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PSYCHOLOGY’S COMPOSITIONAL PROBLEM

ADVANCES

IN PSYCHOLOGY 41 Editors G . E. STELMACH

P. A. VROON

NORTH-HOLLAND AMSTERDAM. NEW YORK .OXFORD .TOKYO

PSYCHOLOGY’S COMPOSITIONAL PROBLEM

Kenneth P. HILLNER Department of Psychology South Dakota State University Brookings, South Dakota, U.S.A.

1987

NORTH-HOLLAND AMSTERDAM . NEW YORK . OXFORD .TOKYO

6 ELSEVIER

SCIENCE PUBLISHERS B.V., 1987

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner,

ISBN: 0 444 70115 X

Publishers: ELSEVIER SCIENCE PUBLISHERS B.V. P.O. Box 1991 1000B Z Amsterdam The Netherlands

Sole distributors for the LI. S.A. and Canada: ELSEVIER SCIENCE PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC. 52VanderbiltAvenue NewYork,N.Y. 10017 U.S.A.

PRINTED IN T H E NETHERLANDS

V

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated t o m y mother, Margaret Lillian Hillner.

I also wish t o pay homage t o t h e countless

victims o f t h e Holocaust.

This Page Intentionally Left Blank

Vii

CONTENTS

Preface Acknowledgments

ix xiii

1

1:

Prolegomena

2:

Methodology: Content o f Observation; Orientation

21

Epiphenomena: Conscious Experience and Behavior

57

4:

Explanation: Face Valid Constructs

97

5:

Metaphysics: Schemes f o r Defining Psychological Events

159

6:

Ethics: Abnormality

185

7:

Compositional Problem: A Possible Solution

223

8:

Psychological Application

25 I

9:

Folk Psychology: Action and Belief

2775

Psychology's Relation t o Other Disciplines

303

Psychology a s Applied Philosophy

337

Bibliography

355

Name Index

375

Subject Index

383

3:

10 : 11:


PREFACE

The discipline o f psychology, psychological knowledge, or a psychological approach t o things in general is one o f the accepted, even mundane, facets o f contemporary life.

Psychology is one o f the aspects o f the

conceptual sunglasses that nearly everybody u s e s t o interpret experience.

It seems a s if psychology con-

stitutes a n inherent part o f the natural universe and was created by God along with t h e rest o f the Garden o f Eden.

Although psychology may be culturally per-

vasive and taken f o r granted by t h e general public, it certainly is not a n absolute, noncontingent proper-

t y o f t h e naturally occurring universe.

People forget,

if they ever were cognizant o f , three critical aspects o f the discipline:

1. The active, self-conscious postulation o f formal psychological systems--i.e.,

the construction

o f a psychological reality--is a n endeavor that

is a

mere one hundred years old.

2. Psychological knowledge, a s t h e case with all knowledge, is strictly a human invention, o r even corruption.

It is a derivative o f our self-consciousness,

self-awareness, o r conscious intelligence. 3. Psychology focuses o n t h e very entity that

creates psychology in the first place: t h e human organism.

This is true regardless o f whether a n inter-

Preface

X

\

rial, subjective approach--a la humanism--or a n exter\

rial, objective approach--a la behaviorism--is employed. These three characteristics o f psychology translate into a trio o f negative consequences f o r the discipl i ne :

1. Psychology still is suffering from a series o f "growing pains" that are analogous to those characteristic o f such physical sciences a s physics, chemistry, and astronomy during their respective preparadigmatic periods.

2. No statement purporting t o subsume psychological content c a n be expressed independently o f t h e perspective o f some human agent or observer: psychological knowledge strictly is perspective contingent or relative.

3. The psychological universe is infinitely descriptive or possesses a potentially infinite domain because the human being i s the product o f a n extensive and very complex evolutionary process.

Psychol-

ogy probably is t h e most diverse and fragmented o f t h e intellectual disciplines traditionally classified a s social sciences. The reactions o f t h e psychological community to the state o f

t h e discipline vary: unconcern, vague

anxiety, complete loss o f faith, calls f o r radical and immediate revision, and t h e like (for instance, see Oeese, 1972; Koch, 1975; Kendler, 1981; Staats, 1983). Actually, each o f these interrelated aspects/consequences has a positive s i d e , or at least carries t h e germ o f some hope.

1. Psychology's continued growing pains--or tended period o f p r e p a r a d i g m a t i c i t y - - m i g h t that t h e discipline

i s

ex-

indicate

unique or a t least somehow dif-

ferent from other sciences.

Preface

2. The relativity o f

xi

psychological knowledge can

be construed a s t h e prototypical, o r canonical, case for all other f o r m s o f knowledge--i.e., all knowledge is relativistic, even i n . t h e so-called hard sciences.

3. The descriptive infinity o f psychological knowledge puts a premium o n t h e moral, ethical, or evaluative aspects o f t h e discipline.

The conduction o f psy-

chology could be construed primarily a s a normative, a s opposed t o a descriptively neutral, endeavor. These three positive features c a n be rendered somewhat differently.

1. Psychology still is in control

of

its own des-

tiny. 2. The proper object o f study for psychology

might be t h e phenomenon o f conscious intelligence itself.

3. Psychology still is in a position t o aid the human r a c e in adapting t o its ecological or existential niche in the universe, o r at least in understanding itself better.

