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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
Understanding Behaviorism is a classic textbook that explains the basis of behavior analysis and its application to human problems in a scholarly but accessible manner.
- Now in its third edition, the text has been substantially updated to include the latest developments over the last decade in behaviour analysis, evolutionary theory, and cultural evolution theory
- The only book available that explains behavior analysis and applies it to philosophical and practical problems, written by one of today’s best-known and most highly respected behaviorists
- Explores ancient concepts such as purpose, language, knowledge, and thought, as well as applying behavioural thinking to contemporary social issues like freedom, democracy, and culture
- Part of the new evolutionary perspective for understanding individual behavior in general and culture in particular – culminates with practical approaches to improving the lives of all humanity
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Preface to the Third Edition
Acknowledgements
Part I: What is Behaviorism?
1 Behaviorism
Historical Background
Free Will Versus Determinism
Folk Psychology
Summary
Further Reading
Keyterms
2 Behaviorism as Philosophy of Science
Realism versus Pragmatism
Radical Behaviorism and Pragmatism
Summary
Further Reading
Keyterms
3 Public, Private, Natural, and Fictional
Mentalism
Category Mistakes
Private Events
Summary
Further Reading
Keyterms
Part II: A Scientific Model of Behavior
4 Evolutionary Theory and Reinforcement
Evolutionary History
History of Reinforcement
Summary
Further Reading
Keyterms
5 Purpose and Reinforcement
History and Function
Three Meanings of Purpose
Summary
Further Reading
Keyterms
6 Stimulus Control and Knowledge
Stimulus Control
Knowledge
The Behavior of Scientists
Summary
Further Reading
Keyterms
7 Verbal Behavior and Language
What is Verbal Behavior?
Functional Units and Stimulus Control
Meaning
Grammar and Syntax
Summary
Further Reading
Keyterms
8 Rule‐Governed Behavior and Thinking
What is Rule‐Governed Behavior?
Rule‐Governed versus Implicitly Shaped Behavior
Learning to Follow Rules
Thinking and Problem‐Solving
Summary
Further Reading
Keyterms
Part III: Social Issues
9 Freedom
Uses of the Word
Free
The Challenge of Traditional Thinking
Summary
Further Reading
Keyterms
10 Responsibility, Credit, and Blame
Responsibility and the Causes of Behavior
Responsibility and the Consequences of Behavior
What is Responsibility?
Summary
Further Reading
Keyterms
11 Relationships, Management, and Government
Relationships
Exploitation
Control and Counter‐Control
Summary
Further Reading
Keyterms
12 Values
Questions about Value
A Scientific Approach to Values
Summary
Further Reading
Keyterms
13 The Evolution of Culture
Biological Evolution and Culture
Variation, Transmission, and Selection
Summary
Further Reading
Keyterms
14 Design of Culture
Design from Evolution
The Experimental Society
Objections
Summary
Further Reading
Keyterms
Glossary
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 03
Table 3.1 Variants of Behaviorism.
Chapter 08
Table 8.1 A series of problems used by Luchins in his experiment on “mental set.” Each problem presents three jars of differing capacity (columns A, B, and C). The amount required (column D) has to remain in one jar after pouring water out of it into the others.
List of Illustrations
Chapter 03
Figure 3.1 Two “droodles.”
Chapter 04
Figure 4.1 Evolution by natural selection.
Figure 4.2 Four types of relations engendering operant behavior.
Figure 4.3 Shaping by reinforcement and punishment.
Figure 4.4 Parallel between natural selection and shaping.
Chapter 06
Figure 6.1 Tests of knowing how and knowing about in others and oneself.
Chapter 07
Figure 7.1 A verbal episode. S
D
S
is the context for the speaker’s verbal behavior, B
V
, which generates a discriminative stimulus, S
D
L
, that sets the occasion for the listener to act, B
L
, so as to provide the reinforcer, S
R
S
, for the speaker’s behavior B
V
. The speaker’s reinforcer serves also as a discriminative stimulus, S
D
R
, setting the occasion for a reciprocating response, B
R
, on the part of the speaker. This provides a reinforcer, S
R
L
, for the listener’s behavior B
L
.
Figure 7.2 The relationships among the categories verbal behavior, vocal behavior, and “using language.”
Chapter 08
Figure 8.1 The apparatus used in Galizio’s experiment. Each student sat in front of the panel shown. Turning the rubber handle 45 degrees avoided losses of money. Each completed handle‐turn produced a flash of the blue feedback light. Losses were signaled by a flash of the red loss light and a tone. Each amber light signaled a different loss‐avoidance schedule. The labels that sometimes served as instructions (rules) are shown in place.
Figure 8.2 The two reinforcement relations of rule‐governed behavior. Top: the relations in symbols. Both relations conform to the pattern: S
D
:B→S
R
. In the proximate relation, shown above, the S
D
, or rule, is produced by the verbal behavior of a speaker, B
V
, and induces the desired behavior of the listener, B, by virtue of its relation to proximate reinforcers, which are usually social—that is, provided by other people, often the speaker. The ultimate relation, shown below, is the reason for the proximate relation because it involves consequences (ultimate reinforcers) that are important but extended in time or obscure (symbolized by the longer arrow). The ultimate S
D
constitutes the natural context of the ultimate relation, the signs that should govern B if the ultimate relation took over. Bottom: an example of the relations. The speaker (say, a parent) tells the listener (a child) to wear shoes when going outdoors. This produces an auditory proximate S
D
(a rule), “Wear shoes.” If the child puts on shoes, this results in the proximate reinforcer of approval (or avoidance of disapproval) from the parent. The ultimate relation, which is important but obscure to the child relates putting on shoes to the ultimate reinforcer of good health (or avoiding illness) and, beyond that, likelihood of successful reproduction. The ultimate S
D
, which should come to control wearing shoes, consists of conditions such as sharp stones, cold weather, presence of parasites (e.g., hookworm), and so on.
