Why Women Fainted


Fainting and “fainting rooms” were common in the
18th and 19th century because of the tight lacing of
corsets required to be fashionable.
Corsets restricted breathing, compressed internal
organs and put pressure on bones in the rib cage.
 Constriction
of women’s ability to move freely and
modification of their bodies in the name of beauty is
analogous to foot-binding in Asian culture.
 Reform movements gave women experience organizing
that was useful in suffrage and temperance movements.
Earlier Bustles were Bigger
French fashion 1765
used Pannier side
hoops underneath
British fashion 1880,
busts were padded too
1890’s Styles
In the 1860s, corsets
were stiffened with
whalebone or steel. By
the 1880s, the dress
reform movement was
campaigning against
the pain and damage
to internal organs and
bones caused by tight
lacing.
Grey cotton bustle stuffed with
horsehair. These soft quilted
bustles became popular in the
early 1890's when the old style
jutting out 1880's bustle went
out of fashion.
Flapper Styles (1920s)
Flapper styles were easier
to sew and thus accessible
to middle class women.
CHAPTER 12 – PAVLOV
AND WATSON
Dr. Nancy Alvarado
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936)

Pavlov was born in Ryazan, Russia, into a “pure
Russian” religious family, the oldest of 11 kids.
 He
abandoned the idea of becoming a priest after
reading Darwin’s “Origin of the Species” and
Sechenov’s “Reflexes of the Brain.”
 Pavlov left seminary to attend the University of St.
Petersburg where Sechenev was professor of
physiology.
 Sechenev had demonstrated that a higher brain center
could inhibit activity of a lower one using frog reflexes.
Pavlov’s Early Research


Pavlov graduated in 1875 and won a medal for his
research on pancreatic nerves.
In 1878, Botkin invited him to direct a new lab in
experimental medicine, where he earned an M.D.
 Botkin
thought stress caused most diseases as the central
nervous system failed to adapt to the demands of life.

He worked in Germany, then returned to Russia and
had trouble finding a job, starving with no heat, but
continuing his research in his apt.
 In
1891, hired at St. Petersburg Military Academy.
Pavlov’s Conditioning Experiments


In 1895, Pavlov was hired at Univ. of St. Petersburg
and he earned a Nobel Prize in 1904 for his work
studying digestive processes.
Pavlov’s aim was to study living systems. His dogs
went through the same surgical procedures as
people, including sepsis and anesthesia procedures.
 He
developed a surgically created miniature stomach
pouch to study digestion uncontaminated by food.
 He discovered that a gastric reflex occurred even
without food present elicited by a “psychical reflex.”
Psychical Reflexes

Pavlov’s Nobel speech was not about digestion but
about psychical reflexes occurring without food.
 Ovsianitskii’s
dissertation was about salivation to a
variety of stimuli, including sight of food or a bowl or
the footsteps of the lab personnel who fed the dogs.
 Pavlov designed a “Tower of Silence” to isolate dogs
from all other stimuli except the ones being studied
(buzzers, metronomes, tactical and thermal stimuli).
 Generalization of the CS was also demonstrated, and
secondary conditioning (pairing first CS with a 2nd one).
More Conditioning Phenomena

Pavlov’s co-worker Tolochinov discovered extinction
via presentation of the CS without food.
 He
also found that dogs could be trained to
discriminate between two stimuli (CS+ signalling food
and CS- signalling absence of food).
 Pavlov believed these produced excitation or inhibition
in the cortex.
 When a CS- occurred many times, dogs went to sleep.
 Dogs could discriminate between accelerating and
decelerating metronome speeds.
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov
Research on Neuroses

Dogs trained to discriminate ellipses and circles with
a ratio of 8/7 showed acute neuroses when the
ratio was changed to 9/8.
 Neuroses


included disrupted behavior, biting, barking.
Dogs nearly drowned in a lab flood showed
changes in behavior after rescue, including easily
disrupted CRs, sensitivity to stimuli, especially water.
A simultaneous presentation of food and shock
induced neurosis – this was reduced by sodium
bromide given to inhibit excitation.
Pavlov on Individual Differences

Pavlov found 4 types of dogs with large individual
differences in learning & discrimination:
 Sanguine
– strong & lively, conditioned easily.
Excitation and inhibition were balanced.
 Melancholic – slow and depressed, learned slowly with
poor discrimination/generalization. Inhibition dominant.
 Choleric – unstable and impetuous, learned easily but
little discrimination, easily neurotic. Excitation excessive.
 Phlegmatic – inert and slothful, showed poor learning,
resistant to experimental neurosis. Inhibition dominant.
Individual Differences (cont.)


The sanguine and melancholy types seemed most
common but all dogs were different.
Pavlov believed the types were genetically
determined but he studied the influence of
environment, raising dogs in different conditions:
 Total
freedom with varied contacts with dogs & humans.
 Isolation in individual cages with little contact.

