The Interbehaviorist · Vol. 15, No. 4

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THE INTERBEHAVIORIST

A Quarterly Newsletter of Interbehavioral Psychology

ISSN 8755-612X

Published at the University of Kansas

Volume 15

1987

Number 4

EDITOR

Edward K. Morris
University of Kansas

ADVISORY BOARD

Sidney W. Bijou
University of Arizona
Donna M. Cone
State of Rhode Island
Dennis J. Delprato
Eastern Michigan University
Linda J. Hayes
University of Nevada-Reno
Sandy Hobbs (Scotland)
Paisley College of Technology
Paul T. Mountjoy
Western Michigan University
N. H. Pronko
Wichita State University
Roger D. Ray
Rollins College
Emilio Ribes (Mexico)
Escuela Nacional de Estudios
Douglas H. Ruben
Eastern Michigan University
Robert G. Wahler
University of Tennessee

ASSISTANT EDITORS

Lisa M. Johnson
Bryan D. Midgley
Susan M. Schneider
James T. Todd

TABLE OF CONTENTS

QUOTATION

The problem of development is the problem of the development of new structures and activity patterns from the resolution of the interaction of existing structures and patterns, within the organism and its internal environment, and between the organism and its outer environment. At any stage of development, the new features emerge from the interactions within the current stage and between the current stage and the environment. The interaction out of which the organism develops is not one, as is often said, between heredity and ~~the~~ environment. It is between organism and environment!

D. S. Lehrman (1953, p. 345)

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THE INTERBEHAVIORIST

A Quarterly Newsletter of
Interbehavioral Psychology

ISSN 8755-612X

Edward K. Morris, Editor
Department of Human Development
2035D Haworth Hall
University of Kansas
Lawrence, Kansas 66045, U.S.A.
913-864-4840

The Interbehaviorist is a quarterly publication of news, information, discussion, journal and book notes, book reviews, comments, and brief articles pertaining to interbehavioral psychology -- a contextualistic, integrated-field approach to the natural science of behavior.

The newsletter publishes professional communications that fall between informal correspondence and colloquia, and formal archival publication. As such, the newsletter supplements contemporary journals dedicated to basic and applied research, to the history and philosophy of the behavioral sciences, and to professional issues in the field. The newsletter strongly encourages submission of notes about current professional activities of its subscribers, news and observations about interbehavioral psychology and related perspectives, comments on journal articles and books of interest, more extended book reviews, and brief articles. All submissions should be sent in triplicate to the editor and should conform to the style described in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (3rd edition).

Subscription Information

THE PRINCIPIA PRESS

Principia Press's list of currently available titles in interbehavioral psychology is presented below. Check your bookshelves, and those of your library and bookstore, for possible oversights. In addition, the books make excellent gifts for colleagues and for students, especially for the latter in honor of their completed degree requirements. The books may be purchased directly from Principia Press, 5743 Kimbark Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637. Handling charges are \$.75 per title; prepaid orders are postpaid. Any queries should also be directed to the address above.

Principles of Psychology (2 vols.)

\$20.00

Psychology and Logic (2 vols.)

\$25.00

Interbehavioral Psychology

\$15.00

The Logic of Modern Science

\$15.00

An Objective Psychology of Grammar

\$13.00

The Scientific Evolution of Psychology
(2 vols.)

\$40.00

The Science of Psychology: An

Interbehavioral Survey \$20.00

Psychological Linguistics

\$15.00

Interbehavioral Philosophy

\$27.50

Cultural Psychology

\$16.00

Tragedy and the Event Continuum

\$15.00

Selected Writings, 1929-1983

\$20.00

Psychological Comments and Queries

\$20.00

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THE AGORA

This issue of the newsletter completes the 1987 volume year with a potpourri of news, notes, commentaries, and an article. The year was a successful one in that we published more pages than in any previous volume. Still, we seek additional submissions of all types from a broader range of our readers. Our mutual commitment to a natural science of behavior is reflected in a diversity of interests and expertise. More of that commitment and diversity should grace the pages of the newsletter.

Little of this issue's Agora comes directly from the editor's desk. Linda J. Hayes has submitted the minutes of the Interbehavioral Special Interest Group meeting held at the 1987 Association for Behavior Analysis convention. In addition, Laura L. Methot has submitted a call for an interbehavioral student network. We are pleased to have both contributions.

