Category: Introductory series

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Introductory series

Introduction to radical behaviorism (Part 5 – All’s behavior, three types of selection)

Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4.

In the final part of the introductory series to radical behaviorism some helpful pointers, exercises and logical conclusions are on the menu.

Let’s begin with a simple statement that is exceptionally useful. When discussing human behavior always remember the verse in the amusing poems of Ivor Richards and B.F. Skinner presented in Skinner’s book Cumulative Record (first published in 1959):

All’s behaviour—and the rest is naught.

Ivor Richards (1999, p. 355) in B.F. Skinner – Cumulative Record

This exact quote has been recently reflected upon by Henry Schlinger in the second edition of 2019 of the Operants magazine that is published by B.F. Skinner’s Foundation (President is Julie Vargas – daughter of B.F. Skinner). I would highly recommend subscribing to this free magazine to get quarterly editions – you can do this here.

Best is to quote the author:

So, the brain itself doesn’t do anything. Some like to say that the brain thinks, decides, plans, etc., but these are things that people do; and they are most parsimoniously described as behaviors.

Not only do psychologists describe their subject matter in non-parsimonious—mentalistic—terms, they explain the behavior they do observe as being caused by the very cognitive processes they can never observe or measure. Such explanations are circular (Skinner called them explanatory fictions) in that the only evidence of the cognitive processes is the very behaviors they are trying to explain in the first place. When we are given circular explanations, we are being bamboozled into thinking that the behavior has been explained when it hasn’t.

Consider memory as an example. The definition of memory in the introductory textbook that I use is “the retention of information.” The biggest problems with this definition are the operational definition of information and then how it can be retained. Another problem is that memory is a noun, and like all nouns, it must refer to a person, place, or thing. Obviously, memory refers to none of them. Talking as if memory really exists commits the reification fallacy. Moreover, psychologists have never directly observed memories nor will they ever. So, what exactly are they studying? The answer is behavior (remember that all’s behaviour—and the rest is naught).

But looking in the brain for the causes of behavior before identifying the environmental (or genetic) causes is putting the cart before the horse. And making up imaginary cognitive ghosts in the head to account for the behavior is unnecessary, perpetuates Cartesian dualism, and keeps psychology mired in the philosophical mud from which all sciences sprung.

Schlinger, H. (2019, p. 9-10), Operants

In other words – be careful in concocting and accepting explanations of behavior that need to be themselves explained.

Another minor, but nevertheless important note: when an organism interacts with its environment and is exposed to a certain schedule of reinforcement, it is changed – so when a pigeon is taught to press a lever for food it is a different pigeon than what was before. A point illustrated in Stephen F. Ledoux (2014) – Running Out Of Time – Introducing Behaviorology To Help Solve Global Problems:

Both [respondent and operant conditioning] involve energy transfers between the environment (internal and external) and the body in ways that, as our physiology colleagues can show, trigger cascades of neural firings that variously induce both the greater energy expenditures involved in bodily movements, and the altered neural structures that constitute a different body; that different body mediates (not initiates) behavior differently on future occasions (in a process popularly called “learning,” although no inner agent—no “learner”—is present to “do” the learning, so we seldom use these terms).

Stephen F. Ledoux (2014) – Running Out Of Time – Introducing Behaviorology To Help Solve Global Problems (p. 12)

As is a characteristic of these series (and this part is no exception), let’s continue the exploration of similarities/analogies of natural selection and selection by consequences. A note on the term “selection by consequences” is supplied again by Ledoux (2014) . There are actually three kinds of evolution with their own kind of selection:

  1. Biological evolution (aka phylogenetic) and natural selection
  2. Repertoire evolution (aka ontogenetic) and behavioral selection
  3. Cultural evolution and group-practices selection

All of these types of selection are selections by consequences – in every type the environment (or rather the consequences) “select” what remains (genes, behavior, group-practices or culture). What differs is the timeline, mechanism and vehicle of selection. The third type of selection has not been covered in the introductory series – this is a special case of repertoire evolution where some behavior is transferred from one individual to the other beyond the lifetime of any person. In the introductory series “selection by consequences” refers to the second type – repertoire evolution.