At 3 months, isolated dogs were more frightened of
everything, but habituated quickly to isolation.
Pavlov’s Later Life


Pavlov was initially hostile to the Bolsheviks who
took power in 1917 because they took his Nobel
Prize award money.
Lenin approved of his research and gave the
Pavlovs special treatment & supported his research.
 During
famine Pavlov rejected the rations because they
did not include his lab and dogs, growing a garden.

Pavlov visited the US twice, including Yerkes primate
lab at Yale. Later Pavlov changed his views and
supported the govt, especially against Germany.
Pavlov’s Diverse Research

Beyond his conditioning experiments, Pavlov did a
wide range of comparative studies, including studies
of problem solving using chimpanzees.
 He
visited Kohler but rejected his idea of insight
learning; more sympathetic to Thorndike’s trial & error.
 He believed his chimps gained “practical experience”
while roaming freely later applied to problem solving.

He was devoted to science, punctual to a fault, a
severe taskmaster, shouting insults at his workers.
 “Happiness
is nothing – the dogs mean all.” he said.
Conditioning Before Pavlov

The phenomenon of conditioning was known before
Pavlov studied it systematically:
 Bousfeld
describes Lope de Vega’s play “The Chaplain
of the Virgin” in which a young monk conditions cats to
leave him alone while eating using a cough as a CS.
 Several people in the 1800s noted that thinking about
food is enough to produce saliva without food present.

Twitmyer (under Witmer, 1902) used a bell paired
with a knee-jerk reflex in humans – his findings went
unnoticed and he didn’t pursue it (Pavlov was first).
John Broadus Watson (1878-1958)

Watson is most closely associated with the term
Behaviorism – he caused a revolution in psychology.
 His
goal was to replace concerns about the structure
and functions of consciousness with the study of
behavior.


Behaviorism involves observation, prediction and
control of behavior in humans and animals.
Pavlov’s research was a foundation for Watson’s
Behaviorist approach.
Watson’s Early Life

Watson’s father was a violent man of unsavory and
notorious reputation, his mother was pious and strict.
 He
was a poor student initially, constantly in trouble.
 He begged admission to Furman College with the
intention of studying for the Baptist ministry.
 He falsely downgraded himself in his autobiography.

Professor Gordon B. Moore, on sabbatical from Univ
of Chicago, introduced him to works by Wundt,
Titchener, James and the Chicago functionalists.
 He
taught for a year then applied to grad school there.
John B. Watson
“He was an honors
student and many
women saw him as a
handsome and
attractive young man.”
p. 459
A handsome and
attractive young
rat.
Watson at University of Chicago

Watson was most inspired by Angell and
Donaldson, working in the animal lab under their
guidance to train rats in labyrinths (mazes).
 He
studied tropisms (unlearned orienting responses)
with Jacques Loeb, later important as UCS’s.


In 1902 he had a serious psychological breakdown,
overwhelmed with depression & anxiety.
He recovered and completed his dissertation at age
25, then was offered a job at Univ of Chicago
teaching a class in Titchener’s experimental methods
Watson’s Work with Rats

Watson’s work with animals undermined the
structuralist approach because they could not talk to
describe their introspections – they only behaved.
 He
decided he could learn everything the structuralists
could just by observing behavior.
 Angell was not encouraging of this approach.

Watson designed his own apparatus, originally
using the “Hampton Court” maze designed by
Willard S. Small, testing vision and smell cues.
 Kinesthetic
or muscle sensations mattered most.
Antivivisectionist Response

Vivisection is defined as the act of operating on
living animals (especially in scientific research).
 Antivivisectionists

were the 1906 equivalent of PETA.
Because Watson did things like gradually depriving
rats of their senses, he was branded a torturer.
 Angell
defended Watson, pointing out that the expts
were done under asepsis and with anesthesia, that the
rats had recovered and were subsequently happy.

Opposition to animal research continues today.
Watson was not “Ratomorphic”

Watson studied noddy and sooty terns on the Dry
Tortugas Islands 75 miles West of Key West.
 Parent
birds signal to their young when returning to the
nest – young gulls peck the parent’s bill to get fed.
 Nesting birds accept fake painted wooden eggs.
 Birds can return from locations
miles away in all directions.
 He observed imprinting on himself in 3 day old sooty terns,
anticipating Lorenz.
Watson at Johns Hopkins University


Watson left U. of Chicago reluctantly when offered
the chair of psychology at Johns Hopkins.
The Dept head, Baldwin, was caught in a scandal
involving prostitution and fled to Mexico.
 Watson
was left with no supervision and took over as
editor of the Psychological Review, where he published
his own work.