Before turning to this material, though, we must first note that the subscription year is over, and ask that you return your renewal forms. Please do so at your earliest convenience so that we can maintain uninterrupted service. Thank you.

Interbehaviorists at ABA

Twenty three ABA members attended the Interbehavioral Special Interest Group (SIG) meeting at the May ABA convention in Nashville, TN. The following reports were given and business conducted:

1. The Interbehaviorist. Ed Morris reported that The Interbehaviorist is sent to over 100 individuals, libraries, and organizations, of which approximately 75 are paid subscribers.

2. Committee structure. Hayes proposed the establishment of three committees with the following responsibilities:

(a) A Program Committee responsible for organizing and submitting an interbehavioral program to the ABA Program Committee by the November deadline for submissions. Among the symposia suggested was one on how interbehaviorists view the experimental analysis of behavior almost two decades after Kantor's critique published in the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. Hayes agreed to find a chair for a symposium on

this topic. James Fox agreed to organize a symposium on different theoretical approaches to a topic of applied interest along the lines of the symposium organized by Bud Gardner for the 1987 convention. Finally, Ed Morris agreed to organize a symposium on interbehavioral psychology for students and others interested in the approach. It was suggested that this symposium focus on the distinctive features of the position and how these features make the approach worthwhile.

(b) A Membership Committee responsible for recruitment. Hayes agreed to chair this committee. Suggestions for the committee included encouraging academic members to invite their students to join the SIG and announcing the SIG in other ABA SIG newsletters.

(c) A Student Committee responsible for organizing student participation at ABA. Suggestions included establishing a student section of The Interbehaviorist and working with the Program Committee to ensure student contributions to the ABA program. Laura Methot (Saint Mary's University, Canada) agreed to chair this committee.

3. Graduate Training in Interbehavioral Psychology. The unavailability of comprehensive graduate training in interbehavioral psychology remains a problem. Students interested in clinical training are advised to contact Dr. Peter Holmes or Dr. Dennis Delprato (Eastern Michigan University). Several other universities represented by SIG members attending the meeting were also mentioned as possibilities for training, to a greater or lesser extent. These included: the University of Kansas (contact Ed Morris), Jacksonville State University (contact William Gardner), Peabody College of Vanderbilt University (contact James Fox), and the University of Nevada-Reno (contact Linda J. Hayes). Students are also advised that a very strong interbehaviorally oriented experimental program is available at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (contact Emilio Ribes).

For additional information about any of these activities, please contact the members responsible for them or write to Linda J. Hayes, Psychology Department, University of Nevada-Reno, Reno, NV 89557-0062.

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An Interbehavioral Student Network

The 1987 ABA Convention provided opportunities for students of interbehavioral psychology to meet and exchange ideas with each other. One of those ideas was to develop a student communication network within the interbehavioral "field." In fact, a student committee has already been formed for the purpose of increasing student participation. The focus of the committee is to establish ongoing contacts for its geographically dispersed members, thereby increasing the extent to which interbehavioral psychology touches students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Of prime importance now is to compose a mailing list of interested parties. Individuals, academic departments, and professional organizations are welcome and encouraged to become involved. Some of the objectives of this network include:

1. 1. Regular communications with respect to recent, current, and ongoing research of interest to those in the field -- there's that word again!
2. 2. Commentaries, theoretical papers, and articles concerning issues and developments in interbehavioral studies, and where they fit into the larger picture of our interactions.
3. 3. A symposium for ABA 1988 in Philadelphia. This symposium may consist of students and teachers of interbehavioral psychology presenting papers and studies to other interbehavioral psychologists and to the larger ABA group as well.
4. 4. The students at Saint Mary's University are currently attempting to establish a special interest group for a reading-study program utilizing Kantor's works, as well as current literature from other interbehavioral sources. This and others could be even more productive if we promoted the exchange of ideas and unpublished material (even papers for coursework may be of interest here) by establishing a correspondence network among members.

Who, specifically, are we looking for? People with a common interest in the development and growth of interbehavioral studies are the starting point. You may be a student of psychology wishing to further your knowledge in this area (possibly looking toward graduate studies with this orientation) or already a part

of an existing program. You may be a professor of interbehavioral psychology who wishes to become involved in the network -- more high level input may decrease the atrophy now experienced in the student body.

Interested individuals can make the initial step by contacting me -- Laura Methot -- at the Department of Psychology, Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, B3H 3C3. I look forward to your correspondence, and invite your suggestions about ideas for the development of this network!

