How Might We Learn Abnormal Behaviors?

Fetishism is a paraphilia[∂] in which a person, almost always a male, over a long period of time (at least six months) becomes intensely aroused sexually by an inanimate (nonliving) object. Typical fetishes for males involve objects worn by women such as underwear, stockings, shoes, and boots. In general, a person with fetishism either has a great deal of difficulty functioning sexually without the object, or spends much time and effort trying to experience the fetish (either directly or through fantasy). A man with fetishism usually masturbates while touching the object, or he may insist that his partner wear the object while having sex. A case discussed by Spitzer, et al. (1994) illustrates these characteristics:

A 32-year-old, single, male, free-lance photographer presented with the chief complaint of “abnormal sex drive.” The patient related that although he was somewhat sexually attracted by women, he was far more attracted by “their panties.” ... His first ejaculation occurred at 13 via masturbation to fantasies of women wearing panties. He masturbated into his older sister’s panties, which he had stolen without her knowledge. ... The pattern of masturbating into women’s underwear [which he usually stole out of the bedrooms of friends or others he had met] had been his preferred method of achieving sexual excitement and orgasm from adolescence until the present. (p. 247)

This attractive and very successful man did not like to date “nice women” because he feared that they would fail to understand his deviant[∂] desires. He preferred sex with prostitutes, whom he paid to wear underwear. On those rare occasions when he engaged in sexual activity with a woman not wearing panties, he sometimes had difficulty becoming or staying sexually aroused.

What caused this man seemingly to give up the possibility of having a more fulfilling relationship with a woman? Why did he have these unusual sexual desires? Sigmund Freud stated that fetishism and other paraphilias are caused by life events experienced during early childhood. And it does seem plausible to suggest that these disorders might be caused by unusual experiences during childhood, although not necessarily in the way that Freud suggested. Perhaps, during their childhoods, men who later develop fetishism learned to become intensely sexually aroused by objects that typically are not the focus of sexual activity. For example, as already mentioned, men with fetishism often become excited by female clothing. It is possible that they learned to become intensely sexually aroused by a particular item of clothing after becoming sexually aroused by a woman wearing this type of clothing. In the case study above, the man recalled becoming sexually aroused at the age of about seven when he saw partially nude women wearing underwear in a pornographic magazine. It may be that, in general, men who develop fetishism first experienced the fetish[∂] when sexually aroused by an attractive woman; and then, later, became sexually aroused by the fetish because it reminded them of the woman. If they fantasized about the woman and masturbated while touching or rubbing the fetish, the fetish itself eventually may have become the primary focus of their sexual interest.

At first glance, this learning theory of fetishism may seem very plausible. In fact, it probably explains the success of the lingerie and cologne industries: humans easily learn to become sexually aroused by visual and olfactory[∂] stimuli[∂] that have been paired with sexually attractive people. But then we might ask, if it is so easy for humans to learn to become sexually aroused by such stimuli, why do so few women develop fetishism? Women also experience sexually attractive people wearing particular items of clothing or a particular cologne, and they may learn to become sexually aroused by these sensations. So, why do women so rarely develop fetishism? Furthermore, why do males (but not females) of closely related primate[∂] species sometimes express fetishistic behaviors? For example, according to Epstein (1987):

The endowing of an object with ... [erotic associations] has been noted in a zoo-dwelling chimpanzee ... who displayed sexual arousal toward one specific object, a rubber boot.... The chimpanzee quickly approached, gazed at the boot and handled it. The penis became erect and was touched to the boot. Shortly thereafter, manual self-stimulation and ejaculation occurred. The ejaculate was then consumed. This response was said to be invariable and occurred whether the boot was worn by a keeper or simply placed in the cage. (pp. 143-144)

Almost all of these behaviors (except for the consumption of ejaculate) are similar to those a human male with a boot fetish typically would exhibit. In fact, Epstein noted that, just “as did the chimpanzee, the human takes the object in his hands or even rubs it with his penis” (p. 146). Can we explain the chimpanzee’s “fetishism” in terms of learning theory? Has this chimpanzee observed attractive female chimpanzees wearing boots? Of course not. But perhaps earlier in life, the chimpanzee became sexually aroused by his boot-wearing female keepers and, because of these experiences, learned to become sexually aroused by their boots alone.

This example raises another important question: why would males of two closely related primate species (humans and chimpanzees) learn similar deviant sexual behavior? Is there something about the evolutionary history of higher primates that causes males of this order* to easily learn to associate inanimate objects with sexually desirable females? The fact that the same fetish can be learned in a primate that is closely related to humans suggests that there exists a common ancestor species that exhibited the same type of learning. We know that the evolutionary lineage of both chimpanzees and humans can be traced to a common ancestral species that existed about five million years ago — an extremely short period of time in evolutionary terms. Furthermore, a recent study (see Bower, 2005) that included the cooperative work of 67 biologists at 23 research institutions mapped the 3 billion bits of genetic information that make up the chimpanzee's genome[∂]. The genomes of chimpanzees and humans share almost 99% of this genetic information (excluding "junk DNA"[∂]: sequences of DNA that don't produce anything and don't seem to be involved in development).

