BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS

BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS

1. historical background

   • Behaviorism's long past lies in classical Greek naturalism, the Scientific Revolution, and Enlightenment philosophy (Day, 1998; Kantor, 1963)
     • participating factors
       • the American culture (e.g., progressive and modernist; O’Donnell, 1985)
         • evolutionary biology (e.g., studies in comparative psychology; Boakes, 1984)
           • general physiology (e.g., research on biological behavior; Pauly, 1987a)
             • the philosophy of science (e.g., positivism; Lenzer, 1975)
               • psychological systems (e.g., functionalism; Owens & Wagner, 1993)
                 • universities (e.g., Chicago, Johns Hopkins; see e.g., Goodspeed, 1916)
                   • teachers (e.g., Jacques Loeb; Pauly, 1987b)
                     • mentors (e.g., James Rowland Angell; Hunter, 1949)
                       • individuals (e.g., Watson; Buckley, 1989; Watson, 1936); and publications. Its signal publication was Watson’s (1913b)

2. The Behavior of Organisms: An Experi‑mental Analysis. Applied behavior analysis participated in the history of behavior analysis, but it too, varied. It varied enough to evolve into a separate sub-discipline. Its history included not only Skinner’s science, but also his philosophy of science (Skinner, 1945), and not only Skinner (Morris, Altus, & Smith, 2005)

   • the four dimensions that were the defining features of Watson’s behaviorism. First, though, I situate Watson’s article in the psychology of his day and introduce the behaviorism he proffered.

3. Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It

   • In celebratory history, it was the death of the psychology of consciousness studied through introspective methods and the birth of the psychology of behavior studied through objective methods.
   • Although Watson’s behaviorism evolved after his article’s publication (see Watson, 1916, 1919, 1924, 1928), his opening paragraph offers a succinct and accurate summary of it:
     • Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior. Introspection forms no essential part of its methods, nor is the scientific value of its data dependent on the readiness with which they lend themselves to interpretations in terms of consciousness.
       • The behavior of man, with all its refinement and complexity, forms only part of the behaviorist’s total scheme of investigation. (Watson, 1913b, p. 158) Following this, Watson described the psychology of consciousness, criticized it on several grounds, advanced the psychology of behavior, placed his research in that psychology, and extended that psychology to human behavior (e.g., memory, thinking, judgment).

4. Watson’s Legacy: Applied Behavior Analysis

   • Baer et al. (1968) described its seven dimensions in the following order:
     • The field “must be applied, behavioral, and analytic. In addition, it should be technological, conceptually systematic, and effective, and it should display some generality”

5. The Conceptual Systems Dimension: Naturalism

   • Watson’s (1913b) conceptual system was the first and defining feature of his behaviorism. It was his behaviorism. In defining psychology as “a purely objective experimental branch of natural science”
     • naturalism was the first legacy of his article for applied behavior analysis. Much depends, of course, on the meaning of the terms, here, on the meaning of conceptual systems
       • Watson (1913b) emphasized the philosophy of science. The difference reflected different purposes in their respective foundings.

6. Watson’s Legacy

   • Naturalism was the first legacy of Watson’s (1913b) article for applied behavior analysis,in particular, for its conceptual systems dimension.
     • Skinner (1945) first articulated the philosophy of his science of behavior in his article, “The Operational Analysis of Psychological Terms” (Moxley, 1992, 2001).
       • There, he made three contributions
         • First, he named his philosophy radical behaviorism because everything psychological is ultimately behavioral, where radical meant “thoroughgoing” or “root” (Schneider & Morris, 1987). His behaviorism was a metaphysical behaviorism, not a methodological behaviorism
           • Second, he incorporated private responses and stimuli into his system.
             • third, he analyzed psychological terms such as “consciousness,” “will,” and “feeling” as verbal behavior occasioned by qualities of behavior, for instance, behaving consciously, willfully, and with feeling.