Psychology as the Behaviorist Views it.
John B. Watson (1913).
John B. Watson (1913).
Introspectionforms no essential part of its methods, nor is the scientificvalue of its data dependent upon the readiness with which theylend themselves to interpretation in terms of consciousness. Thebehaviorist, in his efforts to get a unitary scheme of animalresponse, recognizes no dividing line between man and brute.The behavior of man, with all of its refinement and complexity,forms only a part of the behaviorist's total scheme of investigation.
Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimentalbranch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is the predictionand control of behavior.consciousness.It has taken as its problem, on the one hand, the analysis ofcomplex mental states (or processes) into simple elementary constituents,and on the other the construction of complex states when the elementaryconstituents are given. The world of physical objects (stimuli,including here anything which may excite activity in a receptor),which forms the total phenomena of the natural scientist, is lookedupon merely as means to an end. That end is the production ofmental states that may be 'inspected' or 'observed'. The psychologicalobject of observation in the case of an emotion, for example,is the mental state itself. The problem in emotion is the determinationof the number and kind of elementary constituents present, theirloci, intensity, order of appearance, etc. It is agreedthat introspection is the method par excellence by meansof which mental states may be manipulated for purposes of psychology.On this assumption, behavior data (including under this term everythingwhich goes under the name of comparative psychology)have no value per se. They possess significance only inso far as they may throw light upon conscious states.1Such data must have at least an analogicalor indirect reference to belong to the realm of psychology.
It has been maintained by its followers generally thatpsychology is a study of the science of the phenomena ofbearing of animal workupon human psychology?' I used to have to study over this question.Indeed it always embarrassed me somewhat. I was interested inmy own work and felt that it was important, and yet I could nottrace any close connection between it and psychology as my questionerunderstood psychology. I hope that such a confession will clearthe atmosphere to such an extent that we will no longer have towork under false pretences. We must frankly admit that the factsso important to us which we have been able to glean from extendedwork upon the senses of animals by the behavior method have contributedonly in a fragmentary way to the general theory of human senseorgan processes, nor have they suggested new points of experimentalattack. The enormous number of experiments which we have carriedout upon learning have likewise contributed little to human psychology.It seems reasonably clear that some kind of compromise must beaffected: either psychology must change its viewpoint so as totake in facts of behavior, whetheror not they have bearings upon the problems of 'consciousness';or else behavior must stand alone as a wholly separate and independentscience. Should human psychologists fail to look with favor uponour overtures and refuse to modify their position, the behavioristswill be driven to using human beings as subjects and to employmethods of investigation which are exactly comparable to thosenow employed in the animal work.
Indeed, at times, one finds psychologists who are sceptical ofeven this analogical reference. Such scepticism is often shownby the question which is put to the student of behavior, 'whatis theAny other hypothesis than that which admits the independent valueof behavior material, regardless of any bearing such materialmay have upon consciousness, will inevitably force us to the absurd positionof attempting to construct the conscious content of theanimal whose behavior we have been studying. On this view, afterhaving determined our animal's ability to learn, the simplicityor complexity of its methods of learning, the effect of past habitupon present response, the range of stimuli to which it ordinarilyresponds, the widened range to which it can respond under experimentalconditions -- in more general terms, its various problems andits various ways of solving them -- we should still feel thatthe task is unfinished and that the results are worthless, untilwe can interpret them by analogy in the light of consciousness.Although we have solved our problem we feel uneasy and unrestfulbecause of our definition of psychology: we feel forced to saysomething about the possible mental processes of our animal. Wesay that, having no eyes, its stream of consciousness cannot containbrightness and color sensations as we know them -- having no tastebuds this stream can contain no sensations of sweet, sour, saltand bitter. But on the other hand, since it does respond to thermal,tactual and organic stimuli, its conscious content must be madeup largely of these sensations; and we usually add, to protectourselves against the reproach of being anthropomorphic,'if it has any consciousness'. Surely this doctrine which callsfor an anological interpretation of all behavior data may be shownto be false: the position that the standing of an observationupon behavior is determined by its fruitfulness in yielding resultswhich are interpretable only in the narrow realm of (really human)consciousness.