There may be something in the common ancestry of chimpanzees and humans that can explain the similarity between the two species in fetishistic behavior. In fact, the male chimpanzee's fetishism described in the passage quoted above supports an evolutionary theory of fetishism in human males. The theory is this:

During the evolution of higher primates, males evolved a tendency to become easily and intensely aroused sexually by females. When aroused by sexually desirable females, primate males readily learn to associate the females with any environmental cues (such as smells) that reliably signal the presence of desirable females. In the future, these environmental cues quickly arouse the males, which motivate them to seek mating opportunities with desirable females. In the case of fetishism, this process goes awry[∂] for some reason, causing primate males to attempt to mate with the environmental cues rather than with the females whose presence the cues are meant to signal.

Just in case you're thinking that the chimpanzee example providing evidence for this theory can be ignored because of its uniqueness, let's look at the case of a male guinea baboon in the same zoo: “Upon seeing a boot, the baboon approaches, chatters his teeth, touches and smells it” and then develops an erection (p. 144). You now may be wondering what was going on at this zoo to produce two cases of boot fetishism in two different species. Whatever the explanation, it very likely involves learning; and what is learned from an individual's experiences depends upon biological factors that are products of the evolution history of the individual's species, as you learned in the previous section.

Study Questions

1. What is a paraphilia? Other than fetishism, what is an example of a paraphilia?
2. How might Sigmund Freud have explained the development of a hair fetish?
3. How might learning theorists explain the development of a hair fetish?
4. How is evolution thought to be related to what is most easily learned by the members of a species?
5. What is some evidence supporting the evolutionary theory of the learning of fetishism?

What is Experimental Psychology?

Many fields[∂] of study within modern psychology are based on the attempt to understand our basic human nature by using a scientific approach to answer research questions (such as, "why do some males develop fetishism"). As noted in Section 1-1, scientific psychology emerged during the late-nineteenth century when laboratory procedures used in the science of physiology were combined with philosophical speculations about the conscious human mind in the attempt to develop a scientific understanding of human nature. Before this time, the mind and the body were considered to be completely separate. Most early psychologists thought of the conscious mind as consisting of a set of mental events and processes that, in some unknown way, was associated with brain activity — a brain that had evolved over a great span of time. Psychologists inferred that, if the human brain had evolved, then the human mind must have evolved along with it. In other words, by the second half of the nineteenth century, psychologists conceived of the human mind as something that was linked to a set of natural processes occurring mostly within the brain. If this inference was true, they reasoned, then it followed that the human mind could be studied scientifically.

By 1880, there were several investigators in Europe and the United States who referred to themselves as experimental psychologists. For them, experimental psychology was one of the natural sciences (biology, chemistry, and physics) because it used the techniques, assumptions[∂], and concepts[∂] of the natural sciences (especially biology and chemistry) to study and explain the workings of the human mind. Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920; pronounced Vil•helm Voont), a German physiologist, typically is credited with the founding of the first psychology laboratory in 1879, and also with establishing the first psychology journal. But there were several others at this time who also were attempting to develop a scientific psychology. They referred to themselves as "experimental psychologists" because they emphasized the importance of controlled research[∂] and the precise measurement of variables.

Wundt's work is an exemplar of research in early experimental psychology. He attempted to understand the conscious mind's structure by using the experimental techniques of physiology. But, before he could do this, he had to develop a theoretical approach that would guide his research. He reasoned that, if the mind is similar to a natural object, it must consist of something. He knew that physical objects are made up of combinations of chemical elements (for example, a molecule of water is made up of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom). The mind, on the other hand, is a “nonphysical object,” so it cannot be made up of physical elements. Thus, Wundt assumed that the mind consists of nonphysical elements — of mental elements. In making this assumption, he distinguished two types of mental element: (a) sensations — such as sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches; (b) feelings — elements of emotional states, such as pleasure or displeasure.

Wundt wanted to analyze the mind or consciousness into its elemental components, just as the natural scientists were breaking down their subject matter, the material universe [into chemical components]. The work of the chemist Mendeleev, who developed the periodic table of chemical elements, supported Wundt’s claim. Indeed, Wundt may have been striving to develop a “periodic table of the mind.” (Schultz and Schultz, 1987, p. 65)

Wundt and his students attempted to identify these basic mental elements through careful experimentation and measurement.

