About Behaviorism

Battle over ideas. URGH!!!!! Cultural conditioning. Science is right superstition is wrong. Behaviorism explains this. If the reviewer referenced above read and/or understood the book they could easily see how their perspective is ignorant, superstitious, and dangerous. Behaviorism is the only science of human behavior. Behaviorism explains why data driven analysis is the only true science. Science is needed so everyone stops engaging in idiotic battles and mental masturbation. Behaviorism is a science. It explains human behavior as a by product of evolution. This is the most important book ever. It is needed more than ever so we can replace judgement with understanding. It is needed to learn to help ourselves and others instead of battling over ideas. It is needed so we stop reinforcing stupid behavior that is glorified ad infinitum. It is needed so we start reinforcing true science like About Behaviorism.

This book should be the primer for all behavior analyst.Nobody does it better than Skinner.Language is simplistic enough for the layman as well as the professional.

A letter to the editor (published in August 1990 in the Los Angeles Times, in response to Skinner's obituary) asked the following disturbing question: For the all effort and money spent in research in psychology, has there been any progress whatsoever? The letter-writer asked this question not only of the Skinnerian approach in psychology but of all approaches. He seemed to be rather knowledgable in psychology. (If I remember right, he granted that the effects of intermittent reinforcement may well be something non-obvious that the research has uncovered. His point was that there is not much more.) I was disturbed by this allegation. However, I couldn't come up with a smoking gun rebuttal (though my thoughts were along the lines of verbal behavior and programmed instruction.) Rereading About Behaviorism last week, I feel that Chapter 2 of this book may be pointed to as an unassailable answer to the above question -- Skinner makes some points here that are true advances being made for the first time in the history of human thought. These are Skinner's views on what self-knowledge and introspection is, the special problems posed by them, and how we have "solved" them at least partially. Skinner's views on these may well undergo considerable revision in the future -- however, without his first statement, such an improvement would not have been possible. According to Skinner, the responses involved in introspection and self-knowledge are nothing more than verbal reports to stimulations inside the body. (In other words, these are not some mysterious non-physical stuff. The mind-body problem is solved neatly.) Skinner points out that primitive nervous systems are involved in these reports (primitive because these nervous systems have evolved not for this purpose but for other purposes). He also points out that those teaching a child to report these accurately are at a loss since they cannot directly feel these stimulations. Skinner's other points are the following: 1. The basic law of effect is what stamps in behavior 2. Unquestionably, changes in the nervous system are involved when behavior is stamped in. However, these do not produce stimulations that the learner can sense, report, and thus know (since no such nervous system has evolved). 3. Thus introspection is useless in order to know when behavior change occurs. (Skinner is not denying the private world. He readily grants even the practial usefulness of it. However, his point is that behavior altering nervous system changes cannot be directly sensed.) Unquestionably, all these are very difficult to understand. However, one needs to only compare these with what passes in general for psychological theory to appreciate how briliant Skinnerian theory is. I hope that I have not misunderstood Skinner too badly.

In Heinlein's classic novel Stranger in a Strange Land, he describes what he calls "fair witnesses," which are people trained to both observe and report what they observe as accurately, objectively, and logically as possible. For instance, ask a fair witness what the color is of the house to the east, and the fair witness will say, "The west wall of the house is blue." Why didn't the fair witness just say that the house is blue? Well, the fair witness cannot see the whole house; s/he can only see the west wall. Skinner, to me, is like the fair witness of psychology. In an interesting assignment, Skinner, after reinforcing successful approximations with food, had students watch a pigeon smoothly rotate counterclockwise and asked them to describe what they saw. They tended to write that the pigeon turned because it expected reinforcement, hoped it would get food, felt it would be rewarded, etc., instead of writing that food was given when the pigeon acted a certain way, or that the pigeon rotated until it was reinforced, etc. Skinner's point in writing about this is that his students failed to write down what they actually observed; they instead wrote about what they expected they themselves would have felt had they been in similar circumstances. Though such inferences are often legitimized by successful predictions and attributions in everyday experience with other people (as opposed to pigeons), and though such inferences are a valuable part of folk psychology, the very fact that such attributions are based on unobservables does pose an interesting dilemma for the methodologist concerned with precise measurement, quantification, control, manipulation, etc. Here, Skinner offers what is the best summary of his arguments. Behaviorism is NOT the science of behavior, but is rather the philosophy of the scientific analysis of behavior. It pertains to methodology, to what can be inferred from what can be observed. This is a landmark book, and all psychology students should have to read it.

Skinner in this book does what he fails to do in many of his other works, make it readable for the mass audience. B.F. Skinner has made a lasting impression on the field of psychology by his unbelievable attention to detail and the bredth of applicaiton that his work has. This book covers most areas of his analysis, that are more fully described in other places, in a user friendly manner and makes accessible for the lay person his explanations in easy to follow examples. This is an excellent primmer to Skinner.