How to Train a Brain: Crash Course Psychology #11

Summary

This script explores the foundational work of Ivan Pavlov, whose experiments on classical conditioning with dogs laid the groundwork for behaviorist psychology. It explains how neutral stimuli can become conditioned responses through association, leading to observable behaviors. The script also delves into operant conditioning, championed by B.F. Skinner, focusing on the reinforcement of behaviors through consequences. It addresses the controversy surrounding behaviorist theories and their impact on modern psychology, including the misunderstandings about Skinner's methods.

Takeaways

• 🔬 Ivan Pavlov's experiments are foundational in psychology, focusing on observable behaviors over internal mental processes.
• 🏆 Pavlov earned Russia's first Nobel Prize for his work on the digestive system, particularly in dogs.
• 🐕 Pavlov discovered classical conditioning through observing dogs' salivary responses to various stimuli, like the sound of a bell.
• 🤔 Classical conditioning involves associating a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus to elicit a learned response.
• 🧠 The process of conditioning includes acquisition, where the association between stimuli is made, and extinction, where the learned response fades without reinforcement.
• 👶 John B. Watson's controversial 'Little Albert' experiment demonstrated how fear could be conditioned and generalized to similar stimuli.
• 🍪 Operant conditioning, championed by B.F. Skinner, involves associating behaviors with consequences, either through reinforcement or punishment.
• 📊 Skinner's concept of reinforcement includes both positive (reward) and negative (removal of aversive stimulus) types to shape behavior.
• 🚫 Negative reinforcement is distinct from punishment; the former increases a behavior by removing an unpleasant stimulus, while the latter decreases it.
• 💼 Skinner's 'Air Crib' was a climate-controlled baby box, often misunderstood and confused with his experimental 'Skinner Box' for rats.
• 🎓 The behaviorist school of thought, which Pavlov, Watson, and Skinner were part of, was met with criticism for ignoring cognitive processes in learning.

Q & A

What is the significance of Ivan Pavlov's experiments in the history of psychology?

Ivan Pavlov's experiments are significant because they contributed to the foundation of the behaviorist school of thought, which focused on observable behaviors rather than internal mental processes. His work helped establish psychology as an empirically rigorous science and paved the way for more experimental rigor in behavioral research.

What was Ivan Pavlov's original aspiration before he became a psychologist?

Before becoming a psychologist, Ivan Pavlov originally aspired to become a Russian Orthodox priest like his father.

What did Pavlov discover about dogs' behavior while studying their digestive system?

While studying the digestive system of dogs, Pavlov discovered that the animals would salivate at the mere whiff of their dinner. This observation led him to suspect that this behavior was a form of learning, which he later explored through his famous conditioning experiments.

What is associative learning, as described in the script?

Associative learning is a process where a subject links certain events, behaviors, or stimuli together during conditioning. It is considered one of the most basic forms of learning and involves the association of neutral stimuli with unconditioned stimuli to elicit a response.

Can you explain the concept of classical conditioning as described in the script?

Classical conditioning, as described in the script, is a learning process in which a neutral stimulus becomes associated with an unconditioned stimulus, resulting in a conditioned response. This was demonstrated by Pavlov's experiments where the sound of a bell (neutral stimulus) was paired with food (unconditioned stimulus), leading to dogs drooling (conditioned response) at the sound of the bell alone.

What is the difference between positive and negative reinforcement in operant conditioning?

Positive reinforcement in operant conditioning strengthens a behavior by providing a reward after the desired behavior occurs. Negative reinforcement, on the other hand, increases a behavior by removing an aversive or unpleasant stimulus. The key difference is that positive reinforcement adds something pleasant, while negative reinforcement removes something unpleasant.

How does the concept of reinforcement scheduling relate to operant conditioning?