Notes from the Field

As you may have surmised from the text, Linda J. Parrott is now Linda J. Hayes. Linda and Steven C. Hayes were married on September 20, and reside in Reno, NV. We wish them the very best.

Douglas H. Ruben and Dennis J. Delprato's text, New Ideas in Therapy: Introduction to an Interdisciplinary Approach is now available through Greenwood Press. Its dedication page reads as follows: "To the memory of OBSERVER, who revealed the events of behavior that were obscured for centuries."

Sidney W. Bijou attended the XXI Interamerican Congress of Psychology in Havana, Cuba, June 27-July 4. He gave an invited address on child behavior therapy and visited preschools, a psychiatric hospital, and the Department of Psychology and Education at the University of Cuba.

New Subscribers

Rue L. Cromwell (University of Kansas)
Janette M. LaBurn (Eastern Michigan U.)
Laura L. Methot (St. Mary's University)
John F. Smith (University of Kansas)
Simon Starbuck (Ontario, Canada)
David J. Wartel (Michigan)

Quotation

The quotation on the front cover was submitted by Bryan D. Midgley. The reference is to Lehrman, D. S. (1953). A critique of Konrad Lorenz's theory of instinctive behavior. The Quarterly Review of Biology, 28, 337-363.

Correction

The correct reference to the Gineste article mentioned in the last issue is Bulletin de Psychologie, Tome XXXVIII, no. 372.

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COMMENTS

J. R. Kantor's Contributions
to Scientific Psychology (cont.)

Dennis J. Delprato

Eastern Michigan University

This year's second issue of the newsletter contained some brief comments on J. R. Kantor's contributions to scientific psychology, followed alphabetically by a list of quotations from prominent psychologists who had acknowledged as much (Delprato, 1987). The quotations presented below complete that little survey of such material.

Sapir (1926)

A notable contribution to the understanding of language as a particular type of behavior is J. R. Kantor's paper on An Analysis of Psychological Language Data, in which the peculiar characteristics of speech, whether communicative or expressive, are sought in its indirect nature as a response, the "adaptive stimulus" being responded to not directly but in the form of a reference, while a secondary stimulus, generally the person spoken to, is substitutively reacted to. (p. 112)

Schoenfeld (1969)

Sometimes when the work of a man of scholarship and intellectual daring plunges ahead of the learned community he is addressing, it does not immediately receive the honor it deserves. Instead, as it blends unmarked into the scholarly landscape, it becomes somehow taken for granted. Something like this has happened to the writings of J. R. Kantor. (p. 329)

Skinner (1938)

Although I continued to use the concept of drive for many years, J. R. Kantor eventually convinced me of its dangers.... (p. x)

Skinner (1979)

[The Kantors' house] was a small intellectual and cultural oasis in the university community... (p. 284)

When I first met Robert Kantor at a meeting in Urbana, Illinois, I was

impressed by his scholarship and intellectual vigor. He was a behaviorist, though of a very special kind. (p. 283)

Stephenson (1953)

At bottom, our proposals depend upon a belief that scientific behavior is concrete (Kantor), and never the object of any absolute principles of deduction or induction. (p. 46)

Kantor's principle lies behind the main thesis of these chapters, in a grass-roots manner. (p. 341)

Tolman (1932)

This molar notion of behavior -- this notion that behavior presents characterizable and defining properties of its own, which are other than the properties of the underlying physics and physiology -- has been defended by other theorists than ourselves. In particular, acknowledgment must be made to Holt, de Laguna, Weiss, and Kantor. (p. 8)

Verplanck (1983)

So long as investigators continue to interact with their subject matter, they will move forward to fuller understanding and scientific knowledge in psychology. Passing trends and fads of equipment, or "sophisticated" methodology, of systematic viewpoint, and of theories may accelerate or slow this movement, but they will not stop it. Time, in which research (however misguided) continues, will inevitably lead us all to interbehaviorism, if not necessarily to its vocabulary. (p. xxv)

This personal history may prove the paradigm -- where time after time, when I thought I had reached a new position, I'd stop myself short.... "Hey, wait a minute, Kantor wrote that" -- or "that's what Kantor would say." He's always been there first. (p. xxv)

This is the way it will happen for others, over coming years. (p. xxv)

References

Sapir, E. (1926). Philology. In Encyclopaedia Britannica (13th ed., pp. 112-115). New York: Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Schoenfeld, W. N. (1969). J. R. Kantor's Objective Psychology of Grammar and

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Psychology and Logic: A retrospective appreciation. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 12, 329-347.

