Behaviour is the subject matter of psychology

In this essay, the concept of behaviour from the point of view of behaviour analysis will be discussed. Skinner (1953) maintained that psychology is a science. His perspective on the purpose and the subject matter of psychology and why behaviour should be studied will be examined. Skinner (1981) proposed that behaviour is shaped by the consequences that follow. The implications of this position will be considered.

Behaviour is often described as actions, intentions of the individual. It may be described with reference to expectations, motives, wants and traits. At other times, causal factors are hypothesized to explain behaviour. Such attempts to define behaviour fail to consider the organism-environment interactions. When behaviour is defined through the above mentioned entities, it results in a conception of behaviour as static and with a temporal and spatial relation with the environment- not a functional relation (Johnston & Pennypacker,1993).

Skinner (1938) defined behaviour as “the movement of an organism or of its parts in a frame of reference provided by the organism or by various external objects or fields” (Cited in Cooper, Heron & Heward, 2007, p. 25). He viewed behaviour as a complex process, which is fluid and thus cannot be kept motionless for observation (Skinner, 1953). Skinner held that behaviour is lawful and determined and therefore can be controlled. This assumption of behavioural determinism was fundamental to the study of behaviour as a scientific phenomenon (Delprato & Medgley, 1992).

Johnston and Pennypacker (1993) offered a scientific definition of behaviour.

The behaviour of an organism is that portion of an organism’s interaction with its environment that is characterized by detectable displacement is space through time of some part of the organism and that results in a measurable change in at least one aspect of the environment (p. 23).

Thus, behaviour is an interaction that results in a measurable change in the environment of the organism from movement or motion. This interaction could occur with the whole or part of the organism’s body. It excludes any hypothesized or real attribute held by the organism, movements that are not carried out by the organism and those that lack any interaction with the physical environment. Cognitive concepts and terms such as attitudes, expectations, emotions and mind are not behavioural events as they do not interact with a physical environment, nor can they be measured directly or indirectly through their effect on environment. However, this does not imply that the above do not exist- they do, but are not behaviours (Johnston & Pennypacker, 1993).

Skinner proposed that thinking is a form of behaviour. An important aspect of the above definition is ‘environment’. Environment refers to any occurrence in the universe that can impinge on the organism. A part of this universe is situated within the organism’s own body and skin. Skinner suggested that verbal behaviour occurring at the covert level serves as the stimuli as the speaker is also the listener, which could result in private consequences (Skinner, 1953). Thus, thinking is a result of self stimulation, which can be overt or covert and verbal or non verbal. Skinner maintained that language was a form of verbal behaviour. Consciousness and Verbal behaviour were shaped by consequences that followed (Delprato & Midgley, 1992).

Science, Psychology and its subject matter

“Science is a disposition to deal with the facts rather than with what someone has said about them” (Skinner, 1953, p.12). Skinner suggested induction as the method for establishing laws of behaviour. Individual instances of observed behaviour lead to rules and then to scientific laws. These laws are incorporated into a system or model, which enables the scientist to efficiently handle the behaviour governed by those laws. This, in turn, facilitates predictions of behaviour and through manipulation, it can be controlled (Skinner, 1953).

Skinner (1950) argued “the construction of hypotheses suggests mysterious intellectual activities” (1950, p. ). The hypothetical-deductive method entails the production of tentative statements and theories to prove or disprove these hypotheses. Behaviour, being varied and often inaccessible, cannot be manipulated with complete control as in pure/ natural sciences. The method, however, is often used where not required and when direct observation and induction would be more effective. Behaviour and variables affecting it are noticeable and evident and thus do not require the hypothetical deductive reasoning (Skinner, 1950-learning theories).

Different approaches in psychology have focused on unconscious thoughts, emotional states, inner drives, and processes. These ’causes’ of behaviour can seldom be observed directly and behaviour or another physical event is measured. These measurements are then used to infer a causal relationship between the phenomenon under study and the measurements or subjective descriptions. Thus, the causal relations can be framed without reason or fear of contradiction. Further, these explanations do not throw light on the functional relations of the behaviour and environmental variables (Johnston and Pennypacker, 1993; Skinner, 1953). Cognitive psychologists, through introspection, have reported feelings, representations and processes. However, these processes are not self observed. They are theories which have to be confirmed. To confirm theories, brain sciences are applied to inspect these processes (Skinner, 1990). Skinner (1989) held that the processes inside of the brain are not the focus of psychology. “Brain science may discover other kinds of variables affecting behaviour, but they will turn to behaviour analysis for the clearest account of the effects of variables” (1989, p. ).

Skinner (1987) noted that behaviour has not been studied as a phenomenon, it has been considered as reflective of inner processes. “The basic issue is not the stuff of which the world is made, or whether it is made of one stuff or two, but rather the dimensions of things studied by psychology and methods relevant to them” (Skinner, 1988a, p. ). If the purpose of science was the prediction and control of behaviour, then behaviour should be the focus (Skinner, 1953).