He became increasingly convinced that psychology
should become the science of behavior – he
published his behaviorist manifesto in 1913.
Watson’s Behaviorist Manifesto

With “Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It,”
Watson intended to force psychologists to choose
between his approach and older psychology.
 Psychology
had failed to develop as a science.
 Concentration on structure or function of an undefinable
consciousness was the cause.
 Introspection was a faulty and defective method which
must be replaced with objective experimental methods.
 Psychology is no longer the study of the mind but of
behavior – its goal is to observe, predict & control it.
Action and Reaction

Other psychologists shared his dissatisfaction with
structuralist and functionalist approaches.
 Knight
Dunlap had published “The case against
introspection” in Psychological Review one year earlier.
 Watson’s personality was more dynamic than earlier
critics who had made similar proposals earlier.

Titchener defended introspective studies, calling
Watson too impatient and his Behaviorism crude.
 This
may have stimulated support for Behaviorism.
Behaviorism in Action

Yerkes published a paper presenting Pavlov’s work
to American psychologists.
 Karl
Lashley worked with Watson on comparative
studies.


In 1913, to explain how thought could be observed,
Watson defined thinking as subvocal speech (a
behavior) involving recordable muscle contractions.
In his APA address, he suggested a new method for
studying conditioned reflexes.
Watson’s Research with Children

At Phipps Psychiatric Clinic in Baltimore, Watson
began studying reflexes and emotions in infants.
 He
identified reflexes such as sneezing, hiccuping,
yawning, coughing, grasping, swallowing and sucking.
 He identified emotions of fear, rage and love, evoked
by a restricted set of stimuli and characterized by
specific responses in a reliable and predictable way.

Many stimuli said to evoke fear reactions were
ineffective (no fear of dark, snakes, rats, dogs).
 He
suggested that fears arise through conditioning.
Albert B.

Watson and coworker Rosalie Rayner selected
Albert B. because of his stolid (calm) temperament.
 They
conditioned a strong fear response by striking a
metal bar behind his head while he played with a rat.
 5 days later, he generalized his fear response to a
rabbit, dog, cotton, and a sealskin coat.
 He was removed prematurely from the expt.


A number of researchers tried to replicate these
findings without success – details were distorted.
Watson used his findings to attack Freud.
Watson Leaves Psychology

Watson had an affair with Rosalie Rayner, writing
her love letters. His wife found these, then her
brother used them to blackmail Watson & Rayner.
 When
they refused, the brother gave the letters to the
president of Johns Hopkins, which demanded Watson’s
resignation.
 The publicity made it impossible for Watson to find
another position in academia.
 Watson married Rayner after a public divorce trial.

Watson joined the J. Walter Thompson ad agency.
Watson in Advertising


Starting in the field, Watson acquired an
appreciation for consumer behavior.
He became an adept ad man:
 He
was the first to use careful demographic surveys of
target populations of consumers, with free samples for
filling in questionnaires.
 He stressed style over substance and used testimonials.
 He tried to manipulate consumer motives and emotions.
 He popularized the “coffee break.”
 He used radio effectively.
Overcoming Fears – Peter B.


Watson continued with psychology as a “pop
psychologist.”
He worked with Mary Cover Jones to conduct
research on overcoming children’s fears.
 After
hearing Watson lecture on Albert B, Jones
developed the idea of eliminating “homegrown” fears
using conditioning.
 While Peter was eating, a rabbit was brought
progressively closer until it could be placed on his table
without arousing fear – now called desensitization.
Watson on Nature vs Nurture

Watson is usually considered an archenvironmentalist but his early views on instincts were
more moderate.
 He
gradually became more extreme in his view of the
contribution of habit.
 How humans form habits became central to his ideas.

He said: “Give me a dozen healthy infants…and
I’ll guarantee to [train one] to become any type of
specialist I might select – doctor, lawyer, artist…”
 Watson’s
sons with Rayner found life difficult.
Watson’s Environmentalism

Why did he switch to such a strongly
environmentalist position?
 Instincts
are difficult to observe in humans.
 Too large an array of behaviors had been described
as instinctive by others, in circular ways (why war?).
 Animal research questioned whether some instincts in
animals were really instinctive (Kuo raised kittens with
rats, showing they did not attack each other).
 The process of habit formation can be studied whereas
instincts are innate (part of genetics) and cannot be.
Behaviorism and Child Care

In 1928, Watson & Rayner published a book on
child care which became a bestseller.
 It
presents a harsh Behaviorist approach to child
raising, with love and affection minimized.
 Even Watson and Rayner didn’t follow this approach
with their own children.

A competing view on raising children was presented
by Benjamin Spoke in “The Common Sense Book of
Baby and Child Care (1943).” which sold 25 million
copies.
Watson’s Later Life



Hothersall wonders what Watson’s contribution to
psychology might have been if he had had a full
academic career.
Despite his ridiculous and extreme statements, he
did succeed in initiating a revolution in
psychological thought -- Behaviorism.
His early work with animals laid a strong
methodological foundation for later researchers, as
did his early work on learned fear (Albert B.).