This emphasis upon analogy in psychology has led the behavioristsomewhat afield. Not being willing to throw off the yoke of consciousnesshe feels impelled to make a place in the scheme of behavior wherethe rise of consciousness can be determined. This point has beena shifting one. A few years ago certain animals were supposedto possess 'associative memory',while certain others were supposed to lack it. One meets thissearch for the origin of consciousness under a good many disguises.Some of our texts state that consciousness arises at the momentwhen reflex and instinctive activities fail properly to conservethe organism. A perfectly adjusted organism would be lacking inconsciousness. On the other hand whenever we find the presenceof diffuse activity which results in habit formation, we are justifiedin assuming consciousness. I must confess that these argumentshad weight with me when I began the study of behavior. I fearthat a good many of us are still viewing behavior problems withsomething like this in mind. More than one student in behaviorhas attempted to frame criteria of the psychic-- to devise a set of objective, structural and functional criteriawhich, when applied in the particular instance, will enable usto decide whether such and such responses are positively conscious,merely indicative of consciousness, or whether they are purely'physiological'. Such problems as these can no longer satisfybehavior men. It would be better to give up the province altogetherand admit frankly that the study of the behavior of animals hasno justification, than to admit that our search is of such a 'willo' the wisp' character. One can assume either the presence orthe absence of consciousness anywhere in the phylogenetic scalewithout affecting the problems of behavior by one jot or one tittle;and without influencing in any way the mode of experimental attackupon them. On the other hand, I cannot for one moment assume thatthe paramecium respondsto light; that the rat learns a problem more quickly by workingat the task five times a day than once a day, or that the humanchild exhibits plateaux in his learning curves. These are questionswhich vitally concern behavior and which must be decided by directobservation under experimental conditions.
Darwin'stime. The whole Darwinian movement was judged by the bearing ithad upon the origin and development of the human race. Expeditionswere undertaken to collect material which would establish theposition that the rise of the human race was a perfectly naturalphenomenon and not an act of special creation. Variations werecarefully sought along with the evidence for the heaping up effectand the weeding out effect of selection; for in these and theother Darwinian mechanisms were to be found factors sufficientlycomplex to account for the origin and race differentiation ofman. The wealth of material collected at this time was consideredvaluable largely in so far as it tended to develop the conceptof evolution in man. It is strange that this situation shouldhave remained the dominant one in biology for so many years. Themoment zoology undertook the experimental study of evolution anddescent, the situation immediately changed. Man ceased to be thecenter of reference. I doubt if any experimental biologist today,unless actually engaged in the problem of race differentiationin man, tries to interpret his findings in terms of human evolution,or ever refers to it in his thinking. He gathers his data fromthe study of many species of plants and animals and tries to workout the laws of inheritance in the particular type upon whichhe is conducting experiments. Naturally, he follows the progressof the work upon race differentiation in man and in the descentof man, but he looks upon these as special topics, equal in importancewith his own yet ones in which his interests will never be vitallyengaged. It is not fair to say that all of his work is directedtoward human evolution or that it must be interpreted in termsof human evolution. He does not have to dismiss certain of hisfacts on the inheritance of coat color in mice because, forsooth,they have little bearing upon the differentiation of the genus homointo separate races, or upon the descent of the genus homofrom some more primitive stock.
This attempt to reason by analogy from human conscious processesto the conscious processes in animals, and vice versa:to make consciousness, as the human being knows it, the centerof reference of all behavior, forces us into a situation similarto that which existed in biology inIn psychology we are still in that stage of development wherewe feel that we must select our material. We have a general placeof discard for processes, which we anathematize so far as theirvalue for psychology is concerned by saying, 'this is a reflex';'that is a purely physiological fact which has nothing to do withpsychology'. We are not interested (as psychologists) in gettingall of the processes of adjustment which the animal as a wholeemploys, and in finding how these various responses are associated,and how they fall apart, thus working out a systematic schemefor the prediction and control of response in general. Unlessour observed facts are indicative of consciousness, we have nouse for them, and unless our apparatus and method are designedto throw such facts into relief, they are thought of in just asdisparaging a way. I shall always remember the remark one distinguishedpsychologist made as he looked over the color apparatus designedfor testing the responses of animals to monochromatic light inthe attic at Johns Hopkins. Itwas this: 'And they call this psychology!'
