Contingency Horizon: on Private Events and the Analysis of Behavior

Skinner’s radical behaviorism incorporates private events as biologically based phenomena that may play a functional role with respect to other (overt) behavioral phenomena. Skinner proposed four types of contingencies, here collectively termed the contingency horizon, which enable certain functional relations between private events and verbal behavior. The adequacy and necessity of this position has met renewed challenges from Rachlin’s teleological behaviorism and Baum’s molar behaviorism, both of which argue that all “mental” phenomena and terminology may be explained by overt behavior and environment–behavior contingencies extended in time. A number of lines of evidence are presented in making a case for the functional characteristics of private events, including published research from behavior analysis and general experimental psychology, as well as verbal behavior from a participant in the debate. An integrated perspective is offered that involves a multiscaled analysis of interacting public behaviors and private events.     

Radical behaviorism: A productive and needed philosophy for education

Radical behaviorism is the philosophy of the science of behavior originating in the work of B. F. Skinner and elaborated over the years by a community of researchers, scholars, and practitioners. Radical behaviorism is a complete, or thoroughgoing behaviorism in that all human behavior, public and private, is explained in terms of its functional relations with environmental events. Radical behaviorism is often misrepresented in the literatures of education and psychology. Two fundamental misconceptions of radical behaviorism are that its followers (1) are logical positivists who require that a phenomenon be observed by two or more people before it qualifies for scientific analysis, and (2) either will not or cannot incorporate private events (e.g., thoughts, feelings) into their analyses of human behavior. This paper offers an advocacy perspective on contemporary radical behaviorism. In particular, we define radical behaviorism and briefly outline the history of the term's use in psychological literature, discuss the scientific practice of behavior analysts, explain the intolerance exhibited by radical behaviorists, and comment on the use of popularity as a criterion for good science. The paper concludes with a discussion of the recent shift in educational research and practice from empiricism and outcome-oriented intervention toward a holistic/constructivist philosophy described by its advocates as incompatible with behaviorally-based instruction.     

Is talking to yourself thinking?

The question whether talking to yourself is thinking is considered from two viewpoints: radical behaviorism and teleological behaviorism. For radical behaviorism, following Skinner (1945), mental events such as ‘thinking’ may be explained in terms of private behavior occurring within the body, ordinarily unobservable by other people; thus, radical behaviorism may identify talking to yourself with thinking. However, to be consistent with its basic principles, radical behaviorism must hold that private behavior, hence thinking, is identical with covert muscular, speech movements (rather than proprioception of those movements). For teleological behaviorism, following Skinner (1938), all mental terms, including ‘thinking,’ stand for abstract, temporally extended patterns of overt behavior. Thus, for teleological behaviorism, talking to yourself, covert by definition, cannot be thinking.     

A Review of Baum's Review of Conceptual Foundations of Radical Behaviorism

Baum expressed numerous concerns about my Conceptual Foundations of Radical Behaviorism in his review. If his review were an independent submission and I were an independent referee, I would recommend that his review be rejected and that he be encouraged to revise and resubmit, once he has studied the field a bit more and clarified for himself and journal readers several important matters. I outline two sets of concerns that he might usefully clarify in his revision: (a) the important contributions of B. F. Skinner to a book about radical behaviorism, and (b) the nature of private behavioral events. In particular, the methodological behaviorism inherent in Baum's position needs to be resolved.     

What is Radical Behaviorism? A Review of Jay Moore's Conceptual Foundations of Radical Behaviorism

B. F. Skinner founded both radical behaviorism and behavior analysis. His founding innovations included: a versatile preparation for studying behavior; explicating the generic nature of stimulus and response; a pragmatic criterion for defining behavioral units; response rate as a datum; the concept of stimulus control; the concept of verbal behavior; and explicating the explanatory power of contingencies. Besides these achievements, however, Skinner also made some mistakes. Subsequent developments in radical behaviorist thought have attempted to remedy these mistakes. Moore's book presents a “party line” version of radical behaviorism. It focuses narrowly on a few of Skinner's concepts (mostly mentalism and verbal behavior) and contains no criticism of his mistakes. In fact, Moore adds a few mistakes of his own manufacture; for example, he insists that the mental realm does not exist—an unprovable and distracting assertion. The book's portrayal of behavior analysis would have been current around 1960; it mentions almost none of the developments since then. It also includes almost no developments in radical behaviorism since Skinner. Moore's book would give an unwary reader a highly distorted picture of contemporary behavior analysis and radical behaviorism.     

