The Psyche As Behavior* La Psique Como Comportamiento a Psique Como Comportamento

Home , Mentalism (psychology), Psychologist, Radical behaviorism

The Psyche as Behavior* La Psique como Comportamiento A Psique como Comportamento

ARTURO CLAVIJO A. Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brasil

Abstract Resumen Resumo

Behaviorism has argued that behavior is the Según el conductismo, el comportamiento cons- Segundo o condutismo, o comportamento cons- Psyche and the subject matter of psychology. tituye la Psique y el tema de estudio de la psicolo- titui a Psique e o tema de estudo da psicologia. Although, some scientists had done empirical gía. Aunque algunos científicos habían realizado Embora alguns científicos tivessem realizado work with objective methods before 1913, the trabajos empíricos con métodos objetivos antes trabalhos empíricos com métodos objetivos an- year in which John B. Watson published his de 1913, año en el que John B. Watson publicó tes de 1913, ano em que John B. Watson publi- manifesto, he was the first one to attempt a sys- su manifiesto, este último fue el primero en in- cou seu manifesto, este último foi o primeiro em tematization of behavior as the Psyche, that is, as tentar la sistematización de la conducta como tentar a sistematização da conduta como equi- psychology’s subject matter. In this text, I out- equivalente a la Psique, esto es, como el objeto valente à Psique, isto é, como objeto de estudo line Watson’s notion of behavior to compare it de estudio de la psicología. El artículo discute da psicologia. Neste artigo, discute-se a noção with two other forms of behaviorism: Skinner’s la noción de comportamiento de Watson y la de comportamento de Watson ao compará-la radical behaviorism and molar behaviorism. The compara con otras dos formas de conductismo: com outras duas formas de condutismo: o con- purpose of the paper is to illustrate how the con- el conductismo radical de Skinner y el conduc- dutismo radical de Skinner e o condutismo mo- cept of behavior has been and is changing. tismo molar, con el fin de ilustrar la forma en que lar, com o objetivo de ilustrar a forma na qual o el concepto de comportamiento ha cambiado y conceito de comportamento mudou e continua sigue cambiando. mudando.

Keywords: behaviorism, John B. Watson, behav- Palabras clave: conductismo, John B. Watson, Palavras-chave: condutismo, John B. Watson, ior, psyche. comportamiento, psique. comportamento, Psique.

How to cite this article: Clavijo, A. (2013). The psyche as behavior. Revista Colombiana de Psicología, 22(2), 377-387.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Arturo Clavijo, e-mail: [email protected]. Department of Psychology, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Cr. 30 No. 45-03, Building 212, Bogotá, Colombia.

THEORETICAL REFLECTION ARTICLE RECEIVED: 6 JUNE 2013 – ACCEPTED: 7 SEPTEMBER 2013

* This series of essays commemorates the 100 years of Watson´s behaviorist manifesto published in 1913.

