5 The Fall of Behaviourism

I. Introduction

The BACB currently defines Applied Behaviour Analysis as “largely based on behaviour and its consequences, techniques generally involve teaching individuals more effective ways of behaving through positive reinforcement and working to change the social consequences of existing behaviour.” (Behavior Analyst Certification Board, 2017) It is currently a fast growing field. The BCBA website sight 7,419 certified behaviour analysts documented in 2011. This number increased to over 14,000 by the year 2014. (Guercio, 2018) The ABA field only continues to grow today. This field, however, has not been the dominant branch of psychology since the late 1960s. Due to its transfer from an experimental psychology branch to an applied field.  Several cultural elements during that era account for this, including John B Watson’s effect of behaviourism, World War Two, psychedelics and the computer science era.

II. Background

The earliest form of behaviourism could be found in Russia. Prominent figures included psychologists Ivan M. Sechenov, Ivan Pavlov, and Vladimir M. Bechterev. (Guercio, 2018) They created more strict rules around operational definitions allowing for less subjective results in experimentation. Sechenov specifically studied how humans were able to acquire behaviours through learning. Pavlov’s research followed the digestion of food by collecting saliva from dogs. This led to the development of classical conditioning. Defined as “ how a previously neutral stimulus could produce similar behavioural responses to stimuli it had been paired with it now offered a learning theory account of abnormal behaviour.” (Guercio, 2018) Bechterev continued Pavlov’s research by examining the effects of aversive stimuli on behaviour. He would give participants electric shocks while pairing them with other neutral stimuli. (Guercio, 2018)

Beginning as a departure from introspection by John B Watson, behaviourism began as a focus on objectively observable behaviours, including operational definitions for variables. (Lawson et al., 2018)

III. Major Point 1: WW2 and Application of behaviourism

The United States in 1940 had just recently entered World War Two. Behaviourism was beginning to fall out of favour. Many steadfast behaviourists, like those from Harvard and MIT, were choosing to loosen their behaviourist beliefs and instead chose to help with research into psychoacoustics, noise, and signal detection research. This eventually led to the creation of the Lincoln Laboratory at MIT in 1951. (Mandler, 2002)  Behaviourism at the time was an entirely American field of psychology. The result of the new communication during the war from Europe was able to change psychology in America thus leading away from behaviourism into the new cognitive psychology era.

Behaviourism did at one point make a play overseas in the form of military training programs in the 1097s. Its failure to generalize to a foreign audience also contributed to its further fall. It found much success as a training technique for recruits but many constraints cause difficulty when training older soldiers or updating training. (Mandler, 2002) They also found the principles of behaviourism at the time to be too rigid and not individualized enough. They were trying to utilize behaviourism to create an efficient automized way to train soldiers but this created a system that was not flexible or generalizable to the general public. (Mandler, 2002) Due to the era and the state of behaviourist principles at the time, behaviourism was not able to generalize to Europe and thus fell out of favour as both a scientific and applied study.

IV. Major Point 2:John B Watson (Avery)

John Broadus Watson was an American psychologist well known for his work in behaviourism alongside colleagues such as Ivan Pavlov and Edward Thorndike around the 1920s to 1930s. (Britannica, 2023). Watson first attained his Doctoral degree in psychology from the University of Chicago in 1903. Later, Watson taught at  John Hopkins University, where he established his first research laboratory. (Britannica, 2023). Watson had a wide range of interests; not only was he an experimental psychologist, but also seen as a methodologist, philosopher, and metaphysician. (Bergmann,1956). Being well-rounded in multiple areas left room for criticism from peers, as many of his thoughts and ideas are referred to as being controversial (Bergmann,1956).

One example in relation to his views of psychology was one of his first famously known works, his study of “Little Albert.”(Britannica, 2023). Watson conducted this study in hopes of determining whether fear reactions could be called out by other stimuli, such as sharp noises and sudden removal of support. (Watson & Rayner, 1920).  The study had the infant “Little Albert” confronted consecutively with small white fluffy animals such as a rat, rabbit, dog, and monkey in varying situations. It was noted that the child had not had any fear of these animals before the study was conducted. (Watson & Rayner, 1920). However, when the small white animal stimulus had been conditioned as a fear response to the then loud noise, such as a steel bar being struck, it had caused “Little Albert” to startle, and he learned to associate the emotional response to the small white animal’s. (Watson & Rayner, 1920).