Modern Molar Behaviorism And Theoretical Behaviorism: Religion And Science.

Baum and staddon disagree on the status of internal states in behavior analysis. Baum advocates molar behaviorism, treating behavior in temporally extended segments and so avoiding the need for internal states. Staddon argues that internal states merely represent the effects of different histories and that their use brings behavior analysis in line with the established sciences. The dispute is one form of the age‐old molar—molecular controversy that characterized Aristotle's disagreement with Plato. Both molar and molecular analyses have their place, but molar behaviorism may apply more naturally to a variety of phenomena, ranging from the matching law and avoidance learning to socalled “higher mental processes.” When molecular analysis involves internal states, as in Staddon's Theoretical Behaviorism (or New Behaviorism), misunderstanding will be inevitable and behaviorism will be seen as one more instance of the mediational theories in which psychology has long been mired. Such theories have long dominated the physical sciences, where their usefulness is indisputable, but psychology is far behind the physical sciences and nonmediational molar behaviorism better suits a discipline that lacks the methods and the data of the established sciences.     

On privacy, causes, and contingencies

Radical behaviorism may be distinguished from other varieties of behaviorism, notably methodological behaviorism, by the way it accommodates private events in causal explanations of behavior. That is, in an operational sense, radical behaviorism accommodates private phenomena in the context of the three term contingency of reinforcement with regard to their discriminative function, their nature as responses, or their reinforcing function. In any case, any contribution of a private phenomenon is presumably linked at some point to a prior public event that has endowed the private phenomenon with its functional significance.     

SKINNER AS MISSIONARY AND PROPHET: A REVIEW OF BURRHUS F. SKINNER: SHAPER OF BEHAVIOUR

Do we need another book about B. F. Skinner? According to Frederick Toates, the answer is “yes” because “there is still much to be said” (p. vii) about Skinner. In his recent biography, Burrhus F. Skinner: Shaper of Behaviour (2009), Toates attempts to integrate Skinner into the mainstream of psychology by showing areas of commonality between Skinner''s radical behaviorism and subdisciplines within psychology such as cognitive, social, and biological psychology. Admirably, although in some instances understandably naively, Toates attempts to demonstrate the power of positive reinforcement to explain myriad complex behaviors, including a fairly lengthy interpretation of religious behavior. In addition, Toates credits Skinner for being ahead of his time on both social and environmental issues. Toates falters, however, in his insistence that behavior analysis still needs and can benefit from cognitive concepts. He nevertheless provides an otherwise objective and sympathetic view of Skinner the person and the behavioral science he helped to create in a book that should be informative for both behavior analysts and those outside the field.     

Studies in Binocular Interdependence: III. an Active Principle

Explanations of the nature of thought and the methods of study underlying such explanations were explored from the viewpoints of introspective psychology, methodological behaviorism, and radical behaviorism. Empirical support for the radical behaviorists' interpretation of thought as covert operant behavior was examined. An experimental method was developed which attempted to analyze the functional properties of responsereinforcement connections in the environment inside our skins. Verbal reports of the thought behaviors of a group of graduate students in educational psychology were examined and coded in terms of B. F. Skinner's verbal operant categories. The reported thought units were coded in relation to the environmental contexts in which they were reported, and in relation to the environmental contexts in which the thoughts had actually occurred. Major differences in the verbal operant codings, and in the interrater reliabilities of such codings were discovered depending upon the particular environmental context utilized. Results obtained by scoring the reported thought units in relation to the environments in which the thoughts actually occurred were congruent with the paradigm of operant behavior.     

Is Folk Psychology Different?

