oseCompare and Contrast the approaches of Skinner and Harlow to Investigating influences on behavior

Although Skinner and Harlow were investigating different Psychological traits, Learning and Attachment, respectively, their goal was the same; to find out what could be applied across species. Neither one was interested solely in Humans, or a specific animal group, but in studying specific animals hoped to discover broader universal truths. Their approaches to their research had two very different starting points, Skinner was a Behaviourist, he was only interested in evidence that could be Observed and believed in Determinism, the belief that all behavior is determined by the Past and that there is no such thing as Free Will. Harlow approached his research with the belief that Attachment behavior was Innate, present from birth. These two starting points are very different and in the following examples it can be seen to shape their research, but similarities can also be seen as it could be argued that both these approaches negated the belief in Free Will. Behaviour shaped by its consequences and alternatively by its predisposition. Skinner believed that Desired Behaviour can be influenced by changing the consequences of established behavioural patterns, in effect rewarding change by Positive Reinforcement, in this case by an animal receiving food for a task performed. In Skinners experiments with Rats and pigeons in a non distractive controlled environment, the Skinner Box, he could observe the change in the animals behavior as being re-inforced by the success of the animal in operating a simple device to obtain food. This is Instrumental Conditioning, the outcome being dependent on the action of the animal and aslo Operant Conditioning because the animal must operate something for anything to happen. There is an aspect of Free Will here, the animal could decide to do nothing, but this would need the animals free will to be stronger than hunger, which is not the case so free will could be argued as not being present. Emitted behavior, or behavior controlled by its consequences is apparent here. Conversely Harlow,s Attachment experiments with Monkeys did not require any Operant Conditioning, the animals did not need to do anything other than react to what was present. In this case a young monkey would be placed in the presence of 2 types of dolls, one made of bare metal and the other covered in soft fabric. The monkey only had to show a preference and chose the soft version. This type of Elicited Behaviour, controlled by a stimulus is also demonstrating an absence of Free Will. The monkeys innate behavior is simply triggered by a stimulus. Skinner also believed in Positive Re-inforcement, or behavior that would increase in frequency due to an action being rewarded. A reinforcer is dened simply by its capacity to reinforce. Conversely there can be Negative Re-inforcement where the removal of reward for an action will see its decrease in frequency. In one of his experiments he would decrease the number of times a reward was given for an action until the animal stopped the action completely. This is termed an Extinction. Harlow, after establishing that a baby monkey would innately choose a soft surrogate mother figure over a metal one, then decided to see what would happen if no surrogate was supplied and the monkey was simply placed in a bare room. This is similar to Skinners Extinction work with Negative re-inforcers except that in Harlows experiment the Negative re-inforcment was the absence of any stimuli apart

from a bare room. The results were similar. Skinners rat stopped performing an action and Harlows monkey eventually started to show abnormal disturbed behavior, or the absence of normal behavior. Both these experiments demonstrate a lack of Free Will in the animal subjects as the experiment can be successfully repeated on different animals. In Skinners approach to study, Operant Conditioning, where the animals behavior determines the re-inforcement , in this case food, and subsequently influences the following action. He was only interested in what could be observed and didnt speculate on what the animal might think. If the animal became better, faster, more accurate with a task and this followed the re-inforcement of the previous action, then this was evidence that his theory was correct. Harlows approach that the animal Innately knew certain responses from birth and that these could be triggered by the right stimulus and in this process he was not interested in the participation of the animal other than to respond to a stimulus. Again, both these approaches view the animal as having no real choice in the matter as what would be exhibited would be the result of what was already in place, innate response to stimuli and an Evolved Predisposition, or a behavior which will increase the animals chance of survival, in this case adapting behavior to obtain food. Both Skinner and Harlow used animals in their experiments. In this respect they had the same motivation. In using animals many possible influencing factors could be eliminated from the results. Cultural and Social influences, which would be present if humans were used were absent when using animals. To obtain as pure a result as possible they both chose animals, and Harlow originally wanted to use rats, like Skinner. They both saw this was the right approach, but both had different theories they wanted to prove. Harlow, could not have used humans in his deprivation trials due to Ethics, Skinner could have done but animals actually provided a better subject. Skinner did many variations of his experiments and some were designed to test whether an animal could be conditioned to abandon a behavior that it had learnt. By gradually reducing the success the animal experienced when pressing a lever to obtain food he found that eventually the animal would cease to perform an action, this would be an Extinction event. Harlow was also interested in whether he could destroy the innate stimulus response process, or make it Extinct. By taking a new born monkey and depriving it of the stimuli that would trigger these responses by placing it in a bare room, for as much as 18 months he hoped to show it could. This experiment alone also demonstrates why Harlow couldnt use Human subjects. Skinners approach was successful, but the animals exhibited increased aggression as result. Harlow proved that his experiment produced mental stress and behavioural problems, but when he re-introduced some of his deprived animals into a group of normal ones he also found behavioural problems existed. In some cases the influence of the normal monkeys did lead to repair of the innate responses. Skinner by reversing the Extinction process also showed that what could be learnt could be unlearnt and learnt again. So both these approaches produced very similar results and these results were

interpreted based on the starting point of the Psychologists involved and in this they were very different.