p.228 I now seem to have invented a quite normal title for it, to wit: "The Contribution of Rats to Human
Psychology."
In other words, what I really want to talk about is the simple, though somewhat
hackneyed, subject of the contribution of rat experiments to the understanding of human behavior. It would
seem that the ultimate goal of all psychologists (even rat psychologists) is the explanation of the behavior of human beings.
p.229 human behavior is always behavior in a social, or culture, context
[JLJ - this aligns with Shotter's "joint action" concept]
p.229 there are certain basic laws and principles which can still be studied more conveniently and with
just as much validity in rats as in men.
p.230 Thus, as such formal frames of reference, what we mean by intelligence is probability of success
in reaching goals: by motivation, probability of persistence in striving towards goals; and by emotional
stability, probable tendencies not to exhibit unacceptable divagations [JLJ - to wander or drift about] in the pursuit of
such goals. Intelligence is tendency to succeed, motivation is tendency to persist, and emotional stability is tendency not
to exhibit unacceptable divagations.
p.235 emotional stability... I defined it above as the tendency of the individual not to exhibit irrelevant
and unacceptable divagations in the pursuance of a given goal.
p.237 the formal laws about the causation and development of intelligence, motivation and instability are
universal in character and can be examined in rats just as well as, and far more conveniently than, in men.
p.237 there are, I believe, three basic types of causal determiner (to wit, stimuli, needs, and conflicts)
which may be thought to be the respective primary causes of our three variables. And the equations involving these determiners
and other factors... can be better studied in rats than in men.
p.237 The basic laws of intelligence concern the fact that successive re-presentations
of arrays of environmental stimuli arouse in an organism "sign-gestalt expectations" (as I originally called them)
or... more simply, "expectancies."
p.237 Thus an intelligence functioning (that is, a success functioning in the reaching
of a goal) is, as I see it, an expectancy on the part of the organism, aroused by that part of the
stimulus layout which is immediately presented, to the effect that such and such performances or behaviors (if carried out)
would be successful in reaching such and such a goal. These expectancies fundamentally are merely sets in the nervous
system aroused by environmental stimuli. In the case of human beings such neurally based expectancies are (as we know)
often accompanied by consciousness; but they need not be. And, in any case, their definition does not involve the
question as to whether or not they are conscious.
p.237 To sum up, the total causal factors underlying such expectancies are, as I see it:
(1) the presented environmental stimuli; (2) the heredity determinants of ability, whatever
they finally turn out to be; and (3) the laws of learning (i.e., sign-gestalt, or expectancy, formations).
And the operation of all these basic factors and laws can be as well studied in rats as in men
p.238 motivations are derived basically from the arousal of needs plus the added fact that... certain types
of goal objects get cathected by a given need. [JLJ - cathect: to invest emotional energy in (a person, object or idea)]
p.238 It now appears, further, that the basic laws concerning the arousal of needs - may likewise be successfully
studied in rats.
p.238-239 I am supposing that it is conflicts between two or more needs which a given culture will
declare to be symptoms of emotional instability... The individual is having to handle two (or it may be more) needs
at once and it is this which causes the "funny" behaviors.
p.239 it is still true that most of the formal underlying laws of intelligence, motivation, and
instability can still be studied in rats as well as, and more easily than, in men.
