.

At approximately nine months of age we ran him through the emotional tests that have become a part of our regular routine in determining whether fear reactions can be called out by other stimuli than sharp noises and the sudden removal of support. Tests of this type have been described by the senior author in another place.[2] In brief, the infant was confronted suddenly and for the first time successively with a white rat, a rabbit, a dog, a monkey, with masks with and without hair, cotton wool, burning newspapers, etc. A permanent record of Albert's reactions to these objects and situations has been preserved in a motion picture study. Manipulation was the most usual reaction called out. At no time did this infant ever show fear in any situation. These experimental records were confirmed by the casual observations of the mother and hospital attendants. No one had ever seen him in a state of fear and rage. The infant practically never cried.

Up to approximately nine months of age we had not tested him with loud sounds. The test to determine whether a fear reaction could be called out by a loud sound was made when he was eight months, twenty-six days of age. The sound was that made by striking a hammer upon a suspended steel bar four feet in length and three-fourths of an inch in diameter. The laboratory notes are as follows:

One of the two experimenters caused the child to turn its head and fixate her moving hand ; the other stationed back of the child, struck the steel bar a sharp blow. The child started violently, his breathing was checked and the arms were raised in a characteristic manner. On the second stimulation the same thing occurred, and in addition the lips began to pucker and tremble. On the third stimulation the child broke into a sudden crying fit. This is the first time an emotional situation in the laboratory has produced any fear or even crying in Albert.

[p.3] We had expected just these results on account of our work with other infants brought up under similar conditions. It is worth while to call attention to the fact that removal of support (dropping and jerking the blanket upon which the infant was lying) was tried exhaustively upon this infant on the same occasion. It was not effective in producing the fear response. This stimulus is effective in younger children. At what age such stimuli lose their potency in producing fear is not known. Nor is it known whether less placid children ever lose their fear of them. This probably depends upon the training the child gets. It is well known that children eagerly run to be tossed into the air and caught. On the other hand it is equally well known that in the adult fear responses are called out quite clearly by the sudden removal of support, if the individual is walking across a bridge, walking out upon a beam, etc. There is a wide field of study here which is aside from our present point.

The sound stimulus, thus, at nine months of age, gives us the means of testing several important factors. I. Can we condition fear of an animal, e.g., a white rat, by visually presenting it and simultaneously striking a steel bar? II. If such a conditioned emotional response can be established, will there be a transfer to other animals or other objects? III. What is the effect of time upon such conditioned emotional responses? IV. If after a reasonable period such emotional responses have not died out, what laboratory methods can be devised for their removal?

I. The establishment of conditioned emotional responses.

At first there was considerable hesitation upon our part in making the attempt to set up fear reactions experimentally. A certain responsibility attaches to such a procedure. We decided finally to make the attempt, comforting ourselves by the reflection that such attachments would arise anyway as soon as the child left the sheltered environment of the nursery for the rough and tumble of the home. We did not begin this work until Albert was eleven months, three days of age. Before attempting to set up a conditioned response we, as before, put him through all of the regular emotional [p.4] tests. Not the slightest sign of a fear response was obtained in any situation.

The steps taken to condition emotional responses are shown in our laboratory notes.

11 Months 3 Days

1. White rat suddenly taken from the basket and presented to Albert. He began to reach for rat with left hand. Just as his hand touched the animal the bar was struck immediately behind his head. The infant jumped violently and fell forward, burying his face in the mattress. He did not cry, however. 2. Just as the right hand touched the rat the bar was again struck. Again the infant jumped violently, fell forward and began to whimper.

In order not to disturb the child too seriously no further tests were given for one week.

11 Months 10 Days

1. Rat presented suddenly without sound. There was steady fixation but no tendency at first to reach for it. The rat was then placed nearer, whereupon tentative reaching movements began with the right hand. When the rat nosed the infant's left hand, the hand was immediately withdrawn. He started to reach for the head of the animal with the forefinger of the left hand, but withdrew it suddenly before contact. It is thus seen that the two joint stimulations given the previous week were not without effect. He was tested with his blocks immediately afterwards to see if they shared in the process of conditioning. He began immediately to pick them up, dropping them, pounding them, etc. In the remainder of the tests the blocks were given frequently to quiet him and to test his general emotional state. They were always removed from sight when the process of conditioning was under way. 2. Joint stimulation with rat and sound. Started, then fell over immediately to right side No crying.[p.5] 3. Joint stimulation. Fell to right side and rested upon hands, with head turned away from rat. No crying. 4. Joint stimulation. Same reaction. 5. Rat suddenly presented alone. Puckered face, whimpered and withdrew body sharply to the left. 6. Joint stimulation. Fell over immediately to right side and began to whimper. 7. Joint stimulation. Started violently and cried, but did not fall over. 8. Rat alone. The instant the rat was shown the baby began to cry. Almost instantly he turned sharply to the left, fell over on left side, raised himself on all fours and began to crawl away so rapidly that he was caught with difficulty before reaching the edge of the table.

This was as convincing a case of a completely conditioned fear response as could have been theoretically pictured. In all seven joint stimulations were given to bring about the complete reaction. It is not unlikely had the sound been of greater intensity or of a more complex clang character that the number of joint stimulations might have been materially reduced. Experiments designed to define the nature of the sounds that will serve best as emotional stimuli are under way.

II. When a conditioned emotional response has been established for one object, is there a transfer? Five days later Albert was again brought back into the laboratory and tested as follows:

11 Months 15 Days

1. Tested first with blocks. He reached readily for them, playing with them as usual. This shows that there has been no general transfer to the room, table, blocks, etc. 2. Rat alone. Whimpered immediately, withdrew right hand and turned head and trunk away. 3.Blocks again offered. Played readily with them, smiling and gurgling. [p.6] 4. Rat alone. Leaned over to the left side as far away from the rat as possible, then fell over, getting up on all fours and scurrying away as rapidly as possible. 5. Blocks again offered. Reached immediately for them, smiling and laughing as before.

The above preliminary test shows that the conditioned response to the rat had carried over completely for the five days in which no tests were given. The question as to whether or not there is a transfer was next taken up.

6. Rabbit alone. The rabbit was suddenly placed on the mattress in front of him. The reaction was pronounced. Negative responses began at once. He leaned as far away from the animal as possible, whimpered, then burst into tears. When the rabbit was placed in contact with him he buried his face in the mattress, then got up on all fours and crawled away, crying as he went. This was a most convincing test. 7. The blocks were next given him, after an interval. He played with them as before. It was observed by four people that he played far more energetically with them than ever before. The blocks were raised high over his head and slammed down with a great deal of force. 8. Dog alone. The dog did not produce as violent a reaction as the rabbit. The moment fixation occurred the child shrank back and as the animal came nearer he attempted to get on all fours but did not cry at first. As soon as the dog passed out of his range of vision he became quiet. The dog was then made to approach the infant's head (he was lying down at the moment). Albert straightened up immediately, fell over to the opposite side and turned his head away. He then began to cry. 9. The blocks were again presented. He began immediately to play with them. 10. Fur coat (seal). Withdrew immediately to the left side and began to fret. Coat put close to him on the [p.7] left side, he turned immediately, began to cry and tried to crawl away on all fours. 11. Cotton wool. The wool was presented in a paper package. At the end the cotton was not covered by the paper. It was placed first on his feet. He kicked it away but did not touch it with his hands. When his hand was laid on the wool he immediately withdrew it but did not show the shock that the animals or fur coat produced in him. He then began to play with the paper, avoiding contact with the wool itself. He finally, under the impulse of the manipulative instinct, lost some of his negativism to the wool. 12. Just in play W. put his head down to see if Albert would play with his hair. Albert was completely negative. Two other observers did the same thing. He began immediately to play with their hair. W. then brought the Santa Claus mask and presented it to Albert. He was again pronouncedly negative.