So this time, we can explore the similarities between natural and behavioral selection with an exercise. Jianzhi Zhang (2010) in the chapter Evolutionary Genetics: Progress and Challenges (chapter 4 of the book Evolution since Darwin: The First 150 Years) provides the basic tenets of the modern synthesis of Darwinian evolution and Mendelian genetics, also called neo-Darwinism:

“The basic tenets of neo-Darwinism are that:
1. evolution occurs gradually through mutation, selection, and drift, and it is explained by population genetics theories;
2. discontinuities between species are explained as originating gradually through geographical separation, divergence, and extinction, rather than saltation;
3. natural selection is the primary force driving evolutionary change;
4. genetic variation within populations is abundant and is a key contributor to evolution;
5. microevolution can be extrapolated to explain macroevolution.”

Zhang (2010, p. 88) – Evolutionary Genetics: Progress and Challenges

The exercise is to translate these tenets into the Skinnerian selection by consequences. While we have an explanation of the underlying mechanism of natural selection by Mendelian genetics, we still lack an adequate supplement (to my current knowledge) to radical behaviorism by neuro-physiological theories and such synthesis is not available. Nevertheless, the five tenets:

  1. change of behavior (evolution) occurs gradually through new variations, selection, and shaping, and it is explained by operant conditioning (future synthesis with physiology?).
  2. discontinuities between behaviors are explained as originating gradually through environmental differences, evocation (formerly discrimination), and extinction, rather than saltation;
  3. selection by consequences (behavioral selection) is the primary force driving repertoire change;
  4. behavioral variation of an organism is abundant and is a key contributor to evolution;
  5. minor changes in behavior can be extrapolated to explain major changes.

We can see that the tenets can be translated without much trouble. It does not cease to amaze me how neatly natural selection and selection by consequences interrelate. No wonder Daniel Dennett (In Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, 1995) has called natural selection “The single best idea anyone has ever had“. Selectionism is a powerful idea and radical behaviorism extends it to individual behavior.

To conclude the series, I would like to highlight an aspect of the theory that made me much more convinced of this philosophy. Simply put – changing the environment is a learned behavior. One can learn that to effectively change other’s or own behavior it is most important to examine and alter the surroundings. This idea “closed the circle” for me – this keeps the philosophy logically consistent and teaches us the principle of behavior change. In solving local or global problems this will be our guide – look at the environment and figure out what is causing current behavior, while tweaking it in order to obtain desirable behavior.

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Introductory series Radical behaviorism

Introduction to radical behaviorism (Part 4 – Operant conditioning, new traits/behavior)

Part 1; Part 2; Part 3 of the introduction series.

In this post I would like to focus on the part of radical behaviorism / behavior analysis that receives attention in mainstream psychology. While the philosophy and its implications for society and for the enterprise of psychology are largely ignored, nevertheless the mechanism of the formation of behavior is discussed. This is called operant conditioning. The topic might seem somewhat technical but I believe that in addition to the philosophy of radical behaviorism it is beneficial and important to at least acquaint ourselves with the workings. The essence of this post follows and refers to my own bachelor studies in psychology and to the textbook Feist & Feist (2009) – “Theories of Personality” as we used it during the course of the studies.

The story often begins with classical conditioning most widely known from the experiments of Ivan Pavlov (No wonder it is also known as Pavlovian conditioning). This type of conditioning explains how responses to novel/neutral stimuli are formed – in Pavlov’s case the neutral stimulus (NS; the sound of the bell) is paired with an unconditioned stimulus (US; food) that provokes an unconditional response from a dog (UR; salivating). After enough pairings of food and bell, the neutral stimulus becomes sufficient in eliciting the response – the bell makes the dog salivate on its own without food. The stimulus (bell) is no longer neutral – it has become a conditioned stimulus (CS) while the response (salivating) now is a conditioned response (CR). A more in depth explanation is provided in this video. An enlightening comment on this type of conditioning can be provided from the perspective of radical behaviorism – I shall expound this comment in a later post. For now, it is clear that this simple mechanism does not explain the formation of more complex behavior. B. F. Skinner helps us here:

In the Pavlovian experiment, however, a reinforcer is paired with a stimulus; whereas in operant behavior it is contingent upon a response.