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The Psyche as Behavior: From Later, the Encyclopedia Britannica added, Watson to Modern Behaviorism A derivative form of classical behavior- There is no need for controversy about ism known as neobehaviorism evolved from 1930 what psychologists study. As the word implies, through the late 1940s. In this approach, psychol- they study the Psyche. However, there is room ogists attempted to translate the general meth- for controversy about what the Psyche is. For odology prescribed by Watson into a detailed, instance, some dictionaries, introductory texts, experimentally based theory of adaptive behav- and the American Psychological Association ior. This era was dominated by learning theo- (2013) define psychology as the “science of mind rists Clark L. Hull and B.F. Skinner; Skinner’s and behavior” (see for instance, the Merriam- thought was the direct descendant of Watson’s Webster Dictionary, 2013), which implies that intellectual heritage and became dominant in the Psyche is composed of both, mind and be- the field after the mid-1950s. Other important havior. Nevertheless, given that some authors behaviorists included Hull-influenced Kenneth define psychology as the study of mind (Gard- W. Spence; Neal Miller… Edward C. Tolman; ner, 1987; Rivière, 1998) whereas others define it and Edwin R. Guthrie (para. 2). as the study of behavior (Baum, 1994; Skinner, 1938, 1953; Watson, 1913, 1930), and that those Watson (1913, 1930), successful or not in his definitions are incompatible, to say that psychol- endeavor, was the first to openly argue for a psy- ogy is the science of mind or behavior would be chology in which behavior was the Psyche. Ac- more appropriate. Of course, many other enti- tually, Watson (1913, 1930) was not the founder ties, from the subconscious mind to social rep- of behaviorism. As Wozniak (1997) argued, by resentations, seem suitable candidates for the 1913, when Watson delivered his “manifesto”, Psyche, but most of them are just expressions of behaviorism was 40 years old. However, his in- mind or behavior. fluence in popularizing and making a case for Behaviorism is the movement that has behaviorism is undeniable. As his manifesto is argued for behavior as the Psyche, or subject a historical reference, I will use it as a departure matter of psychology. According to the Merri- point to examine how the notion of behavior am-Webster Dictionary (2013), behaviorism is has been changing since Watson introduced his “a school of psychology that takes the objective behaviorism. It is important to review Watson’s evidence of behavior (as measured responses to ideas because later authors distorted or misin- stimuli) as the only concern of its research and terpreted them, which also entails a distortion of the only basis of its theory without reference to behaviorism in general. For instance, contrary to conscious experience”, and according to the En- what the Encyclopedia Britannica (2013) asserts cyclopedia Britannica (2013): in the quote above, ideas and emotions were Behaviorism was a highly influential academic key aspects in Watson’s behaviorisms. Next, school of psychology that dominated psycho- I will outline some of Watson’s ideas and later logical theory between the two world wars. compare them to those of two other versions of Classical behaviorism, prevalent in the first behaviorism: Skinner’s behaviorism and molar third of the 20th century, was concerned ex- behaviorism. I must stress that my intention is clusively with measurable and observable data just to illustrate how the notion of behavior has and excluded ideas, emotions, and the consid- been changing. There are many others forms eration of inner mental experience and activity of behaviorism (see O’Donohue & Kitchener, in general (para. 1). 1999), and molar behaviorism is not necessarily

DEPARTAMENTO DE PSICOLOGÍA FACULTAD DE CIENCIAS HUMANAS UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE COLOMBIA REVISTA COLOMBIANA DE PSICOLOGÍA VOL. 22 N.º 2 JULIO-DICIEMBRE 2013 ISSN 0121-5469 IMPRESO | 2344-8644 EN LÍNEA BOGOTÁ COLOMBIA - PP. 377-387 PSYCHE AS BEHAVIOR 379

going to replace the traditional forms of radical does not study an extra-natural thing and that behaviorism. It is also worth noting that this es- those who study it must use the same methods say is intended for general psychologists rather and logic of the other natural sciences. Hence, than for behavior analysts and people well-in- in Watson’s view, the Psyche, or subject mat- formed on behaviorism. ter of psychology, was a natural phenomenon. William James had argued more than a decade Behavior in Watson’s Behaviorism before that psychology was a natural science As Wozniak (1997) pointed out, by the time (Leahey, 1980). Nevertheless, in James’ view, Watson (1913) published his manifesto, several psychology’s subject matter was consciousness, researchers, such as Douglas Alexander Spald- and Watson believed that any conception of con- ing and Charles Darwin, had conducted studies sciousness, including that of James, was “neither with human and nonhuman animals employing a definable nor a usable concept” (Watson, 1930, objective methods. Nevertheless, nobody had p. 3). Watson’s behaviorism had strong roots in systematized a psychology in which behavior Darwinism and functionalism, so his version of was the subject matter, so Watson’s purpose, the Psyche was not exclusive to humans. Since he according to Wozniak (1997), was to supply a assumed continuity among species, he believed rationale to legitimate the behavioral methods that research with other animals would help in already in use and to justify them as an alterna- the understanding of the human Psyche, just as tive to the study of consciousness by the intro- research with humans would help in the under- spective methods in vogue in his time. A key standing of the other animals’ Psyche. His inter- issue in Watson’s systematization was his notion est in animal behavior was one of the reasons for of behavior, which he defined broadly as “what rejecting “mental states” and “consciousness” as the organism does or says” (Watson, 1930, p. 6). the subject matter of psychology; it would not Because the definition is very general, it does be possible to “introspect” the mental states of not shed much light on what he understood by an animal. behavior. However, that understanding emerges According to Watson (1913, 1930), an ob- from a closer look at some of his texts. Watson server could measure the behavior of another (1913) wrote, organism in physical terms, find the variables Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely that regulate its behavior in the environment, objective experimental branch of natural science. and describe its behavior in a stimulus-response Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control framework. In his view, the behavior of an or- of behavior. Introspection forms no essential part ganism was a physical phenomenon that con- of its methods, nor is the scientific value of its sisted of responses to the different forms of data dependent upon the readiness with which stimulation in its environment. He defined a re- they lend themselves to interpretation in terms sponse as an observable and measureable move- of consciousness. The behaviorist, in his efforts ment that always involved the whole organism; to get a unitary scheme of animal response, rec- however, the response could be so slight that an ognizes no dividing line between man and brute. observer would require instruments to record it The behavior of man, with all of its refinement (Watson, 1930). For instance, a sub-vocal move- and complexity, forms only a part of the behav- ment would be so small that only instruments iorist’s total scheme of investigation (p. 158). could detect it, but it would involve the whole organism anyway. Each possible stimulus-re- Defining psychology as an “objective exper- sponse (S-R) relation was a unit, so that a stimu- imental branch of natural science” implies that it lus could never be dissociated from its response,