Chapter 09
Figure 9.1 Coercion. The controller’s threatening behavior (B
T
) is positively reinforced as a result of the controllee’s compliance (B
C
), which produces the reinforcer (S
R
C
) that constitutes the controller’s goal. The controllee’s compliance (S
D
C
) induces the controller’s withholding punishment (B
W
) and is reinforced by preventing the threatened punisher, by negative reinforcement.
Figure 9.2 A reinforcement trap—a problem in self‐control, or a bad habit. Acting impulsively (B
I
; smoking) produces short‐term reinforcement (nicotine and social reinforcement) and long‐term major punishment (cancer, heart disease, and emphysema). The activity of self‐control (B
S
; refraining from smoking) produces short‐term punishment (withdrawal and social discomfort) and long‐term major reinforcement (health).
Chapter 11
Figure 11.1 General diagram of a social episode, showing mutual reinforcement. Arrows indicate behavior producing consequences; colons indicate stimulus control. The initiator’s behavior (B
O
) produces reinforcers (S
R
O
) as a result of the responder’s behavior (B
R
), which in turn produces reinforcers (S
R
R
) as a result of the initiator’s behavior (B
O2
). When such episodes repeat often enough, the two individuals are said to have a relationship.
Figure 11.2 An exploitive relationship. The exploited party’s behavior (B
R
) produces short‐term reinforcers for both parties (S
R
O
and S
R
R
), but leads to major unfavorable consequences (S
P
R
) in the long run (long arrow). The ultimate punisher (S
P
R
) is much larger than the short‐term reinforcer (S
R
R
).
Figure 11.3 Counter‐control. In both counter‐control by threat (top diagram) and counter‐control by promise (bottom diagram), the controller chooses between two relationships with the controllee, shown in the boxes to the right. Action B
O
on the controller’s part leads to a better long‐term relationship. Action B
X
leads to or continues a less favorable relationship. Counter‐control by threat occurs when the controllee generates a discriminative stimulus (S
D
C
) based on a long‐term major punisher (S
P
X
) for the controller’s engaging in B
X
. Counter‐control by promise occurs when S
D
C
is based on long‐term reinforcers (S
R
O
) for B
O
. Counter‐control is necessary when small immediate consequences (S
P
O
, S
R
X
, and S
R
X1
) tend to outweigh the long‐term consequences (S
P
X
or S
R
O
). As with other rule‐governed behavior, the controllee may be able to supply some short‐term reinforcers for B
O
(S
R
C
) that help to offset the short‐term consequences favoring B
X
.
Guide
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Synthesizing the principles of behavior analysis with contemporary understanding of evolutionary selection, Baum’s account progresses systematically from basic pragmatic behavior all the way to the practices that constitute human cultural values. The resulting book is a modern equivalent of B. F. Skinner’s ground‐breaking Science and Human Behavior.
— Philip N. Hineline, Ph.D.,Professor Emeritus, Temple University, andPresident of the Association for Behavior Analysis International (ABAI)
In clear, lively prose Baum’s book gives students as well as laypeople an understanding of the cutting edge of behavioristic thought. In this third edition, Baum embeds behavioral psychology even more firmly than previously in its proper setting—that of evolutionary biology. The book is actually an instrument (like a telescope or a microscope) through which the reader may observe human life as it really is, rather than as common sense (that which says the sun goes round the earth) tells us it is.
— Howard Rachlin, Ph.D.,Professor Emeritus, Stony Brook University
In some quarters in the human sciences the roles of reinforcement and punishment in shaping individual behavior and cultural evolution have been neglected. Understanding Behaviorism explains why this is a serious mistake.
— Peter J. Richerson, Ph.D.,Professor Emeritus, University of California Davis
A mainstay in my undergraduate learning course, Understanding Behaviorism is an excellent text covering the core concepts of both the philosophy of behaviorism and the science of behavior analysis. Dr. Baum provides a clear, accessible introduction that anyone interested in behavior analysis or psychology should read.
— Matthew Bell, Ph.D.,Associate Professor, University of California San Diego
What a thorough and highly intelligible piece of writing! By elucidating the bigger picture and the relation to its parts, this brilliant third edition truly facilitates understanding behaviorism and its relation to evolutionary theory. It will be my go‐to‐guide for many years of tuition and research to come.
— Carsta Simon,Doctoral Student, Oslo and Akershus University College, Norway
Understanding Behaviorism
Behavior, Culture, and Evolution
Third Edition
William M. Baum
This edition first published 2017© 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication data
Names: Baum, William M., author.Title: Understanding behaviorism : behavior, culture, and evolution / William M. Baum.Description: Third Edition. | Hoboken : Wiley, [2017] | Revised edition of the author’s Understanding behaviorism, c2005. | Includes index.Identifiers: LCCN 2016037028 (print) | LCCN 2016053251 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119143642 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781119143659 (pdf) | ISBN 9781119143666 (epub)Subjects: LCSH: Behaviorism (Psychology)–Textbooks.Classification: LCC BF199 .B33 2017 (print) | LCC BF199 (ebook) | DDC 150.19/43–dc23LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016037028
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover image: Crowd © AndreasKermann/iStockphoto
I dedicate this book to my mentor, Richard J. Herrnstein, without whose influence I could never have written it.