11 Months 20 Days

1. Blocks alone. Played with them as usual. 2. Rat alone. Withdrawal of the whole body, bending over to left side, no crying. Fixation and following with eyes. The response was much less marked than on first presentation the previous week. It was thought best to freshen up the reaction by another joint stimulation. 3. Just as the rat was placed on his hand the rod was struck. Reaction violent. 4. Rat alone. Fell over at once to left side. Reaction practically as strong as on former occasion but no crying. 5. Rat alone. Fell over to left side, got up on all fours and started to crawl away. On this occasion there was no crying, but strange to say, as he started away he began to gurgle

and coo, even while leaning far over to the left side to avoid the rat. 6. Rabbit alone. Leaned over to left side as far as possible. Did not fall over. Began to whimper but reaction not so violent as on former occasions. [p.8] 7. Blocks again offered. He reached for them immediately and began to play.

All of these tests so far discussed were carried out upon a table supplied with a mattress, located in a small, well-lighted dark-room. We wished to test next whether conditioned fear responses so set up would appear if the situation were markedly altered. We thought it best before making this test to freshen the reaction both to the rabbit and to the dog by showing them at the moment the steel bar was struck. It will be recalled that this was the first time any effort had been made to directly condition response to the dog and rabbit. The experimental notes are as follows:

8. The rabbit at first was given alone. The reaction was exactly as given in test (6) above. When the rabbit was left on Albert's knees for a long time he began tentatively to reach out and manipulate its fur with forefingers. While doing this the steel rod was struck. A violent fear reaction resulted. 9. Rabbit alone. Reaction wholly similar to that on trial (6) above. I0. Rabbit alone. Started immediately to whimper, holding hands far up, but did not cry. Conflicting tendency to manipulate very evident. 11. Dog alone. Began to whimper, shaking head from side to side, holding hands as far away from the animal as possible. 12. Dog and sound. The rod was struck just as the animal touched him. A violent negative reaction appeared. He began to whimper, turned to one side, fell over and started to get up on all fours. 13. Blocks. Played with them immediately and readily.

On this same day and immediately after the above experiment Albert was taken into the large well-lighted lecture room belonging to the laboratory. He was placed on a table in the center of the room immediately under the skylight. Four people were present. The situation [p.9] was thus very different from that which obtained in the small dark room.

I. Rat alone. No sudden fear reaction appeared at first. The hands, however, were held up and away from the animal. No positive manipulatory reactions appeared. 2. Rabbit alone. Fear reaction slight. Turned to left and kept face away from the animal but the reaction was never pronounced. 3. Dog alone. Turned away but did not fall over. Cried. Hands moved as far away from the animal as possible. Whimpered as long as the dog was present. 4. Rat alone. Slight negative reaction. 5. Rat and sound. It was thought best to freshen the reaction to the rat. The sound was given just as the rat was presented. Albert jumped violently but did not cry. 6. Rat alone. At first he did not show any negative reaction. When rat was placed nearer he began to show negative reaction by drawing back his body, raising his hands, whimpering, etc. 7. Blocks. Played with them immediately. 8. Rat alone. Pronounced withdrawal of body and whimpering.

9. Blocks. Played with them as before. 10. Rabbit alone. Pronounced reaction. Whimpered with arms held high, fell over backward and had to be caught. 11. Dog alone. At first the dog did not produce the pronounced reaction. The hands were held high over the head, breathing was checked, but there was no crying. Just at this moment the dog, which had not barked before, barked three times loudly when only about six inches from the baby's face. Albert immediately fell over and broke into a wail that continued until the dog was removed. The sudden barking of the hitherto quiet dog produced a marked fear response in the adult observers!

[p.10] From the above results it would seem that emotional transfers do take place. Furthermore it would seem that the number of transfers resulting from an experimentally produced conditioned emotional reaction may be very large. In our observations we had no means of testing the complete number of transfers which may have resulted.

III. The effect of time upon conditioned emotional responses. We have already shown that the conditioned emotional response will continue for a period of one week. It was desired to make the time test longer. In view of the imminence of Albert's departure from the hospital we could not make the interval longer than one month. Accordingly no further emotional experimentation was entered into for thirty-one days after the above test. During the month, however, Albert was brought weekly to the laboratory for tests upon right and left-handedness, imitation, general development, etc. No emotional tests whatever were given and during the whole month his regular nursery routine was maintained in the Harriet Lane Home. The notes on the test given at the end of this period are as follows:

1 Year 21 Days

1. Santa Claus mask. Withdrawal, gurgling, then slapped at it without touching. When his hand was forced to touch it, he whimpered and cried. His hand was forced to touch it two more times. He whimpered and cried on both tests. He finally cried at the mere visual stimulus of the mask. 2. Fur coat. Wrinkled his nose and withdrew both hands, drew back his whole body and began to whimper as the coat was put nearer. Again there was the strife between withdrawal and the tendency to manipulate. Reached tentatively with left hand but drew back before contact had been made. In moving his body to one side his hand accidentally touched the coat. He began to cry at once, nodding his head in a very peculiar manner (this reaction was an entirely new one). Both hands were withdrawn as far as possible from the coat. The coat [p.11] was then laid on his lap and he continued nodding his head and whimpering, withdrawing his body as far as possible, pushing the while at the coat with his feet but never touching it with his hands. 3. Fur coat. The coat was taken out of his sight and presented again at the end of a minute. He began immediately to fret, withdrawing his body and nodding his head as before. 4. Blocks. He began to play with them as usual. 5. The rat. He allowed the rat to crawl towards him without withdrawing. He sat very still

and fixated it intently. Rat then touched his hand. Albert withdrew it immediately, then leaned back as far as possible but did not cry. When the rat was placed on his arm he withdrew his body and began to fret, nodding his head. The rat was then allowed to crawl against his chest. He first began to fret and then covered his eyes with both hands. 6. Blocks. Reaction normal. 7. The rabbit. The animal was placed directly in front of him. It was very quiet. Albert showed no avoiding reactions at first. After a few seconds he puckered up his face, began to nod his head and to look intently at the experimenter. He next began to push the rabbit away with his feet, withdrawing his body at the same time. Then as the rabbit came nearer he began pulling his feet away, nodding his head, and wailing "da da". After about a minute he reached out tentatively and slowly and touched the rabbit's ear with his right hand, finally manipulating it. The rabbit was again placed in his lap. Again he began to fret and withdrew his hands. He reached out tentatively with his left hand and touched the animal, shuddered and withdrew the whole body. The experimenter then took hold of his left hand and laid it on the rabbit's back. Albert immediately withdrew his hand and began to suck his thumb. Again the rabbit was laid in his lap. He began to cry, covering his face with both hands. [p.12] 8. Dog. The dog was very active. Albert fixated it intensely for a few seconds, sitting very still. He began to cry but did not fall over backwards as on his last contact with the dog. When the dog was pushed closer to him he at first sat motionless, then began to cry, putting both hands over his face.

These experiments would seem to show conclusively that directly conditioned emotional responses as well as those conditioned by transfer persist, although with a certain loss in the intensity of the reaction, for a longer period than one month. Our view is that they persist and modify personality throughout life. It should be recalled again that Albert was of an extremely phlegmatic type. Had he been emotionally unstable probably both the directly conditioned response and those transferred would have persisted throughout the month unchanged in form.