In addition to building a “periodic table of mental elements,” Wundt’s other major goal was to persuade the scientific community to accept experimental psychology as one of the natural sciences. In trying to achieve this goal, he imported into psychology the concepts, general principles, and methodologies of the accepted natural sciences of the day. Because Wundt was trained as a physiologist, its influence on the initial development of psychology was large.

E. B. Titchener (1867-1927) believed along with Wundt that our conscious experience consists of combinations of mental elements. But this view led Titchener to focus on a different question: how do these mental elements combine to form the "compound" that is our conscious experience? Titchener’s approach to answering this question was based upon the philosophical doctrine known as associationism, which assumes that complex mental experience is formed by a passive and automatic combination of simple mental elements. In other words, Titchener believed that colors, tones, smells, tastes, touches, and feelings were linked together (associated) automatically because of past experience. According to Titchener's approach, humans and other animals are like “mental sponges”: we involuntarily combine sensations whenever they occur together. For example, after seeing a bright flash of light outside your window on a cloudy day, you involuntarily feel anxiety and physically brace yourself, perhaps without any thought as to why you are doing this. Associationism provides a simple explanation: because you experienced the close pairing of lightning and thunder in the past, these two events are associated in your mind — an association that causes you to respond automatically to bright flashes of light on a cloudy day. According to associationists, the human mind is constructed from associations passively formed between mental elements (sensations and feelings) paired closely in time. In this way, we are similar to machines: just as machines have no active role in their own construction (they are constructed by external forces — the humans who build them), humans have no active role in the construction of their own minds (they are constructed by external forces — the pairing of environmental events).

This belief in the machine-like nature of the human mind led associationists to claim that our responses to events are completely determined[∂] by our past experiences. For example, associationists would not condemn as immoral the man with the underwear fetish. Instead, they would argue that he could not help but feel and act in this way. His emotional responses to underwear, they would argue, are determined by his childhood experiences (seeing women wearing panties in a pornographic magazine), his adolescent experiences (masturbating while fantasizing about women wearing panties), and his adult experiences (having sex with prostitutes wearing panties). The later experiences served to strengthen the association formed between underwear and desirable women when he was seven years old. According to associationists, condemning him for his deviant desires will not change him: the man is helpless in the face of such experiences. At this point, they would say, the only thing to do to change his desires and behaviors would be to expose him to new experiences that would eliminate the association. For example, we could repeatedly pair underwear with neutral and even negative events (such as electric shock).

As we will see, the doctrine of associationism that developed in philosophy and psychology during the nineteenth century eventually led to a widespread mechanistic view of human beings among experimental psychologists during the first half of the twentieth century — a view that has continued to have some small influence within scientific psychology, although it has largely been replaced by a theoretical approach (the cognitive approach) that assigns us an active role in the development of our minds.

Study Questions

6. What were the main influences on the emergence of experimental psychology during the late-nineteenth century?
7. Which kind of science did the first experimental psychologists want their discipline[∂] to be a part of?
8. Who typically is considered to have founded the first psychology laboratory? Why is this claim thought to be questionable?
9. How did Wilhelm Wundt conceive of the human mind?
10. What goals did Wilhelm Wundt have for experimental psychology?
11. How would you describe in your own words the concept of associationism as defined by E. B. Titchener?
12. What did Titchener mean when he likened the human mind to a machine?
13. What determined behavior and mental events, according to Titchener?
14. Did Titchener think that people were responsible for their actions? Why or why not?

How Was Introspection Used By Structuralists & Functionalists?

Early experimental psychologists, such as Wundt and Titchener, defined psychology as the scientific study of conscious experience. Experimental psychologists knew that, if their discipline was to be accepted as a natural science, they would need an empirical method that would allow them to observe conscious experience directly. The most obvious method was introspection, which means to “look within" — in other words, to reflect upon one’s own conscious experience. We all use introspection whenever we answer a question about what we are thinking. We pause, focus on our thoughts, and then report what we "saw" in our minds. During the nineteenth century, introspection already was accepted as an empirical method in physiological research on sensation and perception: the subject would report his or her conscious experience while being presented with various stimuli. Introspection, therefore, was considered to be a thoroughly scientific method of observation at the founding of experimental psychology around 1880; and it soon became the most important empirical method for psychological research on the conscious mind. .

From about 1880 to 1915, two theoretical approaches dominated experimental psychology: structuralism and functionalism. In what follows, you will learn a bit about how structuralists and functionalists viewed the human mind and how each group used the method of introspection in their research (see Green, 2001).

