Should Have Consulted the Foxes

When we stood aside to show behaviorism the door, we let in all of the problems of a science of these slippery, shadowy mental phenomenon.

Sonja Yoerg** (2001, p. 101)

Yoerg, S. (2001). Clever as a fox: What animal intelligence can tell us about ourselves. Harrisonburg, VA: Donnelley*

*Among her many, many misconceptions about behaviorism, Yoerg also makes the astonishing claim that Skinnerian behaviorism had "psychology in a headlock for decades" (p. 77) and that "Through the 1970s, most psychology majors in the United States, including those destined to become psychanalysts, would have been rigorously schooled in conditioning principles and would have learned to teach a rat to press a bar for food." (p. 77).

These are remarkably uninformed claims given that behaviorists in general, and Skinnerian behaviorists in particular, have never been more than a minority in psychology (see Todd & Morris, 1992). Yoerg might as well be claiming that Apple has a stranglehold on the desktop personal computer business--it is about 20%--just because it is a highly visible corporation.

We might presume that the widespread behaviorist indoctrination, had it existed, would be seen in the psychology textbooks of the period. Psychology textbooks, alas, have always been almost all non-behaviorist in perspective, relegating what Yeorg imagines was the most dominant force in psychology legely to just one chapter on conditioning near the beginning of the book (see Todd, 1994; Todd & Morris, 1983). I myself, looking around at those psychologists my age and older, rarely see anyone who knows much about conditioning, much less claims to be a behaviorist. With all that supposed behaviorist training everywhere, where did all the behaviorists go?

References

Todd, J. T., & Morris, E. K. (1983). Misconception and miseducation: Presentations of radical behaviorism in psychology textbooks. The Behavior Analyst, 6, 153-160.

Todd, J.T. & Morris, E.K. (1992). Case histories in the great power of steady misrepresentation. American Psychologist, 47(11), 1441-1453.

Todd, J. T. (1994). What psychology has to say about John B. Watson. In J. T. Todd & E. K. Morris (Eds.). Modern perspectives on John B. Watson and Classical Behaviorism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

What Are You Whispering About?

The topic of consciousness, after a long period of neglect in the philosophical and psychological literature, is back with a vengeance. Behaviorism is dead*, and its demise has freed us to speak of consciousness without using the hushed, somewhat sheepish tones that are still de rigueur for discussions of 'mystical' topics such as Bergsonian élan vital or even Cartesian dualism.

Christopher Williams Cowell (1992, p. 2)

Cowell, C. W. (1992). Minds, Machines and Qualia: A Theory of Consciousness. Dissertation submitted to Harvard University.

*This is a discussion of the philosophical type of behaviorism, which seems to have little relation to pragmatic Skinnerian version.

A Poor Choice of Reading Material

I agree Utmost. Behaviorism is dead in my book. Its application for humans is very limited because is fails to consider our higher cognitive reasoning abilities and complex phenomenological perspectives.

"Habanero" (2004)

"Habanero" (July 16, 2004). Comment on The Enneagram Institute Discussion Board.

Within You, Without You

If one traces through the history of behaviorism from approximately 1913,...one finds a story of progressive attenuation of the position from within and, more recently,... increasingly and very strong attrition from without.*

Sigmund Koch (1964)

In Wann, T.W. (Ed.) (1964). Behaviorism and Phenomenology: Contrasting Bases for Modern Psychology, p. 98

*Later the same year that Koch made this statement,1964, the APA Division for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior (Division 25) was founded because the Division of Experimental Psychology (Division 3) could not provide sufficient program space for all of the new behavior analytic research. By 1973, Division 25 was larger than Division 3 with 1,241 versus 1,158 members respectively. (From J. Todd's history of Division 25 in Dewsbury's Unification Through Division: Histories of the Divisions of the American Psychological Association, 1996, APA Books.)

Hostile Takeover?

The topic of consciousness as well as the first-person perspective have, however, suffered a bad reputation since the behaviorist takeover of all thought concerning the mind. But, rumor has it that behaviorism is dead.

 Leopold Stubenberg (1998, p. 38 )

Stubenberg, L. (1998). Consciousness and qualia.

Maybe It's Time to Reconsider?*

Behaviorism is dead. The few protected remnants in the universities have no intellectual vitality, and the occasional recitation of behaviorist slogans by the practitioners of behavior modification has little to do with the actual success or utility of their methods.

Robert L. Campbell (1999)

Campbell, R. L.. (1999). Ayn Rand and the Cognitive Revolution in Psychology. Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, 1, 107-134.

*Thirty-seven states have laws mandating payment for Applied Behavior Analysis-based interventions for children with autism. Seventeen have laws licensing or otherwise recognizing the professional status of behavior analysts.

Not So Friendly as they Seem

When you restrict your definition of institution to behavior alone, then you eliminate all of the cognitive, emotional, and spiritual aspects of social mechanisms. This is an impoverished view of society and psyche which harks back to the failed attempt in the early 20th century to redefine everything in the social sciences in terms of behavior alone, i.e. Behaviorism. Behaviorism is dead, I glad to say, but its ghosts still linger on in our words and thoughts.