Skinner, B. F. (1938). The behavior of organisms. New York: Appleton-Century.

Skinner, B. F. (1979). The shaping of a behaviorist. New York: Knopf.

Stephenson, W. (1953). The study of behavior: Q-Technique and its methodology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Tolman, E. C. (1932). Purposive behavior in animals and men. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

Verplanck, W. S. (1983). Preface. In N. W. Smith, P. T. Mountjoy, & D. H. Ruben (Eds.), Reassessment in psychology: The interbehavioral alternative (pp. xi-xxv). Washington, DC: University Press of America.

Are Interbehavioral Linguistics Passe?

Noel W. Smith

SUNY-Plattsburgh

In his historical review of psychology and linguistics, Carroll (1985) briefly summarizes Kantor's An Objective Psychology of Grammar (1936). He notes quite correctly that Kantor insists on avoiding a treatment of "language symbols as 'things' divorced from their function in social interaction" (p. 835). But, as for the experimental studies centered on this system reviewed by Pronko (1946), Carroll comments that they "represent mainly demonstrations of rather obvious referential functions of language symbols" (p. 835). Carroll then quotes from a "savage" review of Kantor's Grammar by Velton (1938), finding it to be "well-justified" (p. 836). Finally, Carroll concludes by commenting that Kantor's more recent Psychological Linguistics (1977) contains "little more than the same kind of polemics to be found in the 1936 publication. Psychology of the Kantorian variety dies hard!" (p. 836).

Perhaps it should die hard. Jenkins' (1974) extensive studies of recall involving verbal materials strongly support the interbehavioral thesis: Subjects remembered the things to which

phrases and sentences referred as part of the context, but remembered little of the verbal material itself. Likewise, the recent related work on language by Bijou and associates (Bijou, Umbreit, Ghezzi, & Chao, 1986a, 1986b, 1986c; Ghezzi, Bijou, Umbreit, & Chao, 1987) also looks promising; it includes a methodology and manual of instructions.

Is it possible that interbehavioral linguistics is not so passe after all, and that it is important to keep it alive because it really does have much to offer?

References

Bijou, S. W., Umbreit, J., Ghezzi, P. M., & Chao, C-C. (1986a). Addendum to manual of instructions for identifying and analyzing referential interactions. Unpublished manuscript. University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ.

Bijou, S. W., Umbreit, J., Ghezzi, P. M., & Chao, C-C. (1986b). Manual of instructions for identifying and analyzing referential interactions. The Psychological Record, 36, 491-518.

Bijou, S. W., Umbreit, J., Ghezzi, P. M., & Chao, C-C. (1986c). Psychological linguistics: A natural science approach to the study of language interactions. Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 4, 23-29.

Carroll, J. B. (1985). Psychology and linguistics: Detachment and affiliation in the second half-century. In S. Koch & D. E. Leary (Eds.), A century of psychology as science (pp. 825-854). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Ghezzi, P. M., Bijou, S. W., Umbreit, J., & Chao, C-C. (1987). Influence of age of listener on preadolescents' linguistic behavior. The Psychological Record, 37, 109-126.

Jenkins, J. J. (1974). Remember that old theory of memory? Well, forget it! American Psychologist, 29, 785-795.

Kantor, J. R. (1936). An objective psychology of grammar. Chicago: Principia Press.

Kantor, J. R. (1977). Psychological linguistics. Chicago: Principia Press.

Pronko, N. H. (1946). Language and psycholinguistics. Psychological Bulletin, 43, 189-239.

Velton, H. V. (1938). Review of J. R. Kantor's An objective psychology of grammar. Language, 14, 66-68.

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BOOK AND JOURNAL NOTES

Hagen, M. A. (1985). James J. Gibson's ecological approach to visual perception. In S. Koch & D. E. Leary (Eds.). A century of psychology as science (pp. 237-249). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Readers of The Interbehaviorist are probably aware that J. J. Gibson (1979) radically altered his basic postulates about perceiving in his third and final book. Hagen describes this and other developments in Gibson's thought in all three volumes which, she says, should be read in their entirety in order to appreciate his metamorphosis from mentalism to his final ecological position. Her advice will not likely be oft heeded, however, because Gibson's (1950, 1966) first two books now sell for over \$50 each and because both are now part of the past. More important is the influence that his change in underlying postulates might have on textbooks and other professional material. Insufficient time has passed, however, for any effects to have yet occurred.

