Posts

Recently an interesting post came to my attention authored by the late Dr. John W. Eshlemann entitled “Junk Behaviorism”. Dr. Eshlemann criticised the phrase that reinforcement increases the probability of behavior while advocating the use of rate of response. As I had previously frequently employed the word “probability” (e.g. Introduction to radical behaviorism (Part 4… Read more: On Dr. Eshlemann’s opposition to probability

News have been quick to spread that Andrius Tapinas of Laisvės TV has organised a 5 million Euro crowdfunding campaign of buying a Bayraktar combat aerial vehicle (commonly referred to as a drone) for the Ukraine military in support of its war with Russia. People in Lithuania were actively urged to participate and donate. The… Read more: Crowd(de)funding

One issue that behavioristic minded people need to come to terms with is applying the philosophical tenets to one’s own behavior. Simply put, verbal behavior regarding oneself is sometimes caused by other theoretical positions. The inconsistencies might be noticed individually as well as be pointed out by others. What is a behaviorist to do after… Read more: Coherence of behavior or how to be more Catholic than the Pope

The 24th of February, 2022 marked the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. This is a disturbing continuation of NATO-Russian tensions in the 21st century – previously we have seen the Russo-Georgian War in 2008, the 2014 Euromaidan protests and the Revolution of Dignity, the subsequent annexation of Crimea and the occupation of… Read more: Nothing new on the Eastern Front

Here I shall highlight two books that I recently read which share a common theme – criticism of the improper aggrandizement and misapplication of findings in brain-imaging studies. The books are: Satel & Lilienfeld (2013) – Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience Raymond Tallis (2011) – Aping Mankind: Neuromania, Darwinitis and the Misrepresentation of… Read more: Deflating neurohype

A proper scientific philosophy of behavior may allow one to tackle traditionally inexplicable and impenetrable questions. One example thereof is nest building in animals – chiefly but non-exclusively in birds. How does such a seemingly complex set of behaviors arise in every generation despite no explicit learning? Radical behaviorist theory will lead the explanatory way.… Read more: Why do birds build nests?

Operating by the niche yet ambitious radical behaviorist philosophy, one is apt to recognize philosophical and scientific issues with some widely employed words. Numerous examples may be identified but none shall prove to be as problematic as the peculiar “to choose”. Let’s dedicate the present post to analyse the word and hopefully take a step… Read more: Particulars of the word “choice”

In 2021, we already have more than a hundred years of behavioral science and philosophy: Behaviorism began with a 1913 article in Psychological Review by John Broadus Watson, chair of the psychology department at John Hopkins University. For the next hundred years much of the story of behaviorism has been the rise and fall and… Read more: Behaviorism revisited

Let’s examine a book written for the wider public that discusses a common topic in psychology – emotions. Lisa Feldman Barrett (2017) – How Emotions Are Made promotes an allegedly new and scientific outlook on the field. Following the previous post, this book will serve as an illustration of contemporary psychological literature. As with all… Read more: How Emotions Are (Not) Made

The intersection between antiquated psychological theories about behavior and socioeconomic-historical processes is brilliantly identified and scrutinized by E. E. Sampson in his 1981 article “Cognitive Psychology as Ideology”. The article has already been cited multiple times in the blog and the relevant quote this time is: Psychological reifications clothe existing social arrangements in terms of… Read more: Psychology as Ideology: The case of extended adolescence

The so-called verbal behavior includes the most human of actions popularly regarded as language or communication, i.e. speaking or writing. Here I would like to briefly highlight the most useful idea regarding this type of behavior. Verbal behavior is behavior where reinforcement is mediated by other persons. Door opening is a prominent example – the… Read more: The essence of verbal behavior

The philosophy of radical behaviorism and the science of behavior leaves one with a major question – what is the status of psychology? What is the scientific standing of this field? How to interpret the widespread and popular explanations of behavior? In this post, I shall argue that psychology is not and cannot be considered… Read more: Psychology is a pseudoscience

