Interbehavioral psychology and radical behaviorism: Some similarities and differences

Both J. R. Kantor's interbehavioral psychology and B. F. Skinner's radical behaviorism represent wellarticulated approaches to a natural science of behavior. As such, they share a number of similar features, yet they also differ on a number of dimensions. Some of these similarities and differences are examined by describing their emergence in the professional literature and by comparing the respective units of analysis of the two approaches-the interbehavioral field and the three-term contingency. An evaluation of the similarities and differences shows the similarities to be largely fundamental, and the differences largely ones of emphasis. Nonetheless, the two approaches do make unique contributions to a natural science of behavior, the integration of which can facilitate the development of that science and its acceptance among other sciences and within society at large.     

Phenomenology,behaviorism and psychotherapy

Abstract

t “Everything begins with subjective states,” is the basic position of Phenomenology, and only through subjectivity imate reality be reached. Behaviorism, on the contrary, sees “mind” as part of the material world—the and behavior as determining man's essence (man is what he does). “Change,” which is the goal of every therapy, is attend by altering behavior which leads to changes in attitudes. The best way to alter beliefs is by controlling the behavioral cognition itself.     

Basic emotions, relations among emotions, and emotion-cognition relations.

From the cognitive theory perspective that emotions are cognition dependent and contain cognitive components, Ortony and Turner (1990) questioned the validity of the concept of basic emotions. They argued that the so-called basic emotions were neither psychologically or biologically "primitive" nor "irreducible building blocks" for generating the "great variety of emotional experiences." In the biosocial theory tradition, researchers have identified multiple noncognitive activators of emotion and demonstrated the usefulness of defining the essential components of emotion as phenomena that do not require cognitive mediators or constituents. In this framework, emotions are seen as basic because their biological and social functions are essential in evolution and adaptation. Particular emotions are called basic because they are assumed to have innate neural substrates, innate and universal expressions, and unique feeling-motivational states. The great variety of emotional experiences is explained as a function of emotion-cognition interactions that result in affective-cognitive structures.     

Lexical and conceptual factors in the naming of relations

Recent models of language production distinguish three main stages, the generation of a preverbal (or conceptual) message level representation, the stage of linguistic formulation processes (which access lexical items and generate the syntactic frames in which these items are inserted), and the stage of articulation. This means that at least two sources of difficulty in producing a lexical item must be distinguished. First, the difficulty can be due to properties of the message representation. So, for example, several concepts may compete for expression. Second, a given lexical item might be more difficult to access than another item because of differences in the complexity of the processes translating from conceptual to lexical representations. The present study presents evidence for these two sources of difficulty in producing lexical items for the domain of semantically unmarked versus marked dimensional adjectives (e.g., big versus small). The first set of experiments establishes an effect of semantic markedness in language production which is due to a difference in the difficulty of accessing unmarked versus marked lexical items. The second set of experiments shows that competition between concepts for expression can lead to incorrect selection of an (unintended) lexical item (as reflected in certain types of speech errors), or to a higher processing load for producing the correct (intended) lexical item. Together, these experiments support the distinction between a preverbal conceptual and a lexical level of representation in language production, and show that both levels contribute to the relative difficulty of producing lexical items.     

Common sense and psychological theories: The historical nature of logical necessity

The importance of common sense for psychological theories is construed as a limiting condition that must be transcended if a particular psychological theory is expected to have generalizability across cultures and over history. Discussion on the pages of this journal, initiated by Jan Smedslund in 1978, has brought the common-sensical nature of the majority of psychological theories into psychologists' focus of attention. Smedslund has attempted to explicate 'theorems' of common sense that underlie thinking and activities of human beings in a culture—and that are shared by laypersons as well as by psychologists. This article approaches the issue of common sense in psychological theorizing from a developmental perspective. This perspective emphasizes the process of emergence of qualitatively new cognitive phenomena in the course of cultural history. It is argued that the 'logical necessity' based on the 'theorems' of common sense is itself 'historical necessity', as it results from the history of human cultures. Smedslund's 'theorems' of common sense can only be formal, but not substantive, analogues of theorems in geometry, since the latter are ahistorical, whereas the former constitute products of the history of cultures and individuals.     

Meyer,Watson, and the dangers of behaviorism

Between 1908 and 1920 Adolf Meyer and John Watson were colleagues and quasicollaborators at Johns Hopkins University. This article investigates the relationship between the two men by focusing on three crucial episodes in the history of their association, culminating in the incident that forced Watson's departure from academic life. Throughout the article emphasis is placed on the significant differences, amounting at last to open conflict, between Meyer's functional approach in psychiatry and Watson's behaviorist doctrines.     

Relationships among shyness,social competence,peer relations,and theory of mind among pre-adolescents

The present study examined the relationships between shyness, a number of personal and interpersonal variables (i.e. social skills, self-esteem, attachment style, advanced Theory of Mind skills and peer relations) in a sample of 243 Greek pre-adolescents. Participants completed self-reports of the variables. Results indicated that females scored higher than males in all social skills, as well as on shyness. Males, on the other hand, reported more peer relations. Securely attached children reported more peer relationships and achieved higher scores in theory of mind tasks, than those insecurely attached, whereas the latter had higher scores in shyness. Children who reported few peer relations were more likely to obtain higher scores in shyness. Shyness was predicted by gender (girl), poor peer relations and insecure attachment. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for practice.     

On the historical and conceptual background of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test

In this paper, we describe the development of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). We trace the history of sorting tasks from the studies of Narziss Ach on the psychology of thinking, via the work of Kurt Goldstein and Adhémar Gelb on brain lesioned patients around 1920 and subsequent developments, up to the actual design of the WCST by Harry Harlow, David Grant, and their student Esther Berg. The WCST thus seems to originate from the psychology of thinking ('Denkpsychologie'), but the test, as it is used in clinical neuropsychological practice, was designed by experimenters working within the behaviorist tradition. We also note recent developments suggesting that, contrary to the general impression, implicit learning may play a role in WCST-like discrimination learning tasks.     

The role of work in psychological health and well-being: a conceptual, historical, and public policy perspective

The primary theme of this article, which serves as the introductory contribution of a special section of the American Psychologist, is that work plays a central role in the development, expression, and maintenance of psychological health. The argument underlying this assumption is articulated at the outset of the article in conjunction with a historical review of vocational psychology and industrial/organizational psychology. The article follows with an overview of contemporary vocational psychology and a presentation of the psychology-of-working perspective, which has emerged from critiques of vocational psychology and from multicultural, feminist, and expanded epistemological analyses of psychological explorations of working. Three illustrative lines of inquiry in which research has affected the potential for informing public policy are presented. These three lines of scholarship (role of work in recovery from mental illness; occupational health psychology; and working, racism, and psychological health) are reviewed briefly to furnish exemplars of how the psychological study of working can inform public policy.