BEHAVIORISM:Albert Weiss, Edwin Holt, Learning, Canalization, Walter Hunter

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History and Systems of Psychology PSY502

Lesson 18

BEHAVIORISM

Albert Weiss

Albert Weiss was an early behaviorist who was born in 1879 and died in 1931. He was born in

Germany but he came to America when he was very young. He studied and worked for the rest of his life in

America, therefore he is considered to be an American behaviorist.

The era of the behaviorists was the time when man had adopted a rational approach towards

gaining of knowledge and speculation was no more considered as a means for it. This was the time after the

industrial revolution which changed the outlook of mankind completely. Writing on psychology, Weiss

asserted that anything that cannot be studied with the methods of natural sciences should not be a part of

psychology. In other words, anything that is based on mere speculation and cannot be substantiated by

concrete evidences should not be a part of psychological study. In other words psychology should concern

itself only with observable concrete facts and not with elements, structure or functions of consciousness

because these variables are not directly observable. As the Functionalists and Structuralists before the

behaviorists had been trying to develop theories about the structure and functions of consciousness, Weiss

rejected their approach. To him their methods of explaining phenomena were based on speculative studies.

Weiss further stated that psychologists only pretend when they regard introspection as a method of

scientific data collection. This was the method adopted by the schools before the Behaviorists.

One of the important arguments of Weiss is that there are no mental forces apart from

physiological forces which are reducible to physical forces. In other words, all mental forces can be studied

using a physiological approach and not considering them to be extraordinary forces which cannot be

studied through ordinary scientific methods of inquiry.

Another contribution of Albert Weiss is that he also noted the impact of social forces on a person.

He said that every person's behavior is impacted by social forces. This means that the social environment, in

which an individual lives, influences his or her behavior and thinking. Therefore, he regarded human beings

as a product of biological and social factors. He stated that humans are biological and social in nature and

psychology is a bio-social science which focuses on relating the biological processes of learning and human

behavior with the social environment that is responsible for them.

Edwin Holt

Edwin Holt was another early behaviorist who was born in 1873 and died in 1946. He was at two

of the top universities in America; Harvard and at Princeton. He agreed with the contemporary point of

view prevailing on the American continent that psychology should concern itself only with directly

observable facts and data. The speculative methods of learning and exploring were rejected by him like all

other behaviorists. Therefore, he also declared psychology be a scientific discipline which was based on

rationality. Only the facts that could be substantiated should be considered in psychology.

Holt further proposed that psychology should concern itself with behavior, therefore he is also

considered as a behaviorist. According to him, behavior is the result of two factors:

i. Learning

Learning takes place when an organism is exposed to internal or external stimulation, e.g.

internal stimulation may be hunger, thirst etc. while external stimulation may be heat, coldness

etc. Organism behaves in response to these stimuli.

ii. Canalization

History and Systems of Psychology PSY502

Further, behavior is also the result of canalization which is what we learn in our childhood.

Childhood experiences influence and produce behavior and in any study of psychology we

must not ignore those childhood experiences.

Walter Hunter

The third early behaviorist was Walter Hunter, born in 1889 and died in 1953. He proclaimed that

he started with dealing in psychology of experience and shifted to psychology of behavior.

He proposed, agreeing with his contemporary psychologists, that psychology should concern itself

with observation of behavior of humans and should not concern itself with the problems of consciousness.

He said that Wundt was partly correct when he studied consciousness as the subject matter of psychology

because consciousness is merely a name used to describe concrete objects in the environment. In other

words, a person's consciousness mostly comprises of objects in his environment, which is a view point

similar to the one given by Weiss. Environment plays a dominant role in determining a person's behavior

and his habits. The prime example relevant here is the impact of the industrial revolution. The example

could be related to the behavior of the psychologists themselves. As the environment of mankind changed

from speculation to rationality and factualism, psychologists also shifted towards scientific outlook. The

need was to have the greatest productivity from the labor force, which was of course related to the study of

behavior. Therefore, psychologists shifted towards the study of behavior. The point remains, that the

environment and social circumstances have a profound impact on the behavior of the individuals which

psychology tends to identify and study.

Hunter chose experimental method as his method of investigation and he is credited with the

development of temporal maze for his experiments. Temporal maze was used to conduct experiments in

which an animal was allowed to find its way around the maze to the food. When the animal had become

familiar with the maze, it would take much less time to reach the food and thus Hunter drew his

conclusions based on these observations. He conducted experiments on delayed reaction time of animals

for which he is known for. He is also considered as a behaviorist because of his scientific outlook and his

emphasis on behavioral approach towards psychology.

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