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and a response could never be dissociated from external stimulus. Calling a doctor as a response the stimulus that caused it. The psychologist’s to the pain produced by an internal lesion would task was to identify the stimulus controlling be an external response to an internal stimulus. each response. Invisible movements in the muscle of a hand Watson (1930) assumed contiguity and im- as a response to an insult would be an internal mediate efficient causation in each S-R relation response to an external stimulus. Grinding the so that every response was an immediate reac- teeth as a response to an internal lesion would tion to a present, effective stimulus. The way in be an internal response to an internal stimulus. which he dealt with apparently delayed respons- In relation to learning, Watson believed es shows his strong commitment to a strict S-R that responses to stimuli could be innate or psychology. According to Watson, a response learned, although he gave more importance to that seems to occur a long time after a stimulus the environment as a determinant of behavior. just results from the accumulation of sequential He supposed that organisms have a set of un- S-R units that altogether conformed a habit. For learned, reflex responses to few stimuli. The instance, in a situation in which two people in- size and characteristics of the innate-response terchange the following verbal stimuli: set would depend on the species. For example, First person: “Meet me at the Belmont to- humans would have fewer innate and more con- morrow for lunch at one o’clock”. ditioned responses than insects. The learning Second person: “All right, I will be there.” of fear responses to new stimuli was a frequent If the second person arrives on time, Wat- subject in Watson’s texts. According to him, only son would have argued that it was because of few stimuli would produce innate fear responses the second person’s reapplication of sub-vocal in babies. A loud sound was one of them. By pre- stimuli to movement in virtue of verbal habits senting a neutral stimulus, like a rabbit, along (Watson, 1930). The person would keep telling with a loud sound, the rabbit would become himself, “I must go to my appointment at the a conditioned stimulus for the fear response, Belmont.” An important implication of Watson’s Watson (1930) explained the acquisition of new S-R view is that the organism’s behavior was not responses with Pavlov’s theory of conditioned a continuous variable; in his view, the behavior of reflexes. As a matter of fact, Watson and Rayner an organism was composed of discrete S-R units. (1920) performed the famous Albert experiment In relation to access by an observer, he be- in which they created a conditioned response of lieved that responses could be over-explicit or in- fear to a rabbit in a child. ternal-implicit. Picking up a ball, writing a letter, According to Watson (1913, 1930), all be- driving an automobile, or flirting with a woman havior, even feelings and thinking, is just a set exemplified explicit responses which any ob- of learned habits. As Verdu-Rico and Bentes server could measure without instruments. The de Carvalho-Neto (2010) pointed out, scholars stomach contractions of a hungry person, glan- may have overlooked and misrepresented Wat- dular and small muscular movements produced son’s theories on thinking and language. The by threatening stimuli, or salivation caused by Encyclopedia Britannica (2013) quote above is certain food items exemplified implicit respons- an example. Bergmann (1956) criticized Wat- es, which an observer could measure only with son’s behaviorism on several grounds, and one instruments. Both explicit and implicit respons- of them was his alleged rejection of a mind or es could be produced by external or internal mental events. Did Watson deny the existence stimuli. Punching someone else as a response of a mind? Yes, he did. Did Watson deny the to an insult would be an external response to an existence of mental events? As mental, he did.