IV. "Detachment" or removal of conditioned emotional responses. Unfortunately Albert was taken from the hospital the day the above tests were made. Hence the opportunity of building up an experimental technique by means of which we could remove the conditioned emotional responses was denied us. Our own view, expressed above, which is possibly not very well grounded, is that these responses in the home environment are likely to persist indefinitely, unless an accidental method for removing them is hit upon. The importance of establishing some method must be apparent to all. Had the opportunity been at hand we should have tried out several methods, some of which we may mention. (I) Constantly confronting the child with those stimuli which called out the responses in the hopes that habituation would come in corresponding to "fatigue" of reflex when differential reactions are to be set up. (2) By trying to "recondition" by showing objects calling out fear responses (vsual) and simultaneously stimulating the erogenous zones (tactual). We should try first the lips, then the nipples and as a final resort the sex organs. (3) By trying to "recondition" by feeding the subject candy or other food just as the animal is shown. This method calls for the food control of the subject. (4) By building up "constructive" activities around the object by imitation and [p.13] by putting the hand

through the motions of manipulation. At this age imitation of overt motor activity is strong, as our present but unpublished experimentation has shown.

INCIDENTAL OBSERVATIONS

(a) Thumb sucking as a compensatory device for blocking fear and noxious stimuli. During the course of these experiments, especially in the final test, it was noticed that whenever Albert was on the verge of tears or emotionally upset generally he would continually thrust his thumb into his mouth. The moment the hand reached the mouth he became impervious to the stimuli producing fear. Again and again while the motion pictures were being made at the end of the thirty-day period, we had to remove the thumb from his mouth before the conditioned response could be obtained. This method of blocking noxious and emotional stimuli (fear and rage) through erogenous stimulation seems to persist from birth onward. Very often in our experiments upon the work adders with infants under ten days of age the same reaction appeared. When at work upon the adders both of the infants arms are under slight restraint. Often rage appears. They begin to cry, thrashing their arms and legs about. If the finger gets into the mouth crying ceases at once. The organism thus apparently from birth, when under the influence of love stimuli is blocked to all others.[3] This resort to sex stimulation when under the influence of noxious and emotional situations, or when the individual is restless and idle, persists throughout adolescent and adult life. Albert, at any rate, did not resort to thumb sucking except in the presence of such stimuli. Thumb sucking could immediately be checked by offering him his blocks. These invariably called out active manipulation instincts. It is worth while here to call attention to the fact that Freud's conception of the stimulation of erogenous zones as being the expression of an original "pleasure" seeking principle may be turned about [p.14] and possibly better described as a compensatory (and often conditioned) device for the blockage of noxious and fear and rage producing stimuli.

(b) Equal primacy of fear, love and possibly rage. While in general the results of our experiment offer no particular points of conflict with Freudian concepts, one fact out of harmony with them should be emphasized. According to proper Freudians sex (or in our terminology, love) is the principal emotion in which conditioned responses arise which later limit and distort personality. We wish to take sharp issue with this view on the basis of the experimental evidence we have gathered. Fear is as primal a factor as love in influencing personality. Fear does not gather its potency in any derived manner from love. It belongs to the original and inherited nature of man. Probably the same may be true of rage although at present we are not so sure of this.

The Freudians twenty years from now, unless their hypotheses change, when they come to analyze Albert's fear of a seal skin coat - assuming that he comes to analysis at that age - will probably tease from him the recital of a dream which upon their analysis will show that Albert at three years of age attempted to play with the pubic hair of the mother and was scolded violently for it. (We are by no means denying that this might in some other case condition it). If the analyst has sufficiently prepared Albert to accept such a dream when found as an explanation of his avoiding tendencies, and if the analyst has the

authority and personality to put it over, Albert may be fully convinced that the dream was a true revealer of the factors which brought about the fear.

It is probable that many of the phobias in psychopathology are true conditioned emotional reactions either of the direct or the transferred type. One may possibly have to believe that such persistence of early conditioned responses will be found only in persons who are constitutionally inferior. Our argument is meant to be constructive. Emotional disturbances in adults cannot be traced back to sex alone. They must be retraced along at least three collateral lines - to conditioned and transferred responses set up in infancy and early youth in all three of the fundamental human emotions.

Footnotes

[1] 'Emotional Reactions and Psychological Experimentation,' American Journal of Psychology, April, 1917, Vol. 28, pp. 163-174.

[2] 'Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist,' p.202.

[3] The stimulus to love in infants according to our view is stroking of the skin, lips, nipples and sex organs, patting and rocking, picking up, etc. Patting and rocking (when not conditioned) are probably equivalent to actual stimulation of the sex organs. In adults of course, as every lover knows, vision, audition and olfaction soon become conditioned by joint stimulation with contact and kinaesthetic stimuli.

Classics in the History of PsychologyAn internet resource developed by

Christopher D. GreenYork University, Ontario

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BEHAVIORISM --THE MODERN NOTE IN PSYCHOLOGY

By John B. Watson (1929)

Introduction. When I innocently committed myself to meet Professor MacDougall in debate, I understood that all that was required of me was to give a brief account of the new Behavioristic movement in psychology now rapidly forging to the front. Had I known that my presentation was expected to take the present form I fear timidity would have overcome me. Professor MacDougall's forensic ability is too well. known, and my own shortcomings in that direction are too well known, for me knowingly to offer him combat. So I think the only self-protective plan is to disregard all controversial developments and attempt to give here a brief résumé of Behaviorism -- the modern note in psychology [p. 8] -- and to tell why it will work and why it will work and why the current introspective psychology of Professor MacDougall will not work.

What is the Behavioristic note in psychology? Psychology is as old as the human race. The tempting of Eve by the serpent is our first biblical record of the use of psychological methods. May I call attention to the fact, though, that the serpent when he tempted Eve did not ask her to introspect, to look into her mind to see what was going on. No, he handed her the apple and she bit into it. We have a similar example of the Behavioristic psychology in Grecian mythology, when the golden apple labeled "For the Fairest" was tossed into a crowd of society women, and again when Hippomenes, in order to win the race from Atalanta, threw golden apples in front of her, knowing full well that she would check her swift flight to pick them up.

One can go through history and show that early psychology was Behavioristic -- grew up around the notion that if you place a certain thing in front of an individual or a group of individuals, the individual or [p. 9] group will act, will do something. Behaviorism is a return to early common-sense. The keynote is: Given a certain object or situation, what will the individual do when confronted with it. Or the reverse of this formulation: Seeing an individual doing something, to be able to predict what object or situation is calling forth that act.

Behavioristic psychology, then, strives to learn something about the nature of human behavior. To get the individual to follow a certain line, to do certain things, what situation shall I set up? Or, seeing the crowd in action, or the individual in action, to know enough about behavior to predict what the situation is that leads to that action.

This all sounds real; one might say it seems to be just common-sense. How can any one object to this formulation? And yet, full of common-sense as it is, this Behavioristic formulation of the problem of psychology has been a veritable battleground since 1912. To understand why this is so, let us examine the more conservative type of psychology which is represented [p. 10] by Professor MacDougall. But to understand at all adequately the type of psychology which he represents we must take one little peep at the way superstitious responses have grown up and become a part of our very nature.

Religious Background of Introspective Psychology. No one knows just how the idea of the supernatural started. It probably had its origin in the general laziness of mankind. Certain individuals who in primitive society declined to work with their hands, to go out

hunting, to make flints, to dig for roots, became Behavioristic psychologists observers of human nature.

