System/Schools Of Psychology

Structuralism

Wilhelm Wundt - set up the first psychological laboratory in 1879.

He was studying an area that became known as Structuralism.
school of thought that sought to identify the components
(structure) of the mind.

They believed that the way to learn about the brain and its
functions was to break the mind down into it's most basic
elements.

Their Basic Premise was:

the whole is = to the sum of the parts

The field was popularized by Edward Titchener (student of Wundt)

who was interested in the conscious mind and used a technique
called INTROSPECTION.

Conscious - feelings, thoughts and sensations that you

are aware of at that moment. These things make up the
conscious.

Introspection - To look within and examine your own

thoughts or feelings.

BUT, introspection relies on subjective or self-

report data which is a week methodological form
of data collection.

Example. - If you become angry and then begin

to examine your anger through introspection you
alter your current state (most likely stopping to
examine your current state will reduce your anger
and hostility) and thus the experience of anger.
Contributions of Titchner to psychology can be gauged from three things
that he tried to do, are:
• Contents of consciousness
This means that Titchner explained what consciousness is actually composed of.
He then went
on to elaborate the contents of consciousness.
• Combination of these contents
The second contribution of Titchner is that he described the combination of
contents of
consciousness which means that, which contents get together to result in an
activity.
• Connections between the contents
The third contribution of Titchner is that he explained the connection between
the contents of
consciousness which means that consciousness is a product of contents being
related with each
other and working together.

The Content of Conscious Experience:

According to Titchener, the subject matter of psychology is conscious experience
as that
experience is dependent on the person who is actually experiencing it. This kind
of experience differs from that studied by scientists in other fields.

(For example, light and sound can be studied by physicists and by

psychologists. Physicists examine the phenomena from the standpoint of the
physical processes involved, whereas psychologists consider the light and
sound in terms of how humans observe and experience these phenomena.)

Other sciences are independent of experiencing persons.Titchener offered,

from physics, the example of temperature. The temperature in a room may
be measured at 85 degrees Fahrenheit, for example, whether or not anyone
is in the room to experience it.
In studying conscious experience, Titchener warned against committing
what he called the stimulus error, which confuses the mental process with
the object we are observing.
Stimulus error:
Confusing the mental process under study with the stimulus or object being
observed.
Titchener defined consciousness as the sum of our experiences as they
exist at a given time. The mind is the sum of an individual’s experiences
accumulated over a lifetime. Consciousness and mind are similar, except
that consciousness involves mental processes occurring at the moment
whereas mind involves the total of these processes.

Psychology’s Goals:
Psychology’s only legitimate purpose was to discover the facts of the structure of
the mind. Titchener set as goals for psychology the determination of the
what, how, and why of mental life. The what was to be learned through
careful introspection.The how was to be an answer to the question of how the
elements combine, and the why was to involve a search for the
neurological correlates of mental events.

Introspection:
Titchener adopted Külpe’s label, systematic experimental introspection, to
describe his method. Like Külpe, Titchener used detailed, qualitative,
subjective reports of his subjects’ mental activities during the act of
introspecting.
Titchener differed from Wundt in that Titchener was interested in the
analysis of complex conscious experience into its component parts, not in
the synthesisof the elements through apperception. Titchener emphasized
the parts, whereas Wundt
emphasized the whole.
Mental Elements
The Elements of Consciousness
Titchener posed three essential problems for psychology:

1. Reduce conscious processes to their simplest components.

2. Determine laws by which these elements of consciousness were
associated.
2. Connect the elements with their physiological conditions.

From his introspective studies, Titchener concluded that the elemental

processes of consciousness consist of sensations (elements of perceptions), images
(elements of ideas), and affections (elements of emotions). According to Titchener,
an element could be known only by listing its attributes. The attributes of
sensations and images (remnants of sensations) are quality, intensity, duration,
clearness, and extensity. Extensity is the impression that a sensation or image
is more or less spread out in space. Affections could have the attributes of
quality, intensity, and duration but neither clearness nor extensity.

WILLIAM JAMES
 James McKeen Cattell
Cattell was born in Easton, Pennsylvania. He earned his bachelor’s degree
in 1880 at Lafayette College, where his father was president.

Cattell became Wundt's first assistant-self-appointed. He however made it

clear that he will have his own research proglem-the psychology of
individual differences.

Cattell's investigations of individual differences were centered largely

around the reaction time experiment.

The whole field of differential psychology may be said to have originated

out of the discovery that individuals differ in respect to the speed with
which they react to a stimulus.

Many of the classic experiments in the area of reaction time were carried
out by Cattell.

He investigated the speed of reaction as a function of the sense modality

stimulated, simple as opposed to discrimination
reaction time, and association reaction time. In addition to his
investigations
of reaction time.

Cattell also contributed to psychophysics by inventing the order-of-merit

method, in which stimuli ranked by a number of judges can be placed in a
final rank order by calculating the average rating given to each item.

For example, Cattell applied the method to eminent American scientists,

asking ten scientists to rank a number of their outstanding colleagues.
Finally, Cattell and Farrand devised a number of simple mental tests,
which they administered to
Columbia freshmen, marking the first large-scale testing of human subjects
for the purpose of determining the range of individual differences.

In general, Cattell is credited with having influenced the over-all

development of American psychology in the direction of an eminently
practical, test-oriented approach to the study of the mental processes.
His was a psychology of human abilities as opposed to a psychology of
conscious content.
In this sense he comes close to being a functionalist, though he was never
formally associated with that school.

Gestalt
"form or shape"- focused on perception & problem solving.
The school of thought (founded by Max Wertheimer) that claimed
we perceive and think about wholes rather than simply about
combinations of separate elements.

In other words...the whole is NOT = to the sum of the parts

Example: look at geese flying south for the winter in a "V"

formation. If you look at individual geese, you do not see the "V"
shape, only a couple of birds flying - but, if you look at the entire
flock, you see the form and structure

Gestalt psychology as a new moment was taking place in Germany.

After Wertheimer initiated the studies on the perception of apparent
movement, Gestalt psychologists seized on other perceptual phenomena.
The experience of perceptualnconstancies afforded additional support for
their views. For example, when we stand in front of a window, a
rectangular image is projected onto the retina of the eye, but when we
stand to one side, the retinal image becomes a trapezoid, although of
course we continue to perceive the window as a rectangle. Our perception
of the window remains constant, even though the sensory data (the images
projected on the retina) change.

Similarly, with brightness and size constancy the sensory elements may
change but
perception does not. In these cases, as with apparent movement, the
perceptual experience has a quality of wholeness or completeness that is
not to be found in any of the component parts. Thus, there exists a
difference between the character of the sensory stimulation and the
character of the actual resulting perception. The perception cannot be
explained simply as a collection of elements or the sum of the parts. The
perception is a whole, a Gestalt, and any attempt to analyze or reduce it to
elements will destroy it.

Max Wertheimer
Max Wertheimer belonged to the Gestalt school of psychology. He
was born in 1886 and died in 1943. He studied at the universities
of Prague, Berlin.
Wertheimer’s discovery (1910– 12) of the phi-phenomenon
(concerning the illusion of motion) gave rise to the influential
school of Gestalt psychology.

His early experiments, in collaboration with Wolfgang Köhler and

Kurt Koffka, introduced a new approach (macroscopic as opposed
to microscopic) to the study of psychological problems.

One of the greatest contributions of Wertheimer is that he

showed by his experiments that if two lines are shown to a
subject and the time period of exposure between these two lines
is small, the subject sees these two lines as one line moving from
its position to the position of the other line. Wertheimer called
this phenomenon “Apparent movement” or phi-phenomenon.
Therefore, according to Wertheimer, Phiphenomenon
or apparent movement is when we see one image move from one
place to another, when physically there is no movement. In case
of the lines shown by Wertheimer, the horizontal or the vertical
lines did not move at all, but instead, on line appeared after the
other. The interval between the disappearance and the
appearance of the other line was so short that to the subjects it
appeared that the lines were moving from their positions into the
other positions.

Television is another example where the image is created by a

small dot which moves across the screen and the characters
appear to be moving.

Wertheimer explained this phi-phenomenon as being due to a

tendency on the part of human mind to fill in the gaps. For
further explanation, when the line which was perceived by the
observer as moving is analyzed, we see that the movement from
the horizontal to the vertical or vice versa, has been developed
by the observer’s brain, while there is no movement at all.
Therefore human mind has the tendency to develop
something to fill into the gap.

Based upon this tendency, Wertheimer discovered many factors

which help human beings to perceive things in patterns or
Gestalts. He called these factors, the factors of organization.
They are factors that help us to perceive in patterns or Gestalts.
Some of these factors are:

Wertheimer presented the principles of perceptual organization of the

Gestalt school of psychology in a paper published in 1923.

He asserted that we perceive objects in the same way we perceive

apparent motion, as unified wholes rather than clusters of individual
sensations.

These Gestalt principles are essentially rules by which we organize our

perceptual world. One underlying premise is that perceptual organization
occurs instantly whenever we sense various shapes or patterns.

The discrete parts of the perceptual field connect, uniting

to form structures distinct from their background. Perceptual organization
is spontaneous and inevitable whenever we look or listen.

Typically, we do not have to learn to form patterns, as the associationists

claimed, although some higher-level perception, such as labeling objects
by name, does depend on learning.

According to Gestalt theory, the brain is a dynamic system in which all

elements
active at a given time interact.

The visual area of the brain does not respond separately to individual
elements of visual input, connecting these elements by some mechanical
process of association. Rather, the elements that are similar or close
together tend to combine, and elements that are dissimilar or farther apart
tend not to combine. Several perceptual organization principles are listed
as follows and are illustrated here:

1. Proximity. Parts that are close together in time or space appear to belong
together and tend to be perceived together. you see the circles in three
double
columns rather than as one large collection.