However, he did not deny the existence of psy- incessantly assailed organisms. Like Watson, chological events such as thinking or feeling Skinner assumed that discrete and observable and their importance for a natural science of responses compose the behavior of an organism. behavior. Did he deny subjective experience? Skinner (1938, 1974) acknowledged that Watson’s He did not specifically deny it; he rather implic- S-R psychology accounted for a small portion of itly accepted its existence because if there is an behavior, but not for the largest and more signif- objective experience, necessarily there is also a icant part. According to Skinner, the responses subjective one. He simply did not think that the of organisms could be voluntary-emitted or in- immediate subjective experience had a role in a voluntary-elicited. Classically conditioned and science of behavior. reflex responses exemplified elicited behavior. As emitted or voluntary behavior composed Behavior in Skinner’s Radical most of mammals’ behavior, Skinner deemed Behaviorism insufficient anS -R framework in which behav- Now, I will compare the behaviorism of ing is just reacting. Watson with that of Skinner. I must note that it is Skinner adopted an R-S framework. He ar- more difficult to portray in a few words the ideas gued that the stimulus that modifies an emitted of Skinner than those of Watson, which in itself response is the one that follows it rather than shows conceptual progress, so I will contrast the the one that antecedes it. For instance, if by views of Watson with an extremely simplified pressing a lever (R) in a Skinner box, a rat ob- version of those of Skinner. The behaviorism of tains pellets (S), it is more likely that the rat will Skinner (1938, 1953) was similar to the one that press the lever again. As long as lever-pressing Watson proposed in relation to the role of be- results in pellets, the rat will keep pressing it. havior in a natural science: both of them argued If the rat does not receive any more pellets by for behavior as the subject matter of psychol- pressing the lever, lever pressing will decrease ogy and the environment as the place to look or disappear. It is evident that no antecedent for the causes of behavior. Nevertheless, there stimulus evokes a lever-pressing response. An are more differences than similarities between S-R psychology assumed that the stimulus is an them. As the words stimulus and response are efficient cause that evokes, elicits, or produces frequent in the books and papers that Skinner a response. According to Skinner, the stimulus wrote, a person who does not read them care- selects responses by making more likely those fully may conclude erroneously that there were that produce reinforcing consequences and less no major differences between him and Watson, likely those that produce punishing or no con- and that Skinner was a typical S-R psychologist. sequence at all. Skinner himself described his The truth is that there are many differences. The causal model as selection by consequences in an most significant differences are that Skinner was analogy with Darwin’s explanation of evolution not an S-R psychologist and that he believed (Skinner, 1984). that a science of behavior must explain subjec- Although Skinner emphasized the role tive experience. of the consequence, he acknowledged that an- In Watson’s (1913, 1930) view, each stimulus tecedent stimuli played a role. His framework produced a response, so the environment acted incorporated three terms: an antecedent stim- on organisms. Organisms reacted by respond- ulus (Sd), a response (R), and a reinforcing or ing all the time to some stimulus. Each response punishing stimulus (Sr). The position of the would be a discrete event, but behavior seemed antecedent stimulus in his Sd-R-Sr scheme may continuous due to the amount of stimuli that mislead a lay reader because it looks like the