They found that breaking boughs, thunder, and other sound-producing phenomena would throw the primitive individual from his very birth into a panicky state (meaning by that: stopping the chase, crying, hiding, and the like), and that in this state it was easy to impose upon him. These lazy but good observers began to speculate on how wonderful it would be if they could get some device by which they could at will throw in individuals into this fearsome attitude [p. 11] and in general control their behavior. The colored nurses down south have gained control over the children by telling them that there is some one ready to grab them in the dark; that when it is thundering there is a fearsome power which can be appeased by their being good boys and girls. Medicine men flourished -- a good medicine man had the best of everything and, best of all, he didn't have to work. These individuals were called medicine men, soothsayers, dream interpreters, prophets -- deities in modern times. Skill in bringing about these emotional conditionings of the people increased; organization among medicine men took place, and we began to have religions of one kind or another, and churches, temples, cathedrals, and the like, each presided over by a medicine man.

I think an examination of the psychological history of people will show that their behavior is much more easily controlled by fear stimuli than by love. If the fear element were dropped out of any religion, that religion would not survive a year.

The chief medicine man in a family [p. 12] group is, of course, always thc father. In the still larger group God or Jehovah takes the place of the family father. Thus even the modern child from the beginning is confronted by the dicta of the medicine man -- be that his father, the soothsayer of the village, the God or Jehovah. Having been brought up in this attitude of authority, he never questions their written or spoken statements. He accepts them at their face value. He has never deviated from them, neither have his associates, and hence has never had an opportunity to prove or doubt their worth. This accounts for the hold religion and superstition have upon our life. It accounts for the psychology current to-day in practically every university. It partly accounts for the convincingness of Professor MacDougall's argument for purpose.

An Example of Such Concepts. One example of such a concept is that every individual has a soul. This dogma has been present in human psychology from earliest antiquity. No one has ever touched the soul, or has seen one in a test tube, or has in any way come into a relationship [p. 13] with it as he has with the other objects of his daily experience. Nevertheless, to doubt it is to become a heretic and once might possibly even have led to the loss of one's head. Even to-day for a university man to question it in many institutions is to sign his own professional death warrant.

Medieval philosophy not only accepted the concept of the soul, but tried to define it, to deal with it as they dealt with objects of everyday experience. Consequently, in the philosophy of the Middle Ages we find such questions hotly debated as to the number of angels which can stand on the point of a needle.

With the development of the physical sciences which came with the renaissance, a certain release from this stifling soul-cloud was obtained. A man could think of astronomy, the celestial bodies and their motions, of gravitation and the like, without involving soul, although the early scientists were as a rule devout Christians; nevertheless, they early began to leave soul out of their test tubes. Psychology and philosophy, however, in dealing as they [p. 14] thought with non-material objects, found it difficult to sidestep, and hence the concepts of mind and soul come down to the latter part of the nineteenth century. It was the boast of Wundt's students, in 1869, when the first psychological laboratory was established, that psychology had at last become a science without a soul. For fifty years we have kept this pseudo-science exactly as Wundt laid it down. All that Wundt and his students really accomplished was to substitute for the word "soul" the word "consciousness."

An Examination of Consciousness. From the time of Wundt on, consciousness becomes the keynote of psychology. It is the keynote to-day. It has never been seen, touched, smelled, tasted, or moved. It is a plain assumption just as unprovable as the old concept of the soul. And to the Behaviorist the two terms are essentially identical, so far as their metaphysical implications are concerned.

To show how unscientific is the concept, look for a moment at William James' definition of psychology: "Psychology is the description and explanation of states [p. 15] of consciousness as such." Starting with a definition which assumes what he starts out to prove, he escapes his difficulty by an argumentum ad hominum. "Consciousness -- oh, yes, everybody must know what this 'consciousness' is." When we have a sensation of red, a perception, a thought, when we will to do something, or when we purpose to do something, or when we desire to do something, we are being conscious. In other words, they do not tell us what consciousness is, but merely begin to put things into it by assumption, and then when they come to analyze consciousness, naturally they find in it just what they put into it. Consequently, in the analysis of consciousness made by certain of the psychologists you find, as elements, sensations and their ghosts, the images. With others you find not only sensations, but so-called affective elements; in still others you will find such elements as will -- the so-called conative element in consciousness. With some psychologists you will find many hundreds of sensations of a certain type; others will maintain that only a few of that type exist. [p. 16] And so it goes. Literally, millions of printed pages have been published on the minute analysis of this intangible something called "consciousness." And how do we begin work upon it? Not by analyzing it as we would a chemical compound, or the way a plant grows. No, those things are material things. This thing we call consciousness can be analyzed only by self-introspection, turning around, and looking at what goes on inside.

In other words, instead of gazing at woods and trees and brooks and things, we must gaze at this undefined and undefinable something we call consciousness. As a result of this major assumption that there is such a thing as consciousness, and that we can analyze it by introspection, we find as many analyses as there are individual psychologists. There is no element of control. There is no way of experimentally attacking and solving psychological problems and standardizing methods.

The Advent of the Behaviorists. In 1912 the Behaviorists reached the conclusion that they could no longer be content [p. 17] to work with the intangibles. They saw their brother scientists making progress in medicine, in chemistry, in physics. Every new discovery in those fields was of prime importance, every new element isolated in one laboratory could be isolated in some other laboratory; each new element was immediately taken up in the warp and woof of science as a whole. May I call your attention to radium, to wireless, to insulin, to thyroxin, and hundreds of others? Elements so isolated and methods so formulated immediately began to function in human achievement.

Not so with psychology, as we have pointed out. One has to agree with Professor Warner Fite that there has never been a discovery in subjective psychology; there has been only medieval speculation. The Behaviorist began his own formulation of the problem of psychology by sweeping aside all medieval conceptions. He dropped from his scientific vocabulary all subjective terms such as sensation, perception, image, desire, purpose, and even thinking and emotion as they were originally defined. [p. 18]

What has he set up in their place? The Behaviorist asks: Why don't we make what we can observe the real field of psychology? Let us limit ourselves to things that can be observed, and formulate laws concerning only the observed things. Now what can we observe? Well, we can observe behavior -- what the organism does or says. And let me make this fundamental point at once: that saying is doing -- that is, behaving. Speaking overtly or silently is just as objective a type of behavior as baseball.

The Behaviorist puts the human organism in front of him and says: What can it do? When does it start to do these things? If it doesn't do these things by reason of its original nature, what can it be taught to do? What methods shall society use in teaching it to do these things? Again, having taught it to do these things, how long will that organism be able to do them without practice? With this as subject matter, psychology connects up immediately with life.

We have known for a long time that we cannot get our animal to introspect and [p. 19] tell us about its consciousness, but we can keep it without food, we can put it in a place where the temperature is low, or the temperature is high, where food is scarce, where sex stimulation is absent, and the like, and we can observe its behavior in those situations. We find that without asking it anything, we can, with this systematic, controlled observation, tell volumes about what each animal does, both by reason of its unlearned activities and through activities which it has to learn. We soon get to the point where we can say it is doing so and so because of so and so.

The rule, or measuring rod, which the Behaviorist puts in front of him always is: Can I describe this bit of behavior I see in terms of "stimulus and response"? By stimulus we mean any object in the general environment or any change in the physiological condition of the animal, such as the change we get when we keep an animal from sex activity, when we keep it from feeding, when we keep it from building a nest. By response we mean that system of organized activity that we see [p. 20] emphasized anywhere in any kind of an

animal, as building a skyscraper, drawing plans, having babies, writing books, and the like.