I would suggest that t h e thrust

these prefa-

of

tory remarks is t o recommend that a new rational analysis be made o f t h e notion o f "psychological," such that a consistent structure, or logical framework, can emerge f o r assigning psychological meaning t o certain natural events.

What the discipline o f psychology ur-

gently needs at t h i s juncture in its evolution is a revised representational scheme so that t h e properties o f psychological phenomena

c a n be formalized and eval-

uated. . 1I .

*,.

.I.

. I . 0,.

The purpose o f t h i s book is twofold:

.8-8.

. T I .

( 1 ) perform a n

analysis o f t h e notion o f psychological and (2) derive a new representational scheme for defining psychologi-

Xii

cal events.

Preface

Because the prefatory remarks have been

informal, these t w o tasks are reconceptualized in Chapt e r 1 a s a response to psychology's problem," the title o f t h e text.

is previewed in Chapter 1.

"compositional

T h e modus operandi

Ultimately, t h e nature o f

psychology will be considered at five different levels:

( 1 ) methodological or epistemological, ( 2 ) epiphenomena1 or descriptive, (31 explanatory o r theoretical, (4) metaphysical o r ontological, and (5) ethical o r normative.

Xiii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book never could have been written without t h e sacrifice, understanding, or encouragement o f my family, t h e Psychology Department, t h e Arts and Science College, Or. K . Michielsen o f North-Holland, and t h e Series Editors George Stelmach and Pieter Vroon. Special acknowledgment is extended to t h e hundreds o f South Dakota State University students who tolerate my classroom behavior a s a means o f coming to t e r m s with life and t h e universe.

More generally, I am very ap-

preciative o f a set o f personal circumstances that affords both t h e philosophical freedom and opportunity for reflection requisite for psychological exposition.


1

CHAPTER 1

PROLEGOMENA

The purpose of t h i s chapter is fivefold: 1. sketch t h e existential context in which psychology exists;

2. introduce the compositional problem; 3. describe how t h e discipline actually began; 4. consider t h e possible ways in which we can serve a s a potential object o f psychological analysis;

5. preview t h e structural organization o f t h e book. The existential context enumerates t h e preconditions necessary for psychological knowledge or a psychological view of t h e world.

The compositional problem is

a technical, but convenient, way o f specifying t h e purpose o f t h e book [ s e e t h e Preface], such t h a t it serves a s t h e central theme underlying t h e text.

The

manner in which t h e discipline began and t h e ways in which t h e human organism c a n serve a s a n object of psychological analysis enhance t h e compositional problem, and their discussion provides s o m e necessary historical and conceptual background.

The preview sec-

tion delineates t h e elementary framework used f o r d o c umenting t h e ramifications of t h e compositional problem and its possible solution. EXISTENTIAL CONTEXT

I suppose that t h e allure o f t h e Bible, o r any

2

Chapter 1

holy book, is t h a t it functions a s a gigantic Rorschach card.

Any one o f its highly figurative passages admits

o f numerous interpretations.

Take the very first verse

of t h e Gospel according t o John, f o r example: "In the beginning was t h e Word, and t h e Word was with God, and t h e Word was God."

The term "Word" c a n be interpreted

to mean "consciousness intelligence."

,"

"intelligence

,'?

or "conscious

The notion o f consciousness is impor-

tant because nothing can exist unless it is a n element o f s o m e entity's

awareness.

F o r t h e Christian, God

serves a s the repository o f t h i s primordial, all-encompassing conscious intelligence; and t h e conscious intelligence that is God both physically created and epistemologically reified the universe simultaneously. F o r those o f us who a r e mechanistically o r naturalistically inclined and typically repress t h e Bible a s a surrogate Rorschach c a r d , consciousness still must serve a s t h e reifier of existence; however, it must b e that of some material entity, such a s t h e human being.

In t h i s context, the beginning o f t h e uni-

verse in time and its actual reification relative t o our consciousness constitute two separate historical occurrences. Human consciousness, simply put, is the property of being self-aware or self-reflective.

The nature o f

human intelligence allows homo sapiens t o both react to and realize t h e existence o f physical entities independent of t h e self.

All t h i s might seem fatuous,

until it is realized that no other recognizable form of

life has ever discussed t h e origin or existence o f

t h e universe with us. What does t h i s allusion to conscious intelligence have t o do with psychology?

The answer is "everything!"

The s a m e conscious intelligence that reified t h e phys-

Prolegomena

3

ical universe a l s o created t h e notion o f a psychological reality, just a s it did those o f a chemical, biological, sociological, or economic reality.

T h e exis-

tence o f a psychological universe, superimposed o n the physical universe, i s not at all self-evident.

In

fact, t h e notion o f a psychological reality was t h e last o f t h e traditional realities t o be created by our conscious intelligence (see Bornstein, 1984). Intelligence is a physical capacity distributed continuously throughout t h e animal kingdom [see Churchland, 1984).

Other forms o f animal life possess intel-

ligence o f some kind and degree.

Intelligence merely

reaches its zenith in t h e context o f t h e human being. Psychology is a human product, but only because we serve a s a repository o f t h e specific physical realization o f conscious intelligence that reifies every aspect o f t h e universe. The construction o f t h e psychological universe is an epistemological process, delimited by t h e constraints inherent in t h e physical system that i s our conscious intelligence.