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stimulus in the traditional S-R schema. Accord- that control each response. In contrast, according to Skinner, however, the antecedent stimulus ing to Skinner and contemporary behavior sets the occasion for a response to occur instead analysts, the role of a behavioral scientist is to of evoking it as a stimulus in a reflex does. If the identify the contingencies that regulate or con- rat in the Skinner box obtains pellets by pressing trol a response. the lever only when a green light is on, eventu- Arguing that stimuli select responses, like ally the rat will respond only in the presence of Skinner did, implies that organisms respond or the green light and hardly ever or never in its act continuously. According to Watson, stimuli absence, in which case, researchers say that the initiated the movements that he called respons- green light has gained control of the lever presses. In contrast, according to Skinner, the value ing. When there is no defined Sd, the box, lever, of what an organism does depends on the con- or other conditions present during the process tingencies operating in that moment. Hence, for become the antecedent stimulus. Skinner, stimuli did not cause responses; they Skinner (1938, 1953, 1974) called the relation- changed responding tendencies. The notion of ship among the three elements of his framework reinforcement as selection by consequences that a three-terms contingency. For instance, the Skinner adopted may appear insufficient to ex- contingency for the rat in the Skinner box estab- plain all the complexity of human behavior, but lishes that, in the presence of the green light (Sd), that is precisely the point: Darwin explained the lever-pressing responses (R) produce (R) food complexity of evolution with just the concepts pellets (Sr). Like Watson, Skinner assumed that of variation and selection. On the other hand, the relation between stimuli and responses was to account for human behavior, Skinner used contiguous in time; for a consequence to modify other concepts besides reinforcement, which I a response, it has to be close in time to the re- left out of the present outline and include rule- sponse. Other factors affecting the effectiveness governed behavior (Skinner, 1966), his approach of a contingency included food deprivation, bio- to the study of verbal behavior (Skinner, 1957), logical conditions, and previous history. For in- his ideas on education (Skinner, 1958, 1961), and stance, the rate of lever pressing is higher after cultural change and planning (Skinner, 1999), longer deprivation periods for healthier than for among others. unhealthier rats, and after previous reinforcing Just as the notion of stimulus and its role in experiences by pressing the lever. the explanation of behavior differ a lot in Skin- The notion of contingency, as a relation ner and Watson, the way in which they dealt with between environment and organism, was cen- the idea of a subjective experience also differs. I tral to Skinnerian psychology. In a Skinner box, emphasize that the difference was more in the a researcher usually studies one or few contin- way of dealing with subjective experiences than gencies, but other uncontrolled contingencies in accepting private events such as feelings in a exist. If there is a response, some contingency science of behavior. Contrary to what the urban should be controlling it. If, for example, water myth says, Watson and Skinner thought that is available ad libitum, the rat will have to go to what in vernacular language people call feelings, the water dispenser to drink it, so one can say emotions, and thinking were behavioral phe- that the water reinforces the rat’s displacement nomena that a science of behavior must explain. to the dispenser. In the lab, researchers arrange For instance, Watson devoted two chapters of his the contingencies. Outside the lab, nature and book Behaviorism to emotions and another two society arrange them. In Watson’s view, the role chapters to thinking (Watson, 1930), and Skin- of a behavioral scientist is to identify the stimuli ner discussed the subject in numerous papers

