1940s: Spitz
Wikimedia contributors and Diana Lang
Figure 1. Old Royal Adelaide Hospital (Photo Source: Wikimedia, CC BY SA)
Spitz studied children who were evacuated and orphaned as a result of World War II to assess their reactions to separation, including the ability to cope by forming relationships with other children.
Results demonstrated that these children
experienced stunted development related to height, weight, motor functioning, emotions, relations, and affective expressions. Many forms of these overall developmental deteriorations were thought to be irreversible and some led to child deaths.
Spitz defined these “total affective deficiencies” as hospitalism and concluded that children who have at least six months of satisfactory relations with their mother could improve once the child was reunited with the mother; Spitz defined the latter as anaclitic depression and partial deficiency.
Most of this research was not published until after the war and only gradually contributed to the understanding of young children’s reactions to loss.5 Ultimately, these studies of young infants being separated from their maternal caregiver led to recommendations that children need responsive, nurturing caregivers for their overall well-being.
Key Takeaways
• Infants without warm, nurturing, supportive care and affection will develop anaclitic depression.
◦ When this type of care and affection are returned to infants within three to five months, the infant will most likely recover.
◦ When this type of care is denied to infants for more than five months, the infant’s anaclitic depression will continually worsen.
• Anaclitic depression can stunt development in height, weight, motor function, emotions, relations, and affective expressions.
• Hospitalism—a child’s reaction to total deprivation.
5. Freud, A., & Burlingham, D. T. (1943). War and children. Medical War Books.
40 | 1940S: SPITZ
Further Reading
Ainsworth, M. D. (1962). The effects of maternal deprivation: a review of findings and controversy in the context of research strategy. In M.D. Ainsworth & R.G. Andry (Eds.), Deprivation of maternal care (pp.
97-165). World Health Organization.
Spitz, R. A. (1946). Hospitalism: a follow-up report. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 2(1), 113-118.
1940s: Spitz by Wikimedia contributors and Diana Lang is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
1940s: Skinner
Open Stax and Diana Lang
B.F. Skinner: Operant Conditioning
Psychologist B.F. Skinner saw that classical conditioning is limited to existing behaviors that are reflexively elicited, and doesn’t account for new behaviors such as riding a bike.1 He proposed a theory about how such behaviors come about. Skinner believed that behavior is motivated by the consequences we receive for the behavior: reinforcements and punishments. His idea that learning is the result of consequences is based on the law of effect, which was first proposed by psychologist Edward Thorndike. According to the law of effect, behaviors that are followed by consequences that are satisfying to the organism are more likely to be repeated, and behaviors that are followed by unpleasant consequences are less likely to be repeated.2 Essentially, if an organism does something that brings about a desired result, the organism is more likely to do it again. If an organism does something that does not bring about the desired result, the organism is less likely to do it again. An example of the law of effect is employment. One of the reasons (and often the main reason) we show up for work is because we get paid to do so. If we stop getting paid, we will likely stop showing up—even if we love our job.
Table 1. Classical and Operant Conditioning Compared
Classical Conditioning Operant Conditioning
Conditioning approach
An unconditioned stimulus (such as food) is paired with a neutral stimulus (such as a bell). The neutral stimulus eventually becomes the conditioned stimulus, which brings about the conditioned response (salivation).
The target behavior is followed by reinforcement or punishment to either strengthen or weaken it so that the learner is more likely to exhibit the desired behavior in the future.
Stimulus timing
The stimulus occurs immediately before the response.
The stimulus (either reinforcement or punishment) occurs soon after the response.
Working with Thorndike’s law of effect as his foundation, Skinner began conducting scientific experiments on animals (mainly rats and pigeons) to determine how organisms learn through
operant conditioning.3 He placed these animals inside an operant conditioning chamber, which has
1. This chapter was adapted from OpenStax Psychology, and is used under a CC BY 4.0 license. Download for free at http://cnx.org/contents/4abf04bf-93a0-45c3-9cbc-2cefd46e68cc@12.2.
2. Thorndike, E. L. (1911). Animal intelligence: Experimental studies. Macmillan Company.
3. Skinner, B. F. (1938). Behavior of organisms. Appleton-Century-Crofts.
come to be known as a “Skinner box” (See Figure 1.). A Skinner box contains a lever (for rats) or disk (for pigeons) that the animal can press or peck for a food reward via the dispenser. Speakers and lights can be associated with certain behaviors. A recorder counts the number of responses made by the animal.
Figure 1. (a) B. F. Skinner developed operant conditioning for systematic study of how behaviors are strengthened or weakened according to their consequences. (b) In a Skinner box, a rat presses a lever in an operant conditioning chamber to receive a food reward.
Video Example
Watch this brief video clip to learn more about operant conditioning: Skinner is interviewed, and operant conditioning of pigeons is demonstrated.
In discussing operant conditioning, we use several everyday words—positive, negative,
reinforcement, and punishment—in a specialized manner. In operant conditioning, positive and negative do not mean good and bad. Instead, positive means you are adding something, and negative means you are taking something away. Reinforcement means you are increasing a behavior, and punishment means you are decreasing a behavior. Reinforcement can be positive or negative, and punishment can also be positive or negative. All reinforcers (positive or negative) increase the likelihood of a behavioral response. All punishers (positive or negative) decrease the likelihood of a behavioral response. Now let us combine these four terms: positive reinforcement, negative
reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment (Table 2.).
Table 2. Positive and Negative Reinforcement and Punishment