Operants – Radical behaviorist leftist

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 rise again in the influence of Burrhus Frederic Skinner, long-time psychology professor at Harvard University. Writing in Science in 1963, Skinner described Watson’s article as “the first clear, if rather noisy, proposal that psychology be regarded simply as the science of behavior.”
Richard Gilbert (2013, p. 3) – Behaviorism at 100 – An American History

In the latest issue of the B.F. Skinner Foundation’s magazine Operants Parvene Farhoody authored an article entitled Animal Training Revisited. Here, Farhoody asserts that behaviorism is a branch of biology and an independent science:

From the beginning, Skinner’s discovery and approach to describing behavior as a basic science has contradicted other explanations of behavior across philosophy, psychology, and theology. This is because the basic tenet of operant conditioning is that the control of all organisms lies outside the organism. (p. 10)
The experimental analysis of behavior (EAB) is a basic science that requires the same use of scientific method to separate hypothesis from validated theory and opinion from scientific fact. Therefore, it follows that those who have alternative explanations about why behavior occurs must use the same technical language set forth by EAB to demonstrate that previous findings are unsupported.
To this day, no such evidence has been brought forward to successfully refute Skinner’s basic findings that the behavior of all organisms is caused by contingencies of reinforcement and punishment that exist within environments—not within organisms. In contrast, data continue to be compiled that strengthen the fundamental principles of operant conditioning and advance our understanding of the four fundamental forces that control behavior —positive and negative reinforcement and positive and negative punishment. These forces, like the force of gravity, are neither good nor bad; they are descriptions of naturally occurring phenomena that act upon all organisms. (p. 11)
Parvene Farhoody (2021) – Animal Training Revisited in Operants, 2021 (2)

Continuing on, an overview of the contemporary status of the behavioral enterprise is provided:

Basic science often discovers things that individuals and society are not ready to hear. Most know the consequences to Galileo for stating that the earth was not the center of the universe when he lived in a culture steeped in Christian theology. To accept Galileo’s measures of the observable universe, people could no longer believe the information they had been taught from childhood. One might say that Skinner’s findings were the behavioral equivalent of Galileo’s discovery. Skinner stated that organisms are not the center of their own universe and that human and nonhuman animals are therefore not initiating agents of their own actions. This is in direct contrast to what almost every human being is taught to believe and remains in conflict with what is said in all other branches of psychology/behavior science. In his time, Galileo expressed his frustration that those who condemned him would not even look at his data. How could he argue his own innocence if people would not look at what he had found? The implications of Skinner’s findings were as expansive as Galileo’s, and this new way of looking at behavior was perhaps even more difficult to accept than altering a perception of the universe outside oneself. Should we be surprised, then, that in a mere blink of time—83 years—scientists and laymen alike continue to fight against Skinner’s discovery by ignoring the findings of a science that questions what a person believes about why they do what they do? Should we be surprised that today, most of those claiming expertise in the science of behavior disregard or circumvent Skinner’s basic scientific findings? (p. 11)
Parvene Farhoody (2021) – Animal Training Revisited in Operants, 2021 (2)

Any person aware of B.F. Skinner’s (and others) essential behaviorist findings and ideas, will have felt the frustration in seeing idealistic psychologised explanations of human behavior persist and helplessness when trying to disseminate some basic knowledge of radical behaviorist philosophy.

As I have discussed previously in Psychology is a pseudoscience, mentalism rather than retreating, has been advancing further into the understanding of animal behavior and Farhoody notices this in the context of animal training – particularly salient culprits are the words “choice” and “control”:

