Skinner's Science Research Articles

SPECIAL FEATURE: KNOW YOUR COLLEAGUES—ROBERT DAMELIO AND CARL BINDER

SPECIAL FEATURE: KNOW YOUR COLLEAGUES—ROBERT DAMELIO AND CARL BINDER

Personal Accounts: On Being Possibly Sane in Possibly Insane Places

Personal Accounts: On Being Possibly Sane in Possibly Insane Places

Behavior analysis and ecological psychology: past, present, and future. a review of Harry Heft's Ecological Psychology in context.

Relations between behavior analysis and ecological psychology have been strained for years, notwithstanding the occasional comment on their affinities. Harry Heft's (2001)Ecological Psychology in Context provides an occasion for reviewing anew those relations and affinities. It describes the genesis of ecological psychology in James's radical empiricism; addresses Holt's neorealism and Gestalt psychology; and synthesizes Gibson's ecological psychology and Barker's ecobehavioral science as a means for understanding everyday human behavior. Although behavior analysis is excluded from this account, Heft's book warrants a review nonetheless: It describes ecological psychology in ways that are congruent and complementary with behavior analysis (e.g., nonmediational theorizing; the provinces of natural history and natural science). After introducing modern ecological psychology, I comment on (a) Heft's admirable, albeit selective, historiography; (b) his ecological psychology-past and present-as it relates to Skinner's science and system (e.g., affordances, molar behavior); (c) his misunderstandings of Skinner's behaviorism (e.g., reductionistic, mechanistic, molecular); and (d) the theoretical status of Heft's cognitive terms and talk (i.e., in ontology, epistemology, syntax). I conclude by considering the alliance and integration of ecological psychology and behavior analysis, and their implications for unifying and transforming psychology as a life science, albeit more for the future than at present.

Science and Human Behavior, dualism, and conceptual modification.

Skinner's Science and Human Behavior is in part an attempt to solve psychology's problem with mind-body dualism by revising our everyday mentalistic conceptual scheme. In the case of descriptive mentalism (the use of mentalistic terms to describe behavior), Skinner offers behavioral "translations." In contrast, Skinner rejects explanatory mentalism (the use of mental concepts to explain behavior) and suggests how to replace it with a behaviorist explanatory framework. For experiential mentalism, Skinner presents a theory of verbal behavior that integrates the use of mentalistic language in first-person reports of phenomenal experience into a scientific framework.

Science and Human Behavior: a tutorial in behavior analysis.

B. F. Skinner's Science and Human Behavior (1953) became the main source of my understanding of behavior during my first semester as a college professor in 1955 at Kansas University. It has continued to exert a major influence throughout my career as the basis for a completely deterministic science of behavior, as a handbook to be consulted as a first step in dealing with any issue in behavior analysis, and as a tutorial in behavioral interpretive analysis--in the use of a small number of behavioral concepts and principles to understand behavior of all degrees of complexity. I describe four general interpretive orientations or maxims that are of broad significance for behavior analysis, and also two underappreciated major theoretical contributions.

B. F. SKINNER'S SCIENCE AND HUMAN BEHAVIOR: ITS ANTECEDENTS AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

Skinner's Science and Human Behavior marked a transition from a treatment of behavior that took physics as its reference science to one that emphasized behavior as a fundamental part of the subject matter of biology. The book includes what may be Skinner's earliest statement about the similarity of operant selection to Darwinian natural selection in phylogeny. Other major topics discussed in the book included multiple causation, private events, the self, and social contingencies. Among the important antecedents were Skinner's own Behavior of Organisms and Keller & Schoenfeld's Pincinples of Psychology. Current developments in education, behavioral economics, and some behavior therapies can be attributed at least in part to Skinner's seminal work. The effective behavioral analysis of governmental and religious systems will probably depend on elaborations of our understanding of verbal behavior.

Behavioral science as the art of the 21st century philosophical similarities between B.F. Skinner's radical behaviorism and postmodern science.

