Psychology: "An Experimentally Produced Social Problem in Rats" 1939 O.H. Mowrer, Yale University

more at http://quickfound.net/

'An Experimentally Produced "Social Problem" in Rats 1939; Silent; B & W; 11 minutes. Produced by Dr. 0. H. Mowrer, Department of Psychology, Institute of Human Relations, Yale University. Description.-This film is a record of a laboratory experiment in which three rats are trained individually to "work" by depressing a lever which releases a pellet of food into a nearby trough. Eventually one rat does the work for all three and two become parasites; "a class society has emerged". Appraisal (1946).-This is an excellent film, up-to-date and strongly recommended for students in psychology and medicine, for specialists in psychology and psychiatry, and for scientific audiences generally. Suitable for other interested groups. Availability. - National Medical and Biological Film Library ($1.50). Purchase from the Psychological Cinema Register, Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pa.' Can Med Assoc J. 1959 Apr 15; 80(8): 684.

Originally a public domain film from the Library of Congress Prelinger Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orval_Hobart_Mowrer

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Orval Hobart Mowrer (January 23, 1907 – June 20, 1982) was an American psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Illinois from 1948 to 1975 known for his research on behaviour therapy. Mowrer practiced psychotherapy in Champaign-Urbana and at Galesburg State Research Hospital. In 1954 Mowrer held the position of president of the American Psychological Association. Mowrer founded Integrity Groups (therapeutic community groups based on principles of honesty, responsibility, and emotional involvement) and was instrumental in establishing GROW groups in the United States. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Mowrer as the 98th most cited psychologist of the 20th century...

During the late 1930s Mowrer began experimenting with the use of electric shock as a conditioning agent. At the time, most psychologists agreed with William James that fear (in this usage, synonymous with anxiety) was an instinctive response. Mowrer suspected fear was a conditioned response and designed a way to create fear in the laboratory. The unusually generous funding available at the institute allowed him to use human subjects for the first time. The subjects were attached to galvanic skin response recorders and to electrodes which could deliver an electric shock. They were then exposed to a light stimulus which was sometimes (randomly) followed by a shock. Mowrer discovered two unexpected phenomena. There was a substantial galvanic stress response to the first presentation of the light stimulus, before any shock had been administered. The anticipation was apparently more aversive than the shock, which would not have been predicted by traditional behavioral theory. Mowrer also noticed that after each shock the subjects experienced a marked degree of relaxation. Together with fellow psychologist Neal Miller, Mowrer gives his name to the "Miller-Mowrer Shuttlebox" apparatus.

Using animals in similar experiments, he found that a cycle could be produced in which the subject became more and more responsive to conditioning. He concluded that anxiety was basically anticipatory in nature and ideally functions to protect the organism from danger. However, because of the circumstances of conditioning, the degree of fear is often disproportionate to the source. Anxiety can be created artificially, and relief of anxiety can be used to condition other behaviors. Mowrer's term for the state of expectancy produced by carefully timed aversive stimuli was the "preparatory set," and it was foundational to his later thinking in both learning theory and clinical psychology.

In 1940 Mowrer became Assistant Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education...