Preface to the Third Edition
In this revision, I aimed primarily to bring the book up to date, because advances have occurred in both behavior analysis and evolutionary biology. Accordingly, chapters 4, 12, and 13 are substantially rewritten. Other chapters received additional material that I deem helpful. Chapter 1 now has a section on the “standard narrative”—“I thought (or felt) X, and so I did Y”—and a section on Folk Psychology. Chapter 2 now has a rebuttal to the criticism of pragmatism that it cannot account for the “unreasonable success” of science. I added a summary table to chapter 3 that compares the views of methodological behaviorism, Skinner, Ryle, and Rachlin’s molar behaviorism. Chapter 4 now tilts more toward my own views of reinforcement, punishment, classical conditioning, and induction, bringing all together in a single framework with the concept of phylogenetically important events. I added an example of behavioral evolution more relevant to everyday life—work‐life balance. Chapter 12, on values, now includes Max Hocutt’s treatment of values and relates values more closely to human evolution. Chapter 13 is updated to include epigenetics, group selection, and cultural group selection as forces in cultural evolution. All chapters include many small corrections, additions, and improvements in terminology. In addition to “terms introduced” following each chapter, I have added a glossary of all terms introduced in the book.
Acknowledgements
First of all, I thank Matt Bell for all the helpful feedback he provided from his own readings and his students’. Table 3.1 was their idea. Pete Richerson gave me many helpful comments on drafts of chapters 12 and 13. My student Carsta Simon also gave me helpful comments. Some colleagues helped me indirectly by clarifying my understanding of selection as a general process as embodied in the Price equation: Karthik Panchanathan and Richard McElreath. I thank my wife Ellen for her unfailing support, and, for their support and inspiration, I thank my children Shona, Aaron, Zack, Naomi, and Gideon and their significant others Paver, Laura, Alice, and Erin.
Part IWhat is Behaviorism?
Behaviorism has been a controversial topic. Some objections arise from correct understanding, but misconceptions about behaviorism abound. The three chapters in this part aim to clarify what might be called the “philosophical stance” of behaviorism.
All that is genuinely controversial about behaviorism stems from its primary idea, that a science of behavior is possible. At some point in its history, every science has had to exorcise imagined causes (hidden agents) that supposedly lie behind or under the surface of natural events. Chapter 1 explains how behaviorists’ denial of hidden agents leads to a genuine controversy, the question of whether behavior is free or determined.
Chapter 2 aims to forestall misconceptions that may arise because behaviorism has changed over time. An earlier version, called methodological behaviorism, was based on realism, the view that all experience is caused by an objective, real world outside of and apart from a person’s subjective, inner world. Realism may be contrasted with pragmatism, which is silent about the origin of experience, but points instead to the usefulness of trying to understand and make sense out of our experiences. A later version of behaviorism, called radical behaviorism, rests on pragmatism, rather than on realism. Anyone failing to understand this difference is likely to misunderstand the critical aspect of radical behaviorism, its rejection of mentalism.
The behaviorists’ critique of mentalism, explained in chapter 3, underlies the remainder of the book, because it requires behaviorists to suggest nonmentalistic explanations of behavior (Part II) and nonmentalistic solutions to social problems (Part III).
1Behaviorism: Definition and History
The central idea in behaviorism can be stated simply: A science of behavior is possible. Behaviorists have diverse views about what this proposition means, and particularly about what science is and what behavior is, but every behaviorist agrees that there can be a science of behavior.
Many behaviorists add that the science of behavior should be psychology. This causes contention because many psychologists reject the idea that psychology is a science at all, and others who regard it as a science consider its subject matter something other than behavior. Most behaviorists have come to call the science of behavior behavior analysis. The debate continues as to whether behavior analysis is a part of psychology, the same as psychology, or independent of psychology, but professional organizations, such as the Association for Behavior Analysis, and journals, such as The Behavior Analyst, Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, and Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, give the field an identity.
Since behaviorism is a set of ideas about this science called behavior analysis, not the science itself, properly speaking behaviorism is not science, but philosophy of science. As philosophy about behavior, however, it touches topics near and dear to us: why we do what we do, and what we should and should not do. Behaviorism offers an alternative view that often runs counter to traditional thinking about action, because traditional views have been unscientific. We shall see in later chapters that it sometimes takes us in directions radically different from conventional thinking. This chapter covers some of the history of behaviorism and one of its most immediate implications, determinism.
Historical Background
From Philosophy to Science
All the sciences—astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology—had their origins in, and eventually broke free from, philosophy. Before astronomy and physics existed as sciences, for example, philosophers speculated about the arrangement of the natural universe by starting from assumptions about God or some other ideal standard and reasoning to conclusions about the way the universe must be. For example, if all important events seemed to occur on the Earth, then the Earth must be the center of the universe. Since a circle is the most perfect shape, the sun must travel about the Earth in a circular orbit. The moon must travel in another, closer, circular orbit, and the stars must be in a sphere, the most perfect three‐dimensional form, around the whole. (To this day, the sun, the moon, and the stars are called heavenly bodies, because they were supposed to be perfect.)
The sciences of astronomy and physics were born when individuals began trying to understand natural objects and phenomena by observing them. When Galilei Galileo (1564–1642) trained a telescope on the moon, he observed that its crater‐scarred landscape was far from the perfect sphere the philosophers supposed it to be. Contributing to physics also, Galileo recorded the motion of falling objects by rolling a ball down a chute. In describing his findings, Galileo helped invent the modern notions of velocity and acceleration. Isaac Newton (1642–1727) added concepts like force and inertia to create a powerful descriptive scheme for understanding motions of bodies on the Earth as well as heavenly bodies such as the moon.