Reinforcement scheduling in operant conditioning refers to the timing and frequency of reinforcement. It can be continuous, where a behavior is reinforced every time it occurs, or intermittent, where reinforcement is given only occasionally. Intermittent reinforcement can be further divided into various schedules, such as ratio (based on number of responses) or interval (based on time), which can affect how quickly a behavior is learned and how resistant it is to extinction.

What is the role of BF Skinner in the development of operant conditioning?

BF Skinner was a prominent figure in the development of operant conditioning. He designed the 'Skinner Box,' a controlled environment used to study the effects of reinforcement on behavior. Skinner's work demonstrated how behaviors could be shaped and maintained through positive and negative reinforcement.

What is the difference between reinforcement and punishment in operant conditioning?

In operant conditioning, reinforcement is a process that increases the likelihood of a behavior by following it with a positive outcome or the removal of a negative stimulus. Punishment, conversely, decreases the likelihood of a behavior by introducing a negative outcome or removing a positive stimulus after the behavior occurs.

How did John B. Watson's 'Little Albert' experiment demonstrate the principles of classical conditioning?

John B. Watson's 'Little Albert' experiment demonstrated classical conditioning by pairing a neutral stimulus (a white rat) with an unconditioned stimulus (a loud noise) that elicited fear. After repeated pairings, the child developed a conditioned fear response to the rat and, through generalization, to other furry white objects.

What are some misconceptions about BF Skinner that the script aims to debunk?

The script aims to debunk several misconceptions about BF Skinner, including the myths that he put children in 'Skinner Boxes,' raised his children without love or affection, and that his daughter harbored resentment towards him until her death. The script clarifies that these are not true, and that Skinner's daughter, Deborah Skinner, is alive and well and had a positive relationship with her father.

Outlines

00:00

🐾 Ivan Pavlov and Classical Conditioning

This paragraph introduces Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist known for his foundational work in behavioral psychology. Pavlov's experiments, which involved conditioning dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell, laid the groundwork for understanding associative learning. His work emphasized observable behaviors over internal mental processes, influencing the behaviorist school of thought. Despite initial reluctance towards psychology, Pavlov's research on the digestive system earned him a Nobel Prize. His observations of dogs' salivary responses to food smells led him to explore the concept of learning as an adaptive behavior. Pavlov's experiments demonstrated that through repeated associations, neutral stimuli could elicit responses typically caused by natural stimuli, a phenomenon known as classical conditioning.

05:00

🧠 Exploring Operant Conditioning and Behavioral Shaping

The second paragraph delves into operant conditioning, a type of associative learning where behaviors are linked to their consequences. It contrasts with classical conditioning by focusing on the effects of actions rather than passive stimuli. The paragraph discusses B.F. Skinner, a prominent behaviorist who developed the concept of reinforcement and designed the 'Skinner Box' to study operant conditioning. Skinner's work explored how behaviors could be shaped through positive and negative reinforcement, and how these could be applied in real-life scenarios. The paragraph also addresses common misconceptions about Skinner's methods and clarifies that his work did not involve inhumane practices. It explains the difference between positive and negative reinforcement and punishment, and introduces the concept of reinforcement schedules, which describe how frequently a behavior is reinforced, affecting its durability and resistance to extinction.

10:01

🔬 Behavioral Theories and Their Impact on Psychology

The final paragraph summarizes the key ideas from Pavlov, Watson, and Skinner, emphasizing their controversial nature and the debate over the role of external influences versus internal thoughts and feelings in shaping behavior. It acknowledges the limitations of behaviorist theories and sets the stage for upcoming discussions on cognitive processes and observational learning. The paragraph also touches on the practical applications of conditioning, such as in marketing strategies, and the importance of understanding different reinforcement schedules. The video concludes with credits for the episode's production team and a call to action for viewers to support the channel.

Keywords

💡Ivan Pavlov

Ivan Pavlov was a Russian physiologist known for his work in classical conditioning, which is a learning process. In the video, Pavlov's experiments with dogs, where he conditioned them to salivate at the sound of a bell by pairing it with food, are highlighted as foundational to behaviorist psychology. His work is central to understanding how observable behaviors can be modified through environmental stimuli.

