B. F. Skinner’s theory of behavior

ABSTRACT

Skinner’s Theory of Behavior exhibits the characteristics of sophisticated theories in its three metafeatures of philosophical foundations, experimental operations, and engineering applications. Of its several philosophical foundations (or frames of reference) the primary ones are: (a) no agent forms a qualitative core of its analysis of behavioral events, instead the analysis is a quantitative one of behavioral properties and their contingent relations with each other and other events; and (b) behavioral events must be interpreted within their own dimensional system of analysis, and their analysis not default to the explanatory framework of another class of sciences. The experimental operations provide the data that support principles anchored in the laboratory analysis of the two-term contingency relation – the operant. The laboratory work starts with the consequences of selection, a postcedent impetus, and combined with other variables, including antecedent ones, examines further contingency relations based upon the operant. Specific engineering applications are derived from the laboratory work of experimental operations merged with the theory’s interpretative frames of reference. These engineering applications are vast. Their social benefits have been immense. Skinner’s Theory of Behavior ushered in a new and revolutionary behavioral science based upon the quantification of action properties combined with the mechanism of contingency selection.

KEYWORDS:

• Skinner
• theory of behavior
• contingency selection
• behaviorology
• operant

Acknowledgment

My thanks to J. D. Ulman and J. S. Vargas for an editorial reading of this article and for providing a number of fine edits. An earlier version of this article was published in Vestnik Novosibirskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta. Seriia: Psikhologiia.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. In his introduction to Contingencies of Reinforcement: A Theoretical Analysis (2013), Skinner lays out the facts of his theory building from the very first days of his scientific career. As he further points out, he continued his discussions of theory throughout his scientific career. In the foreword to the 2013 reprinting, D. C. Palmer relates the relevance to the science and benefit to the culture of Skinner going beyond experimental procedures in order to interpret behavioral events. Palmer underscores how such interpretation is commonplace, and necessary, in all the sciences. See his well-stated distinction between interpretation and speculation on pages viii and ix.

2. For an very good review of the state of Skinnerian science in its disciplinary aspects, see the special issue of the European Journal of Behavior Analysis (Volume 15, No. 1, 2014) edited by Per Holth. Holth (2014) provides an excellent introduction to the current contentions, which range from maintaining that behavior analysis is a part of psychology to demonstrating that it is a separate science. I took the position that it is a separate science and that its separation is an established fact (Vargas, 2014b). For those interested in what the disciplinary name “behaviorology” denotes, see Ulman and Vargas (2005) and my short discussion of the designation in E.A. Vargas (2013).

3. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity (which could have been called a “Theory of Invariance”) was as much a treatise in philosophy as in physics as it addressed the role of the observer (its frame of reference) with respect to physical events (Barnett, 1948; Isaacson, 2007). The principles of Skinnerian science pertain regardless of the status of the observer. As in the physics of gravity or the biology of natural selection, the mechanism of contingency selection controls an animal’s action properties. A pertinent article here is Skinner (1981).

4. I quote from Skinner’s thesis (1930a) rather than his later slight reworking of it, The Concept of the Reflex in the Description of Behavior (1931), as I wanted the earliest statement of his views on this matter. Prior to his thesis, he published two articles on experimental matters, one on the geotropic action of the ant (Barnes & Skinner, 1930) and the other on eating reflexes (Skinner, 1930b); a third article, a review of a paper on inherited learning behavior, was essentially a theory article but confined closely to the assessment of the study critiqued (Skinner, 1930c).

 And those to whom history attracts may find the following of interest: for his parents, Skinner prepared (with a copy for himself) a hard cover bound copy of reprints of his articles between “June 1 1930–January 1935.” He placed the articles into three categories: theoretical, experimental, and reviews and miscellaneous. “Theoretical” included “The Concept of the Reflex.” He later read over at least a portion of his own copy as he listed a few “Errata” in the flyleaf (and then changed them). He changes, for example, the term “affective” to “effective” on page 43 in the article on “The Generic Nature of the Concepts of Stimulus and Response” (1935). Of course it makes a huge difference in the meaning of the sentence.

5. For those interested in epigenetics, Saey (2013) provides a brief overview of it. Francis (2011), a science writer, gives a non-technical introduction to the topic. Carey (2012) is a scientist working in the area and while her writing is clear and sprightly, it approaches the subject more technically. As do the others, Francis makes evident the mutual relationship between the genetic apparatus and its surrounding environment, each reciprocally influencing the other. So that, “the cellular environment is itself influenced by other cells, both local and remote. Moreover, the cellular environment is often influenced by events that occur outside of the body, including social interactions” (p. 32). He provides a powerful example: “One of the reasons war and other forms of trauma have such enduring … effects is that they induce epigenetic alterations” (p. 33).

6. Any excursion into Wikipedia will provide a wealth of detail of operant techniques and the contingency selection framework that explains how those techniques work. If one enters “cichlid fish, operant” in Google, numerous mentions appear, with items ranging from a design for an operant apparatus for fish (Chase & Hill, 1999) to a morphological and behavioral study of juvenile cichlids’ visual resolution during growth using operant techniques (Van Der Meer, 1995). As for working with husbands, Sutherland (2008) provides a good-hearted account.

7. Behavioral engineers stretch the science by applying its principles in uncharted areas or demonstrating new aspects of them not considered before. It reminds one of Benjamin Thompson’s (Count Rumford) work in boring cannons whose practical experiments discredited the caloric model of heat; see Gribbin (2006). Of course, not understanding the science, or the ethical principles entailed (Vargas, 1999), leads to polemics paraded as principles and to negative outcomes from the popular culture; see e.g. Skinner (2006, pp. 351–352, 1983).