In a companion piece to Hagen's paper, Gibson (1985) makes his position clear. His brief presentation is an excellent example of how a lifetime of empirical research and thought can be summarized with clarity in the scope of just six pages. Hagen's coverage is broader, but she states that it should only whet the reader's appetite for more of Gibson's own writing. This she succeeds in doing, at least for Gibson's final volume, which is available in paperback for \$19.95.

Two commentaries on Gibson's ecological perspective have been written by interbehavioral psychologists, in addition to a review by Smith (1980), which will not be covered here. The first commentary was by Observer (1981/1984) in which he, with as much graciousness as possible, pointed out that the ecological approach to perceiving had been developed by Kantor 60 years earlier. Observer's (1981) justifiable pique showed itself in the following quotation:

What a waste of time, money, and energy is the consequence of ignoring the description of psychological events as they actually occur instead of as tradition demands. What a disregard of

scientific principles! What price independent rediscovery? (p. 239)

As a historical comparison, it might be said that had the abolitionist doctrine of William Lloyd Garrison (Madison, 1947) been accepted when it first appeared in the 1830s, the Civil War might have been averted. Concepts that later seem obviously important are, however, often rejected when they fly in the face of established beliefs, no matter how irrational the latter. At least in the present instance, only time was lost.

Smith's (1983) paper should be read along with Hagen's, for Smith presents a thorough coverage of the literature relative to pre-1979 ecological approaches to perceiving. Although Gibson was in a class by himself as a researcher, and, although we can hope that his ecological approach will be widely accepted among others, Kantor aside, he was by no means the first to espouse the ecological position. It is unfortunate that Hagen (1985) could not have had access to Smith's references, for she makes the statement that "Gibson's approach to the problem of meaning is the first radically different approach since (at least) Berkeley's" (p. 247). It is interesting to note in this regard that her references total but nine, including four to Gibson's work, whereas Smith includes 150.

In order to give an overall view of three attitudes toward perceptual research, I would like to close with quotations from the papers by Gibson and by Smith, and also with one from a paper by Ralph Norman Haber (1985) who is a leader in the field and whose paper, along with those of Gibson and Hagen, make up the section on Sensory Processes and Perception in Koch and Leary's parent volume. I begin with Haber (1985):

This has been a great century for perception, probably better for perception than for any other area in psychology. A hundred years ago we were farther along than the rest of psychology, and I think we have more than kept pace. The next century should be even better, especially if we keep in mind that we evolved our visual system in order to be able to perceive visual space around us. Only by

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studying perception in that context can we come fully to appreciate how it functions. I think we are now able to do this, so I am very optimistic about the future. (p. 277)

From Gibson (1985):

The conclusions that can be reached from a century of research on perception are insignificant. The knowledge gained from a century of research on sensation is incoherent. We have no adequate theory of perception, and what we have found in the search for sensation is a mixed batch of illusions, physiological curiosities, and bodily feelings. The implications are discouraging. A fresh start has to be made on the problem of perception and we should abandon the study of so-called "sensations" to the input physiologists. Some day they will learn how to study systems and when they do we can begin to listen to them. (pp. 229-230)

And, from Smith (1980):

Gibson's final book (1979) argues that we cannot see light, only its effects on the environment. Hence there are no sensations of light to be converted to mental perceptions. We do not perceive stimuli but conditions of the environment. Instead, perception is an ecological event, one involving the interrelationship of the individual and surrounding objects and conditions.... The major thrust of Gibson's work is interbehavioral, although it differs in many details. Most importantly, like interbehaviorism, it holds that perception is an activity in which the individual gets acquainted with the world.... Scientific psychology could make a quantum leap forward if ecological-interbehavioral psychology could gain recognition. At the very least, psychologists would have available the basis for a more informed choice. (pp. 197-198)

In spite of its long delay, then, Gibson's acceptance of an ecological-interbehavioral perspective can be considered a major advance, if not a significant breakthrough toward a more general recognition of the interbehavioral

position in psychology. The fact that it may now be expedient to refer to this position as "ecological-interbehavioral" does not really matter if that is necessary for the progress of psychology. (Harry C. Mahan, Oceanside, CA)