The Behaviorist's psychology is based upon reflexes such as the neuro-physiologist studies. First then we must make clear what these are. Let us assume (until observation gives us an exact formulation) that there are at birth a large number of ontogenetic, embryologic responses or "reflexes." I prefer the term "squirmings." Even if there were only a hundred to start with (and there are many thousands), the process of "conditioning," working according to the law of permutations and combinations, would establish many millions of total responses -- a far greater number than the environment ever calls on even the most versatile human being to make.

Now what do we mean by "conditionmg" embryologic responses? The process of conditioning is familiar to all. It plays a much more important rôle in human behavior than is generally supposed. I need only summarize a few facts here. We start with the assumption expressed above [p. 21] that the infant exhibits certain definite unconditioned responses or "squirmings" at birth (U) R. Now some definite stimulus must call out each of these responses. So far as known from observation of the infant, this stimulus can call out this response in advance of any training. Let us call such stimuli unconditioned stimuli (U) S.

Again let us interject the possibility here that even this relationship between unconditioned stimulus and unconditioned response [p. 22] may not be a biologically given datum. Intra-uterine conditioning may have been the process which established it in embryologic life. All we mean by unconditioned stimuli and unconditioned responses is that, as observers, we find at the moment of birth that certain stimuli will cal! out certain responses. In the diagram above, A is such an unconditioned stimulus, 1 is such an unconditioned response. Now if we take B (which, so far as we know, may be any object in the universe), and let it stimulate the organism simultaneously with A for a certain number of times (sometimes even once is enough), it also there-after will arouse 1. In the same way we can make C, D, E call out 1; in other words, we can make any object at will

call out 1 (stimulus substitution). This does away with the old hypothesis that there is any inherent or sacred connection with or association of one object with another.

Order in the universe is merely a matter of conditioning. We start to write at the left of the page and go to the right. The Japanese starts at the top of the page and [p. 23] goes down. The behavior of the European is just as orderly as the behavior of the Japanese. All such so-called connections are built in. This shows how the stimulus side of our life gets more and more complicated as life goes on; how one stimulus comes soon to be able to call out not only 1 in the scheme in the diagram above, but many other responses as well.

But how do reactions become more complicated? Neurologists have studied integrations but mainly their number and complexity, and how they are called out in an organization already developed, what their sequences are (for example, in the scratch reflex), what neural architecture is involved in them, and so on. But they have not been particularly interested in their origin. In the following diagram we assume that at birth A will call out 1, B will call out 2, C will call out 3. When the three stimuli are applied in quick succession, they will still call out a pattern reaction, the components of which are 1, 2, 3 (if mutual inhibitions do not enter in). So far there is no integration. Suppose, however, I apply a single stimulus X each [p. 24] time I apply A, B and C. In a short time the single stimulus X can function alone in place of stimuli, B and C; in other words, the single stimulus X can call out all three responses "1, 2 and 3."

For example, the sight of your wife entering the room may call out the integrated social response which we will call Y, consisting of (1) rising from your chair, (2), bowing, (3) offering her a chair. I would call this an integrated response. Our problem in social conditioning therefore is to find the kinds of individual responses we want brought together to form some pattern [p. 25] of response demanded by society, then to locate the individual stimuli which will call out these responses and substitute for that whole group of stimuli a single stimulus -- often a verbal one. All verbal commands are of this type, for example, "Right front into line!" The verbal stimulus is X of our diagram, the separate movements necessary to execute this maneuver illustrate the "1, 2, 3," of our diagram.

In this way, which may seem a little complicated unless one is familiar with the establishment of conditioned responses the Behaviorist tries to take the old vague concept of habit formation and to give it a new and exact scientific formulation in terms of conditioned responses. On this basis the most complicated of our adult habits are explicable in terms of chains of simple conditioned responses.

The Behaviorist finds no scientific evidence for the existence of any vitalistic principle, such, for example, as Prof. MacDougall's "purpose," in his explanation of the increasing complexity of behavior as we pass from infancy to adulthood. It [p. 26] is a truism in science that we should not bring into our explanation any vitalistic factor. We need nothing to explain behavior but the ordinary laws of physics and chemistry There are many things we cannot explain in behavior just as there are many things we cannot explain in physics and chemistry, but where objectively verifiable experimentation ends, hypothesis, and later theory, begin. But even theories and hypotheses must be couched in terms of what is already known about physical and chemical processes. He then who would introduce consciousness, either as an epiphenomenon or as an active force interjecting itself into the chemical and physical happenings of the body, does so because of spiritualistic and vitalistic leanings. The Behaviorist cannot find consciousness in the test-tube of his science. lie finds no evidence anywhere for a stream of consciousness, not even for one so convincing as that described by William James. He does, however, find convincing proof of an ever-widening stream of behavior.

To understand this stream of behavior [p. 27] we must first survey the activity of the new-born infant, and enumerate the unconditioned responses and the unconditioned stimuli that call them out. Not all unconditioned responses are present at birth. Certain of them appear at fairly definite intervals afterwards. And this inquiry is not being undertaken for the purpose of classification. The information is sought because these stimuli and responses are the "raw material" out of which our child, adolescent and adult, is to be built up. Love, fear and rage behavior begin at birth, just as do sneezing, hiccoughing, feeding, movements of the leg, larynx, grasping, defecation, urination, crying, erection of penis, smiling, defense and other movements. Reaching, blinking and others begin at a later stage. Some of these embryologic responses persist throughout the life history of the individual, others disappear.

Most important of all, conditioned responses are almost immediately built on these embryologic foundations. For example, the child will smile at birth (U) R; stroking the lips and other skin [p. 28] of the body (U) S (and certain intraorganic stimuli) will evoke it. So the birth situation may be represented diagrammatically thus:

Consider fear. Our work has shown that the fundamental unconditioned stimulus (U) S calling out a fear reaction is a loud sound or loss of support. Every child I have examined, with one exception, [p. 29] in approximately a thousand, will catch his breath, pucker his lips, cry, or, if older, crawl away, when a loud sound is given behind his head, or when the blanket on which be is lying is suddenly jerked forward. Nothing else in the whole universe will produce fear in early infancy. Now it is very easy to make the child fear every other object in the universe. All one has to do is to show the object and strike a steel bar behind his head, repeating the procedure once or twice. Thus:

So far I have described the process of conditioning or building. Possibly the process of breaking down or unconditioning is the more important one. Work on it has hardly begun, so I can only sketch the process [p. 30] roughly in a few words. Suppose I set up a conditioned fear-reaction to gold fish in a glass bowl, in an infant eighteen months old who is just beginning to talk, by means of the process already described. The moment the child sees the fish bowl he says "Bite." No matter how rapid his walk, he checks his step the moment he comes within seven or eight feet of the fish bowl. If I lift him by force and place him in front of it, he cries and tries to break away and run. No psychoanalyst, no

matter how skillful, can remove such a fear by analysis. No advocate of reasoning can remove it by talking to the child about the beautiful fishes, how they move, live and have their being. So long as the fish is not present, you can, by such verbal organization, get the child to say "Nice fish, fish won't bite;" but immediately you show him the fish, the former reaction recurs.

