Why Women Fainted

Fainting and “fainting rooms” were common in the

18th and 19th century because of the tight lacing of

corsets required to be fashionable.

Corsets restricted breathing, compressed internal

organs and put pressure on bones in the rib cage.

Constriction of women’s ability to move freely and

modification of their bodies in the name of beauty is

analogous to foot-binding in Asian culture.

Reform movements gave women experience organizing

that was useful in suffrage and temperance movements.

Earlier Bustles were Bigger

British fashion 1880,

busts were padded too

French fashion 1765

used Pannier side

hoops underneath

1890’s Styles

Grey cotton bustle stuffed with

horsehair. These soft quilted

bustles became popular in the

early 1890's when the old style

jutting out 1880's bustle went

out of fashion.

In the 1860s, corsets

were stiffened with

whalebone or steel. By

the 1880s, the dress

reform movement was

campaigning against

the pain and damage

to internal organs and

bones caused by tight

lacing.

Flapper Styles (1920s)

Flapper styles were easier

to sew and thus accessible

to middle class women.

CHAPTER 12 – PAVLOV

AND WATSON

Dr. Nancy Alvarado

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936)

Pavlov was born in Ryazan, Russia, into a “pure

Russian” religious family, the oldest of 11 kids.

He abandoned the idea of becoming a priest after

reading Darwin’s “Origin of the Species” and

Sechenov’s “Reflexes of the Brain.”

Pavlov left seminary to attend the University of St.

Petersburg where Sechenev was professor of

physiology.

Sechenev had demonstrated that a higher brain center

could inhibit activity of a lower one using frog reflexes.

Pavlov’s Early Research

Pavlov graduated in 1875 and won a medal for his

research on pancreatic nerves.

In 1878, Botkin invited him to direct a new lab in

experimental medicine, where he earned an M.D.

Botkin thought stress caused most diseases as the central

nervous system failed to adapt to the demands of life.

He worked in Germany, then returned to Russia and

had trouble finding a job, starving with no heat, but

continuing his research in his apt.

In 1891, hired at St. Petersburg Military Academy.

Pavlov’s Conditioning Experiments

In 1895, Pavlov was hired at Univ. of St. Petersburg

and he earned a Nobel Prize in 1904 for his work

studying digestive processes.

Pavlov’s aim was to study living systems. His dogs

went through the same surgical procedures as

people, including sepsis and anesthesia procedures.

He developed a surgically created miniature stomach

pouch to study digestion uncontaminated by food.

He discovered that a gastric reflex occurred even

without food present elicited by a “psychical reflex.”

Psychical Reflexes

Pavlov’s Nobel speech was not about digestion but

about psychical reflexes occurring without food.

Ovsianitskii’s dissertation was about salivation to a

variety of stimuli, including sight of food or a bowl or

the footsteps of the lab personnel who fed the dogs.

Pavlov designed a “Tower of Silence” to isolate dogs

from all other stimuli except the ones being studied

(buzzers, metronomes, tactical and thermal stimuli).

Generalization of the CS was also demonstrated, and

secondary conditioning (pairing first CS with a 2nd one).

More Conditioning Phenomena

Pavlov’s co-worker Tolochinov discovered extinction

via presentation of the CS without food.

He also found that dogs could be trained to

discriminate between two stimuli (CS+ signalling food

and CS- signalling absence of food).

Pavlov believed these produced excitation or inhibition

in the cortex.

When a CS- occurred many times, dogs went to sleep.

Dogs could discriminate between accelerating and

decelerating metronome speeds.

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov

Research on Neuroses

Dogs trained to discriminate ellipses and circles with

a ratio of 8/7 showed acute neuroses when the

ratio was changed to 9/8.

Neuroses included disrupted behavior, biting, barking.

Dogs nearly drowned in a lab flood showed

changes in behavior after rescue, including easily

disrupted CRs, sensitivity to stimuli, especially water.

A simultaneous presentation of food and shock

induced neurosis – this was reduced by sodium

bromide given to inhibit excitation.

Pavlov on Individual Differences

Pavlov found 4 types of dogs with large individual

differences in learning & discrimination:

Sanguine – strong & lively, conditioned easily.

Excitation and inhibition were balanced.

Melancholic – slow and depressed, learned slowly with

poor discrimination/generalization. Inhibition dominant.

Choleric – unstable and impetuous, learned easily but

little discrimination, easily neurotic. Excitation excessive.

Phlegmatic – inert and slothful, showed poor learning,

resistant to experimental neurosis. Inhibition dominant.

Individual Differences (cont.)

The sanguine and melancholy types seemed most

common but all dogs were different.

Pavlov believed the types were genetically

determined but he studied the influence of

environment, raising dogs in different conditions:

Total freedom with varied contacts with dogs & humans.