A fundamental misrepresentation of operant conditioning is found in the colloquial statement “giving the animal choice and control” over its environment. We can forgive the colloquial verbal behavior but not the explanatory fiction being touted as scientific fact—specifically as behavior analytic fact. Animals do not control their environment; animals are controlled by their environment. Choice is not a cause of behavior. Control is not a cause of behavior. These are cognitive explanatory fictions that do not explain why an animal exhibits behavior X and not behavior Y or Z. (p. 12)
Behavior does not change because the animal has “made a choice” or “tried to control its environment” or “feels empowered” by “making its own decision.” Such colloquial use of language has led to preposterous circular statements such as “control is a primary reinforcer.” Such a statement twists Skinner’s profound discussion of consequences as feedback from the environment into a circular, reified construct called “control.” (p. 12)
In his 1966 essay, What is the Experimental Analysis of Behavior?, Skinner stated that such cognitive circular explanations of why behavior occurs results when one “has not been able to relate the behavior to the contingencies.” (p. 12)
If a final behavior has been carefully considered by the animal’s caretakers, and training has been deemed necessary for the health and welfare of the animal, then such lack of stimulus control is the result of training failure and not animal “choice.” (p. 13)
Parvene Farhoody (2021) – Animal Training Revisited in Operants, 2021 (2)

To illustrate Farhoody’s point, one does not need look far – in the same issue of Operants, the article Behavior Analysis and the Shaping of the Modern Zoo, which ironically directly follows the article highlighted in this blog post, includes an absurd paragraph:

Thus, contemporary animal training, not unlike much of ABA, has the benefit of giving animals the ability to “choose” if they will be involved in any procedure. The focus on rewards, much in line with ABA’s philosophical and ethical underpinnings, have given zoo animals control over their environment. Animals can be asked (i.e., prompted/cued), “can you do this for me?”, and the consequences for doing so are the appetitive rewards/reinforcers that maintain all operant behavior.
Eduardo J. Fernandez (2021, p. 14) – Behavior Analysis and the Shaping of the Modern Zoo

One may recognize in the citation above another fault-ridden word in the context of behaviorism – “reward”. This word is often considered as a synonym of reinforcement, but such usage is misleading. It has many additional unscientific connotations and is preferred in the idealistic cognitive, self-help (e.g. Atomic Habits), psychological discourse. To clarify issues with the word, let’s turn to proper literature:

Interchanging the terms reinforcers and rewards presents problems, because rewards are not necessarily reinforcers. Rewards are stimuli that others think should reinforce your behavior, perhaps because these stimuli reinforce their behavior. However, a reward has not yet met the definition of reinforcers, at least with respect to the behavior of the organism of concern, possibly you. Remember, we have tested and observed reinforcers being stimuli the occurrence of which, immediately after a response, makes the evocative stimulus for that kind of response more effective across subsequent occasions. Rewards receive no such testing. Besides, if and when a reward meets this definition after testing, then we should call it a reinforcer, not a reward. Also, the concept of rewards supports the false and scientifically irrelevant notion of personal agency. How? A reward is for “you” (as the inner agent inside the particular carbon unit that others tact with your name). Furthermore a reward is for you rather than for your behavior, whereas reinforcers—as defined—do not reinforce you; they only reinforce behavior.
Stephen F. Ledoux (2014, p. 267-268) – Running Out Of Time – Introducing Behaviorology To Help Solve Global Problems

This “scientific” (or rather “pseudoscientific”) vocabulary stems from interests of the economic elite where the individualistic, liberal discourse based on “free-will” is most instrumental. No wonder widespread knowledge is still tainted by cognitive fallacies and Skinner’s science is in danger:

Colloquial language can do a great disservice to the genuine student of behavior who wishes to learn about operant conditioning and understand stimulus control. It is a frightening time for those seeking deeper knowledge in the experimental analysis of behavior and its application. When those hailed as experts at teaching operant conditioning misrepresent Skinner’s most basic findings while professing to be one of his followers, their teaching more closely resembles religious zealotry than the expansion of an elegant and far-reaching science. Only when one abandons cognitive fictions can one truly begin to learn what stimulus control means and how to teach in ways that are maximally effective and minimally restrictive; only then does one begin an education in the natural phenomenon called operant conditioning. When personal agendas become more important than scientific discovery, we can predict that those most dedicated to comprehensive scientific analysis will encounter increasing pressures to accept popular opinion. This is found in many areas of the animal-training community: Those who do not accept overly simplistic representations of a complex science encounter consequences deleterious to their professional standing. (p. 13)
The field of behavior analysis is experiencing the outcome Skinner warned against in the 1980s. The dedicated animal trainer, behavior analyst, or concerned consumer must take notice. The older hard sciences remain valid today because they have had centuries (arguably millennia) to build their foundation. Today, one is hard-pressed to find a master’s or PhD program anywhere in the world that teaches the experimental analysis of behavior as its focus rather than applied behavior analysis as a helping profession. If we value the discoveries of this science, we must return to an emphasis on teaching its basic tenets as the foundation of the technology of behavior. (p. 13)
Parvene Farhoody (2021) – Animal Training Revisited in Operants, 2021 (2)