B. F. Skinner (1953) – Science and Human Behavior (p. 65)

Operant conditioning is the mechanism by which behavior is shaped by interaction with the environment and its consequences. Once an organism acts upon the environment, the effect shall determine whether the probability of the same behavior in the same conditions will increase or decrease in the future. The behavior might be reinforced or punished:

Reinforcement – simply the increase of the probability of behavior.

Punishment – the decrease of the probability of behavior. There are caveats regarding punishment, which shall be addressed in a future post. For now, as Feist & Feist (2009, p. 453) state: “The effects of punishment are not opposite those of reinforcement.”

Reinforcement and punishment are further divided into positive or negative depending on whether something is added in consequence to the behavior or removed. Therefore, the resulting scheme can be displayed in a table well-known to psychology students:

Adding something
Positive		Removing something
Negative
Reinforcement / reward
Probability of behavior increases		Positive reinforcement
E.g. Giving candy		Negative reinforcement
E.g. Relieving pain
Punishment
Probability of behavior decreases		Positive punishment
E.g. Spanking		Negative punishment
E.g. Barring access to the phone
4 Quadrants of operant conditioning

Some further terminology, regarding the formation of behavior in operant conditioning:

Generalization – the spread of effect to other stimuli (also called induction) (Skinner, 1953). Similar but non-identical environmental conditions will increase the probability of previously conditioned behavior. “An example of stimulus generalization is provided by a college student’s purchase of a ticket to a rock concert performed by a group she has neither seen nor heard but one she has been told is similar to her favorite rock group” (Feist & Feist, 2009, p. 452).

Discrimination – the “fine-tuning” of behavior, where increases of the probability of behavior are restricted only to certain properties of the environment. To extend the previous example, a rock fan might buy tickets to concerts of only one of two rock bands – one band is reinforcing, while the other is not.

Extinction – the tendency of previously learned behavior to decrease in probability in case of non-reinforcement. Obviously – if we don’t give food to a rat for pressing a lever, which it previously did, sooner or later it will cease pressing at all.

Phew, while there is still much more on operant conditioning, this is a good start. Now as is usual for these introductory series, it’s time to describe an analogy between natural selection and selection by consequences.

One might notice that the mechanism of operant conditioning or selection by consequences may account for the formation and shaping of behavior but does not explain how forms of new behavior arise. The same might be noted for natural selection – while traits are selected, they first have to be “there” to be selected. Luckily Leão, Laurenti & Haydu (2016) in Darwinism, Radical Behaviorism, and the Role of Variation in Skinnerian Explaining Behavior come to help:

With the development of modern genetics, it became possible to identify the role of mutations in the generation of biological variants. According to the so-called “neo-Darwinians,” mutation is a process that occurs by chance “in the sense that the chance that a particular mutation will occur is not influenced by whether or not the organism is in environment in which that mutation would be advantageous [emphasis added]” (Futuyma, 1998, p. 282). In other words, “the process of variation is causally independent of the conditions of selection” (Lewontin, 2000, p. 42), or as Mayr (2004) clarifies, “When modern authors speak of chance variation, they do not deny the existence of molecular causal forces, but they deny the claim that such genetic variation is a response to the adaptive needs of an organism” (p. 92). Currently, the reference to “chance,” unlike the physicalist account offered by Darwin (1859), emphasizes the random, probabilistic nature of biological processes.

Leão, Laurenti & Haydu (2016) – Darwinism, Radical Behaviorism, and the Role of Variation in Skinnerian Explaining Behavior (p. 5)

Richard Gilbert (2013) adds:

<..> behavioral variability appears to be provoked when regular reinforcement ceases to occur.

Richard Gilbert (2013) – Behaviorism at 100: An American History (p. 6)

Now to clarify, trait/behavior variability and their new forms arise without relation to the environmental conditions. New traits by mutation or genetic recombination do not necessarily have positive adaptive value or increase the offspring’s evolutionary fitness. On the same note, new behavior is not necessarily effective (or result in reinforcement) in the current environment. To put the point to rest:

“As accidental traits, arising from mutations, are selected by their contribution to survival, so accidental variations in behavior are selected by their reinforcing consequences” [Skinner, 1974, p. 114])

Leão, Laurenti & Haydu (2016) – Darwinism, Radical Behaviorism, and the Role of Variation in Skinnerian Explaining Behavior (p. 8)

Understanding the mechanisms of behavior formation, will serve us well when we come to the point of designing our society, culture, lives. And we can have no doubt, that this is what we are doing and will be doing continuously.

