NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/bit/listserv/csgl/2021

Text File | 1993-01-01 | 2.6 KB | 51 lines

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Date:         Fri, 1 Jan 1993 14:11:38 -0600
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From:         Tom Bourbon <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Behaviorism in Amer. Psychologist
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From: Tom Bourbon (930101   13:58)

Dennis Delprato -- since my previous post, I have looked through
the American Psychologist issue on Skinner several more times.  I
have a few questions about some things I see, and do not see.

Many of the authors, including Bryan Midgley and you, wrote about
the famous "three-term contingency" (discriminative stimulus,
response, reinforcement -- which it is said is not a S-R
formulation and does not imply cause in the traditional sense of
the word).  Why did no one mention the "fourth variable" Skinner
wrote about at the start of his career -- the one he said, back
then, was necessary if the third (reinforcement) was to work?  The
fourth variable of course was deprivation.  Skinner dropped all
references to deprivation in later writings, apparently in an
attempt to play up the idea that food reinforcement is
intrinsically "positive."  Bryan and you did an excellent job of
reviewing many of Skinner's other ideas.  I wonder what the two of
you think about the mysterious and long-out-of-favor fourth term.
  I am also curious about why no one cited or discussed the Ferster
& Skinner book, Schedules of Reinforcement, in which F & S laid out
in detail the lab routines for controlling behavior -- all the way
down to deciding on the response rate you want to see from an
animal then adjusting the level of deprivation until you see that
rate.  (There is one citation of Schedules of Reinforcement, in a
brief historical note at the end of the issue.)  That book seems to
have played a major role in establishing the laboratory practices
for generations of behaviorists -- and their procedures were
control procedures.  Is the book out of favor, or just overlooked?
   So this is 1993.  The view out my window looks pretty much the
way it did yesterday.  Wonder if anything else has changed?

Until later,

Tom Bourbon                             e-mail:
Magnetoencephalography Laboratory       [e-mail]
Division of Neurosurgery, E-17          [e-mail]
University of Texas Medical Branch      PHONE  [phone]
Galveston, TX 77550                     FAX    [phone] USA