Radical Behaviorism
Dale Brethower
International Society for Performance Improvment
Radical behaviorism is one of several distinct "brands" of behaviorism, each with its own historical roots. The major distinctions are between S-S approaches (classical conditioning in which the basic operation is stimulus pairing), R-R approaches (Guthry's contiguity theory--we do next R what we did last R), S-R approaches (that trace back to Hull and are the ones people tend to think of and attack when attacking "behaviorism"), and S-R-S approaches (which trace back to BFSkinner and are the ones used by all of the visible behaviorists and fellow travelers in ISPI). Each approach tried to use its thing as the basic operation in learning: S-S, R-R, S-R, and S-R-S. R-R and S-R approaches died of inability to find empirical support.
The key point here is that, when people are talking about the limitations of S-R psychology they are not talking about the kind of work ISPI behaviorists do. Neither Skinner nor any of the rest of us was ever S-R psychologists; we were always S-R-S types. (S-R psychology can be likened to driving a car by reacting, R, exclusively to "internal" stimuli as measured by the several gauges on the dashboard. S-R-S adds the dimension of "external" stimuli as indicated by all one views through the windshield. We can talk about each using Ss and Rs but they are vastly different.)
Thus, one aspect of radical behaviorism is that its scientific foundation is very different than that of S-R behaviorism. The term, radical behaviorism is one that we invented ourselves nearly 40 years ago to contrast with methodological behaviorism.
Methodological behaviorism came about as psychologists began to notice that all observations in the field are observations of behavior: we do not directly observe "cognitive processes" or "emotions" or "feelings" or "attitudes" or "intelligence" or "personality" or "mental illness" but rather observe behavior patterns. (DSMIV, the diagnostic category system for mental disorders has a job aid that guides one in finding the behavior patterns that support each diagnostic category.) Even when we use an "intelligence" test or a "creativity" test or a "smiles" test, we are measuring people's responses to specific and standardized stimuli. Thus all psychologists, like it or not, are methodological behaviorists.
Most psychologists, now and historically, seek a psychology of internal processes, internal constructs, to explain behavior. The task is to find ways of describing internal processes and then to use them to account for the behavior we measure. As some would say, it is an approach that seeks to identify the inner person.
Radical behaviorists, on the other hand and in a politically incorrect fashion, describe that mainstream approach as an attempt to explain the visible and known by the invisible and unknown. Instead, radical behaviorists argue, let us look for orderly patterns of behavior, the conditions under which those patterns occur, and the variables that influence the patterns of behavior. Further, radical behaviorists argue, there are only two places to look for the "controlling" variables, in conditions that were present just before an instance of behavior occurs and in conditions that are present just after an instance of behavior occurs.
Thus, if a motivational theorist, for example, Richard Clark, uses an instrument to "measure" a motivational state (something that occurs before behavior) and recommends tailored incentives (that come after behavior), radical behaviorism can incorporate that information about likely "controlling" variables. How then does a radical behaviorism approach differ from Clark's approach? For one thing, it does not require a construct of "motivation" but simply states: under these conditions (environmental and instrument score), these incentives are likely to affect performance. Similarly, if someone used a test of "attitudes" or a test of "aptitudes" or whatever, radical behaviorists can incorporate the data as a partial description of the before state. And can do so without using the construct of "attitude" or "aptitude."
I mention this because it is a source of much confusion; since radical behaviorists eschew the use of the construct names in explanations, folks accuse us of ignoring "motivation" or "attitude" or whatever and of saying that "motives" and "attitudes" and "mental states" don't exist, thereby banning major Psychological phenomena from existence. We don't. We just take the "radical" position that such constructs are derived from observations of behavior and that the functional relationships can be described without reference to the constructs. We also talk about the dangers of reifying constructs, by which we mean converting a construct--which is derived from a description of behavior-- into an explanation of the behavior. Instead of saying, "He was able to do that because he was intelligent." We say, "People who can do those sorts of things are ones we say are intelligent." These arguments get tricky but the point is that what is "radical" about radical behaviorism is that it rules out no psychological phenomenon while analyzing all psychological phenomena in terms of behavior.
School psychologists deal with such issues on a daily basis: people say a child behaves in such and such a way BECAUSE he is lazy or has low self-esteem or something and school psychologists say: we should do an analysis before jumping to cause or solution. Or, if we wish to appear Politically Incorrect, we radical behaviorist say: "No, we say the child is lazy BECAUSE he behaves in such and such a way; the child's behavior CAUSES us to leap to the conclusion that he is lazy and then make matters worse by saying that our label CAUSES the child's behavior."
But, to keep it simple, just note that the labels "radical behaviorism" and "methodological behaviorism" are terms that apply to two very different philosophies of science. And that the "behaviorism" that people say, correctly, has been shown wanting, is S-R behaviorism. R-R behaviorism died an early death as a theory but remained with us as methodological behaviorism.) Both S-S behaviorism and S-R-S behaviorism are required in a complete science of behavior. And the research findings continue to support the notion that S-S and S-R-S relationship are central to a science of behavior.
The research also continues to support the notion that any psychological phenomenon studied to date can be studied fruitfully within the radical behaviorism framework. But critics mush all the historical approaches that use the terms "stimulus" and "response" together into one incoherent stew and mush behaviorism--the science--and behaviorism--the philosophy together. If you do that, then the critics are right: behaviorism is absurd. But if critics were, first, to take the step of specifying what they are talking about, they would see that it is the criticism that is absurd, not the hugely supported science of behavior or behaviorism as a philosophy of science.
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