Let’s allow Gilbert to conclude the current post with ideas needed for the acceptance of behaviorism:

At least three things stand in the way of that acceptance. One is the laxness of everyday ways of speaking about the causes of behavior, which still contaminate psychological discourse in the way Watson deplored 100 years ago. Another is the threat that coherent explanations of behavior pose to cherished notions of human freedom and dignity. (Skinner’s best-known book has the title Beyond Freedom and Dignity.) A third could be the enormity of the challenge of identifying a neurological mechanism for reinforcement equivalent to the processes of heredity whose discovery made natural selection acceptable.
Richard Gilbert (2013, p. 3) – Behaviorism at 100: An American History

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 the “brain”.

Ledoux (2014, p.150) identifies coincidental selectors – factors that change the later probability of response, where the behavior has not produced the reinforcer – in other words any behavior in the particular situation would have been reinforced. This phenomenon is more commonly known as superstition. All of cognitive psychology and behavioral explanations including the brain are complex-sounding variants of this.

Let’s begin by seeing how the present discourse of psychology looks like:

Discourse of psychology

If one checks the psychology subreddit practically any day, the top posts always include references to the brain, how it works, how to change it’s functioning etc. Some posts among the top ones from two dates:

The references to the brain as some entity besides the person is so widespread, that it is reflected in common language. Statements such as “I can’t get it into my brain”, “my brain works strange sometimes” are not uncommon. Conversations regarding behavior are filled with cerebral inputs:

How did this come to be

Two main ways come to mind when thinking about how the brain became the golden standard in psychological explanations:

The first is due to the boom of neuro-imaging studies. Psychological curricula include and hold in high esteem among its research methods various brain scanning studies. Examples include MRI, PET, EEG. What is quite sad and pathetic that psychologists often have no access to such methodology and also often cite brain studies in search of explanations. A sample statement from Dean Burnett’s (2018) book The Happy Brain:

So important do our brains think social interactions are, they’ve evolved specific, dedicated emotions to regulate them! Thankfully, happiness doesn’t seem to be one of these, although as we’ve seen, it’s a lot easier to be happy with other people than without.
Perhaps inevitably given all this, the people we relate to and interact with play a big part in our sense of self, our identity. Scanning studies have revealed that when we contemplate being part of a group or think about those we identify with, we see raised activity in areas like the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and the anterior and dorsal cingulate cortex. But these areas also show raised activity when we think about our sense of self. The implication is that the groups and communities we belong to are a key part of our identity. This shouldn’t be surprising; we saw earlier that our possessions and homes inform our identity, so it’d be weird if the people we surround ourselves with didn’t.
Burnett (2018) – The Happy Brain (p. 70)

This passage demonstrates the short-sightedness of the author and the significance of coincidences. Some spurious data is taken into account and enormous implications are made as a result. Do remember, that all behavior is represented in brain – it can be said that the activity of the brain is behavior itself or part of behavior. Anything that one does will have related brain activity – this should not be taken as proof for any construct (i.e. verbal behavior) the author is already conditioned to say. In summary, neuro-imaging studies have their proper place in neurophysiology and medicine, but not in psychology.