2. Continuity. There is a tendency in our perception to follow a

direction, to connect the elements in a way that makes them seem
continuous or flowing in a particular direction. In Figure 12.1(a), you
 tend to follow the columns of small circles from top to bottom.

3. Similarity. Similar parts tend to be seen together as forming a group.

In Figure 12.1(b), the circles and the dots each appear to belong
together, and you tend to perceive rows of circles and rows of dots
instead of columns.

4 Closure. There is a tendency in our perception to complete incomplete

figures, to fill in gaps. In Figure 12.1(c), you perceive three squares even
though the figures are incomplete.

5. Simplicity. We tend to see a figure as being as good as possible under

the stimulus conditions; the Gestalt psychologists called this
prägnanz, or good form. A good Gestalt is symmetrical, simple, and
stable and cannot be made simpler or more orderly. The squares in
Figure 12.1(c) are good Gestalts because they are clearly perceived as
complete and organized.

6. Figure/ground. We tend to organize perceptions into the object being

looked at (the figure) and the background against which it appears
(the ground). The figure seems to be more substantial and to stand
out from its background. In Figure 12.1(d), the figure and the ground
are reversible; you may see two faces or you may see a vase,
depending on how your perception is organized.

These organizing principles do not depend on higher mental processes or

past experiences but are present in the stimuli themselves. Wertheimer
called them peripheral factors, but he also recognized that central factors
within the organism influence perception. For example, we know that the
higher mental processes of familiarity and attitude can affect perception. In
general, however, the Gestalt psychologists focused more on the peripheral
factors of perceptual organization than on the effects of learning or
experience.
These are factors that are in the stimulus field that help us to
perceive gestalts. There are some subjective
factors also that help in this whole perception. For example,
mental set, or set is a subjective factor that
helps perceptual organization. Mental set of set can be explained
with the help of the following examples: if
a person is taking a walk in a garden, and before he came here,
he was warned by his friend that there were
snakes in the garden; his mental set would be to see snakes in
the garden. Therefore, he is likely to confuse a
twig with a snake and be afraid of it. This is an example of
mental set.
Habit or familiarity is another factor that leads to perceptual
organization. For example, if a person is
familiar with certain objects he may be able to formulate a
gestalt very quickly. Same is the case with habit.
Wertheimer, through his observation and experimentation
discovered those factors that influence
perception.
Wertheimer also tried to discover what is creative thinking or
problem solving thinking. Creative
thinking or problem solving thinking had become a subject of
interest for psychologists at the turn of the
century since creative thinking was the key to development as
newer fields of study were explored by
mankind. He observed young children and adults in his quest to
determine what is creative or problem
solving thinking and how it takes place. He also interviewed one
of the greatest minds of the 20th century,
Albert Einstein, to see how he produced his Theory of Relativity.
Based upon these observations,
Wertheimer noted various operations related to creative or
problem solving thinking. He said we should
avoid a piecemeal approach, not let our biases affect our thinking
and should not blindly follow our habits.
In other words, he said that we should ensure that our
dispositions do not affect our thinking and we are
able to concentrate on discovering new rather than analyzing
new from the already existing point of views.
That is how we can become productive, creative thinkers.
Wertheimer is known as a Gestalt psychologist because he tried
to determine the patterns of
perception that an individual follows.

Wolfgang Köhler

Insightful Learning:

Köhler is best known for his experiments with problem-solving

in apes at Tenerife and the influence of his writings in the
founding of the school of Gestalt psychology. His writings include
Gestalt Psychology and The Mentality of Apes.

Kohler’s main contribution in the Gestalt School is his discovery

of learning by insight. He conducted experiments on monkey and
saw that monkeys were able to solve their problems through
insight. He saw that monkeys were able to attach sticks together
to reach far off objects which they thought was food. They would
also pile up boxes to reach high places if they wanted to. Kohler
concluded that learning takes place by insight. Monkeys thought
about what to do first and then performed the action. Based on
this observation, Kohler concluded trial and error as a method of
learning. Some of his experiments are as following:

Experiments were conducted in and around the animals’ cages and

involved simple props such as the bars of the cages (used to block access),
bananas, sticks for drawing bananas into cages, and boxes on which to
climb to reach fruit suspended from the ceiling. Consistent with the Gestalt
view of perception, Köhler interpreted the results of his animal research in
terms of the whole situation and the relationships among the stimuli. He
considered problem solving to be a matter of restructuring the perceptual
field.

In one study a banana was placed outside the cage, and a string attached to
the bananaled into the cage. The ape grasped the string and pulled the
banana into the cage with littlehesitation. Köhler concluded that in this
situation the problem as a whole was easy for theanimal to perceive. If
several strings led from the cage in the general direction of the fruit,
however, the ape would not recognize instantly which string to pull to get
the banana. This indicated to Köhler that the total problem could not be
envisioned clearly.

In another study, a piece of fruit was placed outside the cage just beyond
the chimp’s reach. If a stick was put near the bars of the cage in front of the
fruit, the stick and the food would be perceived as part of the same
situation, and the animal would quickly use the stick to bring the fruit into
the cage. If the stick was placed at the rear of the cage, however, then the
two objects (the stick and the banana) were less readily seen as part of the
same problem. In this case, a restructuring of the perceptual field was
necessary for the chimp to solve the problem.

Another experiment involved positioning a banana outside the cage

beyond reach and placing two hollow bamboo sticks inside the cage. Each
stick by itself was too short to retrieve the fruit. To reach the banana, the
animal had to push the sticks together (inserting the end of one into the
end of the other) to make a stick of sufficient length. Thus, to solve the
problem, the animal had to visualize a new relationship between the two
sticks.
In studying learning, Köhler also employed socalled detour problems,
problems in which the animal could see its goal but could not reach it
directly. To solve the problem, the animal had to learn to take
an indirect route to the goal.

Kohler further sstated that Insightful learning is usually regarded as having

fourcharacteristics:
(1) the transition from pre solution to solution is sudden and complete;

(2) performance based on a solution gained by insight is usually smooth

and free of errors;

(3) a solution to a problem gained by insight is retained for a considerable

length of time;
(4) A principle gained by insight is easily applied to other problems.

Isomorphism and the Law of Prägnanz:

Kohler also postulated the concept of isomorphism which means

that there is kind of a mental map of the objects in environment,
and this mental map helps in learning by insight. This means that
in the mind of individuals, there is a map which according to him
is the explanation of the things around him. In other
words, the map is the individual’s perception about the world
around him. This concept was called isomorphism by Kohler.
According to the principle of psychophysical isomorphism, mental
experiences too must be simple and symmetrical. The Gestaltists
summarized this relationship between force fields in the brain and cognitive
experience with their law of Prägnanz, which was central to Gestalt
psychology. The law of Prägnanz states that psychological organization will
always be as good as conditions allow because fields of brain activity will
always distribute themselves in the simplest way possible under the
prevailing conditions, just as other physical force fields do.

Perceptual Constancies:
Perceptual constancy (not to be confused with the constancy hypothesis) refers
to the way we respond to objects as if they were the same, even though
the actual stimulation our senses receive may vary greatly. Kohler asserted
that constancies are a direct reflection of ongoing brain activity and n o t a result of
sensation plus learning. The reason we experience an object as the same
under varied conditions is that the r el a t i o n s h i p between that object and other
objects remains the same. Because this relationship is the same, the field
of brain activity is also the same, and therefore the mental experience
(perception) is the same.

[Köhler] said that brightness constancy is due to the existence of a real

constancy that is an existing G e s t a l t in the environment. This G e s t a l t is
physical— really there as a pattern. It is the r a ti o of brightness of the figure
to the brightness of the ground. This ratio remains constant for sunlight and
shade. The human nervous system responds
directly to this constant ratio. The constant ratio in the environment gives
rise to a pattern of excitation in the nervous system. As long as the ratio
does not change, the characteristics of the pattern of excitation do not
change. Thus Köhler explained brightness constancy as a directly
perceived G e s t a l t not derived from learning or the association
of sensations. Köhler explained other perceptual constancies involving
color, shape, and size in a similar manner.

Kurt Koffka

With Max Wertheimer and Wolfgang Köhler he is credited with

developing the theories that gave rise to the school of Gestalt
psychology. His book Growth of the Mind (1924) was considered
responsible for awakening much interest in Gestalt concepts.

Koffka’s concept of field theory was an important concept of the

Gestalt school. He distinguished between the geographical field
and the field of experience. Geographical field is the actual
environment while the field of experience is the mindset of the
observer. Humans react to the field of experience and not
to the geographical field. The geographical field is the actual field
which represents the real world around.

The field of experience represents the experiences or the

dispositions of the person who experiences the field. For
example, if a person goes for a walk in the garden and he knows
that there have been witnesses of snakes in that garden, he is
quite likely to confuse a twig with a snake. This means that the
person has actually considered only the field of experience and
ignored the geographical field or the reality. This is what
Koffka tried to explain. In his views, an individual tends to ignore
the geographical field in face of the field of experience which
dominates his understanding or perceptions. The field of
experience in the above example may have been established by
someone telling the person that there are snakes in the garden
or some previous incidents of snake sighting that the person
might have heard of. These were some of the
contributions of Kurt Koffka.

Memory: Memory Processes, Traces, and Systems:

Koffka assumed that each physical event we experience gives rise
to specific activity in the brain. He called the brain activity caused by a
specific environmental event a memory process.

He explained when the environmental event terminates, so does the brain

activity it caused. However, a remnant of the memory process— a
memory trace—remains in the brain.

a trace system will record all our experiences

with, lets say, cats, dog, parrot etc. The interaction of traces and trace
systems with ongoing brain activity (memory pro-cesses) results in our
perceptions and memories being smoother and better organized than they
otherwise would be. For example, we remember irregular experiences
as regular, incomplete experiences as complete, and unfamiliar
experiences as something familiar. Trace systems govern our memories of
particular things as well as of general categories

Memory is governed by the law of Prägnanz. That is, we tend to remember

the essences of our experiences. The brain operates in such a way as to
make memories as simple and symmetrical as is possible under the
circumstances.