💡Behaviorism

Behaviorism is a psychological theory that suggests psychology should focus on observable behaviors rather than internal mental states. The video discusses how Pavlov's work contributed to the foundation of this school of thought, emphasizing empirical rigor in studying behaviors. Behaviorism is a key theme in the video, as it influenced the direction of psychological research and the understanding of learning.

💡Classical Conditioning

Classical conditioning is a learning process in which a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a response through repeated pairing with a stimulus that naturally elicits that response. The video uses Pavlov's experiment with dogs as the quintessential example of classical conditioning, where the bell (neutral stimulus) was paired with food (unconditioned stimulus) to elicit salivation (unconditioned response), eventually leading to the bell alone causing salivation (conditioned response).

💡Associative Learning

Associative learning is a type of learning where associations are formed between stimuli or events. In the video, associative learning is discussed as a fundamental form of learning, where animals and humans learn by associating certain stimuli with specific outcomes. Pavlov's experiments exemplify associative learning, as the dogs learned to associate the bell with food.

💡Operant Conditioning

Operant conditioning, also known as instrumental conditioning, involves learning through consequences. The video explains this concept through B.F. Skinner's experiments, where behaviors are strengthened or weakened by reinforcement or punishment. This type of conditioning is about modifying behavior by its consequences, differing from classical conditioning which is about stimulus-response associations.

💡Reinforcement

Reinforcement in the context of operant conditioning refers to the strengthening of a behavior by following it with a consequence, typically a reward. The video mentions positive reinforcement, where a desirable outcome follows a behavior, and negative reinforcement, where an unpleasant stimulus is removed after the behavior. These concepts are crucial for understanding how behaviors can be shaped.

💡B.F. Skinner

B.F. Skinner was an American psychologist known for his work on operant conditioning. The video discusses his experiments with 'Skinner Boxes,' where he demonstrated how behaviors could be shaped through reinforcement. Skinner's work is integral to the video's exploration of how behaviors are learned and modified through environmental consequences.

💡Little Albert

Little Albert was a child who was the subject of a controversial experiment by John B. Watson. In the video, it is mentioned that Watson conditioned Little Albert to fear a white rat by pairing it with a loud noise. This example illustrates the power of classical conditioning and raises ethical questions about psychological experiments on humans, which is a significant part of the video's narrative on the history of behaviorism.

💡Extinction

Extinction in learning theory refers to the process by which a learned behavior is gradually eliminated when it is no longer reinforced. The video explains extinction in the context of operant conditioning, noting that behaviors learned through reinforcement can be unlearned if the reinforcement is stopped. This concept is important for understanding how behaviors can fade away over time.

💡Reinforcement Schedules

Reinforcement schedules are patterns of reinforcement that influence the rate at which a learned behavior is acquired and maintained. The video discusses different schedules, such as continuous reinforcement (where every response is reinforced) and intermittent reinforcement (where reinforcement occurs only occasionally). Understanding these schedules helps to explain why some behaviors persist while others do not.

Highlights

Ivan Pavlov's experiments are among the most famous in psychology, contributing to the behaviorist school of thought.

Pavlov's work emphasized observable behaviors over internal mental processes.

His research laid the foundation for experimental rigor in behavioral studies.

Pavlov was born in 1849 and initially studied the digestive system, earning Russia's first Nobel Prize.

He observed dogs salivating at the smell of food, leading to his famous conditioning experiments.

Pavlov's experiments demonstrated associative learning through classical conditioning.

Associative learning involves linking events, behaviors, or stimuli during conditioning.

Classical conditioning was a significant step in making psychology a more rigorous science.

Pavlov's methodological approach allowed for the study of learning through direct observation of behavior.