It is conceivable t h a t , in another part

o f the astronomical universe, the physical embodiment

o f conscious intelligence might have assumed a vastly

different form, one parenthetically that did not construct a psychological reality. To be technical, t h e possession o f conscious intelligence by t h e human being is not a sufficient condition f o r t h e creation o f a psychological reality. Possession o f the language function also i s necessary. What is meant by t h e language function in t h i s context is t h e capacity f o r speech.

The language function allows t h e content, or products, o f conscious intelligence to be expressed in communicable form.

Language essentially is a symbol sys-

4

Chapter 1

t e m , and psychological knowledge only can be expressed by a sequence o f symbols. essentially is symbolic.

The content o f

psychology

Either a physical or a non-

physical event c a n serve a s a psychological e v e n t , but it only becomes s o by being assignable t o s o m e analytical psychological category representable by a symbol. The notions o f conscious intelligence and language function are s o intertwined that it is impossible t o characterize each without reference t o the other.

They

are cofunctions o f each other: linguistic distinctions delimit conscious discriminations, and conscious discriminations delimit linguistic distinctions.

The c r e -

ation o f a psychological reality is a joint product o f human intelligence and language. Specification o f the existential context o f psychology need not cease at the level o f t h e human being a s a repository o f conscious intelligence and t h e language function. is.

We can inquire about what a human being

Skirting many theological and philosophical con-

cerns, we simply c a n say t h a t the human organism--as a n object o f scientific analysis in t h e context o f t h e naturalistic approach to reality resolution--is a form o f organic

life [Schradinger, 1945).

T h e notion o f

life itself defies absolute definition; however, any life form constitutes a n independent, self-contained processor o f energy that contributes t o its continued maintenance and reproductive potential.

From another

perspective, the flow o f energy through a life form helps t o create and sustain a n "internal order."

The

processing o f information by conscious intelligence has a n analogous function: reduction o f uncertainty about t h e s t a t e o f the external world, i.e.,

creation and

maintenance o f a n "external order . I ' I n sum, psychology helps us better understand our-

Prolegomena

5

selves, our s t a t u s in the natural universe, o u r relationship to other forms o f life, and the like--as the product o f a constantly evolving, energy driven, symbolic information processing naturalistic system that reifies the universe.

THE COMPOSITIONAL PROBLEM The human organism i s confronted with certain natural phenomena that it attempts t o understand.

Cer-

tainly since at least the mid nineteenth century, the scientific approach has served a s t h e preferred mode o f understanding.

But t h e various physical, biologi-

cal, and social sciences merely cross-classify t h e same phenomena from different perspectives ( F o d o r , 1974).

The unique or indigenously characteristic

property of a given natural event is not a n absolute property residing in t h e event; it merely i s a n abstraction relative t o the particular conceptual scheme used t o analyze and classify t h e event. In t h i s context, practically everyone c l a i m s knowledge o f what t h e term "psychological" means and c a n recognize instances o f psychological events when they occur.

Yet it is impossible to give a technical

specification t o psychological phenomena that would be acceptable t o every psychologist.

The unique or indig

enously characteristic property of a psychological event really is a philosophical question, presumably not admissable t o final resolution.

F o r want of bet-

t e r terminology, t h i s state of affairs will be called psychology's

"compositional problem."

The significance o f t h e compositional problem varies with t h e type of psychology involved.

At least

three varieties of psychology exist: ( 1 ) f o l k , ( 2 ) ac1

ademic, and (3) applied (see Harre and Lamb, 1983; S t i c h , 1983).

6

Chapter 1

1. An informal, common-sense folk psychology, f o cusing on the occurrent and dispositional mental states subsumed by consciousness, is endemic to Western civilization and h a s existed since time immemorial--its origins reside somewhere in prehistory.

Folk psychol-

ogy constitutes a component o f the general contextual or cultural milieu in which both academic and applied psychology exist: its mentalism both colors and con-

Folk

strains intellectual and professional psychology.

psychology is self-validating f o r t h e general public: its basic tenets rarely a r e questioned.

Folk psychol-

ogy is immune to or isolated from t h e compositional problem: no pretense ever is made that folk psychology encompasses a consistent s e t o f beliefs about psychological reality.

2. A formal, codified academic psychology, concerned with t h e nature o f psychological reality, constitutes a n intellectual discipline--one derivative o f Wilhelm Wundt's

original synthesis o f epistemological

philosophy, experimental physiology, and sensory psychophysics accomplished in Germany around 1880.

The

evolutionary development o f academic psychology certainly has been fortuitous: its initial appearance--in the guise o f structuralism--merely

represented a pro-

fessional realignment in t h e disciplinary boundaries o f those academicians interested in t h e mind;

its

eventual canonization a s a science--in the guise o f behaviorism--merely was occasioned by a general tightening o f methodological standards and criteria.

Vir-

tually every facet o f academic psychology bears t h e imprint o f the compositional problem.

Probably t h e

most salient feature o f t h e relatively brief o n e hundred year history o f academic psychology is t h e continual appearance o f new "manifestoes"

about t h e proper

Prolegomena

directionality and thrust o f

7

t h e discipline: f o r in-

stance, Gestalt psychology, Watsonian behaviorism, contemporary cognitive psychology, humanistic psychology, and t h e like.

3. An applied psychology, basically a n interventionist or therapeutic e n d e a v o r , constitutes a professional discipline outside t h e confines o f academia. This kind of psychology i s implicit in Freudian psychoanalysis [roughly 18951; but t h e specific subvarieties of professional psychology now known a s c l i n i c a l , industrial, educational, and t h e like a r e o f more recent origin.