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Introductory series Radical behaviorism

Introduction to radical behaviorism (Part 3 – Environment, incremental changes and heredity)

Read Part 1 and Part 2 of the introduction series.

If one has been paying attention to the theory expressed in this blog, it is evident that strong emphasis is given to the role of the environment in shaping the behavior of any animal and human. A natural question may arise – how do we define the environment of an organism? Furthermore, ample deliberation has been given to unraveling analogies between Darwin’s natural selection and Skinner’s selection by consequences. I shall continue to explore answers and further connections in this part 3 of the series.

In part 2 I have provided a definition of behavior expanded beyond traditional notions to include covert behavior (thoughts, feelings etc.). In radical behaviorism, the same expansion is applied to the definition of the environment. The environment can be understood as all things/variables that affect the behavior of the organism – this includes both external variables such as air temperature, lighting, people around the person; as well as internal or private variables, e.g. the amount of various substances in the bloodstream, any pains/aches (in other words tissue damage) etc. The only difference between external and internal variables is the ability to affect different organisms – room temperature affects numerous people while a toothache is available only to one. B.F. Skinner (1953) states:

When we say that behavior is a function of the environment, the term “environment” presumably means any event in the universe capable of affecting the organism. But part of the universe is enclosed within the organism’s own skin. <..> With respect to each individual, in other words, a small part of the universe is private. We need not suppose that events which take place within an organism’s skin have special properties for that reason. A private event may be distinguished by its limited accessibility but not, so far as we know, by any special structure or nature.

B. F. Skinner (1953, p. 257) – Science and Human Behavior

Having both definitions of behavior and environment in mind, I would like to note that the internal state of an organism can both be understood as behavior and part of the environment of the organism. This may seem a little bit contradictory, but if we frame the question as “Does our behavior have an effect on our further behavior” I believe the answer is obvious. But I shall leave the discussion of this issue for another post.

Let’s continue to explore analogies between Darwin and Skinner. One familiar with the theory of evolution will know that changes in any traits of species don’t happen suddenly – it may take thousands of generations or even more for major alterations. Changes of any trait tend to happen incrementally – by minor changes with every intermediate form somehow advantageous (i.e. increasing probability of reproduction) to the survival of the organism’s ancestors. A case in point may be the evolution of the eye – a complex organ that evolved incrementally – I recommend watching this educational video.

A similar mechanism can be found in radical behaviorism. When studying behavior, we will often find that it has not developed suddenly – current behavior often has a long history of minor/incremental alterations with every step providing reinforcing consequences and thus having an increased probability of repeating in the same conditions in the future. A couple of examples:

  1. Training of animals – when trying to teach a pet to do a trick, intermediate forms of behavior are first selected/reinforced (also called shaping), example video.
  2. Learning to speak – in the beginning almost any verbalizations of a baby/child are reinforced (control is not strict). Afterwards, control becomes more focused as only specific sounds/combinations of sounds/words are reinforced – let’s say food is reliably given when the words “food” or “eat” or similar are uttered.

We see that not all behavior of an organism is inherited – people obviously learn in their lifetime how to conduct themselves more or less effectively in their environments. A fascinating realization is that this ability to develop new forms of behavior (technical term is operant conditioning) is a heritable trait. Once again we may turn to Skinner (1953) for an explanation:

The process of conditioning also has survival value. Since the environment changes from generation to generation, particularly the external rather than the internal environment, appropriate reflex responses cannot always develop as inherited mechanisms. Thus an organism may be prepared to secrete saliva when certain chemical substances stimulate its mouth, but it cannot gain the added advantage of salivating before food is actually tasted unless the physical appearance of foodstuffs remains the same from environment to environment and from time to time. Since nature cannot foresee, so to speak, that an object with a particular appearance will be edible, the evolutionary process can only provide a mechanism by which the individual will acquire responses to particular features of a given environment after they have been encountered. Where inherited behaviour leaves off, the inherited modifiability of the process of conditioning takes over.