Loren Cobb (2005)

Comment on: Powelson, J. (2005). Powelson's Laws: Everything depends on everything else. The Quaker Economist, 5 (122)

A Simmering Mis-Critique

This presents me with something of a problem because the editors request that I include my opinion on the state of the art in terms of the substantive topic, the important issues for the future, and so forth. Given that neobehaviorism is over and done with, what relevance does the topic have for contemporary psychology? This question simmers beneath the surface of Mills's book, breaking through overtly in several places, from time to time, especially in the introduction and the conclusion.

John L. Smith (2001)

Smith, J.L. (2001) Review: The legacy of behaviorism: Historical appraisal versus contemporary critique. [Review of: A history of behavioral psychology by John A. Mills.] The American Journal of Psychology, 114(4), 654-658

Constructing His Own Misunderstanding

The theoretical base that caused some teachers to characterize Mark Gabehart as a Marble Tower Academic several years ago has now gained popular acclaim. Few question that behaviorism is dead and that constructivist approaches to teaching and learning prove more effective. In the constructivist view of learning, learners construct their own understandings.

Miguel Guhlin (1997)

Guhlin, M. (1997). Dancing with Change: Should You Lead or Follow?

Death Grip

It is now widely accepted that behaviorism is on the decline, its loss of vigor the result of its inability to come to grips even with the existence of innate behaviors, much less with their mechanisms and evolutionary origins.*

James L. Gould (1982, p. 8)

Gould, J. L. (1982). Ethology: The mechanisms and evolution of behavior. New York: Norton.

*Both John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner studied and wrote about innate behavior, and attributed much, including the ability to learn itself, to natural selection.

Chopping Block

Behaviorism is a dead doctrine that was abandoned for good reason. A major strand of O’Regan’s and Nöe’s view turns out to be a type of behaviorism, though of a non-standard sort. However, the view succumbs to some of the usual criticisms of behaviorism.

Ned Block (2001)

Block, N. (2001). Behaviorism revisited. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, p. 24

Bad Day for Dogs

And surely behaviorism is dead as a dog and out for the count: beliefs, desires, memories, etc. cannot be understood in terms of behavior or dispositions to behave.

Bill Vallicella (2009)

The "Maverick Philosopher" commenting on Arthur W. Collins (1987), The Nature of Mental Things.

Dealing with Criticism By Removing It*

Behaviorism was one of the now-discredited psychological theories of the last century, championed by B.F. Skinner, according to which mental states do not matter because behavior can be programmed directly. Mario Beauregard and I talk a bit about this in The Spiritual Brain.

Actually, the mere mention of the placebo effect should be enough to sink behaviorism as a theory. Basically, for many illnesses, mental states play a huge role in how well treatments work (placebo effect) - or DON'T work (nocebo effect).

Of course, W. H. Auden took a down-to-earth approach to how the theory was used in practice. He said,

Of course, Behaviourism "works". So does torture. Give me a no-nonsense, down-to-earth behaviourist, a few drugs, & simple electrical appliances, & in six months I will have him reciting the Athanasian Creed in public.

Denyse O'Leary (January 10, 2008)

O'Leary, D. (2008, January 10) "Does Behaviorism Work." From the Blog, "Mindful Hack"*

*O'Leary removed a corrective response by J. Todd to her post, and then blocked an additional comment questioning the validity and basis of her attack on behavior analysis.

Conceptually Flawed

But times have changed. No one now could seriously maintain that most philosophical problems are at root problems about language, and metaphysics has been respectable for several decades. Moreover, behaviorism is dead, and concepts are now one of the half dozen most central concerns in the flourishing field of cognitive science. It's time to reconsider conceptualism.

Chris Swoyer (2006)

Swoyer, C. (2006). Conceptualism. In P. F. Strawson and A. Chakrabarti (Eds.),. Universals, Concepts and Qualities. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing.

Everybody's Dead

One breakthrough I noticed in the materials we read and what we heard is that basically behaviorism is dead. Basically in a certain way, sociobiology is dead because we're now getting solid scientific evidence that many of our distinctively human qualities, like for example, language, have a natural foundation, that they're innate in some sense.

Peter Lawler (2004)

Neuroscience, Brain, and Behavior III: Council Discussion (President's Council on Bioethics, April 1, 2004)

Ruch the Day

Most psychologists, however, felt that conscious and unconscious experience should not be neglected by psychology....For this reason, thoroughgoing behaviorism was rather short lived in the United States.

Floyd Ruch (1948)

Ruch, F.L. (1948). Psychology and life. 3rd. ed. Chicago: Scott Foresman, p. 38

Lost in the Jungle

Behaviorism is dead; we all know that. But why did it die, and is there anything of it worth resurrecting? In his very readable The New Behaviorism, John Staddon addresses these questions and much, much more. He argues that philosophically Watsonian and Skinnerian behaviorism were fundamentally flawed, but that nonetheless they yielded valuable techniques and results.

Robert Brandon (undated, circa 2000)

Brandon, R. (c. 2000). Amazon website comments on Staddon's The New Behaviorism.

Where Did Everybody Go?

In this sense, it would be true to say that classical, uncompromsing behaviorism is dead: there just isn't anybody around today who believes that our mental lives can be wholly analyzed and explained by way of stimulus-response patterns.

Michael John Zenzen (2003, p. 3 )

Zenzen, M. J. (2003). Superminds: People Harness Hypercomputation, and More.