Contingencies of Reinforcement; A Theoretical Analysis

by B.F. Skinner

Contingencies of Reinforcement; A Theoretical Analysis.

Genres: Psychology, Philosophy

283 pages, Paperback

First published July 8, 2014

About the author

Burrhus Frederic Skinner was a highly influential American psychologist, author, inventor, advocate for social reform and poet. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974. He invented the operant conditioning chamber, innovated his own philosophy of science called Radical Behaviorism, and founded his own school of experimental research psychology—the experimental analysis of behavior. His analysis of human behavior culminated in his work Verbal Behavior, which has recently seen enormous increase in interest experimentally and in applied settings. He discovered and advanced the rate of response as a dependent variable in psychological research. He invented the cumulative recorder to measure rate of responding as part of his highly influential work on schedules of reinforcement. In a recent survey, Skinner was listed as the most influential psychologist of the 20th century. He was a prolific author, publishing 21 books and 180 articles.

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 3 out of 5]

SKINNER EXPLAINS SOME OF HIS BASIC IDEAS, AND THEIR DEVELOPMENT, IN GREATER DETAIL

Burrhus Frederic Skinner (1904-1990) wrote in the Preface of this 1969 book, “experimental psychology is properly and inevitably committed to the construction of a theory of behavior. A theory is essential to the scientific understanding of behavior as a subject matter… Another kind of theory is also necessary. We know a great deal about human behavior, for we have observed it all our lives under a great variety of circumstances and have learned about it from others who have had similar experiences. We need to interpret familiar facts of this sort in the light of a scientific analysis.” (Pg. vii-viii)

He continues, “A reputation as an anti-theorist is easily acquired by anyone who neglects hypothetico-deductive methods… The hypothetico-deductive method and the mystery which surrounds it have perhaps been most harmful in misrepresenting ways in which people think… Behavior is one of those subject matters which do not call for the hypothetico-deductive methods. Both behavior itself and most of the variables of which it is usually a function are usually conspicuous… If hypotheses commonly appear in the study of behavior, it is only because the investigator has turned his attention to inaccessible events… When [generalization] gradients began to be directly observed, the hypothetico-deductive procedures became irrelevant.” (Pg. viii, x-xi)

He observes in Chapter 1, “Every stimulus-response or input-output formulation of behavior suffers from a serious omission. No account of the interchange between organism and environment is complete until it includes the action of the environment upon the organism AFTER a response has been made.” (Pg. 5) He states, “The relation of speaker to listener is described in… the input-output formula, in which the speaker TRANSMITS information to the listener or COMMUNICATES with him in the sense of making something common to them both. Given these restrictions, it is not surprising that linguists and psycholinguists have failed to explain why men speak at all, say what they say, or say it in given ways. Nor is it surprising that they have turned to mental processes.” (Pg. 11)

He reports, “‘Walden Two’ describes an imaginary community of about a thousand people who are living a Good Life… Life in Walden Two is not only good, it seems feasible. It is within the reach of intelligent men of goodwill who will apply the principles which are now emerging from the scientific study of human behavior to the design of culture. Some readers may take the book with tongue in cheek, but it was actually a quite serious proposal.” (Pg. 29)

He asserts, “The notion of personal credit is incompatible with the hypothesis that human behavior is wholly determined by genetic and environmental forces. The hypothesis is sometimes said to imply that man is a helpless victim, but we must not overlook the extent to which he controls the things which control him…. He is engaged in a gigantic enterprise in self-control, as the result of which he had come to realize more and more of his genetic potential.” (Pg. 45)

He suggests, “A more direct [environmental] solution is suggested by the experimental analysis of behavior. One may deal with problems generated by a powerful reinforcer simply by changing the contingencies of reinforcement. An environment may be designed in which reinforcers which ordinarily generate unwanted behaviors simply do not do so.” (Pg. 54) Later, he adds, “An important part of that solution is to teach techniques of self-control in which the devil could be said to be tricked rather than vanquished.” (Pg. 67)

He notes, “Contingencies of reinforcement have been analyzed formally in theories of probability, decision-making, and games, but the theorist often has no way of knowing, aside from observation of his own behavior, what effects a given set of contingencies will have or what kind of program may be needed for it to be effective. Certain assumptions---for example, that an organism will behave rationally---are sometimes used in lieu of observations to complete a statement of contingencies.” (Pg. 80) He admits, “Although a technology of behavior is thus in the making, we are not on the verge of solving all our problems. Human behavior is extraordinarily complex… and a great deal remains to be learned.” (Pg. 97)

