Behaviorism vs. Cognitive Psychology
Behaviorism vs. Cognitive Psychology
Watson believed that psychology did not accomplish the goal of predicting and controlling the behavior of a person. He believed that psychology had two problems; the pursuit of consciousness as an object of study and the use of introspection as a method. Watson developed a type of psychology that he believed would address these issues, behaviorism.
“Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior” this is the definition of behaviorism that John Watson expressed as his Columbia address. Behaviorism is said to limit the psychological study of behavior. Watson believes that humans had three innate emotions when they were born: fear, rage, and love. The goal would be to take one of the emotions and condition it to a stimulus in order to create a response that was not previously elicited. This was demonstrated in the “Little Albert” experiment. Watson had a baby, Little Albert, who was not fearful of white rats. During the experiment whenever Little Albert was shown a white rat Watson would pair it with a loud noise until the baby showed fear. This experiment showed that fear can be conditioned in a person.
Behaviorism tended to dominate American Psychology until approximately 1954 when cognitive psychology started. “You say you want a revolution. Well, we all want to change the world.” This quote describes the change in psychology that developed cognitive psychology during an era of social change. Experimental psychologist began seeing a change when the number of unexplained human behavior increased. Psychologist started to think that in order to understand human behavior, mental processes can no longer be ignored. Cognitive psychology was created to understand these mental processes by analyzing the way sensory information is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recover, and used in the brain. It can be
Watson believed that psychology did not accomplish the goal of predicting and controlling the behavior of a person. He believed that psychology had two problems; the pursuit of consciousness as an object of study and the use of introspection as a method. Watson developed a type of psychology that he believed would address these issues, behaviorism.
“Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior” this is the definition of behaviorism that John Watson expressed as his Columbia address. Behaviorism is said to limit the psychological study of behavior. Watson believes that humans had three innate emotions when they were born: fear, rage, and love. The goal would be to take one of the emotions and condition it to a stimulus in order to create a response that was not previously elicited. This was demonstrated in the “Little Albert” experiment. Watson had a baby, Little Albert, who was not fearful of white rats. During the experiment whenever Little Albert was shown a white rat Watson would pair it with a loud noise until the baby showed fear. This experiment showed that fear can be conditioned in a person.
Behaviorism tended to dominate American Psychology until approximately 1954 when cognitive psychology started. “You say you want a revolution. Well, we all want to change the world.” This quote describes the change in psychology that developed cognitive psychology during an era of social change. Experimental psychologist began seeing a change when the number of unexplained human behavior increased. Psychologist started to think that in order to understand human behavior, mental processes can no longer be ignored. Cognitive psychology was created to understand these mental processes by analyzing the way sensory information is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recover, and used in the brain. It can be
Cited: Benjamin, L.T. (2007). A brief history of modern psychology. Malden, MA: Wiley- Blackwell.