There seems to be a continuing realization by psychologists that perhaps the white rat cannot reveal everything there is to know about behavior... However, psychologists as a whole do not seem to be heeding these admonitions....
Perhaps this reluctance is due in part to some dark precognition of what they might find in such investigations, for the ethologists Lorenz (1950, p. 233) and Tinbergen (1951, p. 6) have warned that if psychologists are to understand and predict the behavior of organisms, it is essential that they become thoroughly familiar with the instinctive behavior patterns of each new species they essay to study. Of course, the Watsonian or neobehavioristically oriented experimenter is apt to consider "instinct" an ugly word. He tends to class it with Hebb's (1960) other "seditious notions" which were discarded in the behavioristic revolution, and he may have some premonition that he will encounter this bete noir in extending the range of species and situations studied.
We can assure him that his apprehensions are well grounded.
What I need now are Marian Breland Bailey's thoughts on the instinctive behavior patterns of 13-year old boys.
No comments:
Post a Comment