Page 30 - History of Psychology

For Watson, language and thought are forms of behavior and nothing more: “To
say is to do—that is, to behave. Watson's attitude to instinct changed radically

over the years. In 1914 instinct played an important role in his theory. However in
1925 he completely rejected the idea of instinct in humans, stating that there were
some simple reflexes such as sneezing, crying, exhaling, crawling, sucking, and
breathing but no complex innate behavioral patterns called instincts. For Watson,
experience and not inheritance makes people what they are. Change the
experience, and you change the personality. Thus, Watson's (1926) position ends
up as radical environmentalism.

Ivan P. Pavlov

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936) was born in a small Central Russian town, the
son of a rural orthodox priest. Pavlov was a rigid and intellectual man with strict
self-discipline. He is a systematic methodologist, for him data collection is a
serious matter. Pavlov headed the Pavlovian institute of physiology at the Russian
Academy of Sciences and became a prestigious center for physiology research on
reflexology. Pavlov later received the Nobel Prize in 1904 for his work on the
nervous base and digestive glands. Based on this research, Pavlov discovered
important principles of associative conditioning.

Pavlov created a device that was implanted in the cheek of the dog that was his
subject and collected saliva as a measurement of digestive processes. The keen
observation of this research led Pavlov to a research program that demanded the
development of conditioning reflexology. Pavlov found that a neutral stimulus
could be used, for example a beat of a metronome, tone or light and after
successfully pairing it with a major reward such as food, a motivated dog (a hungry
dog) would respond by salivating to a neutral stimulus given without food. have
the primary reward ability to produce a response as a conditional stimulus. To
meet the learning criteria, the relationship between the conditioned stimulus and

the response must be temporary, i.e. the relationship must be abolished, which
makes the conditional stimulus lose its ability to elicit a response. Extinction is the
giving of the conditioned stimulus repeatedly without giving the main reward so
that the ability of the conditioned stimulus to cause a response is lost.

Here is a description of Pavlov's experiment:
1. Unconditioned Stimulus (US): an environmental event (eg, food) which,
through its innate ability, can cause organismic reflexes.
2. Conditioned Stimulus (CS): an environmental event (eg, tone) that is neutral in
terms of response before pairing with US.
3. Unconditioned Response (UR): a natural reflex (eg, salivation) that is evoked
autonomously, or on its own by the US.
4. Conditioned Response (CR): learned reflex (eg, salivation) elicited by the CS
after exposure to US.
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