B. F. Skinner (1953, p. 55) – Science and Human Behavior

That shall conclude today’s post. This theory is my environmental/personal history that affects my behavior most strongly – in traditional terms I use the framework of radical behaviorism to interpret the world. I believe we need to begin from the theory/science as it in it’s most basic form not complicated and will go a long way in developing what Marxists call “class consciousness”.

Read part 4 of the series here.

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Introductory series Radical behaviorism

Introduction to radical behaviorism (Part 2 – Behavior, traditions and components)

If you haven’t already, read part 1 of the series here.

Having discussed the fundamental principle of selectionism in part 1, we need to define our terms. This will allow us to avoid any future misconceptions or misunderstandings.

Firstly, the all important concept of behavior. Even though it might seem self-explanatory, in radical behaviorism the term behavior has an expanded meaning than is traditionally ascribed to it. Behavior is defined as any activity or action of a human or any other animal – including both overt action that can be readily observed as well as covert activity where direct observation may be difficult. To give examples, overt behavior includes movements of the body/limbs, making sounds, etc. Now, covert behavior is the internal state of the organism – traditionally we call these thoughts, feelings, cognition, motivation, character, will, ideas, purposes, values etc. The inclusion of internal states in the definition of behavior is what makes this behaviorism “radical” – all activity, overt as well as covert, can be explained in the same theoretical framework and both are determined by the same principles. The only difference is that behaviors differ in their readiness/difficulty to be observed and recorded.

In traditional conceptions and even mainstream psychology the understanding of behavior is restricted to overt phenomena, while the inner workings of the organism are granted special status and treated as if other mechanisms are required to explain them. In philosophical terms, these conceptions still cling to materialistic-idealistic divisions, to the Cartesian understanding of the world. B.F. Skinner (1971) in his arguably most controversial as well as enlightening book “Beyond Freedom and Dignity” observed:

Greek physics and biology are now of historical interest only (no modern physicist or biologist would turn to Aristotle for help), but the dialogues of Plato are still assigned to students and cited as if they threw light on human behavior. Aristotle could not have understood a page of modern physics or biology, but Socrates and his friends would have little trouble in following most current discussions of human affairs.

Continuing the analogies of radical behaviorism with the theory of evolution, the role of the future needs to be discussed. As a reminder, natural selection works spontaneously without any specific goal or determined direction – there are no inherently “good” or “bad” traits, only traits that survived in previous environmental conditions. The same can be said about the selection by consequences – if all behavior can be explained by past events (genetic endowment and/or conditioning), then no reference to the future is needed. This principle completely denies the existence of goals of behavior, as well as the need to explain current behavior because of some future goal – e.g. I am studying right now not because I “have a goal to go to university”, but because I was conditioned and reinforced to study by society, my parents, as well as I was conditioned to speak and explain my behavior by saying that “I have a goal to enter university” – reasons of my behavior are in the past, not in the future. As one can understand, this casts a fatal blow to the credibility of the philosophy of teleology.

For a solid foundation, I would like to refer to the article of Fraley & Ledoux, 1997 Origins, Status and Mission of Behaviorology, p. 16 where the authors present four components of radical behaviorism as a natural science:

1. Radical behaviorists respect behavior as a natural phenomenon as well as respect the continuities of events in space and time which, in natural sciences, accumulate a a researchable natural history.
2. Radical behaviorists emphasize experimental control over behavioral variables and the application of that control in culturally beneficial ways.
3. Radical behaviorists recognize private events, such as thinking or emotions, as
covert behaviors involved in the same laws discovered to involve overt behavior.
4. Radical behaviorists acknowledge that scientists are also behaving organisms whose behavior, scientific or not, is affected by the same variables that affect other behavior, and that those variables include scientists’ philosophy of science.

To comment on the fourth point – the way I speak and explain behavior is also conditioned. Therefore, scientific explanations, correct or not, are also products of my personal history.