Psychoanalysis
school of thought that focused on the importance of the
UNCONSCIOUS mind (not consciousness). In other words,
psychoanalytic perspective dictates that behavior is determined by
your past experiences.

Sigmund Freud:
SIGMUND FREUD founded this field and has become synonymous with
psychology. Freud's psychoanalytic perspective began in his attempts to
cure patients of physical symptoms (such as leg paralysis) that had not
apparent cause. He was introduced to hypnosis - he tried this on one of his
patients who, after undergoing hypnosis, was cured of all physical
ailments.

He later concluded that such disorders were the result of unconscious

psychological conflicts about sex cause by "cultural prohibitions against
sexual enjoyment." These conflicts were then converted into physical
symptoms that provided the patient with an excuse not to engage in the
"taboo" behaviors.

Thus, in his search for the contents of the unconscious

mind, Freud made use of free association,
dream analysis, slips of the tongue, memory lapses,
“accidents,” gestures and mannerisms, what the person
found humorous, and literally everything else the
person did or said.

The Case of Anna O: xyz...

The Birth of Free Association:

Freud found hypnosis to be ineffective and was seeking an alternative.
Freud tried having his patients lie on a couch with their eyes closed but not
hypnotized. He asked the patients to recall the first time they had
experienced a particular symptom, and the patients began to recollect
various experiences but usually stopped short of the goal. In other words,
as they approached the recollection of a traumatic experience,
they displayed resistance. At this point Freud placed his hand on the
patient’s forehead and declared that additional information was
forthcoming, and in many cases it was. Freud found that this p r e ss u r e
t e c h n i q u e was as effective as hypnosis, and soon he learned that he did not
even need to touch his patients; simply encouraging them to speak freely
about whatever came to their mind worked just as well.

Thus, the method of free association was born.

Studies on Hysteria:
In Studies on Hysteria Freud noted that hysteria is caused by traumatic
experience that is not allowed adequate expression and therefore
manifests itself in physical symptoms. Because such experience is
traumatic, it is r e pr e ss e d —that is, actively held in the unconscious because to
ponder it would provoke anxiety. Resistance, then, is a sign that the
therapist is on the right track. Repression also often results from conflict,
the tendency both to approach and to avoid something considered
wrong.The fundamental point was that repressed experiences or conflicts
d o n ot go a w ay For Freud, the most effective way of making repressed
material conscious is through free association. By carefully analyzing the
content of free associations, gestures, and transference, the analyst

could determine the nature of the repressed experience and help the
patient become aware of it and deal with it.

The Seduction Theory :

n Studies on Hysteria Freud published in a paper that without exception,
Freud’s hysteric patients related to him a childhood incident in which they
had been sexually attacked. Freud concluded that such an attack is the
basis of all hysteria. This was known as his seduction theory . For reasons

that are still not clear, Freud abandoned his seduction theory His original
belief remained intact: The basis of neuroses is the repression of sexual
thoughts, whether the

thoughts were based on real or imagined experience.

Freud’s Self-Analysis through Dream Analysis :

Freud realized that he could not analyze himself with the free-association
technique, being patient and therapist at the same time, so he decided to
analyze his dreams. he assumed that dream events could not be
completely without meaning and that they most likely result from
something in the patient’s unconscious mind. On awakening each
morning, he conducted a personal dream analysis Freud realized the
considerable hostility he felt toward his father. He recalled for the first time
his childhood sexual longings for his mother and dreamed of sexual
wishes toward his eldest daughter. This intense exploration of his
unconscious became the basis of his theory. Thus, much of his
psychoanalytic system was formulated from analyzing his own neurotic
episodes and childhood experiences.

Oedipus complex:
by analyzing his own dreams, Freud confirmed
his belief that young males tend to love their
mothers and hate their fathers. He called this tendency
the Oedipus complex
Freudian slip: An act of forgetting or a lapse in speech that reflects
unconscious motives or anxieties.

Freud suggested that in everyday behavior, unconscious ideas struggling

for expression affect our thoughts and actions. What might seem a casual
slip of the tongue or act of forgetting is actually a reflection of real, though
unacknowledged, motives.

The Psychopathology of Everyday Life:

Freud’s next major work was Psychopathology of Everyday Life
(1901/1960b) in which he discussed parapraxes Parapraxes refer to relatively minor
errors in everyday living, such as slips of the tongue
(Freudian slips), forgetting things, losing things,
small accidents, and mistakes in writing

Humor:
Freud (1905/1960a) indicated that people
often use jokes to express unacceptable sexual and
aggressive tendencies. Like dreams, jokes exemplify
wish fulfillments; so, according to Freud, jokes offer a
socially approved vehicle for being obscene, aggressive
or hostile, cynical, critical, skeptical, or blasphemous.
Viewed in this way, jokes offer a way of venting
repressed, anxiety-provoking thoughts, and so it
is no wonder that people find most humorous those
things that bother them the most

Psychoanalysis as a System of Personality:

Instincts:
To Freud, mental representations of internal stimuli (such as hunger) that
motivate personality and behavior. Freud did not attempt to offer a
detailed list of every possible human instinct, but he grouped them in two
general categories: the life instincts and the death instinct.
Life instincts eros (named after the Greek god of love)
include hunger, thirst, and sex. They are concerned with self-preservation
and the survival of the species and thus are the creative forces that sustain
life. The form of energy through which life instincts are manifested is
called libido. The death instinct Called thanatos (named after the Greek god
of death). is a destructive force that can be directed inward, as in
masochism or suicide, or outward, as in hatred and aggression. As Freud
grew older, he became convinced that aggression
could be as powerful a motivator for human behavior as could sex.

Levels of Personality:
Freud proposed the id, ego, and superego as the three levels of personality:

Id: The source of psychic energy and the aspect of personality allied with
the instincts.The id has only two means of satisfying a need.

One is reflex action, which is automatically triggered when certain

discomforts arise. Sneezing and recoiling from a painful stimulus are
examples of reflex actions.

The second means of satisfaction is wish fulfillment, in which the id

conjures up an image of an object that will satisfy an existing need.

Ego: The rational aspect of personality responsible for controlling the

instincts. The ego’s job is to match the wishes (images) of the id with their
counterparts in the physical environment. For this reason, the ego is
said to operate in the service of the id. The ego is also said to be governed
by the reality principle, because the objects it provides must result in real
rather than imaginary satisfaction of a need.

Superego: The moral aspect of personality derived from internalizing

parental and societal values and standards. The superego, develops early
in life when the child assimilates the rules of conduct taught by parents or
caregivers through a system of rewards and punishments. Super Ego is the
moral arm of the personality.
The fully developed superego has two divisions.

The conscience consists of the internalized experiences for which the child
has been consistently punished. Engaging in or even thinking
about engaging in activities for which he or she had been consistently
punished now makes the child feel guilty.

The ego-ideal consists of the internalized experiences for which the child
has been rewarded. Engaging in or even thinking about engaging in
activities for which he or she has been consistently rewarded makes the
child feel good about himself or
herself.

Anxiety and the Ego Defense Mechanisms:

Anxiety:
Anxiety functions as a warning that the ego is being threatened. Freud
described three types of anxiety. Objective anxiety arises from fear of
actual dangers in the real world. Neurotic anxiety and moral anxiety, the
other two types, derive from objective anxiety. Neurotic anxiety comes
from recognizing the potential dangers inherent in gratifying the id
instincts; it is not fear of the instincts themselves but fear of the
punishment likely to follow any indiscriminate, id-dominated behavior. In
other words, neurotic anxiety is a fear of being punished for expressing
impulsive desires. Moral anxiety arises from fear of one’s conscience.
When we perform, or even think of performing, some action contrary to
our conscience’s moral values, we are likely to experience guilt or shame.
Our resulting level of moral anxiety depends on how well developed
our conscience is. Less virtuous people experience less moral anxiety.

DEFENCE MECHANISMS:
Behaviors that represent unconscious denials or distortions of reality but
which are adopted to protect the ego against anxiety.

Anxiety induces tension, which motivates the individual to take some

action to reduce it. According to Freud’s theory, the ego develops
protective defenses—the so-called defense mechanisms—which are
unconscious denials or distortions of reality.

Denial
Denying the existence of an external threat or traumatic event; for
example, a person living with a terminal illness may deny the imminence
of death.

Displacement
Shifting id impulses from a threatening or unavailable object to an object
that is available, such as replacing hostility toward one’s boss with hostility
toward one’s child.

Projection
Attributing a disturbing impulse to someone else, such as saying you do
not really hate your professor but that he or she hates you.

Rationalization
Reinterpreting behavior to make it more acceptable and less threatening,
such as saying the job from which you were fired was not really a good job
anyway.

Reaction formation
Expressing an id impulse that is the opposite of the one that is driving the
person. For example, someone disturbed by sexual longings may become a
crusader against pornography.

Regression
Retreating to an earlier, less frustrating period of life and displaying the
childish and dependent behaviors characteristic of that more secure time.

Repression
Denying the existence of something that causes anxiety, such as
involuntarily removing from consciousness some memory or perception
that brings discomfort.

Sublimation
Altering or displacing id impulses by diverting instinctual energy into
socially acceptable behaviors, such as diverting sexual energy into
artistically creative behaviors.
Psychosexual Stages of Personality Development:

The oral stage. The oral stage lasts through about the first year of life, and
the erogenous zone is the mouth. Pleasure comes mainly through the lips,
tongue, and such activities as sucking, chewing, and swallowing.

The anal stage lasts through about the second year of life, and the
erogenous zone is the anus-buttocks region of the body. Fixation during
this stage results in an anal character. During the first part of the anal stage,
pleasure comes mainly from activities such as feces expulsion. In the
second part of the anal stage, after toilet training has occurred, pleasure
comes from being able to withhold feces.