I do not wish unduly to criticize psychology. It has failedsignally, I believe, during the fifty-odd years of its existenceas an experimental discipline to make its place in the world asan undisputed natural science. Psychology, as it is generallythought of, has something esoteric in its methods. If you failto reproduce my findings, it is not due to some fault in yourapparatus or in the control of your stimulus, but it is due tothe fact that your introspection is untrained.2The attack is made upon the observer andnot upon the experimental setting. In physics and in chemistrythe attack is made upon the experimental conditions. The apparatuswas not sensitive enough, impure chemicals were used, etc. Inthese sciences a better technique will give reproducible results.Psychology is otherwise. if you can't observe 3-9 states of clearnessin attention, your introspection is poor. if, on the other hand,a feeling seems reasonably clear to you, your introspection isagain faulty. You are seeing too much. Feelings are never clear.
The time seems to have come when psychology must discard all referenceto consciousness; when it need no longer delude itself into thinkingthat it is making mental states the object of observation. Wehave become so enmeshed in speculative questions concerning theelements of mind, the nature of conscious content (for example,imageless thought, attitudes,and Bewusstseinslage, etc.) thatI, as an experimental student, feel that something is wrongwith our premises and the types of problems which develop fromthem. There is no longer any guarantee that we all mean the samething when we use the terms now current in psychology. Take thecase of sensation. A sensation is defined in terms of its attributes.One psychologist will state with readiness that the attributesof a visual sensation are quality, extension, duration,and intensity. Another will add clearness. Still anotherthat of order. I doubt if any one psychologist can drawup a set of statements describing what he means by sensation whichwill be agreed to by three other psychologists of different training.Turn for a moment to the question of the number of isolable sensations.Is there an extremely large number of color sensations -- or onlyfour, red, green, yellow and blue? Again, yellow, while psychologicallysimple, can be obtained by superimposing red and green spectralrays upon the same diffusing surface! If, on the other hand, wesay that every just noticeable difference in the spectrum is asimple sensation, and that every just noticeable increase in thewhite value of a given colour gives simple sensations, we areforced to admit that the number is so large and the conditionsfor obtaining them so complex that the concept of sensation isunusable, either for the purpose of analysis or that of synthesis.Titchener, who has foughtthe most valiant fight in this country for a psychology basedupon introspection, feels that these differences of opinion asto the number of sensations and their attributes; as to whetherthere are relations (in the sense of elements) and on the manyothers which seem to be fundamental in every attempt at analysis,are perfectly natural in the present undeveloped state of psychology.While it is admitted that every growing science is full of unansweredquestions, surely only those who are wedded to the system as wenow have it, who have fought and suffered for it, can confidentlybelieve that there will ever be any greater uniformity than thereis now in the answers we have to such questions. I firmly believethat two hundred years from now, unless the introspective methodis discarded, psychology will still be divided on the questionas to whether auditory sensations have the quality of 'extension',whether intensity is an attribute which can be applied to color,whether there is a difference in 'texture' between image and sensationand upon many hundreds of others of like character.
The condition in regard to other mental processes is just as chaotic.Can image type be experimentally tested and verified? Are reconditethought processes dependent mechanically upon imagery at all?Are psychologists agreed upon what feeling is? One states thatfeelings are attitudes. Another finds them to be groups of organicsensations possessing a certain solidarity. Still another andlarger group finds them to be new elements correlative with andranking equally with sensations.