In creating the science of physics, Galileo, Newton, and other thinkers of the Enlightenment broke with philosophy. Philosophy reasons from assumptions to conclusions. Its arguments take the form, “If this were so, then that would be so.” Science proceeds in the opposite direction: “This is observed; what could be true that would lead to such an observation, and what other observations would it lead to?” Philosophical truth is absolute; as long as the assumptions are spelled out and the reasoning is correct, the conclusions must follow. Scientific truth is always relative and provisional; it is relative to observation and susceptible to disconfirmation by new observations. For a long time, astronomers thought there were only seven planets, but then an eighth and a ninth were discovered. Philosophical assumptions concerned abstractions beyond the natural universe: God, harmony, ideal shapes, and so on. Scientific assumptions used in theory‐building concern only the natural universe and the way it might be organized. Though Newton was a theologian as well as a physicist, he separated the two activities. About physics, he said, “Hypotheses non fingo” (“I do not make up hypotheses“), meaning that when studying physics he had no concern for any supernatural entities or principles—that is, for anything outside the natural universe itself. The reason the ocean has tides is not God’s will but the gravitational pull of the moon as it revolves around the Earth.
As well as physics, the ancient Greeks speculated about chemistry. Philosophers such as Heraclitus, Empedocles, and Aristotle speculated that matter varied in its properties because it was endowed with certain qualities, essences, or principles. Aristotle suggested four qualities: hot, cold, wet, and dry. If a substance was a liquid, it possessed more of the wet quality; if a solid, more of the dry. As centuries passed, the list of qualities or essences lengthened. Things that grew hot were said to possess the inner essence caloric. Materials that burned were said to possess phlogiston. These essences were considered real substances hidden somewhere within the materials. When thinkers turned away from speculation about hidden essences and began making and inter‐relating careful observations of material change, chemistry was born. Antoine Lavoisier (1743–1794), among others, developed the concept of oxygen from the careful observation of weights. Lavoisier found that when the metal lead is burned and transformed into a yellow powder (lead oxide) in a closed vessel, the powder weighs more than the original metal, and yet the entire vessel retains the same weight. Lavoisier reasoned that this could occur if the metal combined with some material in the air. Such an explanation contained only natural terms; it left out the hidden essences suggested by philosophy and established chemistry as a science.
Biology broke with philosophy and theology in the same way. Philosophers reasoned that if living and nonliving things differed, that was because God had given something to the living things He had not given to the nonliving. Some thinkers considered this inner thing to be a soul; others called it vis viva (life force). In the seventeenth century, early physiologists began looking inside animals to see how they worked. William Harvey (1578–1657) found what seemed more like the workings of a machine than some mysterious life force. It appeared that the heart functioned like a pump, circulating the blood through the arteries and tissues and back through the veins. As in physics and chemistry, such reasoning left out the hypothetical assumptions of the philosophers and referred only to observations of natural phenomena.
When Charles Darwin (1809–1882) published his theory of evolution by natural selection in 1859, it created a furor. Some people were offended because the theory went against the Biblical account of God creating all the plants and animals in a few days. Darwin even shocked some geologists and biologists. Familiar with the overwhelming fossil evidence of the rise and extinction of many species, these scientists were already convinced that evolution occurred. Yet although they no longer took the Biblical creation account literally, some of them still regarded the creation of life (hence, evolution) as the work of God. They were no less offended by Darwin’s theory of natural selection than were those who took the Biblical account literally.
Darwin’s theory impressed his contemporaries because it offered an account of the creation of life forms that left out God or any other nonnatural force. Natural selection is a purely mechanical process. If creatures vary, and the variation is inherited, then any reproductive advantage enjoyed by one type will cause that type to replace all competitors. Modern evolutionary theory arose in the first half of the twentieth century when the idea of natural selection was combined with the theory of genetic inheritance. This theory continues to arouse objections because of its godless naturalism.
Just as astronomy, physics, chemistry, physiology, and evolutionary biology broke with philosophy, so psychology broke with philosophy. Psychology’s break was relatively recent. Until the 1940s few universities had a separate department of psychology, and professors of psychology were usually to be found in the philosophy department. If evolutionary biology, with its roots in the mid‐1800s, is still completing its break with theological and philosophical doctrine, it is no surprise that today psychologists still debate among themselves about the implications of calling psychology a true science, and that laypeople are only beginning to learn what a truly scientific psychology might mean in practice.
In the last half of the nineteenth century, psychologists began to call psychology the “science of mind.” The Greek word psyche means something more like “spirit,” but mind seemed less speculative and more amenable to scientific study. How to study the mind? Psychologists proposed to adopt the method of the philosophers: introspection. If the mind were a sort of a stage or arena, then one could look inside it and see what was going on; that is the meaning of the word introspect. This is a difficult task, and particularly so if one is trying to gather reliable scientific facts. Nineteenth‐century psychologists thought that this difficulty might be overcome with enough training and practice. Two lines of thought, however, combined to undermine this view: objective psychology and comparative psychology.
Objective Psychology
Some nineteenth‐century psychologists were uneasy with introspection as a scientific method. It seemed too unreliable, too open to personal bias, too subjective. Other sciences used objective methods which produced measurements that could be checked and duplicated in laboratories around the world. If two trained introspectors disagreed over their findings, the conflict would be hard to resolve; with objective methods, however, one might note differences in procedure that could produce different results.
One of the early pioneers in objective psychology was the Dutch psychologist F. C. Donders (1818–1889), who was inspired by an intriguing astronomy problem: how to arrive at the exact time when a star is in a certain position in the sky. When a star is viewed through a powerful telescope, it appears to travel at considerable speed. Astonomers trying to make accurate time measurements were having difficulty estimating to the fraction of a second. An astronomer would listen to a clock ticking once a second while watching a star, and count ticks. As the star crossed a line marked in the telescope (the “moment of transit”), the astronomer would mentally note its position at the tick just before transit, mentally note its position at the tick just after transit, and then estimate the fraction of the distance between the two positions that lay between the position just before transit and the line. The problem was that different astronomers watching the same moment of transit obtained different time estimates. The astronomers tried to get around this variation by finding an equation, called the “personal equation,” for each astronomer that would compute the correct time from the particular astronomer’s time estimates.