The phallic stage lasts from about the beginning of the third year to the
end of the fifth year, and the erogenous zone is the genital region of
the body.The most significant events that occur during this stage are the
male and female Oedipal complexes. Oedipus complex: At ages four to
five, the unconscious desire of a boy for his mother and the desire to
replace or destroy his father.

The latency stage lasts from about the beginning of the sixth year until
puberty. Because of the intense repression required during the
phallic stage, sexual activity is all but eliminated from consciousness
during the latency stage. This stage is characterized by numerous
substitute activities, such as schoolwork and peer activities, and by
extensive curiosity about the world.

The genital stage lasts from puberty through the remainder of one’s life.
With the onset of puberty, sexual desires become too intense to repress
completely, and they begin to manifest themselves. The focus of attention
is now on members of the opposite sex. If everything has gone correctly
during the preceding stages, this stage will culminate in dating and,
eventually, marriage.

CONTRIBUTIONS:
1. Expansion of psychology’s domain. Like no one before him, Freud
pointed to the importance of studying the relationships among
unconscious motivation, infantile sexuality, dreams, and anxiety. Freud’s
was the first comprehensive theory of personality, and every personality
theory since his can be seen as a reaction to his theory or to some aspect of
it.

2. Psychoanalysis. Freud created a new way of dealing with age-old

mental disorders. Many still believe that psychoanalysis is the best way to
understand and treat neuroses.

3. Understanding of normal behavior. Freud not only provided a means

of better understanding much abnormal behavior but also made much
normal behavior comprehensible. Dreams, forgetfulness, mistakes, choice
of mates, humor, and use of the ego defense mechanisms characterize
everyone’s life, and Freud’s analysis of them makes them less mysterious
for everyone.

4.Generalization of psychology to other fields. By showing psychology’s

usefulness in explaining phenomena in everyday life, religion, sports,
politics, art, literature, and philosophy, Freud expanded psychology’s
relevance to almost every sector of human existence.
 CARL JUNG
Carl Gustav Jung was born in Switzerland in 1870 Jung, who entered what
he called his “dark years,”During this time, he analyzed his innermost
thoughts and developed his own distinct theory of personality, which
differed markedly from Freud’s thus he disagreed and developed his own
theoretical framework and method of treatment, called Analytical
Psychology.

Libido
The major source of difficulty between Freud and Jung was the nature of
the libido. At the time of his association with Jung, Freud defined libido as
“sexual energy,” which he saw as the main driving force of personality.
Thus, for Freud, most human behavior is sexually motivated. Jung
disagreed, saying that libidinal energy is a creative life force that
could be applied to the individual’s continuous psychological
growth.
Libidinal energy is used in a wide range of human endeavors
beyond those of a sexual nature, and it can be applied
to the satisfaction of both biological and philosophical
or spiritual needs.

The Ego
It is everything of which we are conscious and is concerned with thinking,
problem solving, remembering, and perceiving.

The Personal Unconscious

Jung’s personal unconscious consists of experiences that had either
been repressed or simply forgotten—material from one’s lifetime that for
one reason or another is not in consciousness. Some of this material is
easily retrievable, and some of it is not.
The Collective Unconscious and the
Archetypes
The collective unconscious was Jung’s most mystical and controversial
concept, and his most important. Jung described two levels of the
unconscious mind. Beneath our conscious awareness is the personal
unconscious, which contains memories, impulses, wishes, faint
perceptions, and other experiences in a person’s life that have been
suppressed or forgotten. This level of unconsciousness is not very deep.
Incidents from the personal unconscious can easily be recalled to conscious
awareness.

Personal unconscious:
The reservoir of material that once was conscious but has been forgotten or
suppressed.

Collective unconscious:
The deepest level of the psyche; it contains inherited experiences of human
and prehuman species.
At a level below the personal unconscious is the collective unconscious,
unknown to the individual. It contains the accumulated experiences of
previous generations, including our animal ancestors. These universal,
evolutionary experiences form the basis of personality.

Archetypes
Inherited tendencies called archetypes within the collective unconscious
are innate determinants of mental life that dispose a person to behave not
unlike ancestors who confronted similar situations.Archetypes can be
thought of as generic images with which events in one’s lifetime interact.
They record not only perceptual experiences but also the emotions
typically associated with those perceptual experiences.
The archetypes that occur most frequently are the persona, the anima and
animus, the shadow, and the self
The persona is the mask each of us wears when we come in contact
with other people; the mask represents us as we want to appear to society.
As such, the persona may not correspond to an individual’s true
personality.

The anima and animus archetypes reflect the idea that each person
exhibits some of the characteristics of the other sex. The “anima” refers to
feminine characteristics in man; the “animus” denotes masculine
characteristics in woman

Our darker self, represented by the shadow archetype, is the

animalistic part of personality. Jung considered it to be inherited from
lower forms of life. The shadow contains immoral, passionate, and
unacceptable desires and activities. The shadow urges us to do things we
ordinarily would not allow ourselves to do. Once having done them, we
are likely to insist that something came over us. That something is the
shadow, the primitive
part of our nature.

Jung considered the self to be the most important archetype. Integrating

and balancing all aspects of the unconscious, the self provides the
personality with unity and stability. Jung likened it to a drive toward self-
actualization, by which he meant harmony,
completeness, and the full development of our abilities. However, he
believed that self-actualization could not be attained until middle age (30–
40), years he believed were crucial to personality development.
Introversion and Extraversion Attitudes:
Based upon his experiments, observations and clinical practice, he
formulated his personality theory. He stated that personality has two
types:
o Introvert
o Extrovert
The extrovert orientation "finds meaning outside the self", in the
surrounding world, whereas the introvert is introspective and finds it
within. (Tell about introvert and extrovert)
The extravert directs libido (life energy) outside the self to external events
and people. This type of person is strongly influenced by forces in the
environment and is sociable and self-confident in a variety of situations. In
contrast, the libido of the introvert is directed inward. Such a person
is contemplative, introspective, and resistant to external influences.

The introvert is likely to be less confident than the extravert in dealing

with other people and situations.

Psychological Types: The Functions and Attitudes:

In Jung’s theory, personality differences are expressed not only by the

introversion or extraversion attitudes but also through four functions:

• Thinking is a conceptual process that provides meaning and

understanding.
• Feeling is a subjective process of weighing and valuing.
• Sensing is the conscious perception of physical objects.
• Intuiting involves perceiving in an unconscious way.

According to Jung, there are eight personality types, depending upon

introversion or extroversion
and the four functions of each type namely:
1) Introverted Sensory
2) Introverted Thinking
3) Introverted Emoting
4) Introverted Intuiting
5) Extroverted Sensory
6) Extroverted Thinking
7) Extroverted Emoting
8) Extroverted Intuiting

Carl Gustav Jung developed an elaborate theory of dreams and dream

interpretation. Jung proposed that the average dream is similar in
structure to a drama. Jung believed that the manifest dream (the
dream as remembered) contains the actual meaning of the dream – the
dream is therefore not distorted or disguised in any way. It is a message or
natural expression of the unconscious. Therefore, interpretation should be
based upon a series of dreams rather than a single dream. In Jung’s view,
dreams show wishes, desires, conflicts and even give warning about
future. He said that a dream is difficult to interpret and understand since it
is expressed in its own unique language of symbols.

In order to interpret a dream, Jung used the process of amplification. In

essence, amplification involves elaborating a dream image in order to
determine its significance through direct and indirect association.

Jungian dream interpretation also places a great deal of importance on the

conscious situation of the dreamer. The dream is not an isolated event and
cannot be detached from the dreamer's everyday life. Jung developed a
system of psycho-therapy based upon his theory of analytical psychology.

According to Jung, psychotherapy is not healing but helping to develop.

He rejected free association and adopted dialogue, discussion and full
confession.
The steps involved in Jungian therapy are:
• Reading (for some)
• Collaboration with the therapist
• Focusing on the situation at present
• Making any insight concrete and finding a way to put it into practice.
He also used interpretations of dreams in his method.

Alfred Adler

Adler is usually considered the first proponent of the social psychological

approach to psychoanalysis. He developed a theory in which social
interest plays a major role, and he is the only psychologist to have a string
quartet named for him.

Individual Psychology

Adler believed that human behavior is determined largely by social forces,

not biological instincts. He proposed the concept of social interest, defined
as an innate potential to cooperate with others to achieve personal and
societal goals. Our social interest develops in infancy through learning
experiences. In contrast to Freud, Adler minimized the influence
of sex in the shaping of one’s personality. Also, Adler focused on conscious
rather than unconscious determinants of behavior.
Adler emphasized the unity and consistency of personality. He posited an
innate, dynamic force that channels the personality’s resources toward an
overriding goal. This goal, for all of us, is superiority (in the sense of
perfection), and it represents the complete development and fulfillment of
the self.
Inferiority Feelings
Adler proposed a generalized feeling of inferiority as a motivating force in
behavior, as it was in his own life. Initially Adler related this feeling of
inferiority to physical defects. The child with a hereditary organic
weakness will attempt to compensate, to overemphasize the deficient
function. A child who stutters may, through conscientious speech therapy,
become a great orator; a child with weak limbs may, through intensive
exercise, excel as an athlete or dancer. In infancy, the child’s helplessness
and dependence on other people awaken this sense of inferiority
Inferiority feelings operate to the advantage of the individual and the
society because they lead to continuous improvement
Failure to compensate adequately for inferiority feelings can lead to the
development of an inferiority complex, which renders the person
incapable of coping with life’s problems.

Lifestyles/ Style of Life:

According to Adler, the drive for superiority or perfection is universal, but

each of us behaves in a different way to try to reach that goal.
This style of life involves the behaviors by which we compensate for real or
imagined inferiority. The style of life is fixed at the age of four or five and
becomes difficult to change thereafter.

