Behaviourism and the Cognitive Revolution

This essay was written for my Conceptual and Historical Issues in Psychology exam in January 2023

Behaviourism was the most influential doctrine in Psychology in the mid-20th century. Though its adverse complications loomed large, from early education and parenting to weak scientific inferences, it laid the groundwork for the scientific approach to psychology as a science. The central idea of behaviourism focuses on observable behaviours and the impact of the environment to understand human behaviours. The cognitive revolution in the late 1950s and early 1960s replaced the demise of behaviourism. As a result of the advancement in technology and the idea of artificial intelligence suggested by Alan Turing amid World War II, psychologists adapted to a new school of thought that moved beyond behaviours. Mental processes (also known as cognitive processes), largely neglected by behaviourism, provided fertilised soil for psychology to flourish as a scientific discipline. This essay will critically analyse the following issues of behaviourism: (1) it oversimplifies the study of human behaviour and is overdeterministic in the influence of environments, and (2) it neglects the internal mental processes of behaviours and fails to acknowledge the importance of individual differences, cultures, or motivation. 

Some may argue that Edward Thorndike was the first true behaviourist and they are not wrong. Thorndike’s Law of Effect was one of the first bricks of experimental behaviourism. It focuses on stimulus and response, stating that responses that result in satisfying outcomes will be more likely to occur again and vice versa; the dissatisfying outcomes will cause the response to be less likely to occur (Thorndike,  1905). In other words, rewarded responses are stamped in, and fruitless responses are stamped out. His experiments were done on cats and puzzle boxes, techniques that were later used by the next generation of behaviourists. Another principle called the Law of Exercise was another behaviourist hallmark of the stimulus-response narrative. He asserted that the connection between stimulus and response strengthened with repetition and weakened without. Thorndike’s contribution to behaviourism is foundational, and his Animal Intelligence becomes a classic in behaviourist methodology (Thorndike, 1911). 

Though many of his principles in learning and education are still studied today, we cannot deny that Thorndike’s theories lack consideration for cognitive processes. Moreover, they have limited generalisability and weak inference in explaining complex behaviours such as problem-solving, language acquisition or sensory processing. The motivation for our actions is also neglected in Thorndike’s theories. Finally, the conundrum of using animals in research likewise loomed large in Thorndike’s experiments like many others. One has to be cautious in making inferences concerning animal behaviours to those of humans (Harlow, 1959). Our language faculty vastly influence how human learn and, therefore, behave. In short, human behaviour cannot be reduced to the studies of animal behaviours in a stimulus-response framework. 

Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and William James’ pragmatism heavily influenced early behaviourists such as John B. Watson and Ivan Pavlov. The concept of ‘tabula rasa’ (Locke, 1690) was the overarching concept arguing that humans are born blank slates. Based on this principle, we witnessed the premature scientific success of behaviourism in controlled laboratory settings. In 1920, behaviourist John B. Watson and his colleague Rosalie Rayner conducted the Little Albert experiment to investigate the conditioned emotional response of fear in a human baby (Watson & Rayner, 1920). By today’s standards, Little Albert failed in numerous aspects. Firstly, the design lacks controlled and experimental subjects, resulting in weak generalisability and failed replicability. Moreover, the experimental design was done in a strictly controlled laboratory environment with a single case. Most importantly, the study was unethical because it distressed the participant. Despite appearing to be non-invasive, the researcher ill-considered life-long emotional effects on the child. 

In the late 1920s, Ivan Pavlov's experiments on dogs' salivation demonstrated ‘classical conditioning’ (Pavlov, 1927). He found that an unconditioned stimulus could provoke an unconditioned response (e.g. salivation). A conditioned response developed when the unconditioned stimulus was accompanied by a neutral stimulus (e.g. bell ringing). With repetition, the neutral stimulus became a conditioned stimulus and provoked a conditioned response (i.e. causing the dogs to salivate by just hearing the bell). Pavlov’s experiments were vastly influential, given their observational feature and data-driven approach. 

During the 1930s, radical behaviourist B.F. Skinner proposed the ‘operant conditioning’ theory based on conditions from consequences (Skinner, 1938). He used pigeons and more sophisticated experimental designs. Skinner was a firm believer in observable, measurable, rigorously controlled experiments. Therefore, consideration for mental processes was not of Skinner’s interests. Skinner proposed two accounts of learning: classical conditioning (Type S) and operant conditioning (Type R). He concluded that behaviours are the result of a series of interactions between the organism and the environment, and these interactions can be understood by operant conditioning. According to Skinner, behaviours are shaped by: (1) positive reinforcement (the addition of a desirable consequence); (2) negative reinforcement (removal of an aversive stimulus) and (3) punishment (addition of an aversive stimulus) (Skinner, 1938) 

The accounts of Watson, Pavlov and Skinner shared the lack of attention to cognitive processes. Skinner’s theories focused exclusively on observable behaviour. The blank slate argument heavily and somewhat radically influenced Watson’s theories. This leads to an inadequate understanding of the mind and therefore fell short of explaining human behaviours. The overdeterministic argument on environment ignores individual differences and is assumptive a universal, uniform way of acquiring knowledge. Seligman later argued that not all fears are “environmentally determined” (Sieligman, 1970). In fact, some fears such as heights, or fire are encoded genetically. In addition, there was evidence that humans could recover from early deprivation or unlearn many conditions (Rutter, 1972). 

In conclusion, without its flaws, behaviourism had set the course for psychology to become a science discipline. However, the issues as mentioned above triggered various concerns about behaviourism. On top of that, cognitive psychology’s emphasis on studying mental processes and cognitive activities such as memory, attention, problem-solving, and decision-making, paved the way for a more comprehensive understanding of the mind and behaviour. 

Published on 15/02/2023