Donders reasoned that the time estimates varied because no two astronomers took the same time to judge the exact moment of transit, and he believed they were actually making their judgments by different mental processes. Donders thought that this “judgment time” might be a useful objective measure. He began doing experiments in which he measured people’s reaction times—the times required to detect a light or sound and then press a button. He found that it took a certain reliable amount longer to press the correct one of two buttons when one or the other of two lights came on than to press a single button when a single light came on. By subtracting the shorter simple reaction time from the longer choice reaction time, Donders argued that one could objectively measure the mental process of choice. This seemed a great advance over introspection because it meant that psychologists could do laboratory experiments with the same objective methods as the other sciences.
Other psychologists developed other methods that seemed to measure mental processes objectively. Gustav Fechner (1801–1887) attempted to measure subjective intensity of sensation by developing a scale based on the just‐noticeable difference—the physical difference between two lights or sounds that a person could just detect. Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850–1909) measured the time it took him to learn and later relearn lists of nonsense syllables—consonant‐vowel‐consonant combinations with no meaning—to produce objective measures of learning and memory. Others used the method developed by I. P. Pavlov (1849–1936) to study learning and association by measuring a simple reflex transferring to new signals arranged in the laboratory. These attempts held the common promise that by following objective methods psychology could become a true science.
Comparative Psychology
At the same time that psychologists were trying to make psychology an objective science, psychology was also being influenced by the theory of evolution. No longer were human beings seen as separate from other living things. The recognition was growing that not only do we share anatomical traits with apes, monkeys, dogs, and even fish, but we share with them also many behavioral traits.
Thus arose the notion of the continuity of species—the idea that even if species clearly differ from one another, to the extent that they share a common evolutionary history, they also resemble one another. Darwin’s theory taught that new species came into existence only as modifications of existing species. If our species evolved like any other species, then it too must have arisen as a modification of some other species. It was easy to see that we and the apes shared common ancestors, that apes and monkeys shared common ancestors, that monkeys and tree shrews shared common ancestors, that tree shrews and reptiles shared common ancestors, and so on.
Comparative thinkers reasoned that, just as we could see the origins of our own anatomical traits in other species, so we could see the origins of our own mental traits. Thus the notion of making comparisons among species in order to learn more about our own, coupled with the assumption that our mental traits would appear in other species in simpler or rudimentary form, gave rise to comparative psychology.
Comparisons between our species and others became common. Darwin himself wrote a book called The Expression of the Emotions in Men and Animals. At first, evidence of seemingly human mentality in other animals consisted of casual observations of wild and domestic creatures, often just anecdotes about pets or farm animals. With a little imagination one could see a dog that learned to open the garden gate by lifting the latch as having observed and reasoned from its owner’s example. One could imagine further that the dog’s sensations, thoughts, feelings, and so on must resemble ours. George Romanes (1848–1894) took this line of reasoning to its logical conclusion, even claiming that our own consciousness must form the basis of our guesses at whatever dim consciousness occurs in ants.
This “humanizing the beast” or anthropomorphism seemed too speculative to some psychologists. In the last part of the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century, comparative psychologists began to replace the loose anecdotal evidence with rigorous observation by conducting experiments with animals. Much of this early research relied on mazes, because any creature that moves about, from human to rat to fish to ant, can be trained to solve a maze. One could measure the time the creature took to traverse the maze and the number of errors it made, and one could see these decline as the maze was learned. Carrying on the attempt to humanize the beast, these early researchers frequently added speculations about the animals’ mental states, thoughts, and emotions. Rats were said to show disgust on making an error, confusion, hesitation, confidence, and so on.
The problem with these claims about animal consciousness was that they depended too much on individual bias. If two people introspecting could disagree over whether they were feeling angry or sad, two people could disagree even more over whether a rat was feeling angry or sad. Since the observations were so subjective, making more observations was no help in resolving either disagreement. John B. Watson (1879–1958), the founder of behaviorism, considered inferences about consciousness in animals to be even less reliable than introspection and concluded that neither could serve as the method of a true science.
Early Behaviorism
In 1913, Watson published the article “Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It,” soon considered the manifesto of early behaviorism. Taking his lead from objective psychology, he articulated the growing unease among psychologists over introspection and analogy as methods. He complained that introspection, unlike methods in physics or chemistry, depended too much on the individual:
If you fail to reproduce my findings … it is due to the fact that your introspection is untrained. The attack is made upon the observer and not upon the experimental setting. In physics and in chemistry the attack is made upon the experimental conditions. The apparatus was not sensitive enough, impure chemicals were used, etc. In these sciences a better technique will give reproducible results. Psychology is otherwise. If you can’t observe 3–9 states of clearness in attention, your introspection is poor. If, on the other hand, a feeling seems reasonably clear to you, your introspection is again faulty. You are seeing too much. Feelings are never clear.
