Sadly, a practice today is not mentioning those who behave, the practitioner per se. (3)
Were behaviorists to end this trend, more people might be able to imagine themselves
as a subject ... and even a researcher ... in animal-conditioning experiments.
Dropping protagonists from dialogue we slip into reification: mistaking ‘behavior’ for a thing.
In fact, behaving is on-going process as is movement, and individuals are the essential entities. Reifying 'behavior' confuses the issue of reciprocal conditioning in human relationships. (4) Skinner constantly emphasized socialization:
“The special conditioning of the listener is the crux of the problem. Verbal behavior is shaped and sustained by a verbal environment - by people who respond…in certain ways because of the practices of the group of which they are members … interaction between speaker and listener yield the phenomena … considered here under the rubric of verbal behavior.”
“The special conditioning of the listener is the crux of the problem. Verbal behavior is shaped and sustained by a verbal environment - by people who respond…in certain ways because of the practices of the group of which they are members … interaction between speaker and listener yield the phenomena … considered here under the rubric of verbal behavior.”
Let us remember: let us consider how social interactions involve movement in various directions, back and forth, relative to others and more remote stimuli.
Some species travel 500 kilometers a day - twice a year - attracted by a life-sustaining habitat.
Some species travel 500 kilometers a day - twice a year - attracted by a life-sustaining habitat.
Yet subjects in free-operant conditioning labs, remain solitary and stationary. ‘ What would records look like if experimental animals were freely mobile?’ I asked blithely in 1984; and that led to my isolation - from which I have yet to recover. (5)
___________________________________________________________________
(3) To my knowledge, the decision to do so dates from 1984: "We should speak of the survival of practices and not of the practitioners: classes of behavior survive as cultural practices, and not the group, the individuals in it, or their descendents." [6] [p.713] When reading this I was already fixated on 'the whole organism'; I knew 'practice' means 'practitioners' whose customs and cultural traditions pass from generation to generation by way of people, parents, siblings; youngsters too can initiate change; at times teachers welcome a tip from an apprentice.
(4) "If it weren't for reification - calling a process or an activiry a thing - psychology might be a natural science." Richard W. Malott, (1995) ABA NEWSLETTER, 18,#1.
Today (9/7/10) FABBS News Highlights: NIH Urges Scientists to Communicate Research Value in Applications: "... applicants ... should state in plain language the valus and potential impact of the research on public health." For clear information on health investigations, plain language AND technical terms are probably best; and especially in connection with 'social reinforcement'.
(5) My mentors are silent, elusive, non-committal. The analysis of attraction and locomotion proved worthwhile in practice - but with no laboratory roots, applications cannot spread evenly, (note 16). If only Skinner were here! He recognized locomotion as another dependent variable in behavior analysis; his letters are in the B.F. Skinner Foundation, with kind permission from Dr. Julie Vargas
No comments:
Post a Comment