Try another method. Let his brother, aged four, who has no fear of fish, come up to the bowl and put his hands in the bowl and catch the fish. No amount of watching a fearless child play with these [p. 31] harmless animals will remove the fear from the toddler. Try shaming him, making a scapegoat of him. Your attempts are equally futile. Let us try, however, this simple method. Place the child at meal time at one end of a table ten or twelve feet long, and move the fish bowl to the extreme other end of the table and cover it. Just as soon as the meal is placed before him remove the cover from the bowl. If disturbance occurs, extend your table and place the bowl still farther off, so far away that no disturbance occurs. Eating takes place normally, nor is digestion interfered with. Repeat the procedure on the next day, but move the bowl a little nearer. In four or five days the bowl can be brought right up to the food tray without causing the slightest disturbance. Then take a small glass dish, fill it with water and move the dish back, and at subsequent meal times bring it nearer and nearer to him. Again in three or four days the small glass dish can be put on the tray alongside of his milk. The old fear has been driven out by training, unconditioning has taken place, and this unconditioning [p. 32] is permanent. I think this method is based on re-training the visceral component of a total bodily reaction; in other words, to remove the fear the intestine must be conditioned. Now I think one reason why so many psychoanalytic "cures" are not permanent is because the intestine is not conditioned simultaneously with the verbal and manual components. In my opinion, the analyst cannot re-train the intestine by any system of analysis or verbal instruction because in our past training words have not served as stimuli to intestinal response.

Does Behavior Psychology leave out anything? Professor MacDougall will doubtless tell you that the Behaviorist selects his problems. He will admit that the kind of work I have sketched is valuable to society, but he will tell you that there are many other phases in psychology which the Behaviorist studiously and possibly ignorantly dismisses. One such prob1cm is "thinking." How can you explain "thought" in Behavioristic terms? To do so requires considerable time.

The increasing dominance of language [p. 33] habits in the behavior of the developing child leads naturally over into the behaviorist's conception of thinking. The behaviorist makes no mystery of thinking. He holds that thinking is behavior, is motor organization, just like tennis playing or golf or any other form of muscular activity. But what kind of muscular activity? The muscular activity that he uses in talking. Thinking is merely talking, but talking with concealed musculature.

I ask you to take any child (as I have been doing with two lately) when he first begins to talk. Peep through the keyhole and watch him in the early morning. He will sit up in bed with his toys, talk aloud to his toys, talk about them. When a little older, he will plan out

his day aloud, say aloud that his nurse is going to take him for a walk, that his daddy is going to bring him an auto. In other words, he talks overtly when alone just as naturally as he works overtly with his hands. A social factor comes in. The father gets to the point when his own morning nap is disturbed. He yells out "keep quiet." The child begins then to mumble to himself -- a [p. 34] great many individuals never pass this stage, and they mumble to themselves all through life whenever they try to think. The father does not like the child's mumbling any better than his talking aloud, and so he may slap him on the lips. Finally, the parents get the child to the point where he talks silently to himself. When his lips are closed, it is nobody's business what is going on below. Thus we come to behave as we please if we do not give any external motor sign of it -- in other words, our thoughts are our own.

Now a further question comes up for serious consideration: Do we think only in terms of words? I take the position to-day that whenever the individual is thinking, the whole of his bodily organization is at work (implicitly) -- even though the final solution shall he a spoken, written or subvocally expressed verbal formulation. In other words, from the moment the thinking problem is set for the individual (by the situation he is in) activity is aroused that may lead finally to adjustment. Sometimes the activity goes on (1) in terms of implicit [p. 35] manual organization; (2) more frequently in terms of implicit verbal organization; (3) sometimes in terms of implicit (or even overt) visceral organization. If (1) or (3) dominates, thinking takes place without words.

A diagram will make clear my present convictions about thinking. In this diagram I take it for granted that the body has been simultaneously organized to respond to a series of objects, manually, verbally, and viscerally. I take it for granted further that only one of the objects, the initial one, S1, is at hand, and that it starts the body to work on its problem of thinking. The object actually present may be a person asking the individual a question. "Will X leave his present job to become Y's partner?" By hypothesis the world is shut off, and he has to think his problem out.

The diagram shows clearly that thinking involves all three sets of our organized reaction system. Note that RK1 can arouse VK2, RR2, RG2; whereas RV1 may call out RK2, RV2, RG2; and RG1 calls out RK2, RV2 or RG2; and that all [p. 37] of them serve, respectively, as kinesthetic, laryngeal or visceral substitutes for S2, the next real object in the series of objects originally producing the organization. Note that, in accordance with the diagram, thinking activity may go on for a considerable time without words. If at any step in the process the RY organization does not appear, thinking goes on without words.

[alone on p. 36]

It seems reasonable, does it not, to suppose that thinking activity at successive moments of time may be kinesthetic, verbal or visceral (emotional) ? When kin-esthetic organization becomes blocked, or is lacking, then the verbal processes function; if both are blocked, the visceral (emotional) organization becomes dominant. By hypothesis, however, the final response or adjustment, if one is reached, must be verbal (subvocal).

This line of argument shows how one's total organization is brought into the process of thinking. I think it shows clearly that manual and visceral organizations are operative in thinking even when no verbal processes are present -- it shows that we [p. 38] could still think in some sort of way even if we had no words!

We thus think and plan with the whole body. But since, as I have already pointed out, word organization is, when present, probably usually dominant over visceral and manual organization, we can say that thinking is largely subvocal talking-provided we hasten to explain that it can occur without words.

Words are thus the conditioned (C) S substitutes for our world of objects and acts. Thinking is a device for manipulating the world of objects when those objects are not present to the senses. Thinking more than doubles our efficiency. It enables us to carry our day world to bed with us and manipulate it at night or when it is a thousand miles away. Psychoanalysts when taking an individual out of a bad situation often forget that the patient carries the bad verbal situation to the new location. Most of the happy results of analysis are due to the fact that the analyst builds up a new word world correlated with a new visceral and a new manual world. There can be no virtue in analysis per se.

This is the end of my little story. I have had opportunity only to hurl at the reader a few Behavioristic words; it is beyond reason to expect him to react favorably to a scientific formulation which throws out of adjustment so much of his previous organization. If it serves to make you only a little more critical of our present easy-going psychological formulations, I shall rest content. To accept Behaviorism fully and freely requires a slow growth -- the putting away of old habits and the formulation of new. Behaviorism is new wine that cannot be poured into old bottles.

Connectionism (E. Thorndike) Overview:

The learning theory of Thorndike represents the original S-R framework of behavioral psychology: Learning is the result of associations forming between stimuli and responses. Such associations or "habits" become strengthened or weakened by the nature and frequency of the S-R pairings. The paradigm for S-R theory was trial and error learning in which certain responses come to dominate others due to rewards. The hallmark of connectionism (like all behavioral theory) was that learning could be adequately explained without refering to any unobservable internal states.

Thorndike's theory consists of three primary laws: (1) law of effect - responses to a situation which are followed by a rewarding state of affairs will be strengthened and become habitual responses to that situation, (2) law of readiness - a series of responses can be chained together to satisfy some goal which will result in annoyance if blocked, and (3) law of exercise - connections become strengthened with practice and weakened when practice is discontinued. A corollary of the law of effect was that responses that reduce the likelihood of achieving a rewarding state (i.e., punishments, failures) will decrease in strength.

The theory suggests that transfer of learning depends upon the presence of identical elements in the original and new learning situations; i.e., transfer is always specific, never general. In later versions of the theory, the concept of "belongingness" was introduced; connections are more readily established if the person perceives that stimuli or responses go together (c.f. Gestalt principles). Another concept introduced was "polarity" which specifies that connections occur more easily in the direction in which they were originally formed than the opposite. Thorndike also introduced the "spread of effect" idea, i.e., rewards affect not only the connection that produced them but temporally adjacent connections as well.

Scope/Application:

Connectionism was meant to be a general theory of learning for animals and humans. Thorndike was especially interested in the application of his theory to education including mathematics (Thorndike, 1922), spelling and reading (Thorndike, 1921), measurement of intelligence (Thorndike et al., 1927) and adult learning (Thorndike at al., 1928).