Isolation in individual cages with little contact.

At 3 months, isolated dogs were more frightened of

everything, but habituated quickly to isolation.

Pavlov’s Later Life

Pavlov was initially hostile to the Bolsheviks who

took power in 1917 because they took his Nobel

Prize award money.

Lenin approved of his research and gave the

Pavlovs special treatment & supported his research.

During famine Pavlov rejected the rations because they

did not include his lab and dogs, growing a garden.

Pavlov visited the US twice, including Yerkes primate

lab at Yale. Later Pavlov changed his views and

supported the govt, especially against Germany.

Pavlov’s Diverse Research

Beyond his conditioning experiments, Pavlov did a

wide range of comparative studies, including studies

of problem solving using chimpanzees.

He visited Kohler but rejected his idea of insight

learning; more sympathetic to Thorndike’s trial & error.

He believed his chimps gained “practical experience”

while roaming freely later applied to problem solving.

He was devoted to science, punctual to a fault, a

severe taskmaster, shouting insults at his workers.

“Happiness is nothing – the dogs mean all.” he said.

Conditioning Before Pavlov

The phenomenon of conditioning was known before

Pavlov studied it systematically:

Bousfeld describes Lope de Vega’s play “The Chaplain

of the Virgin” in which a young monk conditions cats to

leave him alone while eating using a cough as a CS.

Several people in the 1800s noted that thinking about

food is enough to produce saliva without food present.

Twitmyer (under Witmer, 1902) used a bell paired

with a knee-jerk reflex in humans – his findings went

unnoticed and he didn’t pursue it (Pavlov was first).

John Broadus Watson (1878-1958)

Watson is most closely associated with the term

Behaviorism – he caused a revolution in psychology.

His goal was to replace concerns about the structure

and functions of consciousness with the study of

behavior.

Behaviorism involves observation, prediction and

control of behavior in humans and animals.

Pavlov’s research was a foundation for Watson’s

Behaviorist approach.

Watson’s Early Life

Watson’s father was a violent man of unsavory and

notorious reputation, his mother was pious and strict.

He was a poor student initially, constantly in trouble.

He begged admission to Furman College with the

intention of studying for the Baptist ministry.

He falsely downgraded himself in his autobiography.

Professor Gordon B. Moore, on sabbatical from Univ

of Chicago, introduced him to works by Wundt,

Titchener, James and the Chicago functionalists.

He taught for a year then applied to grad school there.

John B. Watson

“He was an honors

student and many

women saw him as a

handsome and

attractive young man.”

p. 459

A handsome and

attractive young

rat.

Watson at University of Chicago

Watson was most inspired by Angell and

Donaldson, working in the animal lab under their

guidance to train rats in labyrinths (mazes).

He studied tropisms (unlearned orienting responses)

with Jacques Loeb, later important as UCS’s.

In 1902 he had a serious psychological breakdown,

overwhelmed with depression & anxiety.

He recovered and completed his dissertation at age

25, then was offered a job at Univ of Chicago

teaching a class in Titchener’s experimental methods

Watson’s Work with Rats

Watson’s work with animals undermined the

structuralist approach because they could not talk to

describe their introspections – they only behaved.

He decided he could learn everything the structuralists

could just by observing behavior.

Angell was not encouraging of this approach.

Watson designed his own apparatus, originally

using the “Hampton Court” maze designed by

Willard S. Small, testing vision and smell cues.

Kinesthetic or muscle sensations mattered most.

Antivivisectionist Response

Vivisection is defined as the act of operating on

living animals (especially in scientific research).

Antivivisectionists were the 1906 equivalent of PETA.

Because Watson did things like gradually depriving

rats of their senses, he was branded a torturer.

Angell defended Watson, pointing out that the expts

were done under asepsis and with anesthesia, that the

rats had recovered and were subsequently happy.

Opposition to animal research continues today.

Watson was not “Ratomorphic”

Watson studied noddy and sooty terns on the Dry

Tortugas Islands 75 miles West of Key West.

Parent birds signal to their young when returning to the

nest – young gulls peck the parent’s bill to get fed.

Nesting birds accept fake painted wooden eggs.

Birds can return from locations

miles away in all directions.

He observed imprinting on him-

self in 3 day old sooty terns,

anticipating Lorenz.

Watson at Johns Hopkins University

Watson left U. of Chicago reluctantly when offered

the chair of psychology at Johns Hopkins.

The Dept head, Baldwin, was caught in a scandal

involving prostitution and fled to Mexico.

Watson was left with no supervision and took over as

editor of the Psychological Review, where he published

his own work.

He became increasingly convinced that psychology

should become the science of behavior – he

published his behaviorist manifesto in 1913.

Watson’s Behaviorist Manifesto

With “Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It,”

Watson intended to force psychologists to choose

between his approach and older psychology.