References

Gibson, J. J. (1950). The perception of the visual world. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Gibson, J. J. (1966). The senses considered as perceptual systems. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Gibson, J. J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Gibson, J. J. (1985). Conclusions from a century of research in sense perception. In S. Koch & D. E. Leary (Eds.), A century of psychology as science (pp. 224-230). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Haber, R. N. (1985). Perception: A one hundred year perspective. In S. Koch & D. E. Leary (Eds.), A century of psychology as science (pp. 250-281). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Hagen, M. A. (1985). James J. Gibson's ecological approach to visual perception. In S. Koch & D. E. Leary (Eds.), A century of psychology as science (pp. 231-249). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Madison, C. A. (1947). William Lloyd Garrison: Apostolic crusader. In C. A. Madison (Ed.), Critics & crusaders: A century of American protest (pp. 14-38). New York: Holt.

Observer (1984). Priority and the pace of scientific progress. In Observer (Ed.), Psychological comments and queries (pp. 233-240). Chicago: Principia Press (Original published in The Psychological Record, 1981, 31, 285-292)

Smith, N. W. (1980). Book review of Gibson, J. J., The ecological approach to visual perception. The Psychological Record, 30, 587-588.

Smith, N. W. (1983). Sensing and perceiving: An alternative to the doctrine of the double world. In N. W. Smith, P. T. Mountjoy, & D. H. Ruben (Eds.), Reassessment in psychology: The interbehavioral alternative (pp. 161-211). Washington, DC: University Press of America.

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Klopfer, P. H. (1969). "Behavior" [review of Ethology of mammals]. Science, August, 29.

In his review of R. F. Ewer's (1968) Ethology of Mammals, Klopfer takes issue with the author's characterization of behavior. In Ewer's words, "Behaviour is something which an animal has got in the same way as it may have horns, teeth, claws or other structural features" (Ewer, 1968, p. 4). Klopfer responds:

The notion that behavior is a "noun," a palpable entity, has been responsible for much of the nonsense that ethologists have uttered. We read of "aggression" accumulating and needing discharge, as if it were a fluid liable to seep through cracks in the cranium. I believe we "contain" aggression about as much as a radio "contains" the music we hear issuing from it. Hardin ["Meaninglessness of the word protoplasm," Sci. Monthly, 82, 112 (1956)], extrapolating from the work of Benjamin Lee Whorf (Language, Thought and Reality, Wiley, 1956), has tried to show how the grammatical forms of English have influenced biologists' conceptions of the body. The polarized structure of our language, requiring phenomena to be described by sentences that consist of nouns and verbs, has often distracted us from the realization that a particular event might not lend itself to such treatment. Thus, "it thunders," and "lightning flashes," [are] tautologies that obscure the "nounverb" nature of these events. In the study of behavior, this kind of reification has done even more to retard understanding than in the areas described by Hardin (Klopfer, "Instincts and chromosomes," Amer. Naturalist, in press, and see a forthcoming volume on evolution and behavior by G. Bermant).

(John M. Grossberg, San Diego State University)

Rosnow, R. L., & Georgoudi, M. (Eds.). (1986). Contextualism and understanding in behavioral science: Implications for research and theory. New York: Praeger.

Rosnow and Georgoudi (1986) have assembled the first modern, substantive treatment of the contextualistic world view since its original explication in Stephen C. Pepper's (1942) World Hypotheses (University of California Press). Whether referred to as contextualism or transactionalism, much of this view is strongly interbehavioral in flavor. Indeed, contextualism is perhaps the implicit interbehavioral world view.

As presented by Pepper, contextualism emphasizes the (a) active, ever-changing nature of behavior, (b) the relativity of knowledge, and (c) the pragmatic criterion of truth. This view, though, comes in various guises, not all of which are naturalistic, as is the case in a number of this book's sometimes uneven chapters. Naturalistic or not, much is to be gleaned from Rosnow and Georgoudi's explicit setting forth of these views.

