Seminar: Skinner s Analysis of Verbal Behavior PRIVATE EVENTS

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1 Seminar: Skinner s Analysis of Verbal Behavior PRIVATE EVENTS Dr Emily Kerwin Regis College Private Events in a Natural Science Behavior analysis seeks to explain behavior by identifying environmental variables functionally related to behavior Variables are often publicly observable events Accessible not only to the behaving individual but to others 1

2 Private Events in a Natural Science Skinner stated: the environment includes any event in the universe capable of affecting the organism Includes universe outside the organism and small part of the universe enclosed within the organism s skin Private Events in a Natural Science Environment includes: Public stimulation Private stimulation A complete account of human behavior must consider private events and the role such events play within a natural science 2

3 Private Events vs. Mentalism Inclusion of private events in explanations of human behavior common in traditional forms of psychology Appeal to the inner causes of behavior Events within the nervous system Mental processes Mentalism Behavior caused by phenomena that exist within a dimension inside of the individual Dimensions may be: Psychic Mental Cognitive Spiritual dimensions Private Events vs. Mentalism Radical behaviorism rejects mentalism Objection is not that phenomena within other dimensions cannot be objectively observed and measured Refute that such internal dimension even exist Leads to the search and acceptance of erroneous conclusions about causes of behavior Behavior is explained by identifying the functional relations between behavior and environmental conditions 3

4 Private Events vs. Mentalism Moore (2008) Three major differences between the position on private events for radical behaviorism and mentalism 1. Private stimulation occurs within a behavioral dimension as compared to some alternative dimension inside the individual 2. Private forms of stimulation occur within a behavioral dimension and are therefore functionally related to the environment 3. Radical behaviorism argues that when behavioral events occur, private forms of stimulation are not necessarily functionally related to the behavior. Within a Behavioral Dimension Skinner (1945) The Operational Analysis of Psychological Terms Some behavior is partly controlled by a set of conditions accessible only to behaving individual There is nothing mysterious or metaphysical about this; the simple fact is that each speaker possess a small but important private world of stimuli 4

5 Within a Behavioral Dimension Verbal Behavior (1957) It does not follow that this private world is made of any different stuff that it is in any way unlike the world outside the skin or inside another s skin Private events may be uniquely related to behavior due to limited accessibility, but are not assigned special qualities No assumptions that the control exerted by such stimuli is different from that of public events Functionally Related to the Environment Mentalistic orientations suggest that private events exist in another dimension (the mental, psychic, spiritual, etc.) and therefore occur independent of the environment 5

6 Functionally Related to the Environment To support his objection to the traditional view of private events, Skinner (1953) provided the following example: Similarly it has often been argued that the conditioned reflex is inadequate because it omits mention of a link traditionally described as the association of ideas. To report that a man salivates when he hears the dinner bell may be to overlook the fact that the dinner bell first makes him think of dinner and that he then salivates because he thinks of dinner. But there is no evidence that thinking of dinner, as that expression has been defined here, is more than a collateral effect of the bell and the conditioning process. We cannot demonstrate that thinking of dinner will lead to salivation regardless of any prior event, since a man will not think of dinner in the absence of such an event (p.279). Functionally Related to the Environment Radical behaviorism Private events take place as a result of the history of the individual s interaction with the environment Do not occur beyond environmental events within some internal dimension 6

7 Not Necessarily Functionally Related to Behavior Moore (2008) stated, the private forms of stimulation are only contingently effective, rather than necessarily effective (p.216). Private forms of stimulation may not be functionally related to behavior If they are functionally relevant contribute to discriminative control In other words, an analysis of private events is not necessary to account for behavior Not Necessarily Functionally Related to Behavior Mentalism Causal relationships between mental phenomena & behavior Private events play a necessary & independent role in the occurrence of behavior Appeal to mental phenomena is required to adequately explain behavior Any explanation of behavior which omits the function of such phenomena is incomplete Skinner (1953) But the private event is at best no more than a link in a causal chain, and it is often not even that (p. 279). 7