Example:

The classic example of Thorndike's S-R theory was a cat learning to escape from a "puzzle box" by pressing a lever inside the box. After much trial and error behavior, the cat learns to associate pressing the lever (S) with opening the door (R). This S-R connection is established because it results in a satisfying state of affairs (escape from the

box). The law of exercise specifies that the connection was established because the S-R pairing occurred many times (the law of effect) and was rewarded (law of effect) as well as forming a single sequence (law of readiness).

Principles:

1. Learning requires both practice and rewards (laws of effect /exercise)

2. A series of S-R connections can be chained together if they belong to the same action sequence (law of readiness).

3. Transfer of learning occurs because of previously encountered situations.

4. Intelligence is a function of the number of connections learned.

References:

Thorndike, E. (1913). Educational Psychology: The Psychology of Learning. New York: Teachers College Press.

Thorndike, E. (1921). The Teacher's Word Book. New York: Teachers College.

Thorndike, E. (1922). The Psychology of Arithmetic. New York: Macmillan.

Thorndike, E. (1932). The Fundamentals of Learning. New York: Teachers College Press.

Thorndike, E. at al. (1927). The Measurement of Intelligence. New York: Teachers College Press.

Thorndike, E. et al. (1928), Adult Learning. New York: Macmillan

Relevant Web Pages:

For more about Thorndike and his work, see:

http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/ethorndike.shtmlhttp://www.psy.pdx.edu/PsiCafe/KeyTheorists/Thorndike.htm

Burrhus F. Skinner

Skinner bermula pengajiannya dalam bidang biologi dan didedahkan kepada penulisan Watson dan Pavlov. Pada tahun 1931, dia memperolehi ijazah kedoktoran (PhD) dalam bidang psikologi dari Universiti Harvard. Skinner telah menjalankan berbagai kajian dan buku pertamanya The Behavior of Organisms ditulis pada tahun 1938 yang menghuraikan prinsip-prinsip utama pelaziman operan (operant). Perkataan

'operan' dicipta oleh Skinner yang membawa maksud bertindak ke atas. Pelaziman operan ialah apabila organisme menghasilkan sesuatu gerak balas kerana organisme itu mengoperat (atau operating) ke atas persekitarannya.  Contohnya, seekor anjing akan menghulurkan kaki depannya sekiranya ia ketahui bahawa tingkahlaku itu akan diikuti dengan makanan. Begitu juga dengan seorang budak yang mengemaskan tempat tidur jika dia tahu dia akan dibelanja makan ais krim.Perbezaan antara Pelaziman Operan dengan Pelazimam Klasik

Dalam pelaziman klasik, organisme tidak mengubah keadaan persekitan. Misal kata, anjing Pavlov tidak ada pilihan untuk bertindak dengan mengeluarkan air liur apabila diberikan makanan dan bunyi loceng. Manakala, dalam pelaziman operan, organisme mempunyai pilihan untuk bertindak atau tidak kerana gerak balasnya menentukan rangsangan (makanan) yang diberikan.Prinsip-Prinsip Asas Pelaziman Operan

Menurut Skinner, pelaziman operan terdiri daripada dua konsep utama:a)  PENEGUHAN (reinforcement) yang terbahagi kepada     PENEGUHAN POSITIF dan PENEGUHAN NEGATIF.b) DENDA (punishment)

Peneguhan Positif (Positive Reinforcement)Apa jua rangsangan yang boleh menambahkan kebarangkalian sesuatu tingkahlaku itu akan berlaku disifatkan sebagai Peneguhan Positif. Contoh:- (1) Tikus yang menekan kunci pintu (lever) dan diberikan makanan akan mengulang tingkahlakku itu dengan harapan mendapat makanan. (2) Seorang budak yang menyelesaikan kerja rumahnya dapat menonton TV akan mengulang tingkahlaku itu.(3) Pekerja yang mencapai prestasi tinggi dalam kerjanya diberikan bonus. Adakah pekerja itu akan mengulang kelakuan berkenaan?Perlu diingat bahawa sesuatu peneguhan boleh merupakan benda, sosial (seperti pujian) atau token (seperti markah ujian).

Peneguhan Negatif (Negative Reinforcement)Apa jua rangsangan yang menyakiti atau yang mewujudkan keadaan tidak selesa boleh menambahkan kebarangkalian sesuatu tingkahlaku itu akan berlaku dipanggil Peneguhan Negatif. Organisme kemungkinan mengulang tingkahlaku yang dapat mengelak atau mengurangkan keadaan yang negatif.Contoh:-(1) Tikus yang dikejutkan dengan elektrik akan terus menekan alat yang dapat mengurangkan kejutan elektrik.(2) Ibu akan mengangkat bayinya yang menangis kerana tidak tahan melihat dan mendengar anaknya memekik-pekik.

Denda (Punishment)Apa jua rangsangan yang menyebabkan kebarangkalian sesuatu gerak balas atau tingkahlaku yang terhasil berkurangkan atau langsung dihapuskan. Contoh:-(1) Budak yang tidak membantu ibu tidak diberi peluang bermain bola (iaitu, mengentikan keseronokkan).Rujukan:Baca artikel berikut:Reinforcement TheoryMenerangkan prinsip-prinsip peneguhan, proses peneguhan dan contoh-contoh peneguhan dalam kehidupan seharian

Positive Reinforcement: A Self-Instructional Exercise

Contoh, bukan contoh dan analisis kes-kes peneguhanpositif.

Operant ConditioningRingkasan tentang teori Skinner.

Operant Conditioning in EducationAplikasi pelaziman operan dalam pendidikanPembentukan Tingkahlaku Melalui Pelaziman Operan(Shaping Behaviour)Berasaskan pelaziman operan, Skinner (1951) memperkembangkan teknik 'pembentukan' (shaping) bagi melatih haiwan menguasai tingkahlaku komplek yang juga relevan kepada tingkahlaku manusia. Teknik pembentukan terlibat dengan meneguhkan organisme setiap kali ia bertindak ke arah yang diingini sehingga ia menguasai atau belajar gerak balas berkenaan dan tidak lagi meneguhkan gerak balas itu lagi. Prosedur pembentukan boleh digunakan untuk mengawal tingkahlaku orang.Contoh: Seorang pelajar yang sentiasa berjenaka dan menjadi pelawak dalam kelas. Perakuan rakan sebaya (peer approval) memperkukuhkan kelakuan pelajar berkenaan. Apabila pelajar-pelajar lain ketawa tentang apa yang disebut atau melakukan, dia digalakkan untuk terus berjenaka dalam kelas. Pelajar berkenaan mungkin tidak akan menjadi pelawak jika tiada siapa dalam kelas ketawa apabila diberjenaka.Contoh: Apabila seorang memberi ceramah, reaksi pendengar dapat mempengaruhi bagaimana penyampai bertindak. Segolongan pelajar mengangguk kepala mereka dan ini telah menyebabkan pensyarah mereka bergerak dengan lebih cepat dalam kelas.Generalisasi, Diskriminasi dan PenghapusanGeneralisasi: Peneguhan yang hampir sama dengan peneguhan asal juga boleh menghasilkan gerak balas yang sama. Diskriminasai: Organisme bergerak balas terhadap sesuatu peneguhan tetapi tidak terhadap peneguhan lain.Penghapusan: Gerak balas yang wujud akan berperingkat- peringkat terhapus apabila peneguhan atau ganjaran tidak diberikan lagi. Jadual Peneguhan (Schedule of Reinforcement)Berdasarkan kajian menggunakan tikus dan burung merpati, Skinner dapati bahawa cara peneguhan diberi boleh mempengaruhi gerak balas atau respons. Apakah hubungan di antara cara peneguhan diberikan dan gerak balas atau pembelajaran? Jadual Peneguhan yang diperkenalkan oleh Skinner hasil daripada kajian-kajian yang dijalankan mencadangkan dua cara peneguhan, iaitul Peneguhan Berterusan (Continuous Reinforcement) dan Peneguhan Berkala (Variable Reinforcement).Peneguhan Berterusan: Setiap kali sesuatu gerak balas dihasilkan, organisme menerima ganjaran atau peneguhan.Peneguhan Berkala: Ganjaran atau peneguhan diberi menurut kekerapan tertentu atau masa tertentu. Misalnya; ganjaran diberi menurut nisbah atau ganjaran menurut masa. Menurut Nisbaha) Nibah tetap ('fixed ratio') ialah apabila peneguhan diberikan setelah beberapa gerak balas berlaku. m.s. nisbah 20:1 ialah setiap 20 gerak balas yang wujud 1 peneguhan berikan.b) Nisbah berubah ('variable ratio') ialah apabila peneguhan diberikan setelah beberapa gerak balas wujud tetapi kadarnya tidak tetap. m.s. kadang kala nisbahnya ialah 20:1 dan dalam keadaan lain nisbahnya ialah 10:1.Menurut Masaa) Masa tetap ('fixed interval') ialah apabila peneguhan diberikan pada akhir masa yang ditetapkan. m.s. jika masa yang ditetapkan ialah 1 minit; peneguhan diberikan kepada gerak balas yang wujud selepas 1 minit. b) Masa berubah ('variable interval') ialah apabila peneguhan diberikan pada akhir masa yang ditetapkan tetapi masa yang ditetapkan berbeza mengikut gerak balas yang wujud.

