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.
Radical behaviorist leftist 