The book's contents, sections, and chapters (and authors) are as follows:

I. Introduction: (1) The Spirit of Contextualism (Rosnow and Georgoudi)

II. Person-Environment Relations: (2) Contextualism and Environmental Psychology (Altman), (3) Contextual Discipline: The Unmaking and Remaking of Sociality (Morowski), and (4) Descartes, Vico, Contextualism, and Social Psychology (Lana)

III. Life-Span Development: (5) Contextualism and the Study of Child Effects in Development (Lerner and Lerner), (6) Contextualism and Relational Perspectives on Adult Psychology (Blank), and (7) Contextualism and Life-Span Developmental Psychology (Dixon)

IV. Personality and Psychotherapy: (8) Contextual Factors in the Normal Personality (Veroff), (9) Contextualism and Psychotherapy (Elfran, Germer, and Lukens), and (10) Prospects for a Contextual Theory of Personality (Sarbin and McKechnie)

V. Language and Communication: (11) Speaking Practically: Whorf, the Formative Function of Communication, and Knowing of the Third Kind (Shotter), (12) Media as Social Contexts (Meyerowitz), and (13) The Symbolic Context of Action and Communication (Gerbner)

VI. Overview and Conclusions: (14) A Perspectivist Looks at Contextualism and the Future of Behavioral Science (McGuire) and (15) Summing Up (Rosnow). (Edward K. Morris, University of Kansas)

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He's Always Been There First

Jay Moore

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

In the conclusion of his personal note that serves as the preface for Reassessment in Psychology: The Interbehavioral Alternative (Smith, Mountjoy, & Ruben, 1983), W. S. Verplanck (1983) wrote that

Time after time, when I thought I had reached a new position, I'd stop myself short.... "Hey, wait a minute, Kantor wrote that" -- or "That's what Kantor would say." He's always been there first. (p. xxv)

My purpose in this brief set of comments is to draw readers' attention to an area of fundamental importance where Kantor had been first. The area is scientific epistemology, particularly with regard to critical assessments of the influence of operationism and logical positivism. Certain writings of B. F. Skinner on the same topic are also examined to show that Kantor anticipated much of Skinner's position on this topic.

As recounted elsewhere (Moore, 1975, 1985), American psychology underwent a great conceptual revolution during the 1930s. To be excised was the concern with the contents of consciousness as revealed through introspection. In its stead was to be established a concern with behavior, as revealed through objective methods. Operationism was hailed as a means of imparting an objective meaning to psychological concepts, and together with the epistemological foundation provided by logical positivism, the two were regarded as the distinguishing features of psychology's new methodological and epistemological beginnings.

What was not widely recognized at the time was that the conventional interpretations of operationism and logical positivism were themselves tainted by dualistic presuppositions. This problem is indeed ironic, because operationism and logical positivism were supposed to cure the problems brought about by transcendental metaphysics, rather than perpetuate them. In the second volume of B. F. Skinner's autobiography, Skinner (1979) includes the

text of a letter he wrote to S. S. Stevens about operationism in 1935. Although the text of the letter clearly indicates Skinner had a number of concerns about Stevens' interpretation of operationism at that time, the letter also indicates that, according to Skinner:

[I am] much impressed with your paper on operationism.... It is essentially what I have always supposed behaviorism to represent--.... In any event, congratulations on a damn good job of exposition. (p. 163)

In referring to this same article by Stevens, Kantor (1938) was to write three years later:

Obviously we have here such a truncation of the operational conception as to convert it into a thoroughgoing subjectivism. (p. 15)

These two statements clearly indicate a different evaluation of Stevens' article, and although Skinner's correspondence antedates Kantor's article, it seems obvious that the two had a quite different approach to the question of operationism during the late 1930s.

More pronounced contrasts may be seen by formally comparing Kantor's (1938) article with Skinner's (1945) famous contribution to E. G. Boring's symposium on operationism. This contribution was published in 1945, seven years after Kantor's article, yet they are alike in many ways. Kantor (1938) begins by stating:

It is the thesis of the present paper that the operational principle first formulated for physics can with suitable modification be employed to the psychologist's advantage in clearing up many of his age-old problems. (p. 3)

Skinner (1945) writes:

The operational attitude, in spite of its shortcomings, is a good thing in

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any science but especially in psychology because of the presence there of a vast vocabulary of ancient and non-scientific origin. (p. 271)

Kantor (1938) further suggests:

To reduce properties to observations is to confuse the operations involved in discovering and determining the nature or naming of properties with the existence of the discovered properties themselves. (p. 7)

In this regard, Skinner (1945) was to comment seven years later:

A considerable advantage is gained from dealing with terms, concepts, constructs, and so on, quite frankly in the form in which they are observed, as verbal responses. There is then no danger of including in the concept that aspect or part of nature which it singles out. (p. 271)

Kantor (1938) continued:

