April 2019
Recent Issues. Chapter 12: The Behavior of Organisms at Fifty. Quote 21
“A reflex was traditionally said to be “elicited” in the etymological sense of “drawn out.” Operant behavior was different, and I tried to emphasize the difference by saying that it was “evoked,” in the sense of “called out.” (The ethologists would soon be saying “released.”) I also said that operant behavior was “emitted,” and later […]
Recent Issues. Chapter 12: The Behavior of Organisms at Fifty. Quote 20
“In spite of my insistence that behavior should be studied as a function of external variables apart from any reference to mental or physiological states or processes, I was not yet wholly free of the traditional view. For example, I spoke as if behavior were inside the organism before it came out.” (p. 130)
Recent Issues. Chapter 12: The Behavior of Organisms at Fifty. Quote 19
“We can predict and control behavior without knowing anything about what is happening inside. A complete account will nevertheless require the joint action of both [behavior and brain] sciences, each with its own instruments and methods.” (p. 130)
Recent Issues. Chapter 12: The Behavior of Organisms at Fifty. Quote 18
“I am afraid my argument that behavior should be recognized as a subject matter in its own right has been misunderstood. I have never questioned the importance of physiology or in particular brain science or its relevance to behavior. What is happening inside the skin of an organism is part of its behavior.” (pp. 129-130)
Recent Issues. Chapter 12: The Behavior of Organisms at Fifty. Quote 16
“The light could have been called a cue or clue, of course, and cognitive psychologists, if there had been any, might have said that it conveyed information about when to press the lever. It was simpler, however, to say only that an operant was stronger in the presence of any stimulus in the presence of […]
Recent Issues. Chapter 12: The Behavior of Organisms at Fifty. Quote 15
“When a response was reinforced only in the presence of the light as an S Dee, the rat responded slowly in its absence (which, unfortunately, I called S Delta, hard to print) but responded immediately when the light came on.” (p. 127)
Recent Issues. Chapter 12: The Behavior of Organisms at Fifty. Quote 14
“The effect of punishment, however, seems reasonably well explained in [The Behavior of Organisms]. When a response is followed by, say, a shock, an emotional reaction to the shock is conditioned according to Type S [Pavlovian] conditioning. Approaching the lever elicits such a reaction, which reduces the strength of lever pressing. I could have added […]
Recent Issues. Chapter 12: The Behavior of Organisms at Fifty. Quote 13
“If we define a positive reinforcer as a stimulus that strengthens behavior when presented and a negative reinforcer as one that strengthens when removed, then punishment consists of presenting a negative reinforcer (as I had done) or removing a positive one.” (p. 127)
Recent Issues. Chapter 12: The Behavior of Organisms at Fifty. Quote 12
“Many textbooks in psychology continue to describe operant conditioning as trial-and-error learning . . . The organism need not be trying to do anything. Many of the things Thorndike’s cats did could also be called errors in the sense that reinforcing consequences did not follow, but my rats learned from their successes. There was neither […]
Recent Issues. Chapter 12: The Behavior of Organisms at Fifty. Quote 11
“I had unwittingly conditioned the sound of the dispenser as a reinforcer. When that was done, a single reinforcement was enough to condition pressing the lever as an operant. There was no learning curve, and hence little to be attributed to a learning process. (p. 126)
Recent Issues. Chapter 12: The Behavior of Organisms at Fifty. Quote 7
“Rate of responding was also more useful as a measure because it could be said to show the probability that a response would be made at a given time. Nothing of the sort could be said of a reflex, where the stimulus determined whether or not a response was made.” (p. 124)
Recent Issues. Chapter 12: The Behavior of Organisms at Fifty. Quote 5
“… Pavlov (1927) could make a dog salivate, and that was control. Reflexes, however, were the behavior of only parts of an organism. Like Loeb I wanted to study the behavior of the “organism as a whole.” I built an apparatus …” (p. 123)
Recent Issues. Chapter 12: The Behavior of Organisms at Fifty. Quote 4
“Watson’s famous manifesto (1913) begins: “Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior.” Those are carefully written sentences.” (p. 122)
Recent Issues. Chapter 12: The Behavior of Organisms at Fifty. Quote 3
“I don’t believe I coined the term radical behaviorism, but when asked what I mean by it, I have always said, “the philosophy of a science of behavior treated as a subject matter in its own right apart from internal explanations, mental or physiological.” (p. 122)