(p. 163)
If introspection was unreliable, analogies between animals and humans were even more so. Watson complained that the emphasis on consciousness forced him into
the absurd position of attempting to construct the conscious content of the animal whose behavior we have been studying. On this view, after having determined our animal’s ability to learn, the simplicity or complexity of its methods of learning, the effect of past habit upon present response, the range of stimuli to which it ordinarily responds, the widened range to which it can respond under experimental conditions,—in more general terms, its various problems and its various ways of solving them,—we should still feel that the task is unfinished and that the results are worthless, until we can interpret them by analogy in the light of consciousness … we feel forced to say something about the possible mental processes of our animal. We say that, having no eyes, its stream of consciousness cannot contain brightness and color sensations as we know them,—having no taste buds this stream can contain no sensations of sweet, sour, salt and bitter. But on the other hand, since it does respond to thermal, tactual and organic stimuli, its conscious content must be made up largely of these sensations…Surely this doctrine which calls for an analogical interpretation of all behavior data may be shown to be false.
(pp. 159–160)
Psychologists trapped themselves into such fruitless efforts, Watson argued, because of their definition of psychology as the science of consciousness. This definition was to blame for the unreliable methods and baseless speculations. It was to blame for psychology’s failure to become a true science.
Instead, Watson wrote, psychology should be defined as the science of behavior. He described his disappointment when, seeing psychology defined by Pillsbury at the beginning of a textbook as the science of behavior, he found that after a few pages the book ceased referring to behavior and reverted instead to the “conventional treatment” of consciousness. In reaction, Watson wrote, “I believe we can write a psychology, define it as Pillsbury, and never go back upon our definition: never use the terms consciousness, mental states, mind, content, introspectively verifiable, imagery, and the like” (p. 166).
Avoiding the terms relating to consciousness and mind would free psychologists to study both human and animal behavior. If continuity of species could lead to “humanizing the beast,” it could equally well lead to the opposite (bestializing the human?); if ideas about humans could be applied to animals, principles developed by studying animals could be applied to humans. Watson argued against anthropocentrism. He pointed to the biologist studying evolution, who “gathers his data from the study of many species of plants and animals and tries to work out the laws of inheritance in the particular type upon which he is conducting experiments … It is not fair to say that all of his work is directed toward human evolution or that it must be interpreted in terms of human evolution” (Watson, 1913, p. 162). To Watson, the way seemed clear to turn psychology into a general science of behavior that covered all species, with humans as just one of the species.
This science of behavior Watson envisioned would use none of the traditional terms referring to mind and consciousness, would avoid the subjectivity of introspection and animal‐human analogies, and would study only objectively observable behavior. Yet even in Watson’s own time, behaviorists debated over the correctness of this recipe. It was unclear what objective meant or exactly what constituted behavior. Since these terms were left open to interpretation, behaviorists’ ideas about what constitutes science and how to define behavior have varied.
Of post‐Watsonian behaviorists, the best known is B. F. Skinner (1904–1990). His ideas of how to achieve a science of behavior contrasted sharply with those of most other behaviorists. Whereas the others focused on natural‐science methods, such as measurement and experimental control, Skinner focused on scientific explanation. He argued that the way to a science of behavior lay through development of terms and concepts that would allow truly scientific explanations. He labeled the opposing view methodological behaviorism and styled his own view radical behaviorism. We will discuss these more in chapters 2 and 3.
Whatever their disagreements, all behaviorists agree with Watson’s basic premises that there can be a natural science of behavior and that psychology could be that science. The idea that behavior can be treated scientifically implies that, just as the other sciences cast out hidden essences, forces, and causes, so behavior analysis (or psychology if they are the same) omits such mysterious factors. This omission raises controversy paralleling the reaction to Darwin’s naturalistic account of evolution. Whereas Darwin offended by leaving out the hidden hand of God, behaviorists offend by leaving out another hidden force: the power of individuals to direct their own behavior. Just as Darwin’s theory challenged the cherished idea of God the creator, so behaviorism challenges the cherished idea of free will. We will discuss hidden causes more fully in chapter 3, but because the challenge to free will often arouses antagonism, we take it up now.
Free Will Versus Determinism
Definitions
The idea that a science of behavior is possible implies that behavior, like any scientific subject matter, is orderly, can be explained, with the right knowledge can be predicted, and with the right means can be controlled. This is determinism, the notion that behavior is determined solely by heredity and environment.
Many people find determinism objectionable. It appears to run counter to long‐standing cultural traditions that assign the responsibility for action to the individual, rather than to heredity and environment. These traditions have changed to some extent: delinquency is blamed on bad environment; famous artists acknowledge debts to parents and teachers; and some behavioral traits, such as alcoholism, schizophrenia, handedness, and IQ, are acknowledged to have a genetic component. Yet the tendency remains to assign credit and blame to individuals, to assert that behavior depends not just on heredity and environment but on something more, that people have freedom to choose their actions.
The name for the ability to choose is free will. It implies a third element besides heredity and environment, something within the individual. It asserts that despite inheritance and despite all environmental impacts, a person who behaves one way could have chosen to behave another way. It asserts something beyond merely experiencing that one has choice—it could seem to me that I can eat the ice cream or not, and yet my eating the ice cream could be entirely determined by past events. Free will asserts that choice is no illusion, that individuals themselves cause behavior.
Philosophers have tried to reconcile determinism and free will. Positions have emerged called “soft determinism” and “compatibilist” theories of free will. A soft determinism attributed to Donald Hebb (a behaviorist; see Sappington, 1990), for example, holds that free will consists of behavior’s dependence on inheritance and past environmental history, factors less visible than one’s present environment. But, since such a view still considers behavior to result solely from inheritance and environment, past and present, it implies that free will is only an experience, an illusion, and not a causal relation between person and action. A compatibilist theory of free will proposed by philosopher Daniel Dennett defines free will as deliberation before action (Dennett, 1984). As long as I deliberate over eating the ice cream (Will it make me fat? Could I offset its effects with exercise later? Can I be happy if I am always dieting?), my eating the ice cream is freely chosen. This is compatible with determinism because deliberation itself is behavior that might be determined by heredity and past environment. If deliberation plays any role in the behavior that follows, it would act only as a link in a chain of causality extending back into earlier events. This definition, however, deviates from what people conventionally mean by free will.