In this paper, I seek to refute arguments for the idea that folk psychological explanation, i.e., the explanation of actions, beliefs and desires in terms of one another, should be understood as being of a different character than ordinary scientific explanations, a view defended most prominently in analytical philosophy by Donald Davidson and John McDowell. My strategy involves arguing both against the extant arguments for the idea that FP must be construed as giving such explanations, and also against the very notion of such a different kind of explanation. I argue first that the in some sense a priori and conceptual nature of folk psychological principles does not support the idea that these are other than empirical generalisations, by appeal to recent nativist ideas in cognitive science and to Lewis's conception of the meaning of theoretical terms. Second, I argue that there is no coherent sense in which folk psychological explanations can be seen as normative. Thirdly, I examine the putatively holistic character of the mental and conclude that that too fails to provide any cogent reasons for viewing folk psychological explanations as different from other kinds of explanation.     

Adaptation, teleology, and selection by consequences

This paper presents and defends the view that reinforcement and natural selection are selection processes, that selection processes are neither mechanistic nor teleological, and that mentalistic and vitalistic processes are teleological but not mechanistic. The differences between these types of processes are described and used in discussing the conceptual and methodological significance of “selection type theories” and B. F. Skinner's radical behaviorist view that “operant behavior is the field of intention, purpose, and expectation. It deals with that field precisely as the theory of evolution has dealt with another kind of purpose” (1986, p. 716). The antimentalism of radical behaviorism emerges as a post-Darwinian extension of Francis Bacon's (and Galileo's) influential view that “[the introduction of final causes] rather corrupts than advances the sciences” (Bacon, 1905, p. 302).     

HOW SHOULD WE BEHAVE? A REVIEW OF REASONS AND PERSONS BY DEREK PARFIT

In this book Parfit attempts to develop a rational, non-religious ethics. Instead of asking, “What does God tell us to do?” he asks, “What does reason tell us to do?” Given a set of simple assumptions, he considers whether it is possible to be consistently selfish or consistently good. Analyses of personal dilemmas (problems of self-control) and moral dilemmas (problems of social cooperation) show that neither consistent selfishness nor consistent goodness is logically possible. Instead, a fine balance must be maintained between, on the one hand, our immediate versus long-term good and, on the other, our own good versus that of other people. Ultimately Parfit fails to develop a formula by which such a balance may be struck. Parfit''s analysis is consistent with behavioral analysis in its reductionistic view of the self and the parallel it draws between relations with other people and relations with oneself at other times. Parfit''s analysis is inconsistent with behaviorism in its view of the mind as internal, available to introspection, and able to cause behavior. His nonfunctional mentalism leads Parfit to inconsistencies and blocks the path to a consistent ethics. Teleological behaviorism''s view of the mind in terms of patterns of overt behavior is not hampered by these inconsistencies and may lead to a functional rather than purely rational ethics.     

Radical behaviorism and scientific frameworks. From mechanistic to relational accounts.

A substantial portion of B. F. Skinner's scholarship was devoted to developing methods and terms for a scientific study of behavior. Three concepts central to scientific accounts--cause, explanation, and theory--are examined to illustrate the distinction between mechanistic and relational frameworks and radical behaviorism's relationship to those frameworks. Informed by a scientific tradition that explicitly rejects mechanistic interpretations, radical behaviorism provides a distinctive stance in contemporary psychology. The present analysis suggests that radical behaviorism makes closer contact with the "new world view" advocated by physicists and philosophers of science than does much of contemporary psychology.     

B. F. SKINNER'S RADICAL BEHAVIORISM Historical Misconstructions and Grounds for Feminist Reconstructions

Feminist critiques of traditional psychological approaches have generated feminist revisions, most notably in psychoanalytic and develop mental theory. Although behaviorism has attracted strong objections from feminist critics, claims of its antithetical positioning vis-à-vis feminist theory construction have generally remained unchallenged. A preliminary step in formulating grounds for a synthesis is to clarify multiple meanings of behaviorism. Specifically, the fusion of Watson's methodological behaviorism and Skinner's radical behaviorism in the literature must be disentangled in order to address the latter's potential as a conceptual framework for constructing feminist theory. Key conceptual features of radical behaviorism that suggest its potential as a vehicle for building a feminist epistemology include: radical behaviorism's contextualistic world view, its interpretation of agency, its treatment of private experience and self knowledge, and its understanding of the pivotal functions of the verbal community.     