Structuralism
The theoretical approach adopted by Wundt and Titchener is referred to as structuralism because it focused on how the human mind is structured[∂]. For structuralists, conscious experience consists of the arrangement of and relations between mental elements. In studying mental elements and their associations with one another, Titchener had his subjects experience something, introspect upon this experience, and then break it down into its separate perceptions. He believed that his subjects, through long and arduous training, could refine their ability to observe their own minds — an ability that, after much practice, Titchener claimed became habitual and machine-like in quality. Schultz and Schultz (1987) provided examples of the way in which introspection was used in Titchener’s laboratory to study the structure of the human mind:

The graduate students [in his lab] were made to swallow a stomach tube in the morning and keep it in place throughout the day. Apparently, many of them vomited at first ..., before they gradually got used to it. In between their lectures and other activities they would report to the lab where hot water would be poured down the tube, and the subjects would introspect on the sensations they were experiencing. The process would be repeated with iced water. (p. 91)

It is obvious from this example that Titchener expected his graduate students to exhibit an extreme dedication to science. In fact, at one point, Titchener instructed his graduate students to record their sensations while urinating and defecating. And, for another study, he instructed his married students to record their introspections during sexual activity with their spouses; and to attach instruments to their bodies that would record their physiological responses during sexual activity (this preceded by several decades similar studies performed by William Masters and Virginia Johnson, 1966). This last study gained an unwholesome reputation for Titchener’s laboratory at Cornell University; and some female students were not allowed to visit the laboratory after dark.

Because of Titchener's dedication and the dedication of his graduate students, many of whom went on to work at universities in the United States and Europe, his structuralist approach had a major impact on twentieth-century psychology in two ways:

1. Titchener’s focus on experimental control and precise measurement influenced later psychologists to emphasize the importance of controlled research in which variables were measured reliably [∂] and validly[∂].
2. Titchener’s brand of associationism, which led him to view subjects merely as “recording instruments,” influenced later psychologists to think of the human mind in a machine-like way.

Functionalism
The theoretical approach adopted by many other experimental psychologists is referred to as functionalism because it focused not on the mental elements assumed by structuralists to make up the human mind, but on how the human mind functions[∂] — on what the mind does for us in our everyday lives (Angell, 1907). Many functionalists rejected the structuralists' attempts to break the conscious mind down into its separate elements. Functionalists viewed this type of research as (a) artificial: the conscious mind expresses a “stream of thought” that has no natural breaks; and (b) unimportant: they argued that the most important questions involve how the mind helps us to adapt to our environments — adaptation that allows us to achieve the evolutionary goals of survival and reproduction.

The way in which introspection was used by functionalists depended on the mental function being investigated. For example, during the late-nineteenth century, Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850-1909) studied the mental function of memory by memorizing long lists of nonsense syllables — meaningless words consisting of a consonant-vowel-consonant (such as nim). Ebbinghaus wanted to see how quickly we forget new information and, therefore, wanted to use items that we could not have learned in our pasts. Ebbinghaus used introspection to recall the nonsense syllables that remained in his memory after varying periods of time. Not surprisingly, he found that we tend to forget nonsense syllables very rapidly (see Figure 1). Forgetting is not as rapid when we memorize items that are meaningful. In Section 4, you will learn that making material to be memorized meaningful to you makes it more likely that you will remember it later (such as on a test).

Figure 1. The Percentage of Nonsense Syllables Remembered After
Different Periods of Time Since Memorization. (Adapted from an image at:
http://www2.psych.purdue.edu/~ben/285su2001/notes/figures/5-forgettingcurve.htm)

One of the most influential functionalists during this time was William James (1842-1911). James, who was strongly influenced by evolutionary biology, argued that a normally functioning mind allows a person to choose the most adaptive course of action in a particular situation — the course that ultimately will translate into increased survival and reproductive success. For example, given a choice between studying for a test or going out with a group of acquaintances, you must choose according to your short-term and long-term goals. Perhaps you have recently moved to this town and decide that developing a group of friends is very important: they will provide companionship and also help you in times of need. Or, perhaps you want to become a chemist and decide that studying for your examinations is very important: a high grade-point average will help you when applying to graduate schools. According to James’ functionalism, consciousness is necessary for deciding about how to act in ways that best promote your survival and reproduction (even if you are not aware that you are trying to achieve these goals).

          Functionalism had a strong impact on twentieth-century psychology in two ways:

1. Many psychologists focused on studying topics closely related to everyday life and practical matters. The fields of social psychology and organizational/industrial psychology are good examples of this.
2. Many psychologists focused on helping people learn how to better adapt to everyday demands. The fields of clinical psychology and counseling psychology are good examples of this.

What Happened to Structuralism & Functionalism?

