radical behaviorism

Radical behaviorism inherits from behaviorism the position that the science of behavior is a natural science, a belief that animal behavior can be studied profitably and compared with human behavior, a strong emphasis on the environment as cause of behavior, and an emphasis on the operations involved in the modification of behavior. Radical behaviorism does not claim that organisms are tabula rasa whose behavior is unaffected by biological or genetic endowment.{{Cite journal|author1=Bryan O. Midgley |author2=Edward K. Morris|title=Nature and Nurture in Skinner's Behaviorism |url=http://www.journals.unam.mx/index.php/rmac/article/view/27095 |journal=Mexican Journal of Behavior Analysis |date=February 15, 1998 |volume=24 |pages=111–126 |doi=10.5514/rmac.v1.i2.27095 |via=UNAM}} Rather, it asserts that experiential factors play a major role in determining the behavior of many complex organisms, and that the study of these matters is a major field of research in its own right.{{Cite book|author1=James M. Johnston |author2=H. S. Pennypacker |author3=Gina Green |title=Strategies and Tactics of Behavioral Research and Practice |publisher=Routledge |year=2019 |isbn=9781138641594}}

{{main|Operant conditioning}}

Skinner believed that classical conditioning did not account for the behavior that many people are interested in, such as riding a bike or writing a book. His observations led him to propose a theory about how these and similar behaviors, called "operants", come about.

Roughly speaking, in operant conditioning, an operant is actively emitted and produces changes in the world (i.e., produces consequences) that alter the likelihood that the behavior will occur again.

As represented in the table below, operant conditioning involves two basic actions (increasing or decreasing the probability that a specific behavior will occur in the future), which are accomplished by adding or removing stimuli.{{cite web |url=http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/behsys/operant.html |title=An Introduction to Operant (Instrumental) Conditioning |author1=Huitt, W. |author2=Hummel, J. |name-list-style=amp |year=1997 |publisher=Valdosta State University |location=Valdosta, Georgia}}

{| class="wikitable"

|-

! Stimulus

! Effect: increase behavior

! Effect: decrease behavior

|-

| Added

| Positive reinforcement

| Positive punishment

|-

| Removed

| Negative reinforcement

| Negative punishment

|}

In other words:

• If the probability of a behavior is increased as a consequence of the presentation of a stimulus, that stimulus is a positive reinforcer.
• If the probability of a behavior is increased as a consequence of the withdrawal of a stimulus, that stimulus is a negative reinforcer.
• If the probability of a behavior is decreased as a consequence of the presentation of a stimulus, that stimulus is a positive punisher.
• If the probability of a behavior is decreased as a consequence of the withdrawal of a stimulus, that stimulus is a negative punisher.

Instrumental conditioning is another term for operant conditioning that is most closely associated with scientists who studied organisms running through a maze. Skinner pioneered the free operant technique, where organisms could respond at any time during a protracted experimental session. Thus Skinner's dependent variable was usually the frequency or rate of responding, not the errors that were made or the speed of traversal of a maze.

Operant conditioning affects the future of the organism, that is how the organism will respond after the actions summarized above occur.{{Citation |last=Ollendick |first=Thomas H. |title=Operant Conditioning Influences in Childhood Anxiety |date=January 2001 |work=The Developmental Psychopathology of Anxiety |pages=231–252 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med:psych/9780195123630.003.0011 |access-date=2024-05-15 |publisher=Oxford University Press |last2=Vasey |first2=Michael W. |last3=King |first3=Neville J.}}

{{Original research section|date=December 2020}}

John B. Watson argued against speaking of mental states and held that psychology should study behavior directly, holding private events as impossible to study scientifically. Skinner rejected this position, conceding the importance of thinking, feelings and "inner behavior" in his analysis. Skinner did not hold to truth by agreement, as Watson did, so he was not limited by observation.

In Watson's days (and in Skinner's early days), it was held that psychology was at a disadvantage as a science because behavioral explanations should take physiology into account. Very little was known about physiology at the time. Skinner argued that behavioral explanations of psychological phenomena are "just as true" as physiological explanations. In arguing this, he took a non-reductionistic approach to psychology. Skinner, however, redefined behavior to include "everything that an organism does," including thinking, feeling and speaking, and argued that these phenomena were valid scientific subject matters. The term radical behaviorism refers to just this: that everything an organism does is a behavior.{{Citation needed|date=December 2020}} However, Skinner ruled out thinking and feeling as valid explanations of behavior. According to him, thinking and feeling are not epiphenomena nor have they any other special status; they are just more behavior to explain. Skinner proposed environmental factors as proper causes of behavior because environmental factors are at a different logical level than behavior and actions, and one can manipulate behavior by manipulating the environment. This holds only for explaining operant behaviors.

Some{{Who?|date=July 2022}} argue that Skinner held that the organism is a blank slate or a tabula rasa. Skinner wrote extensively on the limits and possibilities nature places on conditioning. According to him, conditioning is implemented in the body as a physiological process and is subject to the current state, learning history, and history of the species.Skinner, B.F. "On Having A Poem" in which he states: "I am not an S–R psychologist." He states this position again in About Behaviorism. Skinner maintained that behavior can be explained without taking into account what goes on inside the organism. However, the black box is not private events, but physiology. Skinner considers physiology useful, interesting, valid, etc., but not necessary for operant behavioral theory and research.