functional psychology.This type of psychology decries the use of elements in the staticsense of the structuralists. It throws emphasis upon the biologicalsignificance of conscious processes instead of upon the analysisof conscious states into introspectively isolable elements. Ihave done my best to understand the difference between functionalpsychology and structural psychology. Instead of clarity, confusiongrows upon me. The terms sensation, perception, affection, emotion,volition are used as much by the functionalist as by the structuralist.The addition of the word 'process' ('mental act as a whole', andlike terms are frequently met) after each serves in some way toremove the corpse of content' and to leave 'function' in itsstead. Surely if these concepts are elusive when looked at froma content standpoint, they are still more deceptive when viewedfrom the angle of function, and especially so when function isobtained by the introspection method. It is rather interestingthat no functional psychologist has carefully distinguished between'perception' (and this is true of the other psychological termsas well) as employed by the systematist, and cperceptual process'as used in functional psychology. It seems illogical and hardlyfair to criticize the psychology which the systematist gives us,and then to utilize his terms without carefully showing the changesin meaning which are to be attached to them. I was greatly surprisedsome time ago when I opened Pillsbury'sbook and saw psychology defined as the 'science of behavior'.A still more recent text states that psychology is the 'scienceof mental behavior'. When I saw these promising statements I thought,now surely we will have texts based upon different lines. Aftera few pages the science of behavior is dropped and one finds theconventional treatment of sensation, perception, imagery, etc.,along with certain shifts in emphasis and additional facts whichserve to give the author's personal imprint.
My psychological quarrel is not with the systematic and structuralpsychologist alone. The last fifteen years have seen the growthof what is calledparallelistic hypothesis.If the functionalist attempts to express his formulations in termswhich make mental states really appear to function, to play someactive role in the world of adjustment, he almost inevitably lapsesinto terms which are connotative of interaction.When taxed with this he replies that it is more convenient todo so and that he does it to avoid the circumlocution and clumsinesswhich are inherent in any thoroughgoing parallelism.3As a matter of fact I believe the functionalistactually thinks in terms of interaction and resorts to parallelismonly when forced to give expression to his views. I feel thatbehaviorism is the only consistent and logical functionalism.In it one avoids both the Scylla of parallelism and the Charybdisof interaction. Those time-honored relics of philosophical speculationneed trouble the student of behavior as little as they troublethe student of physics. The consideration of the mind-body problemaffects neither the type of problem selected nor the formulationof the solution of that problem. I can state my position hereno better than by saying that I should like to bring my studentsup in the same ignorance of such hypotheses as one finds amongthe students of other branches of science.
One of the difficulties in the way of a consistent functionalpsychology is theThis leads me to the point where I should like to make the argumentconstructive. I believe we can write a psychology, define it asPillsbury, and never go backupon our definition: never use the terms consciousness, mentalstates, mind, content, introspectively verifiable, imagery, andthe like. I believe that we can do it in a few years without runninginto the absurd terminology of Beer, Bethe, Von Uexküll, Nuel,and that of the so-called objective schools generally. It canbe done in terms of stimulus and response, in terms ofhabit formation, habit integrations and the like. Furthermore,I believe that it is really worth while to make this attempt now.
The psychology which I should attempt to build up would take asa starting point, first, the observable fact that organisms, manand animal alike, do adjust themselves to their environment bymeans of hereditary and habit equipments. These adjustments maybe very adequate or they may be so inadequate that the organismbarely maintains its existence; secondly, that certain stimulilead the organisms to make the responses. In a system of psychologycompletely worked out, given the response the stimuli can be predicted;given the stimuli the response can be predicted. Such a set ofstatements is crass and raw in the extreme, as all such generalizationsmust be. Yet they are hardly more raw and less realizable thanthe ones which appear in the psychology texts of the day. I possiblymight illustrate my point better by choosing an everyday problemwhich anyone is likely to meet in the course of his work. Sometime ago I was called upon to make a study of certain speciesof birds. Until I went to TortugasI had never seen these birds alive. When I reached there I foundthe animals doing certain things: some of the acts seemed to workpeculiarly well in such an environment, while others seemed tobe unsuited to their type of life. I first studied the responsesof the group as a whole and later those of individuals. In orderto understand more thoroughly the relation between what was habitand what was hereditary in these responses, I took the young birdsand reared them. In this way I was able to study the order ofappearance of hereditary adjustments and their complexity, andlater the beginnings of habit formation. My efforts in determiningthe stimuli which called forth such adjustments were crude indeed.Consequently my attempts to control behavior and to produce responsesat will did not meet with much success. Their food and water,sex and other social relations, light