By about 1915, structuralism and functionalism were being criticized on several fronts. The most important criticism involved their use of introspection (Dunlap, 1912). The major problem with this method, argued the critics, is that a person’s conscious experience cannot be observed directly by anyone other than that person. How can others tell if that person’s experience of a stimulus is the same as that of another person? For example, is the taste of butterscotch ice cream the same for you as it is for me? How could we possibly answer this question? One person's perception of a stimulus cannot be shared with another and, hence, there is no way to to compare and contrast their experiences. As you learned in Section 1-?, subjective[∂] observations are observations that depend upon a person’s unique way of experiencing the world around him or her. Structuralism and functionalism were criticized on the grounds that introspection produces observations that are subjective — observations that are made by only one person, that are unique to that person, and that may change for that person over time. Beginning around 1910, critics of the use of introspection argued that, if psychology is to be considered a natural science, its observations must be objective[∂]: they must involve observations that give the same results regardless of who is making the observations (as long as that person is competent to make these observations). This criticism was instrumental in the emergence around 1915 of a new theoretical approach called "behaviorism."

Study Questions

15. What did structuralists assume about the human mind?
16. What was the major goal of research for structuralists?
17. How did structuralists use introspection in their research?
18. In what ways did the structuralist approach influence American psychology during the twentieth century?
19. What did functionalists assume about the human mind?
20. What was the major goal of research for functionalists?
21. How did functionalists use introspection in their research?
22. In what ways did the functionalist approach influence American psychology during the twentieth century?
23. What was the most important criticism of the use of introspection by structuralists and functionalists?

Why Did Behaviorism Reject the Study of Mental Causes?

The theoretical approach known as behaviorism was the dominant approach in experimental psychology from about 1915 to 1960. The year of behaviorism’s birth is often given as 1913, the year in which John Watson (1865-1957) wrote his famous article, “Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It.” Watson believed that science should study only objectively observable events and, therefore, he rejected the use of introspection. In fact, because of the subjective nature of mental events, Watson concluded that the understanding of the conscious mind was not a valid goal of experimental psychology. And his criticisms were even more forceful when directed at the study of the unconscious mind: unconscious experiences are unavailable even to the person having them.

Watson argued that, if experimental psychology is to be a natural science, its observations must be verifiable[∂]: it must be possible to demonstrate that research observations are true or accurate. Verifiability is attained when any competent researcher is able to replicate the original observations, which requires that the original researchers:

• used objective techniques to make their observations;
• specified the precise conditions under which they made their observations.

It is more difficult that you might think to attain verifiability. Cronbach (1975) provided an excellent example of the difficulties encountered when trying to make verifiable observations. He wrote that, when the animal room at the National Institutes of Health had been refurbished several years before, new cages and supplies for the mice kept there had been brought in. After the refurbishing, researchers found that the mice responded differently to a particular sedative[∂]. Before the refurbishing, the drug had caused the mice to sleep for an average of 35 minutes. After the refurbishing, the drug kept them asleep for an average of only 15 minutes. They soon discovered that a change in the bedding material caused the change in responsiveness to the sedative. The old bedding consisted of maple shavings, whereas the new bedding consisted of red-cedar shavings. When the bedding was changed back to maple shavings, the sedative again produced an average sleep duration of 35 minutes. Cronbach drew the following moral from this story:

The experimenter studying the isolated organism has two things working for him in his quest for dependable effects. He arranges the conditions under which he observes to a far greater extent than the social scientist can. When he says that such-and-such a relation is true, “other things being equal,” he is speaking from the experience of having made a lot of things equal. When pine versus hardwood interacts, he can get rid of the interaction; investigators of drug effects need only agree hereafter to bed animals down on maple shavings. The results will be specific to a world of maple shavings, but they will be orderly. (pp. 121-122; emphasis added)

Although the results may be orderly, they may be applicable neither to the natural world where mice make “beds” out of all sorts of material, nor to other laboratories where different material may be used. Thus, by requiring verifiability, behaviorists also were requiring that experimental research be rigidly controlled and, therefore, far removed from natural situations. We will talk more about this issue in a later section.

Given the requirement of verifiability, behaviorists needed to answer two important questions. First, what can experimental psychologists observe that can serve as the basic datum[∂] in their research? It seemed obvious to Watson that an organism's behavior is potentially verifiable in that it is possible to objectively measure behavior and to specify the conditions of observation so that any competent researcher can replicate the behavioral observations of another. In choosing behavior as the basic datum, behaviorists changed the ultimate research goal of experimental psychology from the scientific understanding of conscious experience to the scientific understanding of behavior.

The second question that behaviorists needed to answer was, what can serve as a cause of behavior? Of course, structuralists and functionalists explained behavior in terms of mental causes. And virtually all of us rely on mental causes when explaining our own behavior or the behavior of others. For example, if someone asked me why I am typing these words on my computer, I would answer that I want to finish writing this section. By using the word “want” to explain my behavior, I am attributing my behavior to a mental cause — a motive that impels me to continue typing. Behaviorists, on the other hand, argued that explanations that include mental causes are unscientific: the existence of mental causes cannot be verified. The concept of the reflex[∂] was important to behaviorists in solving the problem raised by verifiability for explaining behavior. In the case of reflexes, an environmental event (the stimulus) elicits an involuntary response. For example, salivation is a reflexive response to the stimulus of food (its taste or smell). Most important to behaviorists was the fact that the conscious mind is not involved in reflexive responding: if we don't need to invoke conscious mental events when explaining reflexive responding, perhaps we can ignore them when explaining any type of behavior.