The ready acceptance o f applied psychology is

related to t h e over-all pragmatic and utilitarian orientation o f American c u l t u r e and society.

Academic

psychologists like to think that t h e i r discipline serves a s t h e conceptual basis o f applied psychology: How t h e academic psychologist construes t h e nature o f

psychological reality determines t h e appropriateness o f specific psychological interventionist techniques.

To

t h e extent that t h i s i s t r u e , applied psychology cannot escape t h e ef f e c t s of t h e compositional problem. At a technical level, a n analysis o f t h e notion o f psychological

[see t h e P r e f a c e ) a m o u n t s to a n evalua-

tion o f t h e pervasive ramifications o f t h e compositional problem for t h e conduction o f academic psychology. Likewise, if a consistent structure, logical framework, or satisfactory representational scheme e m e r g e s for assigning psychological meaning t o certain natural phenomena, it c a n be viewed a s one possible s o l u t i o n t o the compositional problem.

Solution o f t h e composition-

al problem would go a long way toward justifying psychology's continued participation in t h e over-all cross-classification process.

Chapter I

8

ORIGIN OF THE DISCIPLINE Consideration o f the origin o f psychology requires some preliminary discussion.

1. Certainly psychological thought antedates the formal founding o f the discipline [Hillner, 1984).

It

already has been noted t h a t folk psychology is perennial and ubiquitous.

Psychological knowledge is i m -

plicit in the musings o f prenineteenth century philosophers, religious thinkers, physicians, legal scholars, humanists, novelists, and the like. "stuff"

But t h i s

is not what is meant by psychology in t h e con-

temporary sense o f the term.

2. The establishment o f disciplinary psychology begat t h e compositional problem.

The first recognized

institutionalized psychology merely was epistemological in nature; that is, it focused solely o n certain aspects o f t h e mind o r conscious experience.

T h i s psy-

chology, now known a s structuralism, no longer exists-in t h e sense that it no longer is regarded a s a viable approach to giving substance to the notion o f a psychological universe.

3. The fact that the first t y p e o f academic psychology merely was epistemological in focus means that t h e question o f t h e origin o f the discipline r e d u c e s to the question o f t h e origin o f epistemological psychology.

The later appearance o f other t y p e s o f academic

psychology constitutes a vastly different issue, one residing at t h e core o f t h e continued maintenance o f t h e compositional problem.

4. The beginning o f psychology a s a recognized discipline did not occur in a conceptual or intellectual vacuum: it did not involve a n all-or-none change from nothing t o something [Leahey, 1980).

Rather, it

entailed a series o f gradual, continuous, incremental

Prolegomena

9

changes, somewhere in the course o f which t h e label o f psychology was used f o r t h e first time t o describe the occurrent activity.

The beginning o f psychology is

co-occurrent with the introduction o f certain terminological usages, not with t h e wholesale onset o f new activities.

This is true f o r both t h e pure and ap-

plied aspects o f the discipline.

5. The transition from predisciplinary psychology t o disciplinary psychology required certain sociological, attitudinal, and methodological adjustments, rather than a radical refocusing o f intellectual thought.

These adjustments were embedded in a n on-

going constellation o f events that simply assumed new reference points and identifications.

In a s e n s e , the

creation o f psychology a s a formal discipline was a n operational or procedural event, not a philosophical or conceptual event (Ben-David and Collins, 1966).

6. There are two primary impetuses t o t h e creation o f new knowledge: sheer intellectual curiosity and t h e necessity o f resolving some practical problem [Bronowski and Mazlish, 1960).

The origin o f dis-

ciplinary psychology c a n be related meaningfully t o each o f these.

Sheer intellectual curiosity is t h e

ultimate root o f academic psychology; practical exigenc i e s serve a n analogous function f o r applied psychology. ACADEMIC PSYCHOLOGY

Academic psychology ulti-

mately derives from our concern with two interrelated philosophical issues: ( 1 ) t h e nature o f t h e human being and (2) t h e nature and source o f truth.

Most

analyses o f t h e philosophical roots o f psychology trace t h e successive resolutions o f these two issues proposed by ( 1 ) Rene Oescartes ( 1 6 5 0 , 16621, ( 2 ) the British empiricists [ v i z . , Locke, 1690; Berkeley,

Chapter 1

10

1710; Hume, 1748), and ( 3 ) Immanuel Kant (1781).

[It

w i l l become apparent later in the text that Cartesian philosophy virtually set u p psychology's two traditional objects o f interest--mental events and overt behavior--via i t s mind-body dichotomy.

British em-

piricism's emphasis o n t h e association o f ideas in combination with Darwinian evolutionary theory can be credited with cultivating American psychology's affair with t h e phenomenon o f learning.

love

Kantian phil-

osophy has had tremendous influence o n perceptual psychology, specifically via t h e Gestalt approach.)

By

the nineteenth century, t h e human organism essentially was viewed a s a mechanistic entity, a repository o f various physical processes; and knowledge was assumed t o be at least in part empirically based--it involved sense experience. The philosophical t e n e t s o f mechanism, o r materialism, and empiricism should sound familiar: Collectively, they serve a s t h e conceptual basis o f science

(see Nagel, 19611.

More specifically, for o u r pur-

poses, they justify treating the human organism a s an object o f scientific analysis.