Behaviorist psychologists like Pavlov rejected 'mentalistic concepts' such as consciousness and introspection.

John B. Watson's controversial 'Little Albert' experiment showcased classical conditioning in humans.

Operant conditioning, another form of associative learning, involves associating behavior with consequences.

B.F. Skinner's operant chamber, or 'Skinner Box,' demonstrated reinforcement and shaping of behavior.

Reinforcement can be positive, increasing behavior by following it with a reward, or negative, removing an aversive stimulus.

Reinforcement schedules can be continuous or intermittent, affecting the durability of learned behaviors.

Behaviorist theories were controversial, facing criticism for neglecting internal thoughts and feelings in learning.

The video will explore cognition and observational learning in relation to conditioning in a future episode.

Transcripts

So, the name Ivan Pavlov rings a bell it's because his experiments are among

the most famous in the history of psychology. His work contributed to the

foundation of the behaviorist school of thought that viewed psychology as an

empirically rigorous science, focused on observable behaviors and not

unobservable internal mental processes. Even though today we view psychology as

the science of both behavior and mental processes, Pavlov's influence was

tremendous. His research helped pave the path for

more experimental rigor and behavioral research right up to the present day.

Born in 1849 in Russia, Pavlov was never much for psychology. After giving up on

his original aspiration to become a Russian Orthodox priest like his father,

he instead earned a medical degree and spent nearly 20 years studying the

digestive system, earning Russia's first Nobel Prize in his mid-50s for his

research expanding our understanding of how stomachs worked. He didn't study

human stomachs, though, because the procedures were terrible and cruel.

He studied dog stomachs. And while researching those dogs, he noticed how

the animals would salivate at a mere whiff of their dinner. At first, he found

all that slobber annoying, but soon started to suspect that this behavior

was actually a simple but important form of learning. For us scholars of

psychology, we can define learning as the process of acquiring, through experience,

new and relatively enduring information or behaviors. Whether through association,

observation, or just plain thinking, learning is what allows us to adapt to

our environments and to survive. And as Pavlov began to discover, it wasn't only

humans who learned. Soon enough, he was turning out his famous series of

experiments in which he paired the presence of meat powder -- yummy -- which got

the dogs to drooling, with lots of different neutral stimuli. Things that

wouldn't normally make you drool, like a certain sound or shining a light or a

touch on the leg. Then Pavlov observed, after several of these pairings, a dog

would start to drool just at the sound or the light or the touch, even if there

wasn't any slobber-inducing meat powder around. Animals, he found, can exhibit

associative learning. That's when a subject links certain events, behaviors,

or stimuli together in the process of conditioning. This may be the most

elemental, basic form of learning a brain can do, but that doesn't mean that the

processes behind conditioning  are, or ever were, obvious, 

or, for that matter, simple.

In fact, the research that's gone into how we're conditioned by our environments has helped shape

the science of psychology from  a still-kinda-subjective thought  

exercise into the more rigorous  discipline we know today.

And it starred some of psychology's most notable, and often controversial, figures

including Pavlov, BF Skinner, and that guy who  trained kids to be terrified of furry animals.

[INTRO MUSIC]

Okay, I'm not a licensed dog trainer (do they license dog trainers?),

but I can break down for you the sequence of steps in Pavlov's famous experiment to help

you get a sense of how conditioning works. First, before conditioning, the dog

just drools when it smells food. That smell is the unconditioned stimulus and

the slobbering, the unconditioned or natural response. The ringing sound, which

at this point means nothing to the dog, is the neutral stimulus, and it produces

no drooling. During conditioning, the unconditioned stimulus -- the food smell --

is paired with the neutral stimulus -- the bell sound -- and results in drooling.

This is repeated many times until the association between the two stimuli is

made in a stage called acquisition. By the time you get to the after-conditioning

phase, that old neutral stimulus has become a conditioned stimulus, because it now elicits

the conditioned response of drooling. Sounds super simple, right?