Psychology had failed to develop as a science.

Concentration on structure or function of an undefinable

consciousness was the cause.

Introspection was a faulty and defective method which

must be replaced with objective experimental methods.

Psychology is no longer the study of the mind but of

behavior – its goal is to observe, predict & control it.

Action and Reaction

Other psychologists shared his dissatisfaction with

structuralist and functionalist approaches.

Knight Dunlap had published “The case against

introspection” in Psychological Review one year earlier.

Watson’s personality was more dynamic than earlier

critics who had made similar proposals earlier.

Titchener defended introspective studies, calling

Watson too impatient and his Behaviorism crude.

This may have stimulated support for Behaviorism.

Behaviorism in Action

Yerkes published a paper presenting Pavlov’s work

to American psychologists.

Karl Lashley worked with Watson on comparative

studies.

In 1913, to explain how thought could be observed,

Watson defined thinking as subvocal speech (a

behavior) involving recordable muscle contractions.

In his APA address, he suggested a new method for

studying conditioned reflexes.

Watson’s Research with Children

At Phipps Psychiatric Clinic in Baltimore, Watson

began studying reflexes and emotions in infants.

He identified reflexes such as sneezing, hiccuping,

yawning, coughing, grasping, swallowing and sucking.

He identified emotions of fear, rage and love, evoked

by a restricted set of stimuli and characterized by

specific responses in a reliable and predictable way.

Many stimuli said to evoke fear reactions were

ineffective (no fear of dark, snakes, rats, dogs).

He suggested that fears arise through conditioning.

Albert B.

Watson and coworker Rosalie Rayner selected

Albert B. because of his stolid (calm) temperament.

They conditioned a strong fear response by striking a

metal bar behind his head while he played with a rat.

5 days later, he generalized his fear response to a

rabbit, dog, cotton, and a sealskin coat.

He was removed prematurely from the expt.

A number of researchers tried to replicate these

findings without success – details were distorted.

Watson used his findings to attack Freud.

Watson Leaves Psychology

Watson had an affair with Rosalie Rayner, writing

her love letters. His wife found these, then her

brother used them to blackmail Watson & Rayner.

When they refused, the brother gave the letters to the

president of Johns Hopkins, which demanded Watson’s

resignation.

The publicity made it impossible for Watson to find

another position in academia.

Watson married Rayner after a public divorce trial.

Watson joined the J. Walter Thompson ad agency.

Watson in Advertising

Starting in the field, Watson acquired an

appreciation for consumer behavior.

He became an adept ad man:

He was the first to use careful demographic surveys of

target populations of consumers, with free samples for

filling in questionnaires.

He stressed style over substance and used testimonials.

He tried to manipulate consumer motives and emotions.

He popularized the “coffee break.”

He used radio effectively.

Overcoming Fears – Peter B.

Watson continued with psychology as a “pop

psychologist.”

He worked with Mary Cover Jones to conduct

research on overcoming children’s fears.

After hearing Watson lecture on Albert B, Jones

developed the idea of eliminating “homegrown” fears

using conditioning.

While Peter was eating, a rabbit was brought

progressively closer until it could be placed on his table

without arousing fear – now called desensitization.

Watson on Nature vs Nurture

Watson is usually considered an arch-

environmentalist but his early views on instincts were

more moderate.

He gradually became more extreme in his view of the

contribution of habit.

How humans form habits became central to his ideas.

He said: “Give me a dozen healthy infants…and

I’ll guarantee to [train one] to become any type of

specialist I might select – doctor, lawyer, artist…”

Watson’s sons with Rayner found life difficult.

Watson’s Environmentalism

Why did he switch to such a strongly

environmentalist position?

Instincts are difficult to observe in humans.

Too large an array of behaviors had been described

as instinctive by others, in circular ways (why war?).

Animal research questioned whether some instincts in

animals were really instinctive (Kuo raised kittens with

rats, showing they did not attack each other).

The process of habit formation can be studied whereas

instincts are innate (part of genetics) and cannot be.

Behaviorism and Child Care

In 1928, Watson & Rayner published a book on

child care which became a bestseller.

It presents a harsh Behaviorist approach to child

raising, with love and affection minimized.

Even Watson and Rayner didn’t follow this approach

with their own children.

A competing view on raising children was presented

by Benjamin Spoke in “The Common Sense Book of

Baby and Child Care (1943).” which sold 25 million

copies.

Watson’s Later Life

Hothersall wonders what Watson’s contribution to

psychology might have been if he had had a full

academic career.

Despite his ridiculous and extreme statements, he

did succeed in initiating a revolution in

psychological thought -- Behaviorism.

His early work with animals laid a strong

methodological foundation for later researchers, as

did his early work on learned fear (Albert B.).