During the last cen-

t u r y , experimental physiologists made gigantic strides

in establishing t h e neuronal basis

o f sensation, per-

ception, and overt action and in demonstrating some rudimentary localization o f function in t h e brain; sensory psychophysicists investigated the empirical relationship existing between the qualitative and quantitative aspects o f sensation and the nature o f external stimulation.

Edwin G. Boring (19501, the

master historian o f psychology, considered t h e psychophysical laws to be t h e first facts o f a truly psychological nature. Most o f t h i s physiological and psychophysical re-

Prolegomena

11

search was centered in Germany, or what was t o become Germany, because it possessed a n advanced, codified university system with graduate level specialties.

It

was possible t o be a professional research scientist attached t o a departmental structure in a n academic institution in nineteenth century Germany.

T h i s situ-

ation i s t h e norm today, because our academic system/ structure is modeled after Germany's. Wilhelm Wundt (1873-1874, 1883, 18961, a German experimental physiologist and epistemological philosopher, usually is credited with t h e founding o f psychology a s an academic discipline.

T h i s occurred dur-

ing t h e late 1870s when he was allowed t o establish a Psychologische Institut at Leipzig.

His Institut

sported all sorts o f experimental paraphernalia f o r eking psychological facts out o f t h e organism, served a s a model f o r other psychological laboratories, and attracted numerous American students.

M o s t first gen-

eration American psychologists acquired their professional training under Wundt, although they later rejected his rather sterile view o f t h e psychological universe. In t h e context o f our analysis, the crucial question i s why Wundt felt impelled t o relabel h i s research activities and theorizing a s psychology.

Ben-David

and Collins (1966) have provided what is essentially a sociological interpretation.

They claim that t h e

profession o f "experimental psychologist"

is a role-

hybrid o f experimental physiologist and philosopher that w a s occasioned by certain social and pragmatic factors/conditions indigenous t o nineteenth century German culture and society.

The dynamics underlying

t h i s role-hybridization were quite simple.

F o r at

least two decades, Wundt was a n experimental physi-

Chapter 1

12

ologist at Heidelberg, where f o r a t i m e he served a s a laboratory assistant o f Helmholtz, t h e pre-eminent research scientist o f his time.

Wundt had to accept a

chair in philosophy at Zurich and later Leipzig in order t o advance professionally.

At Leipzig, Wundt ap-

plied t h e experimental methods o f physiology t o epistemological, philosophical questions concerning the human mind.

T h i s work did not fit t h e ecological

niche o f either experimental phy6iology or philosophy.

In effect, Wundt created a new discipline by

self-proclamation and succeeded in having t h i s accepted by the Leipzig administration.

Oiscipline cre-

ation is a continual, never-ending process: we simply are not aware o f it today because t h e newly created disciplines are so specialized and esoteric. T h e establishment o f psychology a s a n academic discipline represented a mere technical readjustment in the boundaries o f academic specialties concerned with t h e mind.

It was only later that t h e horizons o f

mainstream psychology were expanded t o include overt behavior, various t y p e s o f abnormality, personality traits, or a n action f o c u s in general.

Wundt spent

forty years at Leipzig a n d , discounting Freud, was the most prolific writer that t h e discipline ever produced. Once experimental psychology was established i n Americ a , essentially during t h e 189Os, t h e discipline mushroomed at least tenfold and became a permanent fixture o f t h e academic establishment.

APPLIEO PSYCHOLOGY

I n t h i s section, we are not

going t o focus o n the origin o f various forms o f applied psychology, such a s educational, industrial, community, vocational, and t h e like.

Rather, we are

going t o be concerned with t h e first bona fide psychology to originate in a n applied setting: Freud's

Prolegomena

13

(1 939, 1949) depth psychology, better known a s psychoanalysis (Munroe, 1955). During t h e s a m e essential t i me period that Wundt was establishing experimental, academic psychology in t h e guise o f a n epistemologically oriented structural-

i s m , Sigmund Freud--a physician specializing i n clinical neurology--was treating patients in Vienna.

The

usual symptoms o f neurological disorders a r e various behavioral and sensory deficits, a s opposed t o t h e aches, pains, and general internal physiological maladies characteristic o f other kinds o f physical illness.

For financial reasons, Freud had t o expand t h e

domain o f his medical practice t o include patients whose symptoms were only superficially neurological in origin.

The prototypical case o f t h i s was h y s t e r i a ,

or t h e hysterical neurosis, exhibited by adult f e males, in which such s y m p t o m s a s limb paralysis, body anesthesia, blindness, and deafness were not traceable t o any known neurological c a u s e (Zilboorg, 1967). French psychopathologists, s u c h a s Janet ( 1 8 9 2 ) , Char8

cot (1872-1887), Bernheim (l89l), and Liebeault ( 1 8 6 6 1 , already had demonstrated that hysterical s y m p t o m s were both producible by and removable through hypnotic suggestion; and Janet and Freud's associate, B r e u e r , already had treated hysteric patients via a hypnotic induced catharsis technique, known a s t h e talking cure. The fact that hysteria was treatable by s o m e form o f hypnotherapy meant that t h e malady w a s not o f somatogenic origin.

Janet already had provided a n implicit

psychogenic interpretation o f hysterical s y m p t o m s , one involving t h e dissociation o f consciousness.

Freud

and Breuer formalized t h e strictly psychogenic interpretation o f 0.

hysteria, a s reported in their S t u d i e n

uber Hysterie (Breuer and F r e u d , 1895).