The Creative Self

Adler’s concept of the creative power of the self suggests that we have the
capacity to determine our own personality in accordance with our unique
style of life. This active, creative human power may be likened to the
theological notion of the soul. Certain abilities and experiences come to us
through heredity and environment, but the way we actively use and
interpret these experiences provides the basis for our personality, our
attitude toward life. Adler meant that each of us is consciously involved in
shaping our personality and destiny. We can determine our fate rather than
have it determined by past experience and by unconscious forces.

Birth Order
In examining his patients’ childhood years, Adler became interested in the
relationship between personality and birth order. He found that the oldest,
middle, and youngest children, because of their positions in the family,
have varying social experiences that result in different attitudes toward life
and different ways of coping. The oldest child receives a great deal of
attention until dethroned by the birth of the second child. The first-born
may then become insecure and hostile, authoritarian and conservative,
manifesting a strong interest in maintaining order

Adler found the second child to be ambitious, rebellious, and jealous,

constantly striving to surpass the first-born. Adler believed that the
second-born child is better adjusted than the first-born or the youngest
child. He said that the youngest child in the family was likely
to be spoiled and predisposed toward behavioral problems in childhood
and adulthood.

An only child may experience difficulties in adjusting to the world outside

the family, where he or she is not the center of attention.
 MASLOW:

Abraham Maslow (1908–1970)

Maslow has been called the spiritual father of humanistic psychology and
probably did more than anyone else to spark the movement and confer on
it some degree of academic respectability. He was driven to understand the
greatest achievements of which we are capable, and so he studied a small
sample of psychologically outstanding people to determine how they
differed from those of average or normal mental health.

The basic tenets of humanistic psychology:

The beliefs shared by psychologists working within the humanistic
paradigm include the following:
1. Little of value can be learned about humans by studying nonhuman
animals.

2. Subjective reality is the primary guide for human behavior.

3. Studying individuals is more informative than studying what groups

of individuals have in common.

4. A major effort should be made to discover those things that expand

and enrich human experience.

5. Research should seek information that will help solve human

problems.
6. The goal of psychology should be to formulate a complete description of
what it means to be a human being. Such a description would include the
importance of language, the valuing process, the full range of human
emotions, and the ways humans seek and attain meaning in their lives.
Humanistic psychology, which rejects the notion
that psychology should be entirely scientific, sees humans as indivisible
wholes. Any attempt to reduce them to habits, cognitive structures, or S–R
connections results in a distortion of human nature.

Maslow’s point was not that psychology should stop attempting to be

scientific or stop studying and attempting to help those with psychological
problems, but that such endeavors tell only part of the story. Beyond this,
psychology needs to attempt to understand humans who are in the process
of reaching their full potential.

The hierarchy of needs:

According to Maslow, humanneeds are arranged in a hierarchy. The lower

the needs in the hierarchy, the more basic they are and the more similar
they are to the needs of other animals. The higher the needs in the
hierarchy, the more distinctly human they are. The needs are arranged so
that as one satisfies a lower need, one can deal with the next higher need.
When one’s physiological needs (such as hunger, thirst, and sex) are
predictably satisfied, one can deal with the safety needs (protection from
the elements, pain, and unexpected dangers); when the safety needs are
reasonably satisfied, one is free to deal with the belonging and love needs
(the need to love and be loved, to share one’s life with a relevant other);
when the belonging and love needs are adequately satisfied, one is
released to ponder the esteem needs (to make a recognizable contribution
to the wellbeing of one’s fellow humans); if the esteem needs are met
satisfactorily, one is in a position to become self-actualized. Maslow’s
proposed hierarchy of needs can be diagrammed as follows:
 Need for
self-actualization
^
Esteem needs (from
self and others)
^
Belongingness
and love needs
^
Safety needs: security, order,
and stability
^
Physiological needs: food,
water, and sex

Self-actualization:
By self-actualization, Maslow meant reaching one’s full human potential
Self-actualization: The full development of one’s abilities and the
realization of one’s potential. In Maslow’s view, each person possesses an
innate tendency toward self-actualization (Maslow, 1970). This state, which
is the highest of the human needs, involves the active use of all our
qualities and abilities, the development and fulfillment of our potential.
To become self-actualizing, we must first satisfy needs that stand lower in
an innate hierarchy. Each need must be satisfied in turn before the next
need can motivate us. The needs Maslow proposed, in the order in which
they must be satisfied, are the physiological, safety, belonging and love,
esteem, and self-actualization needs,
Self-actualizers share the following tendencies/
CHARACTERSTICS:

1. An objective perception of reality

2. A full acceptance of their own nature
3. A commitment and dedication to some kind of work
4. Simplicity and naturalness of behavior
5. A need for autonomy, privacy, and independence
6. Intense mystical or peak experiences
7. Empathy with and affection for all humanity
8. Resistance to conformity
9. A democratic character structure
10. An attitude of creativeness
11.A high degree of what Adler termed “social interest”

OR

1. They perceive reality accurately and fully.

2. They demonstrate a great acceptance of themselves and of others.
3. They exhibit spontaneity and naturalness.
4. They have a need for privacy.
5. They tend to be independent of their environment and culture.
6. They demonstrate a continuous freshness of appreciation.
7. They tend to have periodic mystic or peak experiences.
8. They are concerned with all humans instead of with only their friends,
relatives, and acquaintances.
9. They tend to have only a few friends.
10. They have a strong ethical sense but do not necessarily accept
conventional ethics.
11. They have a well-developed but not hostile sense of humor.
12.They are creative.
Deficiency and being motivation and perception:

If a person is functioning at any level other than selfactualization, he or she

is said to be deficiency-motivated. That is, the person is seeking specific
things to satisfy specific needs, and his or her perceptions are need-
directed.“Need-directed perception is a highly focused searchlight darting
here and there, seeking the objects which will satisfy needs, ignoring
everything irrelevant to the need” Deficiency motivation (D-motivation)
leads to need-directed perception

Transpersonal psychology
transpersonal psychology would constitute a fourth force and would focus
on the mystical, ecstatic, or spiritual aspects of human nature.

CARL ROGERS
Carl Rogers is best known for a popular approach to psychotherapy called
person-centered therapy. Rogers also advanced a personality theory based
on a single motivational factor similar to Maslow’s concept of self-
actualization. Unlike Maslow, however, Rogers’s ideas did not derive from
the study of emotionally healthy people but from applying his person-
centered therapy to those treated at his university counseling centers.
The name of Rogers’s therapy indicates his view of the human personality.
By placing the responsibility for improvement on the person or client
rather than on the therapist (as in orthodox psychoanalysis), Rogers
assumed that people can consciously and rationally change their thoughts
and behaviors from undesirable to desirable. He did not believe that we
are permanently restrained by unconscious forces or childhood
experiences. Personality is shaped by the present and how we consciously
perceive it.

Self-Actualization:
The greatest motivating force in personality is the drive to actualize the self
(Rogers, 1961). Although this urge toward self-actualization is innate, it can
be helped or hindered by childhood experiences and by learning. Rogers
emphasized the importance of the mother-child relationship as it affects
the child’s growing sense of self. If the mother satisfies the infant’s need for
love, which Rogers called positive regard, then the infant will tend to
become a healthy personality.

Positive regard: The unconditional love of a mother for her infant

To Rogers, psychologically healthy or fully functioning persons have the

following qualities:
• An openness to, and a freshness of appreciation of, all experience
• A tendency to live fully in every moment
• The ability to be guided by their instincts rather than by reason or the
opinions of others
• A sense of freedom in thought and action
• A high degree of creativity
• The continual need to maximize their potential

Rogers described fully functioning persons as actualizing rather than

actualized, to indicate that the development of the self is always a work in
progress. This emphasis on spontaneity, flexibility, and our continued
ability to grow.
 John B. Watson (1878–1958)

We have discussed several trends that influenced John B. Watson in his

attempt to construct the behaviorist school of thought for psychology. He
recognized that founding is not the same as originating, and he described
his efforts as a crystallization of the ideas already emerging within
psychology. Like Wilhelm Wundt, psychology’s first promoterfounder,
Watson announced his goal of founding a new school. This deliberate
intention clearly distinguishes him from others whom history now labels
as precursors of behaviorism.

The Development of Behaviorism:

Watson began to think seriously about a more objective psychology
Watson argued that psychic or mental concepts have no value for a science
of psychology.

The goal of Behavioural psychology:

goal of psychology is the prediction and control of behavior.Psychology
from the Standpoint of the Behaviorists is concerned with the prediction
and control of human action and not with an analysis of “consciousness.”

The Methods of Behaviorism:

Watson insisted that psychology restrict itself to the data of the natural
sciences, to what could be observed. To put it simply, psychology must
restrict itself to the objective study of behavior. For studying behavior,
Watson proposed four methods:

• Observation with and without the use of instruments

• Testing methods
• The verbal report method
• The conditioned reflex method

Types of behavior and how they are studied/The

Subject Matter of Behaviorism:
The primary subject matter for Watson’s behavioral psychology was the
elements of behavior; that is, the body’s muscular movements and
glandular secretions. As the science of behavior, psychology would deal
only with acts that could be described objectively, without using subjective
or mentalistic terminology. For Watson, there were four types of behavior:
explicit (overt) learned behavior such as talking, writing, and playing
baseball; implicit (covert) learned behavior such as the increased heart rate
caused by the sight of a dentist’s drill; explicit unlearned behavior such as
grasping, blinking, and sneezing; and implicit unlearned behavior such as
glandular secretions and circulatory changes. According to Watson,
everything that a person does, including thinking, falls into one
of these four categories.

Language and thinking:

Watson had to reduce language and thinking to some form of behavior
and nothing more: “Saying is doing—that is, behaving. Speaking overtly
or to ourselves (thinking) is just as objective a type of behavior as baseball”
For Watson, then, speech presented no special problem; it was simply a
type of overt behavior. Watson solved the problem of thinking by claiming
that thinking is implicit or subvocal speech. Because overt speech is
produced by substantial movement of the tongue and larynx, Watson
assumed that minute movements of the tongue and larynx accompany
thought.