Thus, behaviorists combined the concept of the reflex with the mechanistic assumption of associationism (see above) to argue that all behaviors — including complex actions that generally are attributed to mental causes — may be viewed as automatic responses to environmental events (stimuli). For example, when a stoplight turns yellow and then red, most drivers automatically slow down and stop, even when not thinking consciously about their responses. In this case, a verifiable environmental stimulus (the changing colors of the stoplight) caused a verifiable sequence of behaviors (the changes in pressure applied to the brake pedal, and the pushing of the clutch pedal along with the shifting of gears in cars with manual transmissions). Another example: when a dog jumps into my lap, I automatically pet it, even when I am not aware that I am doing so. Again, verifiable environmental stimuli (the visual and tactile perceptions of a dog in my lap) caused a verifiable sequence of behaviors (raising my hand, placing it on the animal's back, and moving it in a petting motion). In this manner, behaviorists argued that, if we want to understand the causes of behavior, we need not consider the effects of unverifiable mental events.

In attributing behavior to environmental causes, therefore, behaviorists rejected the study of mental causes of behavior. By rejecting the study of mental causes, however, behaviorists were not necessarily rejecting the idea that mental events are causes of behavior. Instead, they simply were making the assumption (based on the argument outlined in the two preceding paragraphs) that environmental events are sufficient for the goal of explaining behavioral development. By 1920, the behaviorist argument for rejecting the study of mental causes of behavior had succeeded in transforming experimental psychology into the scientific study of the environmental causes of behavior. Furthermore, this transformation changed experimental psychology from a discipline focused on basic research — research performed solely to develop a scientific understanding of a phenomenon, with no concern for how this understanding might be used to better the human condition — to a discipline focused on applied research — research performed for the purpose of answering questions relevant to the practical concerns of everyday life. Behaviorists had two goals for the applied science of experimental psychology:

• the prediction of behavior;
• the control (modification) of behavior.

In this way, the applied goals of behaviorism were similar to those of functionalism — the theoretical approach out of which behaviorism emerged. But the two approaches differed significantly with respect to the types of observational techniques and the types of theories that were allowable in experimental psychology.

How Did Behaviorists Define Associationism?

In explaining how environmental events cause behavior, behaviorists adopted the doctrine of associationism that had been an integral[∂] part of Titchener’s brand of structuralism. According to Titchener, associationism assumes that complex mental experience is formed by a passive and automatic combination of simple mental elements. But, because behaviorists had rejected the study of mental events, they had to remove mention of mental experiences and mental elements in their version of associationism. Thus, the behaviorist doctrine of associationism assumed that two environmental events (stimuli) are linked automatically (which involves a change or changes in the CNS) when they have been paired closely in time. That is, when two environmental events occur together, an association between them is formed. The association results in the acquisition[∂] of a behavioral tendency, which is a predisposition to act or behave in a particular way.

To help you understand the behaviorist version of associationism, let's look at an example. The sound of the alarm (an environmental stimulus) on my alarm clock causes me to respond involuntarily by waking up (a reflexive response to the alarm stimulus). Just before the alarm goes off, the clock always makes a soft clicking noise (another environmental stimulus). This situation is illustrated in the following:

Figure 2. The Pairing of Stimuli in the Formation of an Association.

Over time, I have acquired a behavioral tendency to wake up in response to the clicking noise, even though it is barely audible: the frequent pairing of the two stimuli has led to the development of an association between them (which, according to behaviorists, would involve the development of a neural connection in the CNS). The behaviorist version of associationism, therefore, would explain my waking up to the clicking noise as being caused by the passive and automatic (machine-like) development of an association between environmental events. The structuralist version of associationism, on the other hand, would explain my waking up to the clicking noise as being caused by the passive and automatic (machine-like) development of an association between mental elements that forms a conscious mental experience that wakes me up. Behaviorists would reject this explanation because there is no way to verify the occurrence of these mental events.