and temperature conditionswere all beyond control in a field study. I did find it possibleto control their reactions in a measure by using the nest andegg (or young) as stimuli. It is not necessary in thispaper to develop further how such a study should be carried outand how work of this kind must be supplemented by carefully controlledlaboratory experiments. Had I been called upon to examine thenatives of some of the Australian tribes, I should have gone aboutmy task in the same way. I should have found the problem moredifficult: the types of responses called forth by physical stimuliwould have been more varied, and the number of effective stimulilarger. I should have had to determine the social setting of theirlives in a far more careful way. These savages would be more influencedby the responses of each other than was the case with the birds.Furthermore, habits would have been more complex and the influencesof past habits upon the present responses would have appearedmore clearly. Finally, if I had been called upon to work out thepsychology of the educated European, my problem would have requiredseveral lifetimes. But in the one I have at my disposal I shouldhave followed the same general line of attack. In the main, mydesire in all such work is to gain an accurate knowledge of adjustmentsand the stimuli calling them forth. My final reason for this isto learn general and particular methods by which I may controlbehavior. My goal is not 'the description and explanation of statesof consciousness as such', nor that of obtaining such proficiencyin mental gymnastics that I can immediately lay hold of a stateof consciousness and say, 'this, as a whole, consists of graysensation number 350, Of such and such extent, occurring in conjunctionwith the sensation of cold of a certain intensity; one of pressureof a certain intensity and extent,' and so on ad infinitum.If psychology would follow the plan I suggest, the educator,the physician, the jurist and the business man could utilize ourdata in a practical way, as soon as we are able, experimentally,to obtain them. Those who have occasion to apply psychologicalprinciples practically would find no need to complain as theydo at the present time. Ask any physician or jurist today whetherscientific psychology plays a practical part in his daily routineand you will hear him deny that the psychology of the laboratoriesfinds a place in his scheme of work. I think the criticism isextremely just. One of the earliest conditions which made me dissatisfiedwith psychology was the feeling that there was no realm of applicationfor the principles which were being worked out in content terms.
What gives me hope that the behaviorist's position is a defensibleone is the fact that those branches of psychology which have alreadypartially withdrawn from the parent, experimental psychology,and which are consequently less dependent upon introspection aretoday in a most flourishing condition. Experimental pedagogy,the psychology of drugs, the psychology of advertising, legalpsychology, the psychology of tests, and psychopathology are allvigorous growths. These are sometimes wrongly called 'practical'or 'applied' psychology. Surely there was never a worse misnomer.In the future there may grow up vocational bureaus which reallyapply psychology. At present these fields are truly scientificand are in search of broad generalizations which will lead tothe control of human behavior. For example, we find out by experimentationwhether a series of stanzas may be acquired more readily if thewhole is learned at once, or whether it is more advantageous tolearn each stanza separately and then pass to the succeeding.We do not attempt to apply our findings. The application of thisprinciple is purely voluntary on the part of the teacher. In thepsychology of drugs we may show the effect upon behavior of certaindoses of caffeine. We may reach the conclusion that caffeine hasa good effect upon the speed and accuracy of work. But these aregeneral principles. We leave it to the individual as to whetherthe results of our tests shall be applied or not. Again, in legaltestimony, we test the effects of recency upon the reliabilityof a witness's report. We test the accuracy of the report withrespect to moving objects, stationary objects, color, etc. Itdepends upon the judicial machinery of the country to decide whetherthese facts are ever to be applied. For a 'pure' psychologistto say that he is not interested in the questions raised in thesedivisions of the science because they relate indirectly to theapplication of psychology shows, in the first place, that he failsto understand the scientific aimin such problems, and secondly, that he is not interested in apsychology which concerns itself with human life. The only faultI have to find with these disciplines is that much of their materialis stated in terms of introspection, whereas a statement in termsof objective results would be far more valuable. There is no reasonwhy appeal should ever be made to consciousness in any of them.Or why introspective data should ever be sought during the experimentation,or published in the results. In experimental pedagogy especiallyone can see the desirability of keeping all of the results ona purely objective plane. If this is done, work there on the humanbeing will be comparable directly with the work upon animals.For example, at Hopkins, Mr. Ulrichhas obtained certain results upon the distribution of effort inlearning -- using rats as subjects. He is prepared to give comparativeresults upon the effect of having an animal work at the problemonce per day, three times per day, and five times per day. Whetherit is advisable to have the animal learn only one problem at atime or to learn three abreast. We need to have similar experimentsmade upon man, but we care as little about his 'conscious processes'during the conduct of the experiment as we care about such processesin the rats.