If you have a dog, you've probably seen it tap-dance at the sight of a leash, but in

Pavlov's day, this whole series of steps hadn't really been studied in a lab setting, or even

thought about in scientific terms. Pavlov's work suggested that classical conditioning,

as this kind of learning came to be known, could be an adaptive form of learning that

helps an animal survive by changing its behavior to better suit its environment. In this case,

a bell means food, and food means survival, so get ready! Not only, that but

methodologically, classical conditioning shows how a process like learning can

actually be studied through direct observation of behavior in real-time,

without all those messy feelings and emotions. This is something Pavlov

especially appreciated, given his disdain for "mentalistic concepts" like

consciousness and introspection, championed by Freud. Behaviorist

psychologists like Pavlov's younger American analogs, BF Skinner and John B

Watson, also embraced the notion that psychology was all about objective,

observable behavior. In his 1930 book, Behaviorism, he argued that given a dozen

healthy infants, he could train any one of them to be a doctor, artist, lawyer, or

even a thief, regardless of their talents, tendencies, or ancestry.

Woah there, Watson! Thankfully, no one gave him any infants.

In his most famous, and yes,  controversial experiment, 

Watson conditioned a young child dubbed

"Little Albert" to fear a white rat. Maybe that doesn't sound so bad, but he

accomplished this by pairing the rat with a loud scary noise over and over.

And then demonstrated that the terror could branch out and be generalized to include

other furry white objects, like bunnies, dogs, and even fur coats. So yeah, that

would not fly today, obviously. But Watson's research did make other psychologists wonder

whether adults, too, were just holding tanks of conditioned emotions. And if so, whether new

conditioning could be used to undo old conditioning. Like, if you're terrified of

rollercoasters, but you made yourself ride one ten times a day for two weeks,

would your fears fade? For the record, recent exploration has revealed that the boy

known as "Little Albert" sadly died a few years after these experiments, while

Watson eventually left academia and got into advertising, where he put all that

associative learning to lucrative use. So that's classical conditioning, but we've

also got another kind of associative learning: operant conditioning.

If classical conditioning is all about forming associations between stimuli,

operant conditioning involves associating our own behavior with

consequences. The kid who gets a cookie for saying "please," or the aquarium seal

that gets a sardine for balancing a ball on its nose -- they've both been trained

with operant conditioning. The basic premise here is that behaviors increase

when followed by reinforcement or reward, but they decrease when followed by

punishment. And the most well-known champion of operant conditioning is

American behaviorist, B.F. Skinner. He designed the famous operant chamber or

"Skinner Box" -- a confined space containing a lever or button than an animal can touch

to get some kind of reward (typically food), along with the device that keeps track of its

responses. Okay, time for a debunking break. Other than maybe Freud, no other figure in

psychology seems to be as shrouded in lore and misinformation as B.F. Skinner.

So I'm just gonna tell you straight that no, Skinner never put any kids in the box,

and no, he didn't raise his children without love or affection. And his daughter didn't

hate his guts until the day she committed suicide. Deborah Skinner is alive and well and she loved

her dad plenty. Skinner did, however, invent 

something called an "Air  Crib" -- a climate-controlled

box with a window on the front that was meant to keep babies warm and safe while their moms ran

around doing their 1950s lady thang. It's not exactly where I'd like to spend the night, but it

wasn't remotely the same as the Skinner Box. No one knows where all these myths came

from, but being a somewhat controversial guy, Skinner had a lot of haters. Some of whom

were probably happy to perpetuate misinformation. But back to the rat in the box. Basically, the box

provided an observable stage to demonstrate Skinner's concept of reinforcement, which is

anything that increases the  behavior that it follows. 