8 Dialogue on Private Events Debates Palmer McDonough Layng Verbal Responses to Private Events Two challenges to a functional analysis of behavior as a result to privacy of some stimulation: Access to private stimulation is inaccessible to individuals other than the person behaving, cannot point precisely to the controlling variables necessary for prediction and control Even without access to the controlling stimuli, individuals still learn verbal response to such stimulation 8

9 Verbal Responses to Private Stimulation Skinner (1945) offered an interpretive analysis of how the verbal community generates responses to private events without direct access to the controlling stimuli He proposed four possible ways in which this may occur Public Accompaniment Collateral Responses Common Properties Response Reduction Public Accompaniment Private events may be accompanied by some public event in the presence of which person is taught to tact a private event in agreement with the usage of the community 9

10 Public Accompaniment Example: Child scraps knee that then bleeds Blood = public accompaniment May exert control over an adult s verbal response That hurts or something similar Both public and private stimuli are available to the child Private stimuli may be more salient and therefore become the controlling stimuli for the child s tact That hurts she scraps her knee in the future Collateral Responses Collateral responses are elicited by the same stimuli but not taught through environmental contingencies Collateral responses generally unconditioned, non-verbal responses from which the community infers private stimuli 10

11 Collateral Responses Example: Holding the stomach when having a stomach ache As a result of these collateral responses the community may infer a private event and make a related verbal response (for example, stomach ache ). The salience of the private event for the speaker may be stronger than the collateral public response and come to control relevant verbal behavior in the future Common Properties Verbal responses may be taught related to public temporal, intensive, or spatial properties of events When private events occur with similar properties, a verbal response may take place as a result of stimulus generalization 11

12 Common Properties Example: Throbbing Learned to call some public stimulus that oscillates in intensity throbbing A headache that oscillates in intensity may also evoke the response throbbing (Peterson, 1978) Response Reduction When the speaker is describing his or her own overt behavior, the verbal community supplies reinforcement based upon the observable properties of such behavior Likely that additional private stimulation occurs in connection with the public behavior Verbal community sets up the reinforcing contingency based upon the external behavior but private stimulation also acquires control 12

13 Skinner (1957) Response Reduction If the behavior is now reduced in magnitude or scale, a point will be reached at which the private stimuli survive although the public stimuli vanish. In other words, the behavior may be executed so weakly or so incompletely that it fails to be seen by another person, although it is still strong enough to stimulate the behaver himself (p. 133). Response Reduction Covert responses may be operant responses which have receded in magnitude or intensity to a point that they are no longer publicly observable 13

14 Response Reduction Example: Silent reading (Moore, 2008) Behavior first taught to occur publicly to public stimuli through reinforcing contingencies arranged by the verbal community Once public behavior taught, reading may become private Not the result of a mental act or processes Result of additional contingencies arranged by the public environment Social community may punish reading aloud Responses are eventually reduced in volume until they are no longer detectable Advantages to reading silently such as increased rates of responding and decreased response effort Response Reduction Example: Thinking (Moore, 2008) Skinner (1957): covert verbal behavior that automatically affects the behaver and generates its own reinforcement Speaker serves as his or her own listener Skinner (1953): Verbal behavior, however, can occur at the covert level Moreover, it may remain effective at the convert level because the speaker himself is also a listener and his verbal behavior may have private consequences. The covert form continues to be reinforced, even though it has been reduced in magnitude to the point at which it has no appreciable effect on the environment (p.264). 14

15 Verbal Responses to Private Stimulation Significance: Methods provide a means by which the verbal community avoids the problems presented by private stimulation Limitations: Precision of responding to private stimuli does not match responding to public stimuli Contingencies that establish verbal behavior under the control of private stimuli are defective. Skinner (1957) Everyone mistrusts verbal responses which describe private events Strangely enough, it is the community which teaches the individual to know himself 15

16 Feelings How does Skinner describe feelings in general? What are the specific behavior analytic descriptions he gives of: Love Anxiety Fear 16