As already stated, the behaviorist version of associationism is based on the physiological concept of reflexes. The reflex concept states that a stimulus, such as a hammer tap under the knee, will cause an involuntary response, a knee jerk in this case, because of an inborn neural connection in the CNS (the spinal cord, in this example). If the reflexive stimulus, (the hammer tap under the knee) is repeatedly preceded by another stimulus, such as a light hammer tap to the forearm, this nonreflexive stimulus eventually will become associated with the reflexive stimulus. Once the association is formed, the hammer tap to the forearm causes the activation of the same neural area activated by the hammer tap below the knee, which causes the knee to jerk up involuntarily. According to this view, a neural connection has formed between the CNS area activated by the forearm tap and the CNS area activated by the knee tap because of the pairing of the two stimuli. In this way, behaviorists claimed that humans and other animals learn to respond automatically to environmental events because of associations formed between them from past experiences in which they repeatedly occurred together. In essence, behaviorists conceived of humans as “learning machines.” In their view, the individual does not need to think about what he or she is experiencing: learning happens automatically and passively when environmental events are paired. Thus, behaviorism incorporated the structuralist assumption that humans are acted upon by the environment (that is, humans do not actively participate in their learning).

Study Questions

24. What is verifiability?
25. What is required for observations to be verifiable?
26. What is the ultimate goal of research within the behaviorist approach?
27. According to behaviorism, what causes behavior?
28. What led behaviorists to claim that all behavior involves automatic responses to environmental events?
29. According to the behaviorist approach, how is experimental psychology defined and how does this definition differ from the one used by structuralists and functionalists?
30. What are the goals of applied experimental psychology, according to behaviorism?
31. What is the behaviorist version of associationism and how does it differ from the structuralist version?
32. In what way are the behaviorist and structuralist versions of associationism similar?
33. According to behaviorism, what is the biological nature of associations between stimuli?

Why Did Behaviorists Reject Biological Causes?

You have just learned that behaviorists assumed that all behavior is learned from the pairing of environmental events. In other words, behaviorists placed our ability to learn from experience as the central characteristic of human nature. Many behaviorists believed that, other than a few inborn biological reflexes (and some even denied these: see Kuo, 1921, 1976, for examples), we humans produce only random behavior until we have experienced the pairing of environmental events, which may begin during fetal development. Behaviorists argued that there are few biological reflexes and, therefore, that most of our behaviors are built upon this meager biological base through the association of environmental events with each other as well as with with the inborn reflexive stimuli. Over time, behaviorists claimed, humans gradually learn a vast number of new responses, which quickly outnumber the inborn reflexes. For example, newborn infants salivate reflexively to the taste of their mother’s milk. But, because the taste of milk is paired with the sight of an approaching nipple, babies soon learn to salivate to the approaching nipple as well. In other words, they develop an association between the sight of the nipple and the taste of milk; and since the taste of milk causes salivation, the newly formed association between the nipple and the milk causes the baby involuntarily and unconsciously to salivate to the sight of the nipple (see Figure 3):

Figure 3. Learning to Salivate to the Sight of a Nipple When
It Has Been Repeatedly Paired With the Taste of Milk

The development of associations between paired environmental stimuli continues for the rest of our lives, although some have argued that early experiences are the most important because the responses learned from these early experiences will determine the situations we encounter later in life and, therefore, the environmental events we experience.

By about 1920, behaviorists succeeded in virtually eliminating the study of genetic and evolutionary explanations of human behavior from experimental psychology. They argued that according to the best evidence available, humans have few inborn responses to stimuli, and that these are quickly swamped by learned responses. Not until about 1960 did a small group of experimental psychologists begin to seriously investigate genetic and evolutionary determinants of human and animal behavior (Fuller & Thompson, 1960; Hirsch, 1967).

Behaviorists’ rejection of mental, genetic, and evolutionary causes, along with their adoption of associationism, led them to assume that humans essentially are nothing but automatons[∂] molded by environmental experiences — a disturbing assumption indeed. On the other hand, by emphasizing the fundamental importance of environmental factors and the marginal influence of genetic and evolutionary factors, behaviorism represented a viewpoint that was somewhat more optimistic and egalitarian[∂] than the biological viewpoint. By assuming that we learn most or all of our behaviors behaviorists concluded that people can change their maladaptive behaviors simply by learning new associations that result in more adaptive responses to stimuli. No one is born "better" than others, and anyone can improve if given the right kinds of experience. As John Watson put it, all possibilities are open to each and every person at his or her birth:

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 — doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, activities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. (Watson, 1930, p. 65)

Watson's optimistic assertion fit in well with the optimistic view inherent in American culture during this period. Furthermore, his assertion that people can be molded to fit into any niche resonated well with the view common at this time that scientific research should focus on practical and, it was hoped, simple solutions to the problems faced by American businesses and corporations (Buckley, 1989). The optimistic and practical bent of behaviorism probably was the major reason for its quick acceptance by experimental psychologists and its popularity with the American public and American businesses.

Why Did Behaviorists Reject Free Will?

Behaviorism’s mechanical view of humans — a view based on their adoption of associationism — led to its most controversial claim: that humans do not freely choose their own behaviors. This claims seems counterintuitive: we all feel as if we decide what we are going to do and then do it. Behaviorists, however, asserted that our feeling that we freely choose our behaviors is an illusion. Even if we allow mental causes back into experimental psychology, they argued, it still is the case that these mental events are caused by preceding internal and external causes and, hence, we still have no free will (see Figure 4):

Figure 4. Mental Events Are Caused By Preceding Events Inside or Outside the Body.