Since B.F. Skinner's death in 1990, psychologists taking a historical approach are beginning to clear misconceptions of his philosophy: radical behaviorism. Contrary to the belief of many, radical behaviorism, continues to grow and branch into new areas. This paper attempts to explore the history of Skinner's assertions and place them within the context of contemporary western thought. Parallels are drawn between Skinner's science and diverse areas such as evolutionary biology and postmodern philosophy. The social construction of knowledge is one of the many lasting legacies of Skinner's work. Introduction Say what you like as long as it does not stop you from seeing how things are.... And when you have seen this there is plenty that you will not say--(Wittengstein, 1953) For many contemporary thinkers, the idea that Skinner's Radical Behaviorism and postmodernist philosophy of science are compatible would appear ridiculous, or at best superficial. After all both evolved from drastically different historical roots (Andresen, 1992) and some scientists have accused postmodern philosophers of being antiscience (i.e. Holton, 1993). For example, Lyotard's (1979) book The Postmodern Condition enjoys a special distinction for weaving together Postmodern art, with elements of the post structuralism philosophy, and a theory of postindustrial society. While the work has some clear seems, it is considered a good starting point. Lyotard attempts to define the postmodern by contrast to the modern: I will use the term modern to designate any science that legitimates itself with reference to a metadiscourse...making an explicit appeal to some grand narrative, such as the dialects of Spirit, the hermeneutics of meaning, the emancipation of the rational or working subject, or creation of wealth. Although Lyotard's statement holds for some postmodernists, much of postmodernism is not antiscience but rather the natural evolution of thinking following the discrediting of realism (Ross, 1996; Rorty, 1979, 1991). One can contrast the statement above with that of another recognized postmodernist Griffin (1988)physics no longer disenchants our stories; physics itself provides us with a new story which can become a common, unifying story underneath our more particular stories. (p. 15ff). As we will see central tenets of the postmodernism trend were factors that most contemporary sciences adopted in the early part of this century (long before even the word postmodernism was considered) with the notable exception of psychology and linguistics, which still seem to be dominated by realistic thinking and methodology. On the other hand, within psychology, Skinner has been wrongly described to epitomize the logical positivist movement. Some erroneously argued that Skinner was a realist, a theorist indistinguishable from other behaviorists (Paiget and Ingelder, 1969). However, this characterization fails to recognize Skinner's behaviorism as an attempt to what we come to know (Baum, 1994; Lana, 1991, 1995). Far from being a copy theorist, Skinner argued that all thinking is dynamic: even the experimenter's thinking is shaped by organism/environment interaction (Skinner, 1956). In postmodernist terms, Skinner was studying the building of Moscovici's (1987) virtual worlds. Brinker and Jaynes (1988) point out this precisely differentiates Skinnerian behaviorism from other behavioral theories. Few would disagree that B.F. Skinner has contributed much to psychological thinking of the 20th century. Historical recognition of Skinner's work is assured (Lana, 1991) with divergent fields such as anthropology (Glenn, 1988) and behavioral biology (Robinson & Woodward, 1989) readily discuss his writings. However, whether or not Skinner's ideas are fossils (Sutherland, 1990, cf. Richelle, 1995), as some have contended, will be left to history to judge. Our analysis of Skinner's work occurs because currently, the field of psychology must place its work within contemporary views of science, developing a greater contextual awareness of its historical roots (Richelle, 1995). …

The past and future of behavior analysis in developmental disabilities: When good news is bad and bad news is good.

Abstract This article provides a brief historical overview that outlines temporal contiguity of developments in both behavior analysis and developmental disabilities, illustrating how each has contributed to other. Consideration is then given to what successes and failures suggest for future. Behavior analysis has had a major impact in field of development disabilities. This is readily apparent from an examination of literature, where behaviorally-based interventions for individuals with developmental disabilities proliferate. This is also seen in curricula of training programs in special education which typically contain course content and textbooks on behavioral approaches; in number of advertisements for positions in developmental disabilities in which skill in behavior analysis is a qualification. More examples include results of litigation mandating provision of services based on behaviorally-based practices, and from policy, regulatory standards, and legislation regarding use of behaviorally based assessment and treatment in various situations (e.g., Reid, 1991). That's good news. On other hand, there have been, and continue to be, notable failures and sources of dissatisfaction. As will be discussed, that is also good news. It can therefore be useful to examine evolution, sources, and nature of this good news. This article, then, will (a) provide a brief historical account that outlines temporal contiguity of developments in both behavioral analysis and developmental disabilities, and (b) consider what successes and failures suggest for future. HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS AND DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES 1940s. Behaviorism began emerging as a philosophy following Skinner's The Behavior of Organisms (1938), as a result of dissatisfaction with tradition of seeking a solution for problems of behavior elsewhere than in behavior itself. (As a frame of reference, this development would have been described in parlance of times as the cat's pajamas.) At same time, a custodial model characterized field of developmental disabilities. Many individuals with mental retardation resided in institutions, where programs were directed almost entirely to providing basic physical care and general types of stimulation. Because persons with mental retardation were considered to be uneducable, systematic training was not provided. 1950s. Developments in this decade emerged from Fuller's (1949) study with a young man with profound mental retardation who did little except lie on his back with minimal movement, and who was thought incapable of learning. Fuller injected a warm sugar-milk solution into man's mouth following any movement of man's right arm and, within four sessions, man was moving his arm to a vertical position three times per minute. (To anchor it within a cultural context, Fuller would have been considered 66a cool cat.) Following Fuller's (1949) study and publication of Skinner's Science and Human Behavior in 1953, other researchers began to use methodology of experimental analysis of behavior to determine whether principles of behavior demonstrated by Skinner in laboratory were valid with humans. The Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behavior (JEAB) began in 1958 and published behavioral research (with both humans and other animals). Much of research that occurred with society's neglected and disenfranchised members contributed to development of behavior analysis as applied to humans but was not designed for any socially significant purpose. Thus, persons with disabilities and mental illness contributed more to behavior analysis than behavior analysis benefited them during this time. However, this development set stage for recognition that learning could occur and behaviors could be changed in individuals previously thought to be hopeless. …