To conclude, having discussed the definition of behavior, commented on traditional notions on the subject and referred to other authors for theory, I feel we already have a solid foundation to move forward. Although there is still much to be discussed about radical behaviorism, the obviousness of social/legal/political implications of this theory cannot go unnoticed. We shall have ample opportunity to discuss them in future posts.

Read part 3 and part 4 of the series here and here.

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Introductory series Radical behaviorism

Introduction to radical behaviorism (Part 1 – Natural science and selectionism)

In this blog I will be addressing questions of human behavior. To be understood, I would like to properly introduce and define the underlying paradigm – therefore in this introductory series I shall explain the most important notions of the philosophy.

Initially, it must be agreed that the behavior of humans, as well as animals, can be discussed in an objective/scientific manner. We can be sure that there are reasons why people act as they do and the reasons can be found out. This means that we need sufficient data about the history of the person and his/her behavior. With this information it is possible to discover meaningful relations between past events and current behavior therefore explaining it, to predict future behavior and furthermore, by understanding the mechanisms, to control behavior in a way we deem suitable. This point of view is naturalistic as well as materialistic monist in the sense that no other data than objective information in the environment that can be recorded is needed to explain the objective facts. This philosophy is amply developed in the B.F. Skinner’s 1953 book “Science and Human Behavior”. The question of control is an important issue in its own right and I will return to it but for now, it will be sufficient to note that we already widely practice control of behavior where the most obvious example is the education of children – we teach our young how they should behave in society.

Radical behaviorism is a selectionist philosophy expanding the Darwinian concept of natural selection. The theory of evolution and natural selection is one of the cornerstones of modern biology and is widely taught in schools (at least in Lithuania’s biology classes) and it should serve as a good foundation to understanding radical behaviorism. Natural selection is the principle that the traits of individuals that manage to survive and have offspring are “selected” and such traits naturally persist in following generations. As a result, the prevalence of the specific trait in the species rises. Conversely, traits of individuals that don’t survive become rarer or extinct. This process is wholly spontaneous as no external forces are needed. The selection is carried out only by the environment where the organisms find themselves in.

Skinner applied the principle of natural selection to the behavioral changes of any single organism in its lifetime – the idea is called selection by consequences. Behavior that is reinforced (has positive consequences, e.g. food, money, affection, safety etc.) persists and has a greater probability to occur in the future while the probability of un-reinforced behavior (has no consequences or negative ones) diminishes. The analogy to natural selection is clear – the process is spontaneous and happens solely in the organisms relation with the environment. The effective behavior is determined (thus “selected”) by the environment. In other words, it is not the organism that “chooses” what action will bring reinforcement but the environmental conditions determine what behavior is effective.

As one can immediately understand this philosophy is deterministic (but with a caveat) – future behavior is wholly determined by the organisms past – (1) by its genetic inheritance as a member of species (natural selection) and (2) by its individual history in relation with its environment (selection by consequences) and its current state (e.g. state of deprivation). It must be noted that an organism cannot acquire an unlimited variety of behavior in its lifetime as there are genetic restraints. For example, I can write this text only because I am a member of the human species with a long history of socialization, reading and other experiences but no matter what the environmental conditions I could never learn to jump 5 meters into the air with my own legs.

The aforementioned caveat in the determinism of the theory can be tricky to grasp. It concerns the probability of behavior. In any given circumstances, many courses of action/behavior are possible with their own certain probabilities. E.g. if I want to eat out today and there are 3 obvious possibilities, the probabilities may be: Chinese food (60%), pizza (20%), burgers (15%), some other action (5%). It is not possible to tell what I am going to do, only the likelihood of any future behavior. The organisms past determines the probability of certain behaviors – sometimes this probability approaches 100% and thus is almost certain. For example, if one wants to leave a room, one must first open the door – opening the door is always reinforcing because it creates possibility for further action/reinforcement. Basically, radical behaviorism is a probabilistic determinist philosophy – the past determines not the exact behavior but behavioral courses and their probabilities.

To sum up, the theory is simple to understand but may be complicated to explain. In this opening post introducing radical behaviorism, I discussed radical behaviorism as a natural science, the link between natural selection and selection by consequences and finally explained the concept of the probability of behavior. I will continue this introduction in another post.

Following parts of the introductory series: Part 2; Part 3; Part 4.

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