Behaviorism in 1942: A Précis of Tilquin's Le Behaviorisme: Origine et Développement de la Psychologie De Réaction en Amérique

Book-length treatments of behaviorism from a philosophical and historical perspective are few in number. Tilquin''s (1942) is one of these, but its publication in French during World War II and the limited number of available copies make for difficult access. In this paper, I summarize the contents of the book for a general audience of behavior analysts. Tilquin''s work is a useful tour of the behaviorism of its time, and most of the topics discussed in it remain relevant to behavior analysis.     

ALIVE AND KICKING: A REVIEW OF HANDBOOK OF BEHAVIORISM,EDITED BY WILLIAM O'DONOHUE AND RICHARD KITCHENER

Behaviorists have struggled and continue to struggle with basic questions about behavior, such as how to define behavior, how to talk about behavior in relation to environment, and what constitutes an adequate explanation of behavior. Skinner made huge progress on these questions, because of his emphasis on the generic character of stimuli and responses, his advocacy of rate as a datum, his introduction of stimulus control, and his reliance on selection by consequences as a mode of explanation. By no means, however, did he provide final answers. In particular, Skinner fell short because he never escaped from the limitations imposed by thinking in terms of contiguity and discrete events and because he never specified a useful role for theory. The 14 chapters in this book offer varying degrees of clarity on the ways in which behaviorists and behaviorally oriented philosophers dealt with basic questions in the past and are dealing with them in the present, post‐Skinner. They are reviewed individually, because they are uneven in quality. Overall, the book is a useful tool for gaining historical and philosophical background to behaviorism and for getting some idea of behaviorists' current directions.     

Behaviorism Makes Its Debut: A Review of Lattal and Chase's Behavior Theory and Philosophy

Behavior Theory and Philosophy, masterfully edited by Lattal and Chase, is a collection of 21 papers by major behaviorists, presented and discussed at a conference on the intersection of philosophy and behavior analysis held at West Virginia University in 2000. The chapters in Part I are devoted to philosophy of science (causality, constructs, theory, explanation, reductionism) and the relations among behavior analysis and several contemporary philosophical movements (humanism, empiricism, pragmatism, selectionism, analytic philosophy). Part II examines behavior‐analytic interpretations of mentalistic concepts (intention, imagination, ethics, cognition). Part III presents extensions and applications of basic research in behavior analysis (verbal behavior, creativity, development, education, disability, and corporate culture). The publication of this book signals that behaviorism has developed mature philosophical foundations.     

How Hume’s Philosophy Informed Radical Behaviorism

The present paper analyzes consistencies between the philosophical systems of David Hume and B. F. Skinner, focusing on their conceptualization of causality and attitudes about scientific behavior. The ideas that Hume initially advanced were further developed in Skinner’s writings and shaped the behavior-analytic approach to scientific behavior. Tracing Skinner’s logical antecedents allows for additional historical and philosophical clarity when examining the development of radical behaviorism.     

Erikson,psychology, and religion

The writings of the late Erik H. Erikson (1) have contributed directly to the psychological study of religion, (2) were amenable to the efforts of others to develop normative theological arguments, and (3) might be seen as themselves examples of contemporary, nontheological accounts of the religious dimension of human existence. This paper begins by reviewing the principal contributions that Erikson made to the psychological study of religion, followed by a review of the uses that have been made of Erikson's work for normative/constructive activities in such areas as practical theology and pastoral counseling. I will then argue that Erikson's writings — when viewed in the vein of William James's radical empiricism and functionalist accounts of human religiosity — identify an irreducibly religious dimension to normative human functioning. Erikson's functionalism constitutes a form of nontheological religious thinking that speaks directly to concerns presenting themselves in contemporary culture.