PSYC 2230 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Reductionism, Psych, John Bowlby
3 Jan 2019
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We are going through the whole thing from the older studies - where psychology started to do experiments in motivation. 3 groups were given 1, 16, 256 pellets of food in the goal box after rats ran down alleyways. Then all groups were switched to 16 pellets. Running speed shifts rapidly when the condition of the reinforcement changed. How is motivation measured: speed - the one that only have one pallet, when they increased, they run faster. The one that 256 originally and now only has 16, motivation decreased, and ran slower. The amount of motivation influenced the behaviour. The larger reward group now getting smaller rewards slowed down in relation to the control group. The smaller reward group ran quicker than control. Conclusion: the behavior changed drastically when the amount of incentive changed. Hull (1943) assumed that change of incentive does not change motivation. Use reductionism - separating experiments into small variables, and they can use motivation.