Philosophers call the conventional idea of free will—the idea that choice really can be free of past events—libertarian free will. Any other definition, like those of Hebb and Dennett, that is compatible with determinism presents no problem for behaviorism or a science of behavior. Only libertarian free will conflicts with behaviorism. The history of the concept in Jewish and Christian theology suggests that it exists precisely in order to deny the sort of determinism that behaviorism represents. Parting with the philosophers, therefore, we will refer to libertarian free will as “free will.”
Arguments For and Against Free Will
Proving free will (in other words, disproving determinism) would require that an act go counter to prediction even though every possible contributing factor is known. Since such perfect knowledge is impossible in practice, the conflict between determinism and free will can never be resolved by evidence. If it seems that middle‐class children from good homes who become drug addicts must have chosen freely to do so because nothing in their backgrounds would account for the behavior, the determinist can insist that further investigation would reveal the genetic and environmental factors that lead to such addictions. If it seems that Mozart’s musical career was entirely predictable on the basis of his family background and the way society in Vienna worked in his day, the free‐will advocate can insist that little Wolfgang freely chose to please his parents with musical efforts rather than to play with toys like the other children. If evidence cannot persuade, then whether a person accepts determinism or free will may depend on the consequences of believing one or the other, and these may be social or aesthetic.
Social Arguments
Practically, it appears that denial of free will might undermine the whole moral fabric of our society. What will happen to our judicial system if people cannot be held responsible for their actions? We are already having trouble when criminals plead insanity and diminished competence. What will happen to our democratic institutions if people have no free choice? Why bother to have elections if choice among candidates is not free? Belief that people’s behavior can be determined might encourage dictatorship. For these reasons, perhaps it is good and useful to believe in free will, even if it cannot be proved.
We will address these arguments in Part III when we discuss freedom, social policy, and values. A brief survey now will give an idea of the general direction taken later.
The perceived threat to democracy derives from a false assumption. Although it is true that democracy depends on choice, it is false that choice becomes meaningless or impossible without free will. The fear that choice would disappear arises from an oversimplified notion of the alternative to free will. If an election offers a person two different ways to vote, which vote actually occurs depends not only on the person’s long‐term history (background, upbringing, or values) but also on events right before the election. Campaigning goes on for precisely this reason. I can be swayed by a good speech, and without it I might have voted for the other candidate. People need not have free will for elections to be meaningful; their behavior need only be open to influence and persuasion (shorter‐term environmental determinants).
We favor democracy not because we have free will but because we find that, as a set of practices, it works. People in a democratic society are happier and more productive than under any known monarchy or dictatorship. Although other factors—notably wealth—contribute to citizens’ reported happiness, perceived freedom to make life choices and freedom from corruption count as two of the most important factors in the United Nations’ World Happiness Report, which surveys citizens in 158 countries. The 2015 report ranks the five happiest countries as Switzerland, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, and Canada—all democracies. (The United States ranks fifteenth, and the 14 countries above it are all democracies.)
Instead of worrying over the loss of free will, we may more profitably ask what it is about democracy that makes it better. If we can analyze our democratic institutions to discover what makes them work, we might be able to find ways to make them even more effective. Political freedom consists of something more practical than free will: It means having choices available and being able to affect the behavior of those who govern. A scientific understanding of behavior could be used to increase political freedom. In this way, the knowledge gained from a science of behavior could be put to good use; nothing requires that it be abused. And after all, if we really do have free will, presumably no one need worry about the use of such knowledge anyway.
What about morals? Jewish and Christian theology incorporated free will as the means to salvation. Without such teaching, will people still be good? One way of answering this question is to point to that part of humanity, by far the majority, that lacks this commitment to the notion of free will. Do Buddhists and Hindus in China, Japan, and India behave less morally? In the United States, the rise of public education has increasingly moved moral training from church and home into the schools. As American society leans more heavily on schools to produce good citizens, behavior analysis is already helping. Far from destroying morals, the science of behavior may be used to educate children into good, happy, and effective citizens.
As for the justice system, it exists to deal with society’s failures, and we need not regard justice as a purely moral issue. We will always need to “hold people responsible for their behavior” in the practical sense that actions occur in individuals. Once the courts have established that someone has transgressed, then practical issues arise as to how to protect society from this person and how to make it unlikely that the person will behave so in the future. Jailing criminals has done little to prevent repeat offenses. A science of behavior could help both to prevent crime and to treat it more effectively.
Aesthetic Arguments
Critics of the notion of free will often point to its illogic. Even theologians who promoted the idea have puzzled over its paradoxical conflict with an omnipotent God. Saint Augustine put the matter clearly: If God does everything and knows everything before it happens, how is it possible for a person to do anything freely? Just as with natural determinism, if God determines all events (including our actions), then it is only our ignorance—here, of God’s will—that allows the illusion of free will. The common theological solution is to call free will a mystery; somehow God gives us free will despite His omnipotence. From a scientific viewpoint, this conclusion is unsatisfactory because it defies logic and leaves the paradox unresolved.
In its conflict with determinism, godly or natural, free will seems to depend on ignorance. Indeed, it can be argued that free will is simply a name for ignorance of the determinants of behavior. The more we know of the reasons behind a person’s actions, the less likely we are to attribute them to free will. If a boy who steals cars comes from a poor environment, we are inclined to attribute the behavior to the environment, and the more we know about how he was abused and neglected by his family and society the less likely we are to say that he chose freely. When we know that a politician has accepted a bribe, we no longer consider that politician’s positions to be taken freely. When we learn that an artist had supportive parents and a great teacher, we wonder less over his talent.
