Behavior: An introduction to comparative psychology.

Abstract

The criticism is extremely just. One of the principal reasons which makes psychology an unattractive subject is the fact that there is no realm of application for the principles which are being worked out in content terms.What makes us hopeful that the behaviorist 's position is a defensible one is the fact that those branches of psychology which have already partially withdrawn from the parent, experimental psychology, and which are consequently less dependent upon introspection, are today in a most flourishing condition. Experimental pedagogy, the psychology of drugs, the psychology of advertising, legal psychology, the psychology of tests, and psychopathology are all vigorous growths. These are sometimes wrongly called ' ' practical " or ' ' applied ' ' psychology. Surely there was never a worse misnomer. In the future there may grow up vocational bureaus which really apply psychology. At present these fields are truly scientific and are in search of broad generalizations which will lead to the control of human behavior. E.g., we find out by experimentation whether a series of stanzas may be acquired more readily if the whole is learned at once, or whether it is more advantageous to learn each stanza separately and then pass to the succeeding. We do not attempt to apply our findings.The application of this principle is purely voluntary on the part of the teacher. In the psychology of drugs we may show the effect on behavior of certain doses of caffeine.We may reach the conclusion that caffeine has a good effect upon the speed and accuracy of work. But these are general principles. We leave it to the individual as to whether the results of our tests shall be applied or not.Again, in legal testimony, we test the effects of recency upon the reliability of a witness's report. We test the accuracy of the report with respect to moving objects, stationary objects, color, etc. It depends upon the judicial machinery of the country whether these facts are ever to be applied. For a ' ' pure ' ' psychologist to say that he is not interested in the questions raised in these divisions of the science because they relate indirectly to the Now it is this type of implicit behavior that the introspectionist claims as his own and denies to us because its neural seat is cortical and because it goes on without adequate bodily portrayal. Why in psychology the stage for ' These substitutes are discussed in detail on p. 332. 8 It may be said in passing that the explicit and implicit forms of behavior referred to throughout this book are acquired and not congenital.PSYCHOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR forms, if the phenomena of behavior are ever to be brought within the sphere of scientific control. 4. This suggested elimination of states of consciousness as proper objects of investigation in themselves will remove the barrier which exists between psychology and the other sciences.

Origins of the cognitive (r)evolution

“…However he expanded the argument for behaviorism on the basis of using animal experiments as the model for investigating human functioning. The following year, in his banner book (Watson, 1914), he complained even more strongly that his work on 5 animal learning and related topics had not been used in our understanding of human psychology. Watson's unification of human and non-human behaviors into a single object of investigation prevented a psychology of the human and the human mind from being established, and in particular it avoided sophisticated investigations of human problem solving, memory, and language.…”

A caracterização de John B. Watson como behaviorista metodológico na literatura brasileira: possíveis fontes de controle

“…(1913, p. 175, grifo acrescentado) 7 Um leitor que tenha acesso apenas a essa obra pode, especialmente se for influenciado por outros, concluir que Watson admite a existência de uma substância mental. Entretanto, em uma republicação do mesmo texto no ano seguinte (Watson, 1914) Watson suprime a frase grifada sugerindo que uma interpretação dualista deve ser evitada. Mais adiante no texto de 1913, Watson alerta para o fato de que sua posição não estava completa naquele momento e que o "manifesto behaviorista" deveria ser lido com ressalvas:…”

John B. Watson: Behaviorista Metodológico?

“…Como indicado anteriormente, a exigência de se manter restrito aos eventos observáveis surge em contraposição à introspecção como método predominante na psicologia da época e que não podia ser aceito sob critérios científicos justamente pela sua natureza subjetiva (Watson, , 1914(Watson, , 1929 (Watson, 1913, p. 158, 163) mente, mas a coloca de fora do escopo da ciência, parece considerar que a mudança metodológica proposta por Watson necessariamente não é acompanhada de mudanças nos seus compromissos ontológicos em relação à psicologia introspeccionista: O behaviorismo de Watson rejeitaria os métodos usados pelos instrospeccionistas, mas não rejeitaria a existência do objeto de estudo deles, a consciência/mente. Entretanto, se estiver correta a afirmação de Lopes Jr. (1993) de que a viabilidade do behaviorismo enquanto teoria psicológica depende da capacidade de tal proposta "incluir em seu arcabouço empírico e conceitual, os eventos não observáveis publicamente" (p. 273), assumir que a proposta do behaviorismo de Watson se recusa a estudar os eventos subjetivos é o mesmo que assumir sua insuficiência enquanto teoria psicológica.…”

“…Nesse caso, o desprezo de Watson para com os compromissos metafísicos é interpretado como se ele não se incomodasse em admitir um dualismo mente-corpo. Entretanto, é interessante notar que ao reproduzir parte desse texto numa outra obra (Watson, 1914) Watson, 1920, p. 94;1925, p. 4, 6, 10;1929, p. 23, 35-36) (Watson, 1929, p. 32-33) Não nos cabe aqui explicar longamente a teoria dos hábitos de linguagem de Watson, mas no que compete a esse trabalho, é importante ressaltar que sua proposta prevê que toda ação humana é comportamento, mas parte desse comportamento ocorre em escala tão pequena que não conseguimos observar sem instrumentos (e.g. esse é o caso do pensar).…”