Today's soundtrack is At the Gates: To Drink From the Night Itself.
This morning, I'm reading the next chapter of Behaviourism: Classic Studies, "A New Formula for Behaviorism," an essay written by Edward Chace Tolman. According to the footnotes, this essay was originally published in 1922 in the Psychological Review.
Why is the "idea of behaviorism [...] spreading like wildfire" (p. 45)? First, psychology that relies on introspection is sorely insufficient, as is becoming more obvious to us as time goes on - it seldom produces any results; it is a waste of time. Second, scientists are logical people; behaviourism is logical, but introspection is not.
So we turn to behaviorism. Watson says that with behaviorism, "given the stimulus we can produce the response, and given the response we can predict the stimulus" (p. 45), which is well and good. Where Watson erred, however, was defining stimuli as light, or sound, or gaseous particles; he said that "responses are such things as 'muscle contractions and gland secretions'" (p. 46). A paper written about muscle contractions and gland secretions is not a behavioural analysis; it is a physiological analysis. Let us distinguish the two and carry on. We say that "what we want is a behaviorism which is not mere physiology" (p. 46).
If we have a truly behavioral psychology, "this new formula for behaviorism which we would propose is intended as a formula for all of psychology" (p. 48). Four concepts will be the basis for this new formula: "stimulating agency, behavior-cue, behavior-object, and behavior-act" (p. 49).
Stimulating Agency
The stimulating agency is the "initiating cause of the whole behavior phenomenon" (p. 49). Examples could include "sense-organ stimulation[, ...] the administering of a particular drug[, ...] or as the neurological end-result of a preceding activity ([... i.e.,] based upon memory or recall)" (p. 49).
Behavior-Cue
The behavior-cues are what were identified in the old psychology as "sense-qualities" (p. 50). We recognize that different stimuli are capable of evoking different behavior-cues. Tolman references an experiment with a mouse and colours: "[B]lue and yellow wave-lengths are capable of producing in him two different behavior-cues, whereas red and green wave-lengths are capable of producing in him only one" (p. 50). Similar stimulating agencies "produce behavior-cues which are different from one another, still these behavior-cues are more similar to one another [...] than are two behavior-cues produced by" (p. 50) markedly different stimulating agencies. My interpretation: The behavior-cue is the way that the subject interprets a stimuli; the interpretation leads the subject toward a certain behavior or set of related behaviors.
Behavior-Object
The behavior-object is a result of "a behavior-cue or [...] group of behavior-cues" (p. 51). They can include objects, perceptions, or ideations. Several behavior-cues can work together to change the perception of the behavior-object: for example, a green cucumber given to a hungry man will result in the man happily eating the cucumber; brown chocolate given to a hungry man will result in the man happily eating the chocolate. A cucumber brown with rot given to a hungry man will result in the man angrily throwing it out; a chocolate green with mold will result in the man angrily throwing it out. Finally, a green cucumber or a brown chocolate given to a man who is satiated might both result in indifference. So we can see that the "behavior-meaning of [...] colors, shapes, etc." (p. 51) are dependent on the particular situation and the context.
Behavior-Act
We cannot know another person's feelings; we can only know "the behavior implications of those conscious feels" (p. 51). This is the behavior-act. Verbs make up the behavior-act: "to 'sniff,' to 'sit,' to 'scratch,' to 'walk,' to 'gallop,' to 'talk'" (p. 52). The observations of these behaviors is more useful than any introspection could be.
Summary
Behavioural science, says Tolman, has three steps: "(1), given the stimulating agency, determining the behavior-cues, (2), given the behavior-cues, determining the behavior-object, and (3), given the behavior-object, determining the behavior-act" (p. 52).
