Psychology 405 – Module #9 Hoffman 1

Metropolitan State University Fall 2021

Psychology 405: History & Systems

Chapter 9 Review: Behaviorism and Antecedent Influences

Module #9 is due on or before Friday, 11.5.21

Chapter 9: Behaviorism: Antecedent Influences

1. Briefly describe the talents of “Hans the Wonder Horse” . . . How was Hans able to
perform all of his feats? Who was the psychologist that ultimately discovered how Hans
was capable of completing these behaviors?

Figure 1: Hans the "Wonder Horse"

The "clever" horse who performed feats showed that he was actually getting subconscious cues from his
owners and that the horse wasn't gifted at all. The benefit of an experimental method has been
demonstrated. He was a proponent of skepticism. He demonstrated that animals can learn and
associate, but that they lack raw intellectual abilities. He was motivated by John Watson, who thought
that studying animals' behavior was more valuable than studying their awareness.
Psychology 405 – Module #9 Hoffman 2

2. How did Thorndike demonstrate his theories of connectionism with his now famous
“Puzzle Box”?

The idea of connectionism is founded on the notion of active learning and was developed by
American psychologist Edward Thorndike. Thorndike's Laws arose from this effort. Learning,
according to these Laws, occurs when a person is able to make links between a stimulus and a
response. The importance of Thorndike's Puzzle Box is that it demonstrates that learning may be
accomplished via trial and error. It demonstrated that the link between stimuli and reaction is
not always evident and may require trial and error to find.

3. Briefly discuss the following terms:

a. Law of Effect:

Thorndike proposed the Law of Effect, which suggested that behavioral reactions (R) that were
accompanied by an acceptable result were more likely to acquire established patterns and recur
in response to the same stimulus.

b. Trial and error learning:

A sort of learning in which the organism, apparently at random, attempts many answers in a
scenario until one succeeds in reaching the objective. The effective reaction becomes stronger
with each trial and emerges earlier and earlier.

c. Reinforcement (positive and negative):

Positive reinforcement is a technique that involves providing a stimulus after a behavior is

completed to increase the likelihood of that response. Negative reinforcement increases the
likelihood of a certain response by eliminating a negative outcome.

4. Briefly summarize the accomplishments of Bekhterev – both in psychology and the

politics:

In 1886, he founded Russia's first experimental psychology laboratory to examine the nerve
system and brain anatomy. As a consequence of his studies, Bekhterev came to believe that the
brain was divided into zones, each with its own purpose. Bekhterev devised a theory of
conditioned reflexes and coined the word reflexology, which he characterized as a scientific field
that analyzes the reaction to external or internal stimuli, independently of Pavlov.

5. How did the Functionalist school influence Watson’s behaviorism?

Most notably, in the mid-twentieth century, functionalism paved the way for behaviorism,
which views human behavior as a form of'reflex' in reaction to external stimuli. Watson
is a well-known behaviorist. In the United States, functionalism had a direct impact on
the educational system.