T h i s work

Chapter I

14

amounted t o a germinal form o f psychoanalysis.

Freud

eventually discontinued t h e use o f hypnosis and slowly developed the critical components o f psychoanalytic therapy: free association and dream analysis. Freud's psychogenic approach t o behavioral abnormality ultimately was absorbed by psychiatry and led t o t h e creation o f clinical psychology (Reisman, 1975); however, this fact does not adequately represent his contribution t o disciplinary psychology.

Psychoanaly-

s i s subsumed a world view, besides being a therapeutic technique.

Freud induced a complex psychodynamic sys-

tem from the self-report o f his patients.

T h i s system

revolutionized t h e conception o f t h e human organism, became one o f t h e premier components o f intellectual history, and developed into t h e most well known and culturally pervasive psychological t h e s i s ever devised. Freud never regarded himself a s a psychologist and did not substantially influence t h e evolution o f academic psychology.

His relevance f o r our a n a l y s i s

derives from t h e fact t h a t it was psychoanalysis, not one o f the academic systems, that established t h e principle that t h e human being i s a distinct psychological entity.

The concept o f a psychological uni-

verse is indigenous t o Freudian depth psychology, not experimental psychology.

The reason academic psychol-

ogy attempts t o keep its distance from Freudian psychodynamics is that it locates t h e psychological universe strictly within t h e individual, o r a s Skinner

(1953, 1954) would s a y , "within t h e skin." The nature and source o f psychoanalytic propositions--inductively based dogma impervious t o objective empirical evaluation--afforded Freud a f e l icitous, but decisive, solution to t h e compositional

Prolegomena

15

problem: banishment o f any dissenter from the orthodox psychoanalytical movement.

Eventual nonbelievers

such a s Alfred Adler (1959) and Carl Jung (1916, 1953) had t o create their o w n brands o f depth psychology. The same thing happens in various areas o f academic psychology when t h e phenomenon o f interest is experimentally elusive: for instance, ( 1 ) t h e views o f different structuralists with respect t o t h e existence o f "imageless thought" Ogden, 1911);

(see Woodworth, 1906; Angell, 1911;

( 2 ) the different views o f what is

learned ( a n S-S association o r S-R association) (see Kimble, 1961); or (3) t h e irresolvability o f t h e instinct doctrine in general (see McOougall, 1923).

THE W A Y S I N WHICH WE CAN SERVE AS OBJECTS O F PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS One o f t h e things t h a t compounds the compositional problem is the fact that t h e human organism c a n serve a s a n object o f psychological analysis in different senses.

Granted t h a t psychology i s contingent

o n our existence, t h e existential context o f psychology d o e s not prescribe, o r proscribe, t h e particular perspective from which we are studied.

The r o l e that

t h e human being plays in t h e constuction o f t h e psychological universe is arbitrary and admits o f numero u s interpretations.

To simplify t h e discussion, we

are going to assume that a person c a n serve a s a n object o f psychological analysis in any one o f t h r e e broadly conceived, but mutually exclusive, ways:

(1)

means, ( 2 ) end, o r (3) means and end (see Hillner, 1985).

These three categories c a n be derived formally

in t h e next chapter.

MEANS

The individual person is analyzed a s a

means t o another end.

The individual organism per se

d o e s not constitute a unit of analysis.

The psycho-

Chapter 1

16

logical subject merely i s treated a s the repository o f various psychological processes and mechanisms that serve a s the actual objects o f concern.

The subject

really i s an object: t h e output o f t h e subject i s used t o create a universal psychological reality.

To facil-

itate t h i s goal, t h e individual subject must in some sense be typical, or representative, o f all other possible subjects: t h u s , t h e notion o f a standard, or statistical, subject.

In the context o f t h e means in-

terpretation, it is common practice t o construct psychological knowledge that only applies t o a group o f subjects taken a s a whole. The means approach is characteristic o f experimental, academic psychology in general and most forms o f behaviorism

in particular.

This pattern originally

was established by Wundt (1883, 18961 in his germinal epistemological psychology, because his avowed goal involved analysis o f the universal mind: t h e content o f conscious experience common t o all persons who

could verbalize. END

in itself.

The individual person is analyzed a s a n end The individual organism does serve a s the

unit o f analysis and constitutes a psychological universe unto itself.

The subject is not a n object: t h e

output o f the subject is used t o create a n individualistic psychological reality that h a s validity solely for t h e analyzed self.

T h e subject is treated a s a

repository o f accumulated experiences, personal identities, and feelings that generate a true, efficacious self.

In the end interpretation, psychological analy-

s i s amounts t o externalizing and resolving t h e content o f t h e subject's

psychological world.

In t h i s ap-

proach, the individual person is assumed t o b e unique: there may be similarities among people, but their dif-

Prolegomena

17

ferences f a r outweigh their common aspects. The end approach is indigenous t o applied psychology, especially a s practiced in a therapeutic cont e x t , and is characteristic o f contemporary humanistic psychology in general and existential, phenomenological psychology in particular.

Treating t h e reporting

subject a s a n end in itself is not foreign t o academic psychology, but is a distinct minority practice. MEANS A N D END

The individual person i s analyzed

both a s a n end in itself and a s a means t o another end simultaneously.

The individual organism d o e s serve a s

the unit o f analysis, but d o e s not constitute a psychological universe unto itself.

