B. F. Skinner and G. H. Mead: on biological science and social science.
(18/27)
Skinner's contributions to psychology provide a unique bridge between psychology conceptualized as a biological science and psychology conceptualized as a social science. Skinner focused on behavior as a naturally occurring biological phenomenon of interest in its own right, functionally related to surrounding events and, in particular (like phylogenesis), subject to selection by its consequences. This essentially biological orientation was further enhanced by Skinner's emphasis on the empirical foundations provided by laboratory-based experimental analyses of behavior, often with nonhuman subjects. Skinner's theoretical writings, however, also have affinity with the traditions of constructionist social science. The verbal behavior of humans is said to be subject, like other behavior, to functional analyses in terms of its environment, in this case its social context. Verbal behavior in turn makes it possible for us to relate to private events, a process that ultimately allows for the development of consciousness, which is thus said to be a social product. Such ideas make contact with aspects of G. H. Mead's social behaviorism and, perhaps of more contemporary impact in psychology, L. Vygotsky's general genetic law of cultural development. Failure to articulate both the biological and the social science aspects of Skinner's theoretical approach to psychology does a disservice to his unique contribution to a discipline that remains fragmented between two intellectual traditions. (+info)
Skinner's verbal behavior, Chomsky's review, and mentalism.
(19/27)
Skinner's Verbal Behavior (1957) is a comprehensive treatise that deals with most aspects of verbal behavior. However, its treatment of the learning of grammatical behavior has been challenged repeatedly (e.g., Chomsky, 1959). The present paper will attempt to show that the learning of grammar and syntax can be dealt with adequately within a behavior-analytic framework. There is no need to adopt mentalist (or cognitivist) positions or to add mentalist elements to behaviorist theories. (+info)
Gender and health lifestyle: an in-depth exploration of self-care activities in later life.
(20/27)
A behavioral system for assessing and training cardiopulmonary resuscitation skills among emergency medical technicians.
(23/27)
Many deaths from cardiopulmonary arrest can be prevented by the prompt and effective administration of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). In this study, we examined the standard training program for teaching CPR to emergency medical technicians (EMTs). We developed an alternative experimental program whereby the behaviors involved in CPR were assessed easily and in greater detail. This assessment provided the basis for a system in which effective CPR skills were reinforced and problems were corrected. Subjects who were trained in CPR according to this experimental program performed more effectively than subjects in the standard program. In addition, retention (maintenance) measures indicated that experimental subjects continued to perform well, often more effectively than professionally employed EMTs. (+info)
The role of observing and attention in establishing stimulus control.
(24/27)
Early theorists (Skinner, Spence) interpreted discrimination learning in terms of the strengthening of the response to one stimulus and its weakening to the other. But this analysis does not account for the increasing independence of the two performances as training continues or for increases in control by dimensions of a stimulus other than the one used in training. Correlation of stimuli with different densities of reinforcement produces an increase in the behavior necessary to observe them, and greater observing of and attending to the relevant stimuli may account for the increase in control by these stimuli. The observing analysis also encompasses errorless training, and the selective nature of observing explains the feature-positive effect and the relatively shallow gradients of generalization generated by negative discriminative stimuli. The effectiveness of the observing analysis in handling these special cases adds to the converging lines of evidence supporting its integrative power and thus its validity. (+info)