The other side of this argument is that no matter how much we know, we still cannot predict exactly what a person will do in a given situation. This unpredictability has sometimes been considered evidence of free will. The weather, however, is also unpredictable, but we never regard weather as the product of free will. Many natural systems exist, the momentary behavior of which we cannot predict in advance, but which we never consider free. Why would we set a higher standard for a science of behavior than for the other natural sciences? It seems illogical, and it is, because the argument from unpredictability contains a logical error. Free will does imply unpredictability, but this in no way requires the converse, that unpredictability implies free will.
In a way, it should even be false that free will implies unpredictability. My actions may be unpredictable by another person, perhaps, but if my free will causes my behavior, I should know perfectly well what I am going to do. This requires that I know my will, because it is difficult to see how a will that is unknown could be free. If I decide to go on a diet, and I know this is my will, then I ought to predict that I shall go on the diet. If I know my will and my will causes my behavior, I should be able to predict my behavior perfectly.
The notion that free will causes behavior also raises a thorny problem. How can a nonnatural event like free will cause a natural event like eating ice cream? Natural events can lead to other natural events, because they can be related to one another in time and space. Sexual intercourse leads to a baby just about nine months later. The phrase leads to implies that the cause can be placed in time and space. By definition, however, nonnatural things and events cannot be placed in time and space. (If they could be placed in time and space, then they would be natural.) How, then, can a nonnatural event lead to a natural event? When and where does willing take place, that it can lead to my eating ice cream? (Another version of the same problem, the mind‐body problem, will occupy us in chapter 3.) The murkiness of such hypothetical connections led to Newton’s Hypotheses non fingo. Science admits unsolved puzzles, because puzzles may ultimately yield to further thought and experimentation, but the connection between free will and action cannot be so illuminated. It is a mystery. Science’s aim of explaining the world excludes mysteries that cannot be explained.
The mysterious nature of free will, for example, runs counter to the theory of evolution. First, it raises the problem of discontinuity. If animals lack free will, how did it suddenly arise in our species? It would have to have been presaged in our nonhuman ancestors. Second, even if animals could have free will, how could such a nonnatural thing evolve? Natural traits evolve by modification from other natural traits. One can imagine even the evolution of a natural mechanical system that could behave unpredictably from moment to moment. But no conceivable way exists for natural selection to produce a nonnatural free will. This may be a powerful reason that some religious groups oppose the theory of evolution; conversely, it is an equally powerful reason to exclude free will from scientific accounts of behavior.
In fact, the whole reason for our discussing these arguments against free will is really to show that scientific accounts of behavior excluding free will are possible. The arguments aim to defend the science of behavior against the claim that human behavior cannot be understood because people have free will. Behavior analysis cautions against the use of the concept in arenas where it has unfortunate consequences, such as in the judicial system (chapter 10) and government (chapter 11). Behavior analysis omits free will, but it places no ban on using the concept in everyday discourse or in the spheres of religion, poetry, and literature; clerics, poets, and writers often talk of free will and free choice. A science of behavior might seek to explain such talk, but in no way forbids it. In this book, however, we explore how to understand behavior without mysterious concepts like free will.
Folk Psychology
Free will is one of a cluster of interrelated concepts that together often receive the label Folk Psychology, in comparison to folk physics or folk biology. Other concepts that go together with free will are, for example, the inner self as contrasted with the outer body and the importance of inner thoughts and feelings. According to Folk Psychology, the outer body is inhabited by a self and a whole world within the skin. Expressions such as “I thought to myself” or “Inside I knew” derive from just such a view, in which the self is seemingly situated some short distance behind the eyes and looks out on the outside world from its inner world. Supposedly this inner self has an inner life of thoughts and feelings.
Many cultures, particularly in the West, incorporate an everyday way of talking about behavior, what may be called the standard narrative. Its general form goes, “I thought (or felt) such‐and‐such, and then I acted (on that thought or feeling).” Statements like this imply that one’s inner thoughts and feelings cause one’s outer behavior, as if the body were a machine that is driven by one’s inner life.
Critics of behaviorism sometimes complain that behaviorism fails to account for our inner life, particularly our thoughts and feelings. The omission seems to render behaviorism incomplete or even trivial, because supposedly our inner life is the most important part of life. The criticism reflects an attachment to the notion that we (presumably our inner selves) cause our own behavior, driven by our inner thoughts and feelings.
The standard narrative and its implied dependence of behavior on inner life work fine for everyday discourse, literature, and poetry, but they are incompatible with a science of behavior, because, like free will, the inner self, and its inner thoughts and feelings are nonnatural things and events that stand in a mysterious relationship to one’s behavior. If behavioral events are considered natural events, then their causes are other natural events: heredity and environment, past and present. Behavior analysis omits inner thoughts and feelings, true, but not because it lacks a way to treat thoughts and feelings. As we will see in chapter 3, thoughts and feelings and talk about thoughts and feelings may be understood as more behavior to be explained, in addition to their supposedly resultant actions.
Summary
All behaviorists agree on one central idea, that a science of behavior is possible. This science has come to be called behavior analysis. Behaviorism is properly viewed as philosophy about that science.
All the sciences originated in and broke away from philosophy. Astronomy and physics arose when scientists turned from philosophical speculation to observation. In so doing, they dropped any concern with supernatural things, observing the natural universe and explaining natural events by referring to other natural events. Similarly, chemistry broke with philosophy when it abandoned hidden inner essences as explanations of chemical events. As it became a science, physiology dropped the inner vis viva