Responses of an organism are observable and Skinner (1938) suggested rate of response as the measure of behaviour. It is not possible to control or predict responses which have taken place; neither can one predict the ‘same’ response in future. However, Skinner suggested that one can predict the occurrence of ‘similar’ responses- the consequences that follow a response determine the similarity or ‘class of responses’. Thus, response similarity does not refer to the form of responses, but the effect they produce on the environment and the consequences that follow (1953). He maintained that analysing conditions that impact behaviour can enable one to predict, manipulate and thus control behaviour (Skinner, 1953).

Selection by Consequences & Operant conditioning

Skinner rejected the mechanical causality and the ‘intiating agent’ explanation of behaviour. Like Darwin proposed natural selection as the cause of survival of the species, Skinner (1981) believed that the behaviours followed by favourable consequences are likely to be repeated. Evolution has made behaviour susceptible to consequences. Once reinforced, the organism then responds to the environment based on this past experience. The organism does not refer to memories or representations of previous consequences prior to action. Behaviour is under the control of the environment, and can be shaped and maintained through the contingencies of reinforcement. Thus, it is not learnt, but selected (Skinner, 1981 & 1987).

This ‘selection by consequences’ underlies operant conditioning. “Operant conditioning refers to the process and selective effects of consequences on behaviour” (Cooper, Heron & Heward, 2007, p. 33). In operant conditioning, behaviour acts on the environment which produces certain consequences; if the consequence is positive i.e. reinforcement, then behaviour is likely to occur again in future. If the consequence is negative i.e. punishment, then behaviour is unlikely to occur again in future. These contingencies of reinforcement do not act on behaviour that has occurred, but affect its future frequency. Further, the behaviour is emitted with the expectation that the same consequence will follow each time the stimulus is present. This expectation is a result of past experience of reinforcement and results in an association between the stimulus, behaviour and reinforcement. Thus, the behaviours or class of responses that have been reinforced only can be predicted and only in the presence of that specific stimulus. This particular stimulus then becomes indicative of the reinforcement availability or a discriminative stimulus. There exist a temporal relationship between the behaviour and reinforcement. A consequence reinforces any behaviour that precedes it. For a reinforcer to be effective, it must follow immediately after the target behaviour. The relation between the behaviour and reinforcement is that of function and not form (Skinner, 1953; Cooper, Heron & Heward, 2007).

Through operant conditioning, Skinner explained several behaviours formerly attributed to mental processes or initiating agents. He maintained that human language is also a result of operant conditioning. While linguist explain human language in terms of its structure and as an ability that is acquired through maturation and inherited knowledge systems or ‘generative grammar’ (???), Skinner held that language was behaviour. It was a product of reinforcement from the society. Children’s responses are reinforced by the society and this results in conditioned verbal behaviour. Thus, when a child is asked “what is your name?” and the child responds “John”, the attention and social praise received reinforces the response “John” to the stimulus “what is your name?”. This stimulus becomes a discriminative stimulus for the response “John”. The child does not process the words and understand their meaning before responding. He responds based on his learning history- past reinforcement experiences. The contingencies for verbal behaviour are largely social in nature relative to other behaviours (Skinner, 1988c; Delprato & Migdley, 1992). Similarly, a child identifying the colour ‘red’ can be explained through operant conditioning. Learning theories suggest that identification of colours results from an association between the mental representation of colour ‘red’ with the word ‘red’. However, the response ‘red’ to a blue object is unlikely to be praised and more likely to result in error correction. When the child responds ‘red’ to a red object, praise is likely to follow and reinforce this response. The child is more likely to respond red each time this stimulus is encountered with the expectation that praise will follow (Skinner, 1988c). Thus, the focus is on studying behaviour and describing behavioural processes.

In case of psychopathology, disturbances in behaviour are attributed to inner mental states such as anxiety, depression etc. Behaviour is considered a symptom of disturbance in inner processes and the focus is thus on the study of internal processes, their structure, features and operations. However the emergence of this anxiety, depression is unexplained (Skinner, beh at 50). As a result, the interventions are also based on altering internal thought processes and it is expected that a change in thought processes will result in behavioural change. But this change process cannot be observed and behaviour once again serves as basis for concluding intervention effects. A focus on the explanation of behaviour through internal entities and processes sets a scientist against the disadvantages of data based on the subjective descriptions, which cannot be verified. Further, it results in a search for the nature and structure of these internal processes instead of their functions and effects on behaviour (Catania, ???). Gopnik (1988) noted that although mentalistic theories have succeeded in describing mental structures and their relation to behaviour, they have failed to discuss the origins of these very structures. “We have almost no idea how human beings construct the concepts, rules and beliefs that underlie their behaviours”.

Conclusion