Radical behaviorism differs from other forms of behaviorism in that it treats everything done as behavior, including private events (such as thinking and feeling) Unlike John B. Watson's behaviorism, private events are not dismissed as "epiphenomena," but are seen as subject to the same principles of learning and modification as have been discovered to exist for overt behavior. Although private events are not publicly observable behaviors, radical behaviorism accepts that one is each an observer of their own private behavior. Skinner explicitly noted that private events were essential for behaviorists to understand and account for, though he also considered them beyond the limits of direct analysis. {{Cite web|url=https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1946-00034-001|title=The operational analysis of psychological terms.|last=Skinner|first=B.F.|website=APA|language=en-US|access-date=2020-08-11}}

There are radical behaviorist schools of animal training, management, clinical practice, and education. Skinner's philosophical views have left their mark in principles adopted by a small handful of utopian communities, such as Los Horcones and Twin Oaks, and in ongoing challenges to aversive techniques in control of human and animal behavior.

Radical behaviorism has generated numerous descendants. Examples of these include molar approaches associated with Richard Herrnstein and William Baum, Howard Rachlin's teleological behaviorism, William Timberlake's behavior systems approach, and John Staddon's theoretical behaviorism. Contextual behavioral science, associated with the works of Steven C. Hayes, is also an interpretation of radical behaviorism.

Skinner's theories on verbal behavior have seen widespread application in therapies for autistic children that are based on applied behavior analysis (ABA).

{{More citations needed section|date=December 2020}}

Critics such as Noam Chomsky label Skinnerian or radical behaviorism as S–R (stimulus–response, or to use Skinner's term, "respondent"),Chomsky, N. (1959) [http://www.chomsky.info/articles/1967----.htm "A Review of B.F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior"]. In Leon A. Jakobovits and Murray S. Miron (eds.), Readings in the Psychology of Language, Prentice-Hall, 1967, pp. 142–3.MacCorquodale, K. (1970). [http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1333660 "On Chomsky's review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior"]. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 13, 83–99. or Pavlovian psychology, and argue that this limits the approach. Chomsky has further argued Skinner's experimental results could not be extended to humans.{{Cite journal|last=Chomsky|first=Noam|date=December 27, 1971|title=The Case Against B.F. Skinner|journal=New York Review of Books}} Contemporary psychology rejects many of Skinner's conclusions, although some{{Who|date=December 2020}} scholars find his work into operant conditioning, which emphasizes the importance of consequences in modifying discriminative responses, useful when combined with current understandings about the uniqueness of evolved human thought compared to other animals.{{cite book|author=Arthur W. Staats|url=https://www.sciencenews.org/article/book-review-marvelous-learning-animal-what-makes-human-nature-unique|title=The Marvelous Learning Animal|date=2012|access-date=April 18, 2018}}

Some{{Who|date=July 2022}} argue that radical behaviorism maintains the position that animals (including humans) are passive receivers of conditioning, although others{{Who|date=December 2020}} have countered that operant behavior is titled operant because it operates on the environment, it is emitted, not elicited, and that the consequence of a behavior can itself be a stimulus; one needs not present anything for shaping to take place.

Radical behaviorism is sometimes described{{By whom|date=December 2020}} as a form of logical positivism,{{Further explanation needed|reason=|date=December 2020}}. Skinnerians maintain that Skinner was not a logical positivist and recognized the importance of thinking as behavior, as Skinner emphasizes in About Behaviorism.Skinner, B.F. (1974). About Behaviorism. New York: Knopf.

• Ogden Lindsley
• Murray Sidman
• Charles Ferster
• Allen Neuringer
• Ivar Lovaas
• The Nurture Assumption

{{reflist}}

• Wyatt, W. Joseph (2001). [http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/bsi/article/viewFile/98/131 "Some Myths about Behaviorism That Are Undone in B.F. Skinner's 'The Design of Cultures'"]. Behavior and Social Issues, (11)1, pp. 28–30.
• Gaynor, Scott T. (2004). [https://web.archive.org/web/20160309023548/https://business.highbeam.com/5799/article-1G1-111897963/skepticism-caricatures-bf-skinner-turns-100 "Skepticism of caricatures: B.F. Skinner turns 100"]. The Skeptical Inquirer, 28(1), pp. 26–29.
• {{cite book |author1=Holland, J.G. |author2=Skinner, B.F. |title=Analysis of behavior |publisher=McGraw-Hill |year=1961}}

• [http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/bsi Behavior and Social Issues]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20050326035046/http://seab.envmed.rochester.edu/jeab/index.html Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20070206050814/http://seab.envmed.rochester.edu/jaba/ Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis]
• [http://www.abainternational.org/tbajournal/ The Behavior Analyst]
• [http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/tpr/ The Psychological Record]
• [http://www.bfskinner.org B.F. Skinner Foundation]

Category:Behaviorism

Category:History of psychology