D Burrhus F Skinner and Operant Conditioning
Burrhus F. Skinner (1904-1990), extended, modified and perfected Thorndike's reward learning theory as operant conditioning. In Skinner's 1953 book with Lindsley and Solomon, the term behavior therapy was introduced into the psychology literature. Skinner however, had worked with nonhuman animals; so that term may have been used in reference to the past work of Mary Cover Jones. It may also have referred to the exciting new, non-Freudian hypothesis of Joseph Wolpe that neurotic fears are learned and can be efficiently treated with behavioral treatments.
Like Watson, Skinner was committed to radical behaviorism. He too rejected traditional psychology and all of its concepts that implied what he called mental-ism. That meant any concept that reflected a belief in cause/effect relationships between mental entities or activities and learned behavior. In the 1966 edition of his 1928 book, The Behavior of Organisms, Skinner still labeled the belief that emotions are important factors in behavior a ''mental fiction.'' He agreed with William James' assertion that ''people are sorry because they cry,'' or that ''people are afraid because
Behavior Therapy they tremble." In addition, they both believed it is incorrect, or at least unscientific, to think that people cry because they are sorry or tremble because they are afraid.
To my knowledge, James' assertion has no clinical application. But, believing in that assertion is a common cause of clinical problems. For example, people who believe they are their behavior often get clinically depressed when they believe that one or two undesirable personal actions "magically change them as human beings." Such students often get depressed and quit school after 1 or 2 days of seriously thinking that they are complete failures because they failed to get the grades that they wanted. However, such thoughts and emotions cannot be directly observed; so, according to Skinnerians, to be "scientific," psychotherapists must ignore those important factors when they treat such depressions or try to get those students to stay in school. Next is the logic of their often futile treatments.
Skinner maintained that emotions are not behavioral responses; instead they are states of reflex strength, similar to drives. According to Skinner, the virtue of understanding emotions that way is that behavioral scientists can ignore them "whenever that concept loses its convenience." However, as we shall see below, Mowrer's research revealed that Skinner's ideas about emotions do not make logical sense, even for nonhuman animals. That fact is all the more interesting because Skinner's research subjects were almost all nonhuman animals—usually rats and pigeons. However, to Skinner's credit, he never advised the extrapolation of his animal research findings to human beings. As late as 1960, he warned that whether or not extrapolation of his research discoveries to people is justified cannot yet be decided. The behavioristic psychologists who introduced operant conditioning into behavior therapy were justifiably impressed by Skinner's research. But, they either did not know or ignored that nonhuman brains cannot and therefore do not process sensory input the same way that human brains process it. Therefore, even in the same stimulus situations, it is still naive to expect humans to respond exactly the way rats or pigeons respond.
1. Skinner's Most Positive and Most
Negative Influences on Behavior Therapy
Probably Skinner's most positive influence on behavior therapy was his research about how different schedules of reinforcements significantly influence the speed of learning new behavioral habits and their resistance to extinctions. For example a fixed 1: 1 ratio of an immediate reward or reinforcement for each appropriate response produces the fastest acquisition of new habits for a given, constant drive level. But those habits are most susceptible to rapid extinction if the response/ reinforcer ratio increases or the reinforcers cease to appear.
If behavior therapists are skilled in managing relevant reinforcement intervals and ratios, their cooperative patients/clients will maintain high levels of motivation for therapeutic change. Also, in the world of paid work, if managers are skilled in varying reinforcement intervals and ratios, employees will maintain high morale and productivity with minimal or no increases in company budgets. Contingency management is the name of such goal-oriented changes in reinforcement schedules and ratios.
The sustained, high productivity that the 1 : 1 ratio produces is the main reason some employers prefer a piecework pay schedule over an hourly or other fixed interval pay schedule that is independent of behavioral response rate. Within the limits of a constant drive state, a variable ratio and/or variable interval reinforcement schedule produces behavioral habits that are most resistant to extinction. For example, the gambler continues to bet despite losses because reinforcement—payoff—may occur any time.
Probably the most negative influence Skinner had on behavior therapy was his empirically unjustified defense of his unreliable definition of behavior. He maintained that behavior is only what one organism observes another organism doing. Because Skinner studied nonhuman animals, he had no logical reason to be concerned about a human test of empirical common sense. Had Skinner had this concern, he might have defined behavior in a way that has a greater than 50% chance of being correct, in any specific instance.
For example, with personal observation alone, a behavior X (1) may be X and may be correctly observed and labeled as X; (2) a non-X behavior may appear not to be behavior X and be correctly observed and labeled as not being behavior X; but (3) behavior X may appear to be some other behavior, for example, Z and may be incorrectly observed and incorrectly labeled as behavior Z; (4) behavior Z can appear to be behavior X and be observed as, and incorrectly labeled as behavior X. A 50% error possibility is insufficient for scientific conclusions. Also,
Skinner's definition of behavior leads to unsuspected magical thinking.
For example, in the textbook Contemporary Behavior Therapy by Spiegler and Guevremont, this statement appears: "The behaviorist's model for behavior is: "People are what they do.'' In reality, though, only by magic can making a stupid mistake convert a human being into a stupid person, or swimming like a fish convert a human being into a fish. That is not just a matter of semantics; when one wants to describe behavior in clinically useful, scientific terms, it is all semantics. When scientists ignore that fact, they sometimes use unsuspected magical thinking to describe empirically valid research findings. As a result they misinterpret their data and formulate useless treatment procedures. That is why Mowrer's research was so important for the development of today's comprehensive behavior therapy.
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