The role of instincts in behavior:

Initially Watson accepted the role of instincts in behavior.For Watson,

experience and not inheritance makes people what they are. Change
experience, and you change personality. he completely rejected
the idea of instincts in humans, contending that there are a few simple
reflexes such as sneezing, crying, eliminating, crawling, sucking, and
breathing but no complex, innate behavior patterns called instincts.

Finally, Watson (1926) made one of the most famous (or infamous)
statements in the history of psychology:
I should like to go one step further tonight and say, “Give me a dozen
healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them
up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to
become any type of specialist I might select—a doctor, lawyer, artist,
merchant-chief and, yes, even into beggarman and thief, regardless of his
talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations and race of his
ancestors.”
Watson did, however, allow for heritable differences in structure that could
influence personality characteristics.
He concluded, simply and optimistically, that children could be trained to
be whatever one wanted them to be. There were no limitations imposed by
genetic factors.

Emotions:
To Watson, emotions were merely physiological responses to specific
stimuli. A stimulus (such as a person suddenly threatening you with
bodily harm) produces internal physical changes such as rapid heart rate
along with the appropriate learned overt responses. Although Watson
noted that emotional responses do involve overt movements, he believed
that the internal responses were predominant. Thus, emotion is a form of
implicit behavior in which internal reactions are evident in physical
manifestations, such as blushing, perspiration, or increased pulse rate.
Watson claimed that emotions could be described completely in terms of
the objective stimulus situation, the overt bodily response, and the internal
physiological changes.Watson investigated the stimuli that produce
emotional responses in infants. He suggested that infants show three
fundamental unlearned emotional response patterns: fear, rage, and love.

Albert, Peter, and the Rabbits:

Watson demonstrated his theory of conditioned emotional responses in his
experimental studies of eight-month-old Albert, who was conditioned to
fear a white rat, something he had not feared before the conditioning
trials. From that research Watson concluded that all adult fears, aversions,
and anxieties likewise are conditioned in early childhood. Later on Mary
Cover Jones found a child—a threeyear- old boy named Peter who was
intensely frightened of white rats, rabbits, fur coats, frogs, fish, and
mechanical toys. While Peter was eating, a rabbit was brought into the
room but kept at a distance great enough so as not to trigger a fearful
response. Over a series of trials lasting several weeks, the rabbit was
brought progressively closer, always while the child was eating.
Eventually Peter got used to the rabbit and could touch it without showing
fear. Generalized fear responses to similar objects were also eliminated by
this procedure.

Child rearing:
In 1928 Watson published Psychological Care of the Infant and Child, in
which he severely criticized the child-rearing practices of the day. He
charged that “parents today are incompetent. He proposed a regulatory
rather than a permissive system of child rearing, in keeping with his strong
environmentalist position. The book was full of stern advice on the
behaviorist way to bring up children. Later on, his proposals and ideas of
child rearing gained a lot of critisism from his own family members and
many other people and thus was most of the ideas of child rearing were
discarded later.

Donald O. Hebb
Canadian psychologist who studied the effects of brain development on
intelligence. The difference between the way a young brain and an older
brain processes information was the focus of Donald Hebb's research

Hebb was fascinated by the way people learned and the way they retained
information. His research opened many doors in the field of behavioral
science and made him one of the most influential behaviorists

The Organization of Behavior

Cell assemblies and phase sequences:

According to Hebb, the neural interconnections in a newborn’s brain are

essentially random. It is experience that causes this network of neurons to
become organized and provide a means of effectively interacting with
the environment. Hebb speculated that every environmental object we
experience fires a complex package of neurons, called a cell assembly.

According to Hebb, it is reverberating neural activity that allows neurons

that were temporarily separated to become associated. Hebb believed that
neural activity caused by stimulation continues for a short time after the
stimulation ceases (reverberating neural activity), thus allowing the
development of successive neural associations. When a cell assembly
fires, we experience the thought of the environmental object or event to
which the assembly corresponds.
For Hebb, the cell assembly was the neurological basis of a thought or an
idea. In this way, Hebb explained why environmental objects do not need
to be present for us to think about them.

Phase sequences.
Hebb (1959) defined a phase sequence as “a temporally integrated series of
assembly activities; it amounts to one current in the stream of thought” (p.
629). Like a cell assembly, a phase sequence can be fired by internal or
external stimulation or by a combination of the two; when one or more
assemblies in a phase sequence fire, the entire phase sequence tends to fire.
when the entire phase sequence fires, a stream of thought—a series of
ideas arranged in some logical order—is experienced.

According to Hebb, childhood learning involves the slow buildup of cell

assemblies and phase sequences, and this kind of learning can be
explained using associationistic terminology. Adult learning, however, is
characterized by insight and creativity and involves the rearrangement of
already existing cell assemblies and phase sequences.

Arousal theory:
Hebb reported research showing the relationship between level of activity
in the small brain structure, called the reticular activating system (RAS),
and cognitive and behavioral performance. The examination of this
relationship was called arousal theory.
 Karl Lashley (1890–1958)
Lashley was an advocate of Watson’s behaviorism, though his research on
brain mechanisms in rats challenged one of Watson’s basic points. Lashley
summarized his findings in Brain Mechanisms and Intelligence. He
offered two now famous principles: the law of mass action, which states
that the efficiency of learning is a function of the intact mass of the cortex
(the more cortical tissue available, the better the learning), and the
principle of equipotentiality, which states that one part of the cortex is
essentially equal to another in terms of its contribution to learning.
Lashley’s findings suggested that the brain plays a more active role in
learning than Watson could accept. Thus, Lashley contested Watson’s
assumption that behavior is compounded bit by bit solely through
conditioned reflexes.

Ivan Petrovitch Pavlov (1849–1936)

Ivan Pavlov’s work on learning helped to shift associationism from its
traditional emphasis on subjective ideas to objective and quantifiable
physiological events such as glandular secretions and muscular
movements. As a result, Pavlov’s work provided Watson with a method for
studying behavior and for attempting to control and modify it.

Discovery of the conditioned reflex:

Pavlov worked on three major problems. The first concerned the function
of the nerves of the heart, and the second involved the primary digestive
glands. His brilliant research on digestion won worldwide recognition and
the 1904 Nobel Prize. His third research area, for which he occupies a
prominent place in the history of psychology, was the study of conditioned
reflexes.
Conditioned reflexes:
Reflexes that are conditional or dependent on the formation of an
association or connection between stimulus and response.

Unconditioned and conditioned reflexes:

Unconditioned and conditioned reflexes. According to Pavlov, organisms
respond to the environment in terms of unconditioned and conditioned
reflexes:
EXPLAIN DOG EXPERIMENT WHOLE CLASSICAL CONDITNING.

Excitation and inhibition:

Pavlov believed that all central nervous system activity can be
characterized as either excitation or inhibition. Pavlov believed that all
behavior is reflexive, that is, caused by antecedent stimulation. If not
modified by inhibition, unconditioned stimuli and conditioned stimuli will
elicit unconditioned and conditioned reflexes, respectively. These two
“fundamental processes” of Excitation and inhibition are always present,
and how we behave at any given moment depends on their interaction.
The pattern of excitation and inhibition that characterizes the brain at any
given moment is what Pavlov called the cortical mosaic. The cortical
mosaic determines how an organism will respond to its environment at
any given moment.

Extinction, spontaneous recovery, and disinhibition:

If a conditioned stimulus is continually presented to an organism and no
longer followed by an unconditioned stimulus, the conditioned response
will gradually diminish and finally disappear, at which point extinction is
said to have occurred. If a period of time is allowed to elapse after
extinction and the conditioned stimulus is again presented, the stimulus
will elicit a conditioned response. This is called spontaneous recovery.
disinhibition. This phenomenon is demonstrated when, after
extinction has taken place, presenting a strong, irrelevant stimulus to the
animal causes the conditioned response to return. The assumption was
that the fear caused by the strong stimulus displaces the inhibitory process,
thus allowing the return of the conditioned response

The first- and second-signal systems. According to

Pavlov, all tendencies that a person acquires during his or her lifetime are
based on innate, biological processes. Pavlov called the stimuli (CSs) that
come to signal biologically significant events the first-signal system, or
“the first signals of reality.” However, humans also learn to respond to
symbols of physical events. For example, we learn to respond to the word
fire just as we would to the sight of a fire. Pavlov referred to the words that
come to symbolize reality “signals of signals,” or the second-signal system.

Pavlov and Associationism:

Two examples are discussed: the important role of variable associability or

attention even in simple conditioning, and the rigorous application of
associative learning theory to the behavior of adult humans.
 Edwin Ray Guthrie:
Edwin Ray Guthrie (January 9, 1886 – April 23, 1959) was anAmerican
behavioural psychologist and teacher. Guthrie is best known for his
teaching and writing on the psychology of learning and applying his
learning principles to the understanding of everyday behaviors, including
the behavior of people in conflict. He typically lectured and wrote in a
style easily accessible to his students, and thus gained a significant
popularity and following. He was primarily noted for his work in
developing a single simple theory of learning, that is, a "one-trial,"
"contiguity," theory of learning that did not require reinforcement for
learning to occure.

Major Theoretical Concepts

The one law of learning. Guthrie’s one law of learning was the law of
contiguity, which he stated as follows: “A combination of stimuli which has
accompanied a movement will on its recurrence tend to be followed by
that movement.

