1. Animal Psychology.
From the time of Darwin's
Origin of the Species (1859) and Expression of the
Emotions in Man and Animals (1872) there had
been
a growing interest in the behavior of animals, birds,
and insects
in order to test his hypothesis of the con-
tinuity between animals and man. In 1872, for instance,
Spalding had
studied swallows in order to determine
whether they learnt to fly by
imitation or whether they
had an inborn tendency to do so. Between 1879 and
1904 Fabre
had made a long series of observations on
insects to determine how much of
their behavior was
due to instinct. The thesis that intelligence is continu-
ous between animals and men was
examined by
Romanes, Lloyd Morgan, and Loeb on the basis of
observations of animal behavior. But the decisive step,
from the point of
view of the rise of behaviorism, was
taken when in 1896 E. L. Thorndike
introduced cats,
dogs, chickens, and monkeys into the laboratory and
carried out experiments on them in order to determine
how they learn. From
the gradual, though irregular,
improvements in the learning curves
Thorndike in-
ferred that the animals could not
learn by “insight”
or by reasoning. Imitation was
ruled out by experi-
mental controls.
“Trial and error” seemed the only
possibility left.
The animals, he suggested, went
through a variety of responses. Gradually
the unsuc-
cessful responses were
eliminated and the successful
ones were stamped in.
Thorndike believed that there were two basic laws
which explained this
process. The law of exercise
maintained that connections were strengthened
by use
and weakened by disuse; the law of effect maintained
that
connections, which were rewarded and thus led
to satisfaction, were
strengthened. This was not a par-
ticularly
original theory, as the principles employed
were a commonplace in the
associationist tradition.
What was original was his application of such
princi-
ples to the connections between
stimulus and response
and the experimental evidence from his
laboratory
which he provided to support his view.
Watson, significantly, started his academic career in
philosophy, but
switched to psychology during his
period of graduate study at the
University of Chicago,
and devoted himself to animal psychology. In
1908
he became professor of psychology at Johns Hopkins
University and
in 1912 he launched his polemic in some
public lectures which were
eventually published in
1914 in his book entitled Behavior. The vehemence
of his attack was to be explained partly
by his resent-
ment of the grudging and
slightly condescending atti-
tude of most
orthodox psychologists of the day towards
animal studies. Instead of
putting a reasoned case, as
did McDougall and Pillsbury, for the importance
of
animal studies and physiology for psychology, Watson
pointed a
derisive finger at the state of introspective
psychology.
“Today” proclaimed Watson “the behav-
iorist can safely throw out a real
challenge to the
subjective psychologists—Show us that you have
a
possible method, indeed that you have a legitimate
subject-matter” (Watson [1924], p. 17). This jibe was
occasioned
by the “imageless thought” controversy
amongst
introspectionists and other examples of diver
gent results obtained in different laboratories by well-
trained introspectionists. Watson
confidently asserted
that psychology could only become a science,
instead
of a debating society, if the methods were used which
had
proved so successful in animal laboratories.