Another example of Watson’s work is Behaviour: An Introduction to Comparative Psychology, a book published in 1914; this work studies the comparative details in the organizational behaviour aspects in regards to living things such as bacteria, plants, animals and humans. (Britannica, 2023).

V. Major Point 3: psychedelics (Blaire)

            Psychedelics (serotonergic hallucinogens) are a class of substances which cause an alteration in emotion, perception, and overall cognitive processes (Nichols, 2016). The ability of this particular class of drugs to alter overall cognitive processes divides it from other classes as it class of drugs making the substances of keen interest to psychologists and for other fields of study.  These mind altering substances have an ancient history, for example, it was found that the Aztec shamans used psilocybin mushrooms to practice religion and healing rituals (Nicols, 2016). Psychedelics have played a crucial role in the advancement of psychology by opening up the ability to reach previously unattainable mental processes and ideas (Nicols and Walter 2021). Although psychedelics had a strong presence in ancient history, more research was conducted after the discovery of a new psychedelic drug, LSD.

In 1943, Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) was first synthesized by Albert Hoffman at Sandoz Pharmaceutical Laboratories in Switzerland (Dyck, 2015). Shortly after producing LSD, Hofmann experienced a chemically induced psychosis due to his exposure (Dyck, 2015). Hofmanns drug discovery opened up an era for hallisogenic research as there was now a wide range of questions that could be asked on how and what psychedelics do to the brain, emotion, and cognitive functions (Dyck, 2015). Some main topics that psychologists wanted to study how it alters the brain, if it can be used to treat mental disorders, and if it can be used to help with trauma (Dyck, 2015).

VI. Major Point 4: Computer Science (Amy)

George A. Miller quoted the fall of behaviourism being allocated in the 1950’s as a time when psychology as a discipline could not participate in the cognitive revolution until it freed itself from behaviourism (Miller, 2003). This introduced the analogy between the human mind and computers and the need to study it. For example, the black box theory being a metaphor for computers because essentially they both are systems in which the input and output is observable but the processes that occur between them are unknown or not observable. Thus, resulting in these internal processes to be hypothesized on the basis of known relationships between external factors and the end result. Earlier psychologists, such as Clark Hull used analogies between humans and complex machines like telephone switchboards to defend a rigorous behaviourism (Crowther-Heyck, 1999).

While experimental psychologists were rethinking the definition of psychology in a more rationalist perspective as opposed to an empiricists perspective, computer science was rapidly gaining popularity around the world with the introduction of cybernetics by Norbert Wiener. Followed by Marvin Minsky and John McCarthy with the invention of artificial intelligence, and Herb Simon and Alan Newell were using the advancements in computer technology to stimulate cognitive processes (Miller, 2003). This stems into the reintroduction of the importance of the mind, the surge in popularity creates the momentum for the “cognitive revolution” to overthrow behaviourism during the 1950s, as the era shifts paradigms back into the dominate rationalism perspective.

The origin of the “brain as a computer” metaphor was introduced during the cognitive revolution to view psychology through an interdisciplinary approach, which was in contrast to the behaviourist perspective that wanted to establish psychology’s independence. Another reason behind the metaphor was to adapt a new research program for experimental psychologists to replace the laboratory rat with the collection of research data through the human introduced computer system (Crowther-Heyck, 1999).

VII. Conclusion (Megan)

Behaviourism has had a tumultuous history when it comes to being a psychological science. There were many factors that aided to its fall the effects of world war two on availability of global science, John B Watson’s influence, psychedelics changing the landscape of psychology, and the introduction of computer sciences effect on how we view the brain. These reasons cumulated in behaviourism switch from a research field to an applied field of study. Behaviourism continues to thrive today as an applied science, and had a important effect on how we identify and understand behaviour today.

References

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