The psychological

subject is treated a s a repository o f psychological processes and mechanisms that are assumed common to every organism, but t h e Focus is o n t h e current state o r value o f these processes and mechanisms in t h e subThe output o f t h e subject is used t o create a

ject.

personal psychodynamics that is assumed t o b e representative and derivative o f a universal psychological reality. The means and end approach is characteristic o f Freud's

(1935, 1949) brand o f depth psychology, which

even g e t s its name from t h e way it views t h e organism a s a n object o f psychological analysis: psycho-analysis (this hyphenated form i s the characteristic English o r Continental spelling o f psychoanalysis]. argued that Skinner's

It could be

(1938, 1953) "experimental anal-

ysis o f individual behavior" also f i t s in t h i s category: t h e individual organism is t h e f o c u s o f analysis; but i t s output i s resolved strictly in t e r m s o f a n underlying transcendental, universal psychological reality.

Chapter 1

18

PREVIEW Chapters 2 through 6 document t h e pervasive ramifications o f t h e compositional problem f o r t h e conduction o f academic psychology in t e r m s o f five levels o f analysis:

(I] methodological, (2) epiphenomenal,

(3) explanatory, (4) metaphysical, and (5) ethical. The compositional problem, in effect, means t h a t there i s , a wide range o f alternatives open t o the academic psychologist at each o f t h e s e levels.

The levels are

not independent of each other: the nature o f t h e choice a psychologist makes at one level i s related t o those at t h e others.

T h i s particular set o f levels o f

analysis--in t h e order a s listed--allows our analysis o f t h e notion o f psychological to be organized around

t h e following set of questions:

1. Where d o e s psychological knowledge c o m e from; by what means is it acquired?

2. What i s the essential content or substance o f psychological knowledge; t o what classes o f natural phenomena is the term "psychological" usually applied?

3. How are psychological phenomena resolved at a higher order o f

analysis; what kinds o f contexts

serve a s sufficient, or appropriate, interpretations o f psychological phenomena?

4. Why are some natural phenomena regarded a s psychological in nature and others not; what criteria are used t o identify psychological phenomena?

5. I n what tion o f

sehse,

or t o what degree, is t h e crea-

psychological knowledge a moral, ethical, or

normative endeavor; is t h e establishment o f a psychological fact a value-free process? T h e methodology discussion employs t h e notions o f content o f observation and orientation.

Epiphenom-

ena are abstracted in t e r m s o f the two traditional ob-

Prolegomena

19

jects o f psychological concern: c o n s c i o u s experience, or consciousness, and behavior.

Th e explanation chap-

te r emphasizes that psychology r e q u i r e s interpretive constructs possessing f a c e validity.

The metaphysical

level i s analyzed in t e r m s o f "types"

o f psychology,

with each typ e subsuming a set o f specific historically significant "systems."

The normative aspect o f

psychology is illustrated with specific r e f e r e n c e t o t h e problem o f abnormality. Chapter 7 is devoted t o considering o n e possible solution t o t h e compositional problem, in which great importance is assigned t o t h e concept o f c o n s c i o u s intelligence, interpreted not only a s t h e ultimate source o f psychology, but also a s t h e primary distinguishing

feature o f humankind. Chapter 8 presents a treatment o f t h e general problem o f psychological application, in which it i s argued that any psychological statement also must be

a social action statement. Chapter 9 analyzes ( 1 ) t h e attempt o f contemporary philosophers t o reconstruct f o l k psychology a s a belief-desire-action t r i a d and ( 2 ) t h e relationship between folk psychology and academic, experimental psychology. Chapter 10 relates t h e discipline o f psychology t o other academic endeavors--the natural s c i e n c e s , social scienc e s , and humanities--and other professional pursuits, s u c h a s law and medicine.

Psychology can

extend, reduc e , or inform another academic discipline, but typically competes with a professional discipline. Chapter 1 1 t i e s t o g e t h e r t h e various philosophical subthemes pervading t h e analysis o f t h e compositional problem and t r e a t s psychology a s applied philosophy.


21

CHAPTER 2

METHODOLOGY: CONTENT O F OBSERVATION; ORIENTATION

The natural place t o commence our evaluation o f t h e compositional problem in academic psychology is t h e area o f epistemology and methodology.

Epistemology

concerns t h e ultimate source o f psychological knowledge; methodology relates t o t h e specific means by which it is obtained. T h i s chapter merely f o c u s e s o n methodology, because Western psychology--psychology

indigenous t o

t h e Continental European and American intellectual tradition--is empirically sourced.

Academic psychol-

ogy is so empirically oriented that t h e phrases "academi c psycho logy" and "exper imenta 1 psycho logy" are virtually synonymous.

Epistemology simply is not a n

issue f o r a contemporary research psychologist.

This

statement should not be interpreted t o mean that purely rational, revealed, o r intuitive f o r m s o f psychology d o not exist (for instance, see Akhilananda, 1953; S u z u k i , 1956).

They simply are beyond t h e bounds o f

our analysis. The salient feature o f any empirical or experimental psychology i s t h e fact that psychological knowledge derives from observations and t h e inferences that c a n be made from observations.

Western psychol-

o g y , in effect, is observationally based. Methodology i s a n issue for t h e discipline be-

Chapter 2

22

cause agreement among psychologists breaks d o w n once they get beyond t h e purely epistemological level: what constitute proper conditions o f observation, appropriate observational entities, acceptable t y p e s o f inferences or degrees o f inferencing, and t h e like still a r e open-ended questions, ostensibly impervious t o final resolution.