In other words, you push  the lever, you get a snack,

and then you want to keep pushing the lever. But most rats aren't gonna push a lever for

no reason. I mean, there aren't food dispensing levers in the natural environment. So operant

conditioning behavior requires shaping. Maybe you give the rat a little nibble of food each time

it gets closer to the bar,  then only when it touches 

the bar, until little by little, in a series of

successive approximations to the desired behavior, you reward them only when they

do the thing you're trying to shape them to do. In everyday life, we're all continually

reinforcing, shaping, and refining each other's behaviors, both intentionally and accidentally.

We do this with both positive and negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement

obviously strengthens responses by giving rewards after a desired event, like the rat snack

after the lever push, or getting a cookie when you say please. Negative reinforcement is a little

trickier -- it's what  increases a behavior by taking 

away an aversive or upsetting stimulus, like, say,

you get in your car and it does that infernal beeping thing until you fasten your seat belt.

The car is reinforcing your seatbelt-wearing by getting rid of that horrible beeping. And it's

good. You should wear your seatbelt. It's important to recognize here that negative

reinforcement is not the same as punishment. 

Punishment decreases a  behavior, either positively,

by, say, getting a speeding ticket, or negatively, by taking away a driver's license. But negative

reinforcement removes the punishing event to increase the behavior. So pain killers negatively

reinforce the behavior of swallowing them by ending the headache. So by now, hopefully, you're

getting the picture. There are things that we want and things that we don't want, and we can be

taught by way of those impulses to behave certain ways. But it's worth pointing out that

the conditioning is way more complex than just the cookie in the beeping car. For one thing,

ending annoyance or getting a cookie are types 

of primary reinforcers. You  don't have to learn that;

they just make innate biological sense. Beeping is 

annoying; cookies are  delicious. So there are other

kinds of reinforcers that we only recognize after 

we learn to associate them  with primary reinforcers,

like a paycheck is a conditioned reinforcer. We want money because we need food and

shelter, which are still the primary drivers, plus just as there are different kinds of reinforcers,

so are there various reinforcement schedules.

Like, those box rats were getting continuous reinforcement when they got a treat every

single time they hit the  lever, so they picked it up 

pretty quickly. But if one day, the rat chow

doesn't come, that connection quickly dwindles and the rat stops hitting the lever. This is a

process called extinction, and it is important because that's how real life works. Outside

of a Skinner Box, you're not gonna get continuous reinforcement. All of life is a

series of partial or intermittent reinforcements that only occurs sometimes. Learning under these

conditions takes longer, but it holds up better in the long run, and is less

susceptible to that extinction. So, say a cafe gives out a free cup of coffee for

every 10 you buy, while another shop pours a free double shot every Tuesday

morning, and yet another has a free coffee lottery that customers win at

random. These are all different kinds of intermittent reinforcement techniques

that get customers coming back for more. Now, Pavlov, Watson, and Skinner's ideas

were definitely controversial, as well as the whole scary rat experiment, plenty of

folks disagreed with their insistence that only external influences and not

internal thoughts and feelings shaped behavior. It was clear to many of the

behaviorists' rivals that our cognitive processes -- our thoughts, perceptions,

feelings, memories -- also influence the way we learn. We're gonna talk about how

these other things factor into learning next week, when we look more at

conditioning, cognition, and observational learning. And yeah, also watch kids beat

the face off blowup dolls. Today, though, you learned how associative learning

works; the essentials of behaviorist theory; the basic components of classical

and operant conditioning, including positive and negative reinforcement; and

reinforcement scheduling. Thanks for watching this, especially to all of our

Subbable subscribers who make this whole channel possible. If you'd like to

sponsor an episode of Crash Course, or get a special laptop decal, or even be

animated into an upcoming episode, just go to subbable.com. This episode was

written by Kathleen Yale, edited by Blake de Pastino, and our consultant is Dr.

Ranjit Bhagwat. Our director and editor is Nicholas Jenkins, the script

supervisor is Michael Aranda, who is also our sound designer, and the graphics team

is Thought Café.