TB3 Lecture 1; American Behaviourist Tradition Notes

William James (1842-1910); Empiricist Tradition

WJ created foundations of the 'Empiricist Traditon', the view that the mind is a 'blank state' that future events act upon.
Also known for the foundations of Associationism, the theory of how events become cognitively associated. The main concepts of Associationism are;
- Contingency; A occurs with B both spatially and temporally; A and B become associated (e.g pillows and bed are seen together, the objects become associated with each other).
- Frequency; B following A occurs frequently, the two events become associated. (e.g rain following storm clouds)
- Reinforcement; The type of response a SR bond receives governs whether this behaviour will be repeated.
Associationism dictates that learning occurs by these core processes.

1 of 4

Offered a mechanical explanation as to the adaptability of animal behaviour.
Stated that there are two 'laws' crucial to learning.
- The Law of Effect, a basic principle of behaviourism stating that if responding B to A yields pleasurable consequences, the animal will be likely to repeat this behaviour. In this way the animal learns responses to things that are rewarding and in a similar way, 'loses' responses to responses that bring punishment.
- The Law of Exercise, the more often a given situation is followed by a particular response, the stronger the associative bond will be between them

2 of 4

Stated that all facets of mental functioning yield to behavioural analysis.
Behaviourism, in it's original conception revolves around testing observable behaviour. Therefore, when referring to psychology as a science of testing observable behaviour, it should be limited to the discussion of stimuli, responses and physiological data. This would ensure that psychology only deals with observable and testable material.
- However with this view, there can be no discussion of mental causation...
- Similarly this view would posit that if anything produces testable/observeable data, it can be studied 'scientifically'.

3 of 4

Skinner stated that all explanations of behaviour are descriptions of environmental histories.
- With complete control of environmental events, you could accurately predict and control behaviour.
- Based on the view that very simple behavioural techniques 'create' comparatively complex behaviours.
Operant conditioning states lawful correlations between stimuli and their responses.

4 of 4