He states, “when a man explicitly states his purpose in acting in a given way … It does not follow, however, that the behavior generated by the consequences in the absence of any statement of purpose is under the control of any comparable prior stimulus, such as a felt purpose of intention.” He adds in a Note, “The contingencies of reinforcement which define operant behavior are widespread if not ubiquitous. Those who are sensitive to this fact are sometimes embarrassed by the frequency with which they see reinforcement everywhere, as … Freudians by the Oedipus relation. Yet the fact is that reinforcement is extraordinarily important. That is why it is reassuring to recall that its place was once taken by the concept of purpose; no one is likely to object to a search for purpose in every human act. The difference is that we are now in a position to search effectively.” (Pg. 125)

He says, “We insist, with Freud, that the reasons men give in explaining their actions should be accurate accounts of the contingencies of reinforcement which were responsible for their behavior.” (Pg. 152)

He summarizes, “The world which establishes contingencies of reinforcement of the sort studied in an operant analysis is presumably ‘what knowledge is about.’ A person comes to know that world and how to behave in it in the sense that he acquires behavior which satisfies the contingencies it maintains. … But there is another kind of behavior which could be called knowledge of the same things---the behavior controlled by contingency-specifying stimuli. These stimuli are as objective as the world they specify, and they are useful precisely because they become part and remain part of the external world.” (Pg. 156)

He acknowledges, “The ways in which animals behave compose a sort of taxonomy of behavior comparable to other taxonomic parts of biology. Only a very small percentage of existing species has as yet been investigated…. Moreover, only a small part of the repertoire of any species is ever studied… Nothing approaching a fair sampling of species-specific behavior is therefore ever likely to be made.” (Pg. 189)

In the chapter, ‘Behaviorism at Fifty,’ he states, “Behaviorism … is not the scientific study of behavior but a philosophy of science concerned with the subject matter and methods of psychology. If psychology is a science of mental life---of the mind, of conscious experience---then it must develop and defend a special methodology, which it has not yet done successfully. If it is, on the other hand, a science of the behavior of organisms, human or otherwise, then it is part of biology, a natural science for which tested and highly successful methods are available. The basic issue is… the dimensions of the things studied by psychology and the methods relevant to them. Mentalistic or psychic explanations of human behavior almost certainly originated in primitive animism… Primitive origins are not necessarily to be held against an explanatory principle, but the little man is still with us in relatively primitive form.” (Pg. 221-222)

He asserts, “In the fifty years since a behavioristic philosophy was first stated, facts and principles bearing on the basic issues have steadily accumulated. For one thing, a scientific analysis of behavior has yielded a sort of empirical epistemology… The techniques available to such a science give an empirical theory of knowledge certain advantages of over theories derived from philosophy and logic. The problem of privacy may be approached in a fresh direction by starting with behavior rather than with immediate experience.” (Pg. 228)

He acknowledges, “disturbances in simple causal linkages between environment and behavior can be formulated and studied empirically as interactions among variables; but the possibility has not been fully exploited, and the effects still provide a formidable stronghold for mentalistic theories designed to bridge the gap between dependent and independent variables in the analysis of behavior… The behavioristic argument is nevertheless still valid.” (Pg. 240)

He states, “Behaviorism, as we know it, will eventually die---not because it is a failure but because it is a success. As a critical philosophy of science, it will necessarily change as a science of behavior changes, and the current issues which define behaviorism may be fully resolved… A radical behaviorism denies the existence of a mental world, not because it is contentious or jealous of a rival, but because those who claim to be studying the other world necessarily talk about the world of behavior in ways which conflict with an experimental analysis.” (Pg. 267)

In the final chapter, ‘The Inside Story,’ he argues, “The Inner Man is often said to store and recall memories. His behavior in doing so is much like that of the Outer Man when he makes records and puts them aside to be used at a later date… If the Outer Man can do all this, why not the Inner? But how can the Inner Man do it? With what organs can he receive stimuli and make copies of them? Of what stuff are the copies made? In what space does he store them?... We shall not put Cognitive Man in good order by discovering the space in which he works, for it is the work which is the bad metaphor.” (Pg. 273-274)

He suggests, “A machine which simulated human behavior in detail would indeed tell us the ‘Inside Story.’ We should only have to look at the blueprints to see what entered into the creation of man. Like the Inside Story of physiology, however, it would tell us nothing new about behavior. Only when we know what a man actually does can we be sure that we have simulated his behavior. The Outside Story must be told first.” (Pg/ 293)

This book will be of keen interest to those studying Skinner.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit tougher to read than some of Skinner's other works, but a fine book, nonetheless.

[Đường Linh]

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