One-trial learning:
What made Guthrie’s theory of learning unique was his rejection of the law
of frequency, saying instead that “a stimulus pattern gains its full
associative strength on the occasion of its first pairing with a response”
(1942, p. 30). In other words, unlike any learning theorist before him,
Guthrie postulated one-trial learning
Why practice improves performance:
To answer this question Guthrie distinguished between acts and
movements. A movement is a specific response to a specific configuration
of stimuli. This association is learned at full strength after one exposure.
An act is a response made to varying stimulus configurations. For
example, typing the letter “a” on a specific typewriter under specific
stimulus conditions (such as certain lighting and temperature conditions
and in specific bodily position) is a movement. However, typing “a” under
varying conditions is an act. Just as an act consists of many movements, a
skill consists of many acts. Thus a skill such as typing, playing golf, or
driving a car consists of many acts that, in turn, consist of thousands of
movements.

The nature of reinforcement:

Guthrie explained the effects of “reinforcement” in terms of the recency
principle. He noted that when a cat in a puzzle box makes a response that
allows it to escape (moving a pole, for example), the entire stimulus
configuration in the puzzle box changes. Thus we have one set of stimuli
existing before the pole is moved and another after it is moved. According
to Guthrie, because moving the pole is the last thing the cat does under the
prereinforcement conditions, that is the response the cat will make when
next placed in the puzzle box. For Guthrie, “reinforcement” changes the
stimulating conditions, thereby preventing unlearning. In other words,
“reinforcement” preserves the association that preceded it.

Forgetting.
According to Guthrie, not only does learning occur in one trial but so does
forgetting. Forgetting occurs when an old S-R association is displaced by a
new one. Thus, for Guthrie, all forgetting involves new learning.
Forgetting occurs only if an existing S-R association is interfered with in
some way.
Breaking Habits
A habit is an act that has become associated with a large number of stimuli.
The more stimuli that elicit the act the stronger the habit. Smoking, for
example, can be a strong habit because the act of smoking has become
associated with so many stimuli. According to Guthrie, there is one general
rule for breaking undesirable habits: Observe the stimuli that elicit the
undesirable act and perform another act in the presence of those stimuli.
Once this is done, the new, desirable act will be elicited by those stimuli
instead of the old, undesirable act.

Punishment:
For Guthrie, the effectiveness of punishment is determined not by the pain
it causes but by what it causes the organism to do in the presence of
stimuli that elicit undesirable behavior. If punishment elicits behavior
incompatible with the undesirable behavior in the presence of these
stimuli, it will be effective. If not, it will be ineffective.

Drives and Intentions

For Guthrie, drives provide maintaining stimuli that keep an organism
active until a goal is reached. Maintaining stimuli can be internal (for
example, hunger) or external (for example, a loud noise).
When an organism performs an act that terminates the maintaining stimuli
that act becomes associated with the maintaining stimuli. That is, because
of the recency principle, the last act performed in the presence of the
maintaining stimuli will tend to be performed when those stimuli recur.
 Clark Leonard Hull (1884–1952)
Clark Hull and his followers dominated American psychology from the
1940s until the 1960s. Perhaps no other psychologist was so devoted to the
problems of the scientific method. Hull had a prodigious command of
mathematics and formal logic, and he applied these disciplines to
psychological theory in a way no one had done before. Hull’s form of
behaviorism was more sophisticated and complex than Watson’s.

Hull’s Hypothetico-Deductive Theory:

Hull noted four methods he considered useful for scientific research. Three
were already widely used: simple observation, systematic controlled
observation, and the experimental testing of hypotheses. The fourth
method Hull proposed was the hypothetico-deductive method, which
uses deduction from a set of formulations that are determined a priori.
This method involves establishing postulates from which experimentally
testable conclusions can be deduced. These conclusions are submitted to
experimental test, and they must be revised if they are not supported by
experimental evidence. If they are supported and verified, then they may
be incorporated into the body of science. Hull believed that if psychology
were to become truly objective like the other natural sciences—a basic
principle of the behaviorist program—then the only appropriate method
would be the hypothetico-deductive one.

Hull was the first (and last) psychologist to attempt to apply a

comprehensive, scientific theory to the study of learning, creating
a highly complex hypothetico-deductive theory that he hoped would be
self-correcting. Hull first reviewed the research that had been done on
learning; then he summarized that research in the form of general
statements, or postulates. From these postulates, he inferred theorems that
yield testable propositions. Hull concluded that a number of intervening
internal conditions had to be taken into consideration.
Reinforcement/ Drives:
For Hull, a biological need creates a drive in the organism, and the
diminution of this drive constitutes reinforcement. Thus Hull had a drive-
reduction theory of reinforcement. For Hull, drive is one of the important
events that intervenes between a stimulus and a response.

Hull postulated the intervening variable of “drive,” a term that had

already come into use in psychology. Drive was defined as a stimulus
arising from a state of tissue need that arouses or activates behavior. In
Hull’s view, reduction or satisfaction of a drive is the sole basis for
reinforcement. The strength of the drive can be empirically determined by
the length of deprivation, or by the intensity, strength, and energy
expenditure of the resulting behavior. Hull considered length of
deprivation to be an imperfect measure and placed greater emphasis on
response strength. Hull postulated two kinds of drive. Primary drives are
associated with innate biological need states and are vital to the organism’s
survival. Primary drives include food,water, air, temperature regulation,
defecation, urination, sleep, activity, sexual intercourse, and pain relief.
Hull recognized, however, that organisms might be motivated by forces
other than primary drives. Accordingly, he proposed the learned or
secondary drives, which relate to situations or environmental stimuli
associated with the reduction of primary drives and so may become drives
themselves. Thus, previously neutral stimuli may acquire the
characteristics of a drive because they are capable of eliciting responses
similar to the responses aroused by the primary drive or original need
state.

Habit strength:
If a response made in a certain situation leads to drive reduction, habit
strength (SHR) is said to increase. Hull operationally defined habit
strength, an intervening variable, as the number of reinforced pairings
between an environmental situation (S) and a response (R). For Hull, an
increase in habit strength constitutes learning.

Reaction potential:
Drive is not only a necessary condition for reinforcement but also an
important energizer of behavior. Hull called the probability of a learned
response reaction potential (SER), a function of both the amount of drive
(D) present and the number of times the response had been previously
reinforced in the situation. Hull expressed this relationship as follows:
SER = SHR x D
If either SHR or D is zero, the probability of a learned response being made
is also zero.

B. F. Skinner (1904–1990)
One of the most prominent psychologist skinner was impressed by
Watsonian behaviourism on the one hand and Pavlovian conditioning.He
worked at Harvard University and carried on his experiments on animals,
writing many books and articles. His main research work is now known by
the title of Instrumental or Operant Conditioning.

Skinner’s Behaviorism:
Skinner’s behaviorism was devoted to the study of responses. He was
concerned with describing rather than explaining behavior. His research
dealt only with observable behavior, and he believed that the task of
scientific inquiry is to establish functional relationships between
experimenter-controlled stimulus conditions and the organism’s
subsequent responses.
Skinner was not concerned with speculating about what might be
occurring inside the organism. His program included no presumptions
about internal entities, whether intervening variables, drives, or
physiological processes. Whatever might happen between stimulus and
response is not the sort of objective data the Skinnerian behaviorist dealt
with. Thus, Skinner’s purely descriptive behaviorism has been called, with
good reason, the “empty organism” approach. Human organisms are
controlled and operated by forces in the environment, the external world,
and not by forces within themselves.

Operant Conditioning/instrumental
conditioning:
In the Pavlovian conditioning situation, a known stimulus is paired with a
response under conditions of reinforcement. The behavioral response is
elicited by a specific observable stimulus; Skinner called this behavioral
response a respondent behavior. Operant behavior occurs without any
observable external antecedent stimulus, so that the organism’s response
appears to be spontaneous. This does not mean that there is no stimulus
that elicits the response but rather that no stimulus is detected when the
response occurs. From the experimenters’ viewpoint, however, there is no
stimulus because they have not applied a stimulus and cannot see one.
Another difference between respondent and operant behavior is that
operant behavior operates on the organism’s environment; respondent
behavior does not. When the rat in the Skinner box presses the bar, it
receives food, and it does not get any food until it does press the bar,
which thus operates on the environment

Skinner’s classic experimental and Law of

Acquisation:

Skinner’s classic experimental demonstration involved bar pressing in a

Skinner box constructed to eliminate extraneous stimuli. A rat deprived of
food was placed in the apparatus and allowed to explore. Eventually in the
course of this exploration the rat would accidentally depress a lever or bar
that activated a mechanism releasing a food pellet onto a tray. After
receiving a few pellets (the reinforcers), conditioning was usually rapid.
The rat’s behavior (pressing the lever) operated on the environment and
thus was instrumental in securing food. The dependent variable is simple
and direct: it is the rate of response.

From this basic experiment Skinner derived his law of acquisition,

which states that the strength of an operant behavior increases when it is
followed by the presentation of a reinforcing stimulus. practice is
important in establishing a high rate of bar pressing, the key variable is
reinforcement. Practice by itself will not increase the rate of responding; all
it does is provide the opportunity for additional reinforcement to occur.

Reinforcement:
One of the contributions of B.F. Skinner is that he distinguished between
positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement, There are four types of
reinforcement: positive, negative, punishment, and extinction. A reinforcer
is anything that, when made contingent on a response, changes the
rate with which that response is made.

Positive Reinforcement.For example, if you want your dog to sit on

command, you may give him a treat every time he sits for you. The dog

will eventually come to understand that sitting when told to will result in a

treat. The examples above describe what is referred to as positive

reinforcement. Think of it as adding something in order to increase a

response. For example, adding a treat will increase the response of sitting;

adding praise will increase the chances of your child cleaning his or her

room. The most common types of positive reinforcement or praise and

rewards, and most of us have experienced this as both the giver and

receiver.

Negative Reinforcement. Think of negative reinforcement as taking

something negative away in order to increase a response. Imagine a

teenager who is nagged by his mother to take out the garbage week after

week. After complaining to his friends about the nagging, he finally one

day performs the task and to his amazement, the nagging stops. The

elimination of this negative stimulus is reinforcing and will likely increase

the chances that he will take out the garbage next week.

