melanie@cornell.UUCP (06/10/85)
From: melanie (Melanie Nesheim)
Well, actually, (in response to Tim Maroney) I have met people
who *did* feel that Skinner's behaviourism provided nearly all
the answers. That sort of thinking bothers me... I guess it's
because I've trained horses and in doing so learned that there
is a lot more going on than stimulus-response, contrary to what
my behaviourist friends have said.
Also, in psychology courses where I learned about behavourism
I got the distinct impression that, like many in psychology who
come up with a viable theory and are excited about it, Skinner
felt that behaviourism provided most of the answers, and that a
lot of people agreed with him for quite some time (and many still do).
In other words, there is more to it than just the scientific,
objective approach that it provided.
So, like Dan B., I have come to regard behaviourism as a
a theory that's on the deterministic end of the scale.
--Melanie Nesheimtim@cmu-cs-k.ARPA (06/12/85)
> From Melanie Nesheim at cornell > > Well, actually, (in response to Tim Maroney) I have met people > who *did* feel that Skinner's behaviourism provided nearly all > the answers. Oh sure, me too. But I didn't get the impression that they were a majority of those who realize the value of behaviorism. Certainly Skinner himself suffers from this, but that's an occupational hazard among paradigm designers.... It doesn't invalidate the paradigm. > That sort of thinking bothers me... I guess it's because I've trained > horses and in doing so learned that there is a lot more going on than > stimulus-response, contrary to what my behaviourist friends have said. Am I going to have to start insisting that only people with psychology degrees discuss this? Behaviorism is NOT stimulus-response; that's the Pavlovian model, two generations of paradigm before operant conditioning models. Why do you feel free to pass judgment on things that you clearly have not studied in any depth? (By the way, I'd be surprised if you could show in the lab horse behaviors that cannot be fit into the operant conditioning paradigm. If you can, by all means publish at once! Such "non-behaviorist behaviors" have been shown, at least according to the researchers involved, but they mostly involve human learning.) > Also, in psychology courses where I learned about behavourism > I got the distinct impression that, like many in psychology who > come up with a viable theory and are excited about it, Skinner > felt that behaviourism provided most of the answers, and that a > lot of people agreed with him for quite some time (and many still do). > In other words, there is more to it than just the scientific, > objective approach that it provided. What courses, freshman psych? I really don't mean to be nasty, but calling operant conditioning "stimulus-response" is a major gaffe. If you had any advanced courses in the subject, you have apparently forgotten them. Yes, there are some people who do adopt the philosophy that all human behavior can be reduced to operant processes. Skinner promulgated this doctrine in a few non-scientific books that are now discredited. But this is totally irrelevant to behaviorism proper, a laboratory discipline. Even Skinner wouldn't claim that you have to accept his conclusions in that particular area in order to be a behaviorist. > So, like Dan B., I have come to regard behaviourism as a a theory that's on > the deterministic end of the scale. Behaviorism is the very opposite of "deterministic". It is probabilistic. Pavlovians and Watsonians were determinists, convinced that behavior could be completely predicted from knowledge of an organism's environment and history. Behaviorism explicitly rejected this deterministic goal as unattainable. Operant conditioning models deal only with the probability that an organism will emit operants, usually dealing with these probabilities in terms of the frequency of emission of the operant, which (unlike specifics about when an organism will perform a certain behavior) can be predicted with a good deal of accuracy. For all that behaviorism tells you, organisms may base the specifics of their actions on the random decay of radioactive particles. If anyone out there has actually studied behaviorism and disagrees with me, I would welcome the opportunity to discuss these matters with them. My knowledge is certainly less than the totality available on the subject, and it's always fun to learn something. If others continue to put forth falsehoods about behaviorism, I'll continue to refute them; but I can't really say that it's much fun. -=- Tim Maroney, Carnegie-Mellon University, Networking ARPA: Tim.Maroney@CMU-CS-K uucp: seismo!cmu-cs-k!tim CompuServe: 74176,1360 audio: shout "Hey, Tim!"