Although psychologists concur o n t h e

source o f psychological knowledge, they do not do so with respect t o t h e manner i n which it i s obtained. It i s necessary t o distinguish between t w o a s p e c t s o f methodology:

( 1 ) philosophical o r metaphysical and

( 2 ) purely procedural

o r operational.

The second as-

pect typically i s used t o characterize t h e entire a r e a , such that methodology often is defined a s t h e operational procedures associated with a discipline; however, psychology's compositional problem derives from both t h e metaphysical and operational a s p e c t s o f methodology. The operational aspect o f methodology s u b s u m e s every facet of data.

t h e physical regimen used t o generate

In psychology, t h i s includes experimental design,

apparati, subject t y p e , experimental procedure, experimental technique or t a s k , statistical analysis, and the like.

At t h i s level o f specification, methodology

merely is a matter o f technically b a s e d , competent, day-to-day research practice.

Descriptions o f accept-

able research practices constitute t h e usual content of

experimental psychology research manuals ( f o r in-

stance, Robinson, 1976).

Psychologists do not dis-

agree with respect to acceptable research practices. They contribute t o t h e compositional problem only because they (1 ) afford less control and ( 2 ) a r e less sensitive in a measurement s e n s e t h a n t h o s e o f t h e physical sciences.

The fact that psychology's research

Methodology: Content of Observation;Orientation

23

practices are less reliable and l e s s valid t h a n those o f t h e physical sciences strictly

is a function o f

their differential foci: living beings versus inanimate objects. The monumental growth o f both physical and social science during the present century primarily is due to revolutionary changes in research practices, especially the instrumentation, made possible by spectacular technological advances.

Although theory usually specifies

what should be looked f o r , t h e operational aspect o f methodology determines and delimits what in effect actually is observed.

If t h e notion o f psychological

i s assumed applicable t o solely what c a n be observed, it certainly i s true that much more psychological phenomena exist f o r contemporary psychologists t h a n their forebears. It i s t h e philosophical or metaphysical aspect o f methodology that will occupy us in t h i s chapter.

This

is t h e level at which t h e aforementioned disagreement resides, d e b a t e still rages, and a psychologist still has significant choices t o make.

BeFore a psychologist

even c a n get down t o technical questions o f design, apparati, subject t y p e , technique, and t h e like, fundamental metaphysical decisions must be made with respect t o content o f observation and orientation.

Physical

scientists are spared such decisions because their content o f observation and orientation are f i x e d , standard, or given.

The only methodological worries physical

scientists have relate to technical proficiency at the level o f research practice.

The reason f o r t h i s dif-

ference between physical science and social science will become apparent later. The ramifications o f t h e compositional problem for t h e conduction o f academic psychology at t h e methodo-

Chapter 2

24

logical level w i l l be analyzed in t e r m s o f ( 1 ) t h e content of observation, ( 2 ) the discipline's

observa-

tional quandary, and (3) orientation. CONTENT O F OBSERVATION The notion o f a content o f observation i s not a traditional analytical tool used by commentators o n the metaphysical aspects of psychological methodology, although it does appear in a prior treatise o f the author (Hillner, 1985).

It derives from the fact that

academic psychology is empirically based at t h e epistemological level: psychological reality must be imposed on the content o f certain observations that a n organism makes and the inferences that can be made from these observations.

The notion is important for

two basic reasons: 1. It is related to or determines t h e t y p e of orientation a psychologist uses to produce psychological knowledge.

2. It is t h e primary methodological factor determining the nature o f the psychological universe for a n academic psychologist.

F o r instance, it determines

whether the psychological world is objective o r subjective, universal or unique, physical or nonphysical, reducible or emergent, conscious o r unconscious,, given or derived, dialectical o r nondialectical, and t h e like, The content of observation is assumed t o involve a two-term relationship; namely, that between ( 1 ) basic object of study and ( 2 ) locus of psychological causation.

At the methodological level, object o f

study and locus of causation do not constitute independent existential or observational entities.

An e x -

perimental psychologist d o e s not rationally select a specific object of study and then separately choose


its most appropriate locus o f causation.

25

This situa-

tion is formalized in our analysis b y making them indivisible components o f EXAMPLES

a content o f observation.

Five examples o f the notion o f a con-

tent o f observation follow.

1. In descriptive behaviorism

(Watson, 1913,

1925; Skinner, 1938, 19531, t h e content o f observation entails an input-output relation, where t h e output is t h e psychological phenomenon o f immediate interest, usually overt behavior, and the input is its cause, usually assumed t o be some physical, environmental event.

Selecting an input-output relation a s t h e con-

tent o f observation requires the adoption o f some form o f determinism.

For Watson and Skinner, the content

o f observation, in effect, is a descriptive causal

law or correlation, usually stated in S , A (stimulus, response] terminology.

2. In humanistic psychology (Rogers, 1951; Keen, 19751, t h e locus o f causation is inferred from t h e object o f study: t h e organism's

psychological world is

inferred from t h e content o f t h e self-report o f its conscious, especially emotional, experience.

For Rog-

e r s and Keen, the content o f observation entails a direct object o f study--conscious experience--and

an

indirect, or inferred, object o f study--psychological world.

Selecting