PSY 3103 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Cognitive Map, Behaviorism

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 3103
• Professor: Christine Boisvert

Document Summary

There are five schools of behaviorism: methodological behaviorism. All references to subjective/internal events should be stricken from the scientific analysis. He felt we should only study those behaviors that can be directly observed. Ex, i see a dog and run away no focus on why, ex fears. Disregard internal events (conscious thoughts/feelings, unconscious drives/motives) This was his claim against eugenics and the claim during nazism that people"s abilities will be inherited. He suggested genetics are not as important as people think they are. Suggested we enter the world with basic reflexes and emotions (love, fear, anger) and the environment determines the rest. Given the right environment, a beggar can become a beggar, and vice versa: neobehaviorism. Said watson"s prediction of events is not sound. If you look at physics and science, even physics makes assumptions of unobservable events, ex, gravity. Hull felt we should make assumptions about unobservable events, but we needed to operationalize them in a specific away.