PAVLOVPada awal tahun 1900an, seorang ahli fisiologi Rusia bernama Ivan Pavlov menjalankan satu siri percubaan secara sistematik dan saintifik dengan tujuan mengkaji bagaimana pembelajaran berlaku pada sesuatu organisme. Pavlov mengasaskan kajiannya pada 'hukum perkaitan' (Law of Association) yang di utarakan oleh ahli falsafah Yunani awal seperti Aristotle. Menurut pendapat ini, sesuatu organisme akan teringat sesuatu kerana sebelum ini organisme berkenaan telah mengalami sesuatu yang berkaitan. Contohnya, apabila kita melihat sebuah kereta mewah, kita mungkin membuat andaian pemandu itu adalah seorang kaya atau seorang terkemuka. Andaian ini bergantung kepada pengalaman kita yang lampau.

Eksperimen Menunjukkan Pelaziman KlasikBerdasarkan hukum perkaitan ini, Pavlov mencadangkan bahwa proses asas pembelajaran ialah pembentukan perkaitan antara RANGSANGAN (R) dan sesuatu GERAK BALAS (G).  Pavlov cuba membuktikan teori pembelajaran ini dengan menjalankan kajian ke atas anjing (lihat peralatan eksperimen di sebelah). Dia dapati bahawa apabila anjing melihat bekas dengan makanan, air liur haiwan itu keluar. Dia membuat kesimpulan bahawa anjing tersebut telah 'belajar' mengaitkan bekas makanan yang dilihat dengan makanan yang akan diberikan kelak. Pavlov melanjutkan kajiannya dengan menguji hipotesis bahawa sesuatu organisme boleh diajar bertindak dengan pemberian sesuatu rangsangan.Peralatan Eksperimen PavlovSebelum Pelaziman

RTT (makanan)  >>>>>>> GTT (keluar air liur)RT   (loceng)     >>>>>>> Tak ada GT (air liur tidak keluar)

Semasa Pelaziman

RT (loceng) + RTT (makanan) >>>>> GTT (keluar air liur)

Selepas Pelaziman

RT (loceng)  >>>>>>>>> GT (keluar air liur)_________________________________________________

Kunci:RTT  = Rangsangan Tak Terlazim (Unconditioned Stimulus)RT    = Rangsangan Terlazim (Conditioned Stimulus)GTT  = Gerak Balas Tak Terlazim (Unconditioned Response)GT    = Gerak Balas Terlazim (Conditioned Response)

Apakah kesimpulan yang dapat dibuat daripada kajian Pavlov?

1) Penguasaan (Acquisition)

Penguasaan atau bagaimana organisme mempelajari sesuatu gerak balas atau respons baru berlaku berperingkat-peringkat. Juga lebih kerap organisme itu mencuba, lebih kukuh penguasaan berkenaan.

2) Generalisasi (Generalisation)Dalam eksperimennya, Pavlov juga telah menggunakan bunyi loceng yang berlainan nada, tetapi anjing itu masih mengeluarkan air liur. Ini menunjukkan bahawa sesuatu organisme yang telah terlazim dengan dikemukakan sesuatu rangsangan tak terlazim (RTT seperti loceng) juga akan menghasilkan gerak balas terlazim (GT = keluar air liur) walau pun rangsangan itu berlainan atau hampir sama (iaitu, nada loceng yang berlainan). Dengan perkataan lain, organisme itu dapat membuat generalisasi bahawa bunyi yang berlainan atau hampir sama mungkin diikuti dengan gerak balas (makanan).

3) Diskriminasi (Discrimination)Pvlov juga dapati bahawa apabila dia menukar nada bunyi loceng, anjing itu masih mengeluarkan air liur. Bila nada bunyi loceng itu jauh berbeza daripada bunyi loceng yang asal, anjing berkenaan tidak mengeluarkan air liur. Ini menunjukkan bahawa organisme berkenaan dapat membezakan atau mendikriminasi antara rangsangan yang dikemukakan dan memilih untuk tidak bertindak atau bergerak balas. Iaitu, sesuatu organisme berkebolehan untuk bergerak balas kepada sesuatu rangsangan tetapi tidak kepada rangsangan yang lain.

4) Penghapusan (Extinction)Sekiranya sesuatu rangsangan terlazim (loceng) tidak diikuti dengan rangsangan tak terlazim (makanan), lama kelamaan organisme itu tidak akan bergerak balas. Iaitu, gerak balas berperingkat-peringkat terhapus.Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849 - 1936)RUJUKAN:Berikut ini adalah beberapa website yang menerangkan dengan lebih lanjut tentang pelaziman klasik.

Siapakah Ivan Pavlov?Biografi PavlovPada pendapat anda, apakah kaitan antara bidang fisiologi dengan psikologi pembelajaran?

Classical ConditioningArtikel ini menerangkan secara mudah pelaziman klasik.Berikan contoh-contoh bagaimana pelaziman klasik berlaku dalam kehidupan seharian?

Conditioning and LearningBaca bahagian pertama tentang isu-isu pembelajaran dan penerangan tentang pelaziman klasik.Aplikasi Pelaziman Klasik dalam Kehidupan Seharian

Using Classicial vs Operant ConditioningDisenaraikan ialah 8 jenis tingkahlaku. Anda dikehendaki mengenal pasti sama ada tingkahlaku-tingkahlaku tersebut adalah pelaziman klasik atau pelaziman operan.

Classical conditioning could link disorders and brain dysfuntion, reseachers suggest.Beth Azar, APA Monitor Online.

Classical ConditioningApakah tingkahlaku yang terlazim? Bagaimana mempertingkatkan tingkahlaku melalui pelaziman klasik? Bagaimana mengurangkan kewujudan tinkahlaku melalui melazimin klasik? Apakah peranan pelaziman klasik dalam kehidupan seharian dan situasi pendidikan?TopikModule 1: SejarahModule 3: Pelaziman OperanModule 4: Pembelajaran Sosial / Pemerhatian

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