Punishment. Punishment refers to adding something aversive in order to

decrease a behavior. The most common example of this is disciplining (e.g.

spanking) a child for misbehaving. The reason we do this is because the

child begins to associate being punished with the negative behavior. The

punishment is not liked and therefore to avoid it, he or she will stop

behaving in that manner.

There are two types of punishment in operant conditioning:

•positive punishment, punishment by application, or type I punishment,

an experimenter punishes a response by presenting an aversive stimulus
into the animal's surroundings (a brief electric shock, for example).
•negative punishment, punishment by removal, of type II punishment, a
valued, appetitive stimulus is removed (as in the removal of a feeding
dish). As with reinforcement, it is not usually necessary to speak of
positive and negative in regard to punishment.
Extinction. When you remove something in order to decrease a behavior,
this is called extinction. You are taking something away so that a response

is decreased.

According to Skinner, learning takes place by four schedules of

reinforcement (Conditions involving various rates and times of
reinforcement.):

i. Fixed ratio schedule

ii. Variable ratio schedule
iii. Fixed interval schedule
iv. Variable interval schedule

There are two types of continuous schedules:

Fixed Ratio. A fixed ratio schedule refers to applying the reinforcement

after a specific number of behaviors. Spanking a child if you have to ask

him three times to clean his room is an example. The problem is that the

child (or anyone for that matter) will begin to realize that he can get away

with two requests before he has to act. Therefore, the behavior does not

tend to change until right before the preset number.

Fixed Interval. Applying the reinforcer after a specific amount of time is

referred to as a fixed interval schedule. An example might be getting a

raise every year and not in between. A major problem with this schedule is

that people tend to improve their performance right before the time period

expires so as to “look good” when the review comes around.

When reinforcement is applied on an irregular basis, they are called

variable schedules.

Variable Ratio. This refers to applying a reinforcer after a variable number

of responses. Variable ratio schedules have been found to work best under

many circumstances and knowing an example will explain why. Imagine

walking into a casino and heading for the slot machines. After the third

coin you put in, you get two back. Two more and you get three back.

Another five coins and you receive two more back. How difficult is it to

stop playing?

Variable Interval. Reinforcing someone after a variable amount of time is

the final schedule. If you have a boss who checks your work periodically,

you understand the power of this schedule. Because you don’t know when

the next ‘check-up’ might come, you have to be working hard at all times

in order to be ready.

Reinforcement is given to the subjects according to these scales. Fixed ratio

is, when reinforcement is given after a fixed number of responses. Variable
ratio is when reinforcement is given after variable number of responses.
Fixed interval is reinforcement is given after a fixed time period. Variable
interval is when reinforcement is given after a variable time interval.

Successive Approximation: The Shaping of Behavior:

Successive approximation: An explanation for the acquisition of
complex behavior. Behaviors such as learning to speak will be reinforced
only as they come to approximate or approach the final desired behavior.
He trained a pigeon in a very short time to peck at a specific spot in its
cage. The probability that the pigeon on its own would peck at that precise
spot was low. At first the pigeon was reinforced with food when it merely
turned toward the designated spot. Then reinforcement was withheld until
the pigeon made some movement, however slight, toward the spot. Next,
reinforcement was given only for movements that brought the pigeon
closer to the spot. After that, the pigeon was reinforced only when it thrust
its head toward the spot. Finally, the pigeon was reinforced only when its
beak touched the spot. Although this sounds time-consuming, Skinner
conditioned pigeons in less than three minutes. The experimental
procedure itself explains the term “successive approximation.” The
organism is reinforced as its behavior comes in successive or consecutive
stages to approximate the final behavior desired. Skinner suggested that
this is how children learn the complex behavior of speaking.

Behavior Modification:
Behavior modification:
The use of positive reinforcement to control or modify the behavior of
individuals or groups.Research has shown that behavior modification
programs are usually successful only within the organization or institution
in which they are carried out. The effects rarely transfer to outside
situations because the program of reinforcement would have to be
continued, even intermittently, for the desired behavior changes to persist.
Punishment is not part of a behavior modification program.
 Edward Chace Tolman (1886–1959)
Edward Chace Tolman was an American psychologist. Through Tolman's
theories and works, he founded what is now a branch of psychology
known as purposive behaviorism. Tolman also promoted the concept
known as latent learning first coined by Blodgett .Edward C. Tolman is
best-known for cognitive behaviorism, his research on cognitive maps, the
theory of latent learning and the concept of an intervening variable.

Purposive behaviorism:
Tolman’s system combining the objective study of behavior
with the consideration of purposiveness or goal orientation in behavior.
Tolman argued that purposiveness in behavior can be defined in objective
behavioral terms without resorting to introspection or to reports about
how one may feel about an experience.Tolman said that all actions were
goal-directed. Tolman said, behavior “reeks” of purpose and is oriented
toward achieving a goal or learning the means to an end. The rat
persistently runs the maze, making fewer errors each time, to reach the
goal faster. What is happening in this case is that the rat is learning, and
the fact of learning, whether in animal subjects or humans, is objective
behavioral evidence of purpose. Tolmanwas interested only in overt
responses.

Tolman’s Use of Rats:

Tolman saw the use of rats as a way of guardingagainst even the
possibility of indirect introspection that could occur if humans were used
as experimental subjects. Tolman developed such a fondness for
rats that he dedicated his Purposive Behavior to the white rat.
The Use of Intervening Variables:
Tolman (1928) appeared to believe that purposes are in the organism and
are causally related to its behavior Tolman came to believe that cognitive
processes really exist and are influential in determining behavior.
As a behaviorist, Tolman believed that both the initiating causes of
behavior and the final resulting behavior must be capable of objective
observation and operational definition. He listed five independent
variables as causes of behavior: environmental stimuli, physiological
drives, heredity, previous training, and age. Behavior is a function of these
five variables, an idea Tolman expressed in a mathematical equation.

Between these observable independent variables and the resulting

response behavior (the observable dependent variable), Tolman inferred a
set of unobservable factors, the intervening variables, which are the actual
determinants of behavior. These factors are internal processes that connect
the stimulus situation with the observed response. By specifying the
independent and dependent variables, which are observable events,
Tolman was able to provide operational definitions of unobservable,
internal states.

Intervening variables:
Unobserved and inferred factors within the organism that are the actual
determinants of behavior Here is a simplified diagram of Tolman’s
approach:
Independent Variables
(Environmental Events)
v
Intervening Variables
(Theoretical Concepts)
v
Dependent Variables
(Behavior)
Learning Theory
The problem of learning formed a major part of Tolman’s purposive
behaviorism. He rejected Thorndike’s law of effect, saying that reward or
reinforcement has little influence on learning. In its place, Tolman
proposed a cognitive explanation for learning, suggesting that the repeated
performance of a task strengthens the learned relationship between
environmental cues and the organism’s expectations. In this way, the
organism gets to know its environment. Tolman called these learned
relationships “sign Gestalts” and posited that they are built up by the
continued performance of a task. Let us watch a hungry rat in a maze. The
rat moves about in the maze, exploring correct alleys and blind alleys.
Eventually the rat discovers food. In subsequent trials in the maze, the goal
(finding food) gives purpose and direction to the rat’s behavior.
Expectations are established at each choice point, and the rat comes to
expect that certain cues associated with the choice point will or will not
lead to the food. When the rat’s expectation is confirmed and it obtains
food, the sign Gestalt (the cue expectancy associated with a particular
choice point) is strengthened. For all the choice points in the maze, then,
the animal establishes a cognitive map, which is a pattern of sign Gestalts.
This pattern is what the animal learns—that is, the map of the maze, not
merely a set of motor habits. The rat’s brain forms a comprehensive picture
of the maze or of any familiar environment, enabling it to go from one
place to another without being restricted to a fixed series of bodily
movements. Tolman concluded that the same phenomenon occurs with
people familiar with their neighborhood or town. They can
go from one point to another by several routes because of the cognitive
map they have developed of the area.

Learning Versus Performance:

According to Tolman’s theory, an organism learns constantly as it observes
its environment. But whether the organism uses what it learns—and if so,
how—is determined by the organism’s motivational state.Tolman defined
performance as the translation of learning into behavior.

Latent learning:
In one of his famous latent learning experiments, Tolman dramatically
demonstrated the distinction between learning and performance.Latent
learning is a type of learning which is not apparent in the learner's
behavior at the time of learning, but which manifests later when a suitable
motivation and circumstances appear. Tolman conducted experiments
with rats and mazes to examine the role that reinforcement plays in the
way that rats learn their way through complex mazes. These experiments
eventually led to the theory of latent learning . Tolman coined the term
cognitive map, which is an internal representation (or image) of external
environmental feature or landmark. In their famous experiments Tolman
and Honzik (1930) built a maze to investigate latent learning in rats. The
study also shows that rats actively process information rather than
operating on a stimulus response relationship.
Aim
To demonstrate that rats could make navigational decisions based on
knowledge of the envi-ronment, rather than their directional choices
simply being dictated by the effects of rewards.

Procedure
In their study 3 groups of rats had to find their way around a complex
maze. At the end of the maze there was a food box. Some groups of rats
got to eat the food, some did not, and for some rats the food was only
available after 10 days.
Group 1: Rewarded
•Day 1 – 17: Every time they got to end, given food (i.e. reinforced).
Group 2: Delayed Reward
•Day 1 - 10: Every time they got to end, taken out.
•Day 11 -17: Every time they got to end, given food (i.e. reinforced).
Group 3: No reward
•Day 1 – 17: Every time they got to end, taken out.

Results
The delayed reward group learned the route on days 1 to 10 and formed a
cognitive map of the maze. They took longer to reach the end of the maze
because there was no motivation for them to perform.
From day 11 onwards they had a motivation to perform (i.e. food) and
reached the end before the reward group.
Latent extinction:
In extinction, reinforcement no longer follows a goal response, and an
animal’s expectation is modified accordingly