Blog Idea
Talking with Diana- We think a good idea for a blog is one on intention/purpose. The reason for this is that for some reason we seem to use the concept of behavior with purpose (self management and planning for instance) but conceptually the idea of purpose is something behavior science doesn’t like
Genevieve said,
January 30, 2008 at 8:21 pm
I am sure our palm reading discussion on the 13th will turn into an interesting blog on mind reading/psychic abilities. Let’s prepare to record that day.
timfuller said,
January 30, 2008 at 8:23 pm
When the above post says “we” i mean me (tim) and Diana
tim
Curious said,
September 14, 2008 at 5:21 pm
I ran across this site during my internet “wanderings” and listened to several of the recordings of Dr. Hayes which I found interesting. Having been a student of philosophy, and, to some extent, psychology as well, I encountered Skinner’s thoughts on behavior and its genetic and environmental relationships in Science and Human Behavior, and, I must say, I was initially impressed.
However, as I thought about his writings more deeply, it occurred to me that Skinner’s avowed goal, as explicated in his writings such as Beyond Freedom and Dignity, to first inform us and then to set the stage for a profound change of our notions and attitudes toward behavior and its relationships, and, thus, change our social systems, will likely never come to fruition.
Notwithstanding the fact that his writings have been around for 50-60 years with minimal noticeable impact upon society (other than a slew of negative reactions to his concepts and how to put them into play and underwhelming demonstrations of the concepts in practice such as at few-and-far-between Walden Two-like communities), Skinner’s theory is eminently impossible to implement on a broad scale or even, for that matter, on an individual scale if we define “individual as a homo sapien with a fully intact and fully functioning cerebral cortex and the concomitant ability for advanced language”.
In fact, Skinner’s theory is fine on paper, but, unfortunately, it would be a disastrous failure in implementation for reasons cited below. The question then becomes, “If a particular science of behavior’s aim is to improve our lot, and it cannot do so to any broad or significant degree, of what practical worth is it?”
Let’s take a grandfather of 50 years old, a former womanizer, who stills harbors thoughts of meeting attractive, younger women. One day, his wife tells him to take their grandson to the lake for a walk. He views this venture with mixed blessings; he really would rather stay home and watch the football game, then again, there are some babes by the lake, and, who knows, he might meet one. Then, he thinks that he really should grow out of these “immature” thoughts, that he’s an old and married man, but that he will take his grandson to the lake anyway because his grandson will enjoy it. His behavior of taking his grandson to the lake has multiple functions, many of which, are in his head and not accessible to others unless he accurately delineates them and chooses to tell others. In fact, there may be other functions which affect his behavior which he has not or could not attend to and report to others.
How do we sort out these functions, and, even if we could, could we do so with, say, even 60% probability (that probability is a gift to you) of successfully predicting his behavior in any given instance of being asked by his wife to take his son to the lake?
The experimental analysis of behavior and behavior analysis, as spin-offs of Skinner’s theory, for good reason, have been limited to successful applications in populations such as pigeons, rats, the developmentally disabled, and the autistic. When you introduce organisms with “higher cortical functioning” and “advanced language capabilities”, these spin-offs of Skinner’s theory become impotent.