B. F. Skinner (1904-1990), whose work will be described in Section 3-?, rejected the idea that mental events have any role at all in causing our behavior. He believed that everything a person does — from driving a car to studying for a test — occurs only through automatic (and typically learned) responses to environmental events. In Section 3-?, you will learn why Skinner believed this. But his mechanistic approach to understanding human behavior underscores two philosophical assumptions —materialism and determinism— made by all behaviorists. They assumed that only physical events can cause physical behavior. In other words, they were materialists. Materialism is the doctrine that the the universe consists only of physical matter. If physical matter is the only reality, then everything in the universe can be explained only in terms of physical causes. Behaviorists also were determinists. As stated in Section 1-?, determinism is the doctrine that an event is caused by a sequence of prior events. Thus, in combining materialism and determinism, we can see that behaviorists assumed that all human behavior is caused by a sequence of prior physical events. If this assumption is true, then it follows that humans cannot exhibit free will.

Most behavioral scientists assume that human behavior is determined by a sequence of prior physical events. For example, neuroscientists who study the mind and behavior assume that the cognitions, emotions, and behaviors are determined by physiological activity in the CNS and PNS. If mental states are produced by physical states of the brain, and if these physical states of the brain are produced by a long sequence of preceding physical events, then the mind itself must be caused by this long sequence of preceding physical events. The doctrine of free will implies that, ”on a given occasion, with the past just as it was and the present and ourselves just as they are, we can choose or decide the opposite of what we actually do choose or decide” (Honderich, 1993, p. 2). The doctrine of determinism, on the other hand, implies that "every event that occurs is the only one that could have occurred in the circumstances” (Feinberg, 1989, p. 343). All theoretical approaches in scientific psychology assume that human mental processes and behaviors are determined by material factors. In other words, they assume that our minds and behavior are caused by a sequence of prior physical events occurring in our bodies and in the environment.

Is our intuitive sense that we freely choose our actions, and even our thoughts and emotions, merely an illusion? Are our choices really determined by physical events? If the answers to these questions are “yes,” what would this imply for religious beliefs about supernatural causes, such as the belief that our minds continue to exist after the death of our bodies? These are disturbing questions for all of us. Those who assume determinism and materialism give answers to these questions that differ greatly from the answers most of you have given to them since childhood (especially when based on religious teachings about the supernatural). The widespread acceptance of determinism and materialism by scientific psychologists beginning in the late-nineteenth century is probably the most revolutionary aspect of this science. Yet, it is an issue that is rarely discussed by psychologists in their textbooks; and nonpsychologists often are unaware of the deterministic and materialistic nature of most theories in psychology. Ignoring what is a central human concern seems to be a very strange way to proceed in a science dedicated to understanding human nature. But the impossibility of answering definitively the questions raised above, especially the impossibility of answering them in a scientifically meaningful way, is the reason that they are not often addressed in psychology courses. Nevertheless, not all psychologists agree that this issue should be ignored. In the final section of this course, we will examine the ideas of some of these psychologists.

Why do scientific psychologists adopt a deterministic and materialistic perspective when developing their theories? The answer is a simple one: these assumptions work for the practical everyday concerns of scientific psychologists, just as they do for you in your practical everyday concerns. That is, just as you are able fix a problem in your car's engine or relieve the symptoms of a cold by assuming that these problems are determined by physical factors, psychologists are able to explain, predict, and control the mental and behavioral phenomena they study by assuming that these phenomena are determined by physical factors. Furthermore, the close correspondence between states of the nervous system, on the one hand, and our cognitions, emotions, and behaviors, on the other hand, has provided support for the usefulness of these assumptions in designing and performing psychological research.

Study Questions

34. Why did behaviorists reject the importance of genetic and evolutionary factors when explaining human behaviors?
35. How did behaviorists explain the development of most human behaviors?
36. What was meant by the statement made above that behaviorists assumed that "humans essentially are nothing but automatons"?
37. Why can behaviorism be thought of as an optimistic and egalitarian approach to explaining behavior?
38. Why did behaviorists reject free will? (In your answer, please discuss the philosophical doctrines of determinism and materialism.)
39. Why do scientific psychologists typically assume that mental events and behavior are determined by material causes when performing their research and interpreting their results?

*Each group of organisms can be classified according to the following hierarchy (with Kingdom being the most general (least specific) category and species being the least general (most specific) category:

Kingdom
Phylum
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species

For example, modern humans are classified as:

Kingdom—Animalia
Phylum—Chordata
Class—Mammalia
Order—Primates
Family—Hominidae
Genus—Homo
Species—sapiens