I am more interested at the present moment in trying to show thenecessity for maintaining uniformity in experimental procedureand in the method of stating results in both human and animalwork, than in developing any ideas I may have upon the changeswhich are certain to come in the scope of human psychology. Letus consider for a moment the subject of the range of stimuli towhich animals respond. I shall speak first of the work upon visionin animals. We put our animal in a situation where he will respond(or learn to respond) to one of two monochromatic lights. We feedhim at the one (positive) and punish him at the other (negative).In a short time the animal learns to go to the light at whichhe is fed. At this point questions arise which I may phrase intwo ways: I may choose the psychological way and say 'does theanimal see these two lights as I do, i.e., as two distinctcolors, or does he see them as two grays differing in brightness,as does the totally color blind?' Phrased by the behaviorist,it would read as follows: 'Is my animal responding upon the basisof the difference in intensity between the two stimuli, or uponthe difference in wavelengths?' He nowhere thinks of the animal'sresponse in terms of his own experiences of colors and grays.He wishes to establish the fact whether wave-length is a factorin that animal's adjustment.4 Ifso, what wave-lengths are effective and what differences in wave-lengthmust be maintained in the different regions to afford bases fordifferential responses? If wave-length is not a factor in adjustmenthe wishes to know what difference in intensity will serve as abasis for response, and whether that same difference will sufficethroughout the spectrum. Furthermore, he wishes to test whetherthe animal can respond to wavelengths which do not affect thehuman eye. He is as much interested in comparing the rat's spectrumwith that of the chick as in comparing it with man's. The pointof view when the various sets of comparisons are made does notchange in the slightest.
However we phrase the question to ourselves, we take our animalafter the association has been formed and then introduce certaincontrol experiments which enable us to return answers to the questionsjust raised. But there is just as keen a desire on our part totest man under the same conditions, and to state the results inboth cases in common terms.
5We can go just as far and reach just as dependableresults by the longer method as by the abridged. In many casesthe direct and typically human method cannot be safely used. Suppose,for example, that I doubt the accuracy of the setting of the controlinstrument, in the above experiment, as I am very likely to doif I suspect a defect in vision? It is hopeless for me to gethis introspective report. He will say: 'There is no differencein sensation, both are reds, identical in quality.' But supposeI confront him with the standard and the control and so arrangeconditions that he is punished if he responds to the 'control'but not with the standard. I interchange the positions of thestandard and the control at will and force him to attempt to differentiatethe one from the other. If he can learn to make the adjustmenteven after a large number of trials it is evident that the twostimuli do afford the basis for a differential response. Sucha method may sound nonsensical, but I firmly believe we will haveto resort increasingly to just such method where we have reasonto distrust the language method.
The man and the animal should be placed as nearly as possibleunder the same experimental conditions. Instead of feeding orpunishing the human subject, we should ask him to respond by settinga second apparatus until standard and control offered no basisfor a differential response. Do I lay myself open to the chargehere that I am using introspection? My reply is not at all; thatwhile I might very well feed my human subject for a right choiceand punish him for a wrong one and thus produce the response ifthe subject could give it, there is no need of going to extremeseven on the platform I suggest. But be it understood that I ammerely using this second method as an abridged behavior method.There is hardly a problem in human vision which is not also aproblem in animal vision: I mention the limits of the spectrum,threshold values, absolute and relative,flicker, Talbot's law, Weber's law,field of vision, the Purkinje phenomenon,etc. Every one is capable of being worked out by behavior methods.Many of them are being worked out at the present time.