While in all interbehavior, as the term is meant to imply, stimulus objects are emphasized quite as much as the scientist's action, the way the stimulus objects are approached differs. How far are investigators influenced by...their contacts with events? (p. 29)

Skinner's (1945) language is similar:

What we want to know in the case of many traditional psychological terms is, first, the specific stimulating conditions under which they are emitted..., and, second..., why each response is controlled by its corresponding condition. (p. 272)

Kantor (1938) also notes:

Conventional sensation-psychologists have attempted to assimilate the principle [of operationism] with the result that what has been proposed as a fundamental improvement in forms of physical science has been used to implement conventional dualism in psychology....Despite the verbal insistence upon discrimination as physical and the inevitable acceptance

of psychological phenomena as interbehavior when actual experiments are described, Stevens' adoption of the operational principle comes to nothing more than a mentalistic psychologist's surface concession to objectivity. (pp. 14-15)

These statements may be compared with Skinner's (1945):

What happened instead was the operationism of Boring and Stevens.... A concession is made in accepting the claim that the data of psychology must be behavioral rather than mental if psychology is to be a member of the United Sciences, but the position taken is merely that of "methodological" behaviorism.... This was never good behaviorism, but it was an easy position to expound and defend and was often resorted to by the behaviorists themselves. It is least objectionable to the subjectivist because it permits him to retain "experience" for the purposes of self-enjoyment and "non-physicalistic" self-knowledge. The position is not genuinely operational because it shows an unwillingness to abandon fictions.... What is lacking is the bold and exciting behavioristic hypothesis that what one observes and talks about is always the "real" or "physical" world (or at least the "one" world) and that "experience" is a derived construct to be understood only through an analysis of verbal (not, of course, merely vocal) processes. (pp. 292-293)

According to the logical positivist view, terms had to refer to either phenomena that were directly observable or phenomena whose meanings were determined by their logical function. Terms whose meanings could not be so established were ineffable, and could not be part of science. The big problem in this regard was what to do about terms that referred to the scientist's own mental life. They were to be regarded as theoretical terms, provided they could be likened to observations. Thus, terms like thinking, images, and so on came to be approached in a particular way, as a consequence of transcendental assumptions concerning how humans constructed unobservable phenomena from observable. For both Kantor and

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Skinner, this entire orientation bought into dualism. Thus, Kantor (1945) says:

Inferential and problem-solving interbehavior can occur in private situations which are never recorded. Let us stress nevertheless that even the private reflections of individuals concerning what happens in logical procedures are inseverably connected with linguistic events. In other words, all reflection may be regarded as an individual's conversation with himself. (p. 233)

Skinner's (1957) own influential book, Verbal Behavior, was approximately 20

years in the making, and when it finally appeared its language was remarkably similar:

A better case can be made for identifying thinking with behaving which automatically affects the behavior and is reinforcing because it does so. This can be either covert or overt. We can explain the tendency to identify thinking with covert behavior by pointing out that the reinforcing effects of covert behavior must arise from self stimulation. (p. 438)

Again, it is important to note that Kantor was there first.

References

Kantor, J. R. (1938). The operational principle in the physical and psychological sciences. The Psychological Record, 2, 1-32.

Kantor, J. R. (1945). Psychology and logic (Vol. I). Chicago: Principia Press.

Moore, J. (1975). On the principle of operationism in a science of behavior. Behaviorism, 3, 120-138.

Moore, J. (1985). Some historical and conceptual relations among logical positivism, operationism, and behaviorism. The Behavior Analyst, 8, 53-63.

Skinner, B. F. (1945). The operational analysis of psychological terms. Psychological Review, 52, 270-277, 290-294.

Skinner, B. F. (1957). Verbal behavior. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Skinner, B. F. (1979). The shaping of a behaviorist. New York: Knopf.

Smith, N. W., Mountjoy, P. T., & Ruben, D. H. (Eds.). (1983). Reassessment in psychology: The interbehavioral alternative. Washington, DC: University Press.

Verplanck, W. S. (1983). Preface. In N. W. Smith, P. T. Mountjoy & D. H. Ruben (Eds.), Reassessment in psychology: The interbehavioral alternative (pp. xi-xxv). Washington, DC: University Press.

Author note: Reprints may be obtained from the author at the following address:
Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI 53201.

THE INTERBEHAVIORIST

Edward K. Morris, Editor
Department of Human Development
University of Kansas
Lawrence, KS 66045