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.4 Their title, in effect, summarized the book.Theywere not interested in patterns of endogenous mental growth but infamilial patterns that predicted particular emotional and tempera-182 | Faithful unto This Lastmental outcomes.They brought one of the projects of the Yale groupto fruition by deploying a behaviorist version of Freudian theory.In social psychology, Leonard Berkowitz s work on aggression pro­vides a specific example of the introjection of ideas of a neobehavior­ist origin into the field.5 He deployed an emended version of the Yalegroup s frustration-aggression hypothesis.6 Richard H.Walters andhis associates used learning theory as an aid in explaining the processof socialization.Walters and Ross D.Parke summarized their positionas follows:  reported relationships between such variables as socialdeprivation, dependency, self-esteem, and various measures of socialinfluence can be largely understood in terms of (1) the eliciting andmodification of orienting and responding responses, and (2) the be­havioral effects of variations in emotional arousal. 7In the area of altruism, two theories deploying instrumentalist the­ories of motivation developed.Blau s social-exchange theory statedthat individual rewards provided the basis for social associations.8 Pil­iavin and his associates attempted to explain helping behavior interms of a cost/benefit analysis driven by a selfish desire to rid oneselfof an unpleasant emotional state.9 Typically, the unpleasant state wasnot characterized in any way.The exclusive use of a self-regardingmotive that was, at the same time, a negative drive was a classic useof a deficit theory of motivation.Ultimately, deficit theories of motivation found their expression insocial psychology in the theories of behavior exchange and equity the­ory, which thus played the same role as did drive-reduction theories ofmotivation in neobehaviorist animal science.In essence, behavior ex-change stated that people strove to increase their degree of satisfactionrelative to their degree of dissatisfaction.10 Equity theory also postu­lated that the essence of human nature was to be selfish, but went onto maintain that societies were controlled by mechanisms ensuringthat rewards and costs were assigned on a reasonably equitablebasis.11 Adherents of equity theory also differed from learning theo­rists in that they believed people undertook processes of rational com­parison with one another in order to decide whether there had beenan equitable sharing of particular rewards, whereas in almost allforms of learning theory it was assumed that both people and animalsautomatically strove to seek rewards, benefits, or advantages and toavoid pain, harm, or discomfort.Nevertheless, the assumption thatthe only or the overriding form of motivation was the desire to max-Faithful unto This Last | 183imize benefits and minimize costs meant that the two types of theorywere very similar.In terms of the shared beliefs of the protagonists re­garding the nature of motivation, the two theories were identical.Psychologists established their academic and intellectual prioritiesprimarily via the course in experimental psychology that formed theessential core of any good undergraduate curriculum until perhapstwenty years ago.Benton J.Underwood, one of Spence s former doc­toral students, wrote the most widely used text.12 In combination witha required course in statistics, the experimental psychology courseprovided the means whereby undergraduate students learned the corecontent of psychology and the rudiments of scientific method.On theone hand, method rather than content was emphasized, so that thesubject matter was of little intrinsic interest; its function was merelyto elucidate the various principles of experimental design.13 On theother hand, the content was not merely devalued; it was also highlycircumscribed.The second edition of Underwood s text contains 591substantive pages (that is, omitting the introduction, tables of randomnumbers, references, and index).Of this substantive portion, 46.2percent was entirely or almost entirely devoted to method (Under-wood did deal with perception and psychophysics, but he used thosetopics as means of illustrating various methodological principles),7.78 percent to reaction time, 33.5 percent to conditioning and learn­ing, 6.43 percent to memory, and 6.09 percent to thinking [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]