In our times of economic and social inequality it is inevitable that various nationalist and religious movements that promote “traditional” or “family” values spring up. The main point of these groups is to oppose the liberal globalist establishment, that is unable to provide the majority with economic safety. These campaigns are gaining a foothold almost… Read more: Beyond defending family values

No matter the situation, history or upbringing you are in control of your actions, your attitude, your feelings. Only you are responsible for your own life. This sounds just like a generic motivational quote or video preferred by the “business elite”. Anyway, mainstream psychology aside these statements don’t make much sense. For demonstration, let’s take… Read more: On different predicaments: A case of a landlord and a tenant

Noam Chomsky is easily the most frustrating intellectual and public figure for a radical behaviorist leftist (RBL). He is well known among leftist circles for his decade long criticism of corporatism, US imperialism and advocacy for social justice, democratic rule, anarcho-syndicalism. Likewise, he is famous among psychological circles – he is the linguist that with… Read more: Noam Chomsky – a radical behaviorist?

An interesting perspective on social power and the legal system is provided by the controversial French philosopher Michel Foucault. Let’s visit his views on courts and the implementation of popular justice and see them through the lens of radical behaviorism. We must ask whether such acts of popular justice can or cannot be organised in… Read more: Foucault on courts and the justice system

With me joining the recent chess boom, including me playing the game as well as watching and reviewing the mini-series “The Queen’s Gambit”, some thoughts naturally arose about competition, different skill levels and ways to maintain a healthy amount of (competitive) behavior. This is an opportunity to ponder unequal starting positions, different skill levels, odds… Read more: Competition, handicaps and behavior

Let’s try something new for this blog – a short radical behaviorist leftist analysis of the recent chess based series The Queens Gambit. I will just highlight and comment on some aspects of the series of interest, without digging too deep for this first time. As is customary online, here’s a warning that there are… Read more: Radical behaviorist leftist analysis of the Queen’s Gambit (2020)

I want to document a short happening of mine in the psychology subreddit of Reddit. As almost all things psychology, this place is no exception in perpetuating mystified pseudo-science around behavior, in inventing hundreds of explanatory fictions and more generally serving the capitalist system by diverting attention from material conditions and reframing problems in terms… Read more: How to get shadow banned in the psychology subreddit

In the spirit of the concluding post of 2020, a very fitting liberal-minded article has come to my attention – I Don’t Know How To Explain To You That You Should Care About Other People. This can serve as an illustration for the second point – understanding people and reasons for their behavior. Furthermore, this… Read more: On empathy (aka understanding behavior)

One year ago (2019-12-19) the radical behaviorist leftist emerged. In the opening post some global problems were cited, while the one that is currently shaping our lives so fiercely – COVID-19 – was just starting to get a foothold in Wuhan, China. 21 posts in English, 8 posts in Lithuanian and 2 posts in German… Read more: A year of radical behaviorist leftist thought

Main article is here. – Humans are living organisms / animals. As B. F. Skinner said in Philosophy of Behaviorism (1988) humans are complicated bio-chemical systems. We have to not lose this from sight when speaking about human behavior – let’s not attribute more than is due (what’s unscientific) to clumps of material. Life is… Read more: Appendix #1 for radical behaviorist starting points

How behavior is explained outside the context of radical behaviorism is a fascinating subject laden with errors, misconceptions, invalid constructs, inventions and (perhaps) most importantly heavy political baggage. Such fortuitous explanations including the mind, choice, will, intentionality, cognitive structures, intelligence, personality are familiar to almost anyone. The current “go-to” word in psychological subjects, however, is… Read more: Schizophrenia of our times – my brain and me

The election season is again upon us – this year’s parliamentary elections in Lithuania and the presidential elections in the US (2020-11-03) are only two of the more prominent examples for me. It is almost inevitable that in our democracies once elections are near, one will hear vigorous repeated statements of the importance of voting.… Read more: On the cynicism of “Go vote!”

As Yanis Varoufakis says: our times are of Twin Authoritarianism – the Liberal Establishment on the one side and the Nationalist International on the other. Thomas Piketty (2020) refers to these as Brahmin Left and Merchant Right. In this short post, I would like to provide an observation about the Nationalist International that sometimes is… Read more: What does the right-wing have to say?