The second way of the cerebral proliferation is the ever elusive search of the internal agent. Various circles have accompanying constructs that represent the inner homunculus:

Theology has the Soul
Philosophy has the Mind/Self/Consciousness (a radical behaviorist account of consciousness)
Psychology has the Brain

While the first is simply discarded, the second somewhat controversial, the third is widely accepted – the brain lends some plausibility as the organ really exists. Alas, this is yet another comically bizarre, somewhat scientifically sounding explanatory fiction – some agency is put into the “brain”. The absurdity is revealed when one says “my brain”. Whose brain? Where then am I? How can one separate oneself and his/her brain? Isn’t this a delusional way to see reality, described in the diagnosis of schizophrenia? These are all facets of the same fallacy and are forever condemned to failure in explaining behavior:

Even then consciousness won’t be found in the brain—no behavior will be. We need to be cautious about searching for the location of behavioral traits in the brain, what psychologist William Uttal has called “the new phrenology.”
Henry D. Schlinger Jr. (2020) – Consciousness is Nothing but a Word – in Operants (Q2, 2020, p. 23)

So much for description, now it’s time for some explanation:

Mereological fallacy

To ascribe psychological attributes to the brain is to commit a mereological fallacy – akin to claiming that it is aeroplane’s engines, rather than aeroplanes, that fly, or that it is the great wheel of a clock, rather than the clock as a whole, that keeps time. (p. 8)
In the first place, brain/body dualism commits a mereological fallacy. Where Descartes ascribed psychological attributes to the mind, crypto-Cartesian scientists ascribe much the same functions to the brain – which is but a part of a human being. Moreover, both do so in order to explain the psychological functions of human beings. But not only is it mistaken to ascribe such attributes to the brain, it fails to explain anything. (p. 15)
Hacker (2012) – The Relevance of Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of Psychology to the Psychological Sciences

The confusions and fallacies that are under scrutiny concern the brain as a part of a human being in the same sense in which the heart is part of the human being. (p. 2)
Kenny (1984) used the term ‘homunculus fallacy’. He argued that ascribing psychological predicates to the brain invites the question of how the brain can for example see or remember something. Since it does not make sense to say that the brain sees or remembers something, Kenny argued that ascribing psychological predicates to the brain leads to the absurd consequence that one has to assume a homunculus in the brain. We prefer the term ‘mereological fallacy’ because the fallacy is about applying predicates to parts (not to an alleged homunculus in the head) of living creatures. This also clarifies why the fallacy extends to machines. Aeroplanes fly and clocks indicate time, but it makes no sense to say that the engine of an aeroplane flies or that the fuse´e of a clock indicates time. (p. 2-3)
Smit & Hacker (2017) – Seven Misconceptions About the Mereological Fallacy

Moral of the story: assigning properties of the whole to its parts is always sus (using contemporary language from the game Among us) – do it and you might just become a psychologist whose best explanation of anything human related: “brains work that way”.

Radical behaviorist clarity

But many contemporary psychologists, following the quest of these predecessors going back to the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans, now seek the elusive agent in the brain. In either case the agent is circularly inferred from the same behavior to be explained (p. 22)
No matter how fanciful or far–fetched the theory, some physiological activity is always present to be correlated with the behavioral events said to be external representations of whatever internal functions the theory hypothesizes—an approach prone to fallacies and low on the quality scale in scientific practice. (p. 24)
Fraley & Ledoux (1997) – Origins, Status and Mission of Behaviorology

Both the mind and the brain are not far from the ancient notion of a homunculus—an inner person who behaves in precisely the ways necessary to explain the behavior of the outer person in whom he dwells.
Malone & Cruchone (2001, p. 47) – Radical Behaviorism and the Rest of Psychology – A Review-Precis of Skinner’s About Behaviorism

The CD reinforces the reality that with regard to having a brain, there is only one entity, the whole person, that makes the statement sensible (Schlinger, 2005).
The syntax and structure of everyday language, however, create the confusion of a duality of ‘‘me and my brain’’ when no such independent duality exists (Hineline, 1980).
Phelps (2007, p. 218) – Why We Are Still Not Cognitive Psychologists: A Review of Why I Am Not a Cognitive Psychologist

No explanation of behavior is provided by analyzing the functions of any internal organs – the focus on the external/internal environment and individual history is unavoidable.