Merry Earth Day! I really hope everyone takes some time today to ponder protecting the planet. Better yet, just go recycle something or plant a tree…or both! And now…for something completely different.
In my first posting ever on Philosophy Matters, I discussed the interrelatedness of psychology and philosophy, and I mentioned some major schools of thought. Today, I want to delve a bit deeper into behaviorism and some of the works of B. F. Skinner. Behaviorism is known as the second major force in psychology due to its scope of influence (Jones-Smith, 2012). Unlike many other forms of psychology, pure behaviorism is not really concerned with the inner workings of the mind or any sort of intrapsychic forces. Instead, behaviorists focus only on what is observable…behaviors themselves. Thus, from a philosophical viewpoint, behaviorists are adhering to John Locke’s school of thought known as realism (Ozmon & Craver, 2008). For a quick review, realists think that the only reality is that which is separate from the mind; knowledge can be found by scientific research.
Anyone who has ever taken an introductory psychology class can probably remember the name of Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov. He is a figure synonymous with classical conditioning in psychology, and this idea set the stage for expanding behaviorists like B. F. Skinner.
Pavlov observed that dogs began to salivate when the assistants who fed them entered the room and later when a whistle was blown after it being used at the same time they were fed. Dogs will naturally salivate at the sight of food (an unconditioned response to an unconditioned stimulus), but the canines certainly didn’t plan on devouring the lab technicians. The assistants and the whistle thus were originally a neutral stimulus, but when paired with food developed into a conditioned stimulus to a conditioned response (i.e., salivating sans food).
B. F. Skinner took on a slightly more radical view of behaviorism and created the operant conditioning modality. For a detailed description, I encourage readers to read Skinner’s (2009) A Brief Survey of Operant Behavior available at http://www.bfskinner.org. Skinner essentially believed that behavior can be conditioned by either rewarding or punishing people or animals after a behavior. He used the term reinforcer to indicate anything that increases a target behavior; it can be either positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement depending on whether a stimulus is added or eliminated. Reinforcement is different than punishment, which is anything that decreases a target behavior. Likewise, there can be both positive and negative types of punishment depending on what is done to a particular stimulus. Skinner also wrote a very important book called Beyond Freedom and Dignity in which he made the assertion that we are all just really slaves to our environment, but we can manipulate our surroundings. Therefore, we are all slaves of our own creation, so true freedom doesn’t really exist.
Now, it’s time for some moving pictures. First up, we have an animation depicting the differences between classical and operant conditioning:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6LEcM0E0io?rel=0&w=640&h=360]
As you may have gathered, the basic principles I have outlined have been adapted to shape ever increasingly complex behavior. For example, one can use simple rewards and punishment to train rats to play basketball:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAQSEO25fa4?rel=0&w=640&h=360]
That’s all for now, so stay psyched up until next time!
References
Jones-Smith, E. (2012). Theories of counseling and psychotherapy: An integrative approach. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Ozmon, H. A., & Craver, S. M. (2008). Philosophical foundations of education (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Skinner, B. F. (2011). A brief survey of operant behavior. Retrieved from http://www.bfskinner.org/
So what are the arguments against this. Now that I have been exposed to this knowledge I shall go on to enslave the universe. Of course, all the while, with the glorious knowledge that my domination was quite forced by circumstance.
I’m no psychologist by far, but I would be inclined to object that the conclusion, ‘We are all slaves to our environment’ is not sufficiently supported by the premise ‘Conjunction of evidence for conditioning’. Now, I think Skinner was definitely on to something…seems to me just ordinary observation, day to day life, and empirical experimentation support the influence of conditioning, but to say that we are slaves to our environment I understand to mean minimally something like: everything that we do is such that given environmental condition x, we could not do otherwise unless environmental condition was other than x. That seems obviously false given the role of genetic dispositions and such, but even including those factors, the conclusion that we are ‘slaves’ seems to require much more in the way of argumentation. Granted, I have not read Skinner’s book so maybe those arguments are in there..I just don’t know.
I’m in a similar position as you as far as background knowledge on this topic goes. However, I think the caveat that we can manipulate our environment might be an important one. I’m torn between feeling that’s a subtle yet important point and that it is actually a contradiction.
Hi JJ,
Maybe if you have time you would be willing to say a bit more about why the caveat you mention is significant. One might say it’s insignificant given that every living thing does it.
This does bring to mind something I remember reading from Hegel (I’m definitely not assuming I have Hegel interpreted correctly, caveat in case there are some Hegel Jocks around.) He seemed to believe something like the manipulation of the environment by a sentient being is the outward/external manifestation of that beings subjectivity…the “mind becoming concrete.” Thus for Hegel, certain kinds of manipulations — artistic / creative, political, religious…take on special significance in the progressing “actualizing” of the “world spirit.”
I don’t know what to make of any of that really, and I’m not sure what it has to do with determinism / freewill (although Hegel seemed to think it has a lot to do with determinism…what he called ‘necessity’), but it may be a clue into why manipulation of environment is more significant than it might at first seem.
Gentlemen, there is indeed a good bit of controversy about good ol’ Burrhus Frederic. I suggest either reading his complete argument in the book I mentioned or at least a thorough book summary. I have been reading some things recently from/about Hegel, and I did gather a lot of overlap and similarities. At the time, there wasn’t as much research in genetics, so I often wonder how his ideas would differ if he were around.
I know I’m a bit late to the article here but I think it’s important to point out that this description is only true of methodological behaviorism. This was John Watson’s behaviorism and it claimed that since, in his time, there was no way to access or study inner processes then it would be unscientific to speculate on what those processes might be. The implication being that the proper scientific approach is to ignore those inner processes (note: this isn’t to claim that those inner processes don’t exist, but rather that they are not scientifically accessible).
Skinner’s radical behaviorism came along 20 or so years later and he overturned this completely. Skinner argued that you can’t have a science of psychology without studying inner processes, hence why his form of behaviorism was termed “radical” – because he brought the concept of mind and cognition back into psychology.
Yes, Mike. I was indeed oversimplifying. I also didn’t want to delve into cognitive-behaviorism.