One cannot avoid contemporary discourse around well-being, mindfulness, “soft-skills”, emotional IQ that is flooding the media, literature and relationships. Here, let me respond to the Washington Post article “Time to ditch ‘toxic positivity,’ experts say: ‘It’s okay not to be okay’“. I want to list some critical problems with the thinking proposed. A couple of… Read more: Time to ditch toxic complacency: “It’s not okay to be not okay”

One example of a modern theory of psychology is the Social cognitive theory developed by the renowned psychologist Albert Bandura. In this post, I would like to focus on one particular part of the theory – the so-called three factor reciprocal determinism model – and comment upon it from the eyes of a radical behaviorist.… Read more: Albert Bandura’s three factor reciprocal determinism

In this post, I would like to gather the most appropriate talking points for introducing a person to the theory of radical behaviorism. Of course, this issue has already been addressed by other researchers, e.g. the 2004 video material by Keenan & Dillenburger “Why I Am Not a Cognitive Psychologist: A Tribute to B. F.… Read more: Radical behaviorist starting points

Recently, I have finished reading the book “Capital and Ideology” by the influential French economist Thomas Piketty. Right at the beginning of the book the author provides an interesting figure and this post is about it. So, the graphic can be found in the book and in the online appendix: The author’s comments follow: It… Read more: Relationship between parental income and access to higher education

The position promoted in this blog and represented by radical behaviorist, as well as leftist philosophy is quite different from the mainstream. So a person under control of such a personal history and variables will have a different verbal behavior than a naive person (not familiar with the position) – this will manifest itself very… Read more: A short list of erroneous/reactionary arguments

Recently I have finished reading a very fine book by Stephen Ledoux published in 2014 – Running Out Of Time – Introducing Behaviorology To Help Solve Global Problems. The book is written in very much the same spirit as this blog – the emerging science of behavior (Behaviorology) and the philosophy informing it (Radical Behaviorism)… Read more: Why behaviorology must be informed by leftist/socialist theory

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

It’s high time to introduce leftist thought into the blog. Drawing inspiration from B.F. Skinner’s 1977 article “Why I am not a Cognitive Psychologist”, I would like to echo the title and delve into the realm of political philosophy. I shall explain why the viewpoint in this blog (radical behaviorist) cannot be considered liberal –… Read more: Why I Am Not a Liberal

A peculiar headline on a peculiar day (2020-02-29) caught my attention in the psychology subreddit which reads: Research suggests we listen to music to reminisce, form an identity, sleep, ruminate, seek strong emotions, relate, and regulate anxiety, stress, anger, loneliness, & cognition. These are called the adaptive functions of music and are mostly universal. (Links… Read more: Minor observation in the wild

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

In this blog, I am exploring the selectionist, radical behavioristic theory and base my analysis on this paradigm alone. A question may naturally arise – what are the alternative explanations of behavior? Not going into any theory in particular, I would like to share what I found in two separate articles about the essence of… Read more: Two reactionary ways to explain behavior

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… Read more: Introduction to radical behaviorism (Part 3 – Environment, incremental changes and heredity)

I would like to highlight a fascinating account on the evolution of natural science by William Kolbe (1978) in “B.F. Skinner’s Radical Behaviorism”: Logical Positivism or Dialectical Materialism?” The article can be found in three parts: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3. I can recommend reading the whole article, but the chapter that particularly caught… Read more: Dialectical materialism and natural science (Kolbe, 1978)

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… Read more: Introduction to radical behaviorism (Part 2 – Behavior, traditions and components)

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,… Read more: Introduction to radical behaviorism (Part 1 – Natural science and selectionism)

The world today faces numerous problems – global warming, economic inequality, rise of right-wing/reactionary politics to name a few. People (many) are understandably furious and looking for solutions. Modest/humble/simple people feel that they cannot simply stand aside and feel compelled to act – I am such a person and this blog is one of the… Read more: Rationale for the blog