and books (see, for instance, Skinner, 1953, 1984). (see for instance, Baum, 2011; Hocutt, 2009; Skinner dealt with the so-called emotional life Palmer, 2009; Rachlin, 2003, 2011). In a paper better than Watson, but this was because his ap- about privacy according to Skinner, Creel (1980) proach was better in general, and not because distinguished between potentially accessible and Watson denied the existence of feelings and emo- forever inaccessible or subjective private events. tions whereas Skinner acknowledged them. A researcher with the proper instruments could Accepting that there is a subject that knows observe a potentially accessible event, but no- and an object that can be known implies that hu- body would observe a subjective private event. man experience can be objective or subjective. Though the technology for observing sounds In the first case, everybody can share the experi- and images inside a person’s head belongs, for ence because it is public and overt for everybody the time being, to the realm of science fiction, to see. For example, the tree that a forgotten it is a plausible technology. Those sounds and castaway is seeing on his island at this moment images exemplify potentially accessible events. is a private experience as long as nobody else Pain, pleasure, joy, and sadness exemplify sub- sees it, but the tree can be the object of a shared jective private events because nobody will ever experience because other persons can see it in experience others’ pains or pleasures. According principle. In contrast, although others can ob- to Creel (1980), the notion of privacy for Skinner serve the inflamed tooth of a rescued castaway, covered potentially accessible as well as subjec- nobody would ever experience the pain that the tive private events (see also Tourinho, 2009). inflammation causes. The experience of pain Most behavior analysts today accept Skin- would be a private subjective event accessible ner’s stance on privacy. Virtually all of them ac- only to the person experiencing it. cept the existence of potentially accessible private Both Skinner and Watson accepted the events, but some are not as willing to accept the ex- objective-subjective dualism according to which istence of subjective private events. For instance, there are subjective-private and objective-public Palmer (2011) said, “privacy is a circumstantial experiences, but Skinner, in contrast to Watson, property of behavior, and we can dismiss priva- held that a science of behavior should deal not cy in principle for our considerations” (p. 203). only with objective but also with subjective ex- By privacy in principle Palmer meant “events periences. As Moore (1995) pointed out, the that must forever remain hidden… whatever objective-subjective dualism does not entail on- the tools of the scientist” (p. 203), which implies tological dualism. Skinner (1945, 1989) argued that he would not accept in a science of behav- that the difference between private and public ior what Creel called subjective events, which stimuli and responses lies in their accessibility will remain forever private. Moore (1995, 2001), and not in their nature. As Skinner (1945) put it: on the contrary, argued that accepting subjec- The individual’s response to an inflamed tooth, tive private events in a science of behavior is for example, is unlike the response which any- precisely a fundamental characteristic of the one else can make to that particular tooth, since radical behaviorism that Skinner advocated. It is no one else can make the same kind of contact worth noting that Watson’s implicit stimuli and with it… With respect to each individual, in responses are equivalent to Creel’s potential ac- other words, a small part of the universe is pri- cessible private events. vate (p. 257). In synthesis, Skinner shared Watson’s core argument about psychology as a science There is debate about private events as of behavior. Both argued for behavior as the Skinner conceived them in a science of behavior subject matter of psychology, rejected mental

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explanations, and adopted an environmental de- conditions, the rat spends its 24 hours eating, terminism. Neither Skinner nor Watson denied drinking, exploring, grooming, and sleeping; the the importance of the organism, and both ar- rat allocates its time among the things that it can gued for historical factors in explaining behavior do inside the box, and its allocation of time is its by relying on learning to explain new responses. pattern of behavior. The entire amount of eating, Watson denied a place for consciousness and drinking, or exploring, is a pattern. Eventually, immediate subjective experience in a science of the rat presses the lever, but that lever pressing behavior, while Skinner argued that a complete belongs to the exploratory pattern. Lever press- science of behavior should deal with subjective ing in these circumstances is low. In situation 2, experience. Although Skinner moved away from the rat obtains pellets by pressing the lever. Now, an S-R psychology, his commitment to a molec- it allocates more time to lever pressing and less ular analysis might have preserved something of to other activities, and if the number of lever the S-R logic in his conception of behavior. presses required for obtaining a pellet increases, the rat allocates even more time to lever pressing Behavior in Molar Behaviorism and less to other activities. As I did with Watson’s and Skinner’s behav- In situation 3, the rat can obtain pellets by iorism, I will now offer a very simplified version pressing any of two levers. Under these condi- of what some authors call molar behaviorism tions, the time that the rat allocates to the origi- (see Baum, 2002; 2011). Molar behaviorists ar- nal lever will depend not only on the pellets that gue that activities or extended temporal patterns it obtains with that lever but also on the pellets of behavior compose the Psyche. In general, that it obtains with the other. Modifying the molar behaviorism shares the basics with Skin- contingency for one lever changes the amount ner, and claims to follow him (see for instance, of time that the rat spends on the other. If both Baum, 2002; Rachlin, 1992). Like Watson and levers require a fixed number of responses to de- Skinner, molar behaviorists argue for behavior liver a pellet, the rat presses only the lever with as the proper subject matter of psychology and the lowest ratio. If both levers deliver pellets after the environment as the place to look for the rel- unpredictable time intervals, the rat presses both evant independent variables. Like Skinner, they levers, distributing them in accordance to the assume that psychology studies organism-envi- amount of pellets that each lever delivers -what ronment transactions that occur under a process Herrnstein (1961, 1970) called the matching law analogous to Darwin’s natural selection. Never- because the responding rate tends to match the theless, they differ in the scope of the analysis. reinforcement rate. The concern of Skinner was the equivalent to Whereas for Watson behavior was a phe- the molecule: the Sd-R-Sr unit. In contrast, mo- nomenon composed of discrete responses, lar behaviorists’ concern is aggregated and ex- for molar behaviorists, behavior is a continu- tended patterns of behavior (Baum, 2002). One ous phenomenon. Time is the only dimension could say that, although Skinner cared for the common to all the activities that human and forest and trees, his emphasis was on the trees. nonhuman animals can do, so duration is a Molar behaviorists also care for the forest and measurement that allows comparisons of dif- trees, but their emphasis is on the forest. ferent activities such as eating and grooming or To illustrate what patterns and activities drinking and sleeping. Whereas, for instance, are for molar behaviorists, I will examine three it is appropriate to compare lever-pressing re- situations in the Skinner box. In situation 1, sponse rate in one lever to response rate in the food and water are freely available. Under these other, it would be inappropriate to compare the

response rate of grooming to the response rate is, activities in relation to environmental events” of lever pressing because the activities have very (p. 186). There are at least two reasons for which different topographies. In the case of human authors, like Watson, have appealed to internal activities, comparing the response rate of listen- stimuli and responses. First, to account for situ- ing to classical music to that of jogging in the ations in which there is no close temporal con- park does not make much sense, but comparing nection between the stimulus and the response. the time spent listening to music to that spent In Watson’s example of two people setting an jogging makes sense. Hence, molar behavior- appointment, he recurred to internal sub-vocal ists record the time that human and nonhuman verbal stimuli to fill the gap between the pres- animals spend on those activities that their en- ent verbal stimulus and the next day’s meeting. vironment allows them to carry out in order to If there seems to be no external stimuli produc- estimate time allocation, which is a continuous ing a response, internal stimuli may do the task. variable (see Baum, 2002). Nonetheless, internal or private stimuli and re- According to Watson, to understand the sponses are by the time being inferences. meaning or function of a response, a psycholo- Second, internal events account for sub- gist must identify the controlling stimulus, and jective phenomena like feelings and thinking. according to Skinner, the controlling conse- From a molar perspective, even accepting the quences. In contrast, molar behaviorists argue existence of Creel’s (1980) subjective private that to understand the meaning or function of events, the phenomena relevant for a science of an instance of behavior, a psychologist must put behavior are always publicly observable because the response in the context of the larger pat- patterns are observable in principle. A depressed tern of which it is a part. In situation 1 above, person, for instance, might eventually have sui- lever pressing was part of exploratory behavior cidal thoughts inaccessible to other people, but whereas in situations 2 and 3 it was part of feed- the depressive pattern is clearly accessible. The ing behavior. As the three situations illustrated, suicidal thought is an episode equivalent to a changes in behavior resulted from changes in tree in the forest or to an isolated pressing of the the environment. In situation 1, the rat acted lever in the Skinner box. By observing a single without restrictions and distributed its time instance of lever pressing, a researcher would freely among the available activities. In situa- not be able to tell if the rat is responding to a tion 2, feeding was not free any more. It became schedule or exploring, even if a pellet follows the conditional, or contingent, on lever pressing so response. If the technology to hear what people that the rat increased lever-pressing time and say when talking to themselves were available, decreased other activities’ time. In situation 3, and the observed person says “I will kill myself”, changes in one of the contingencies affect the one cannot conclude anything because the frag- other contingency. ment could be part of a joke, a memory of a text, A molar analysis has implications for the a suicidal statement, and so on. To reach a con- role of private events, subjectivity, and the psy- clusion, observing the pattern is necessary. chological phenomena associated with them in In synthesis, molar behaviorists believe, a science of behavior. Molar behaviorists have along with Watson and Skinner, that behavior is argued against the use of internal events and the Psyche, that the environment determines be- have rejected subjective private events openly havior, and that mentalism does not account for (see for instance, Baum, 2011; Rachlin, 2003). As behavior. Like Skinner, molar behaviorists think Baum (2011) put it, “private events are irrelevant that the environment acts on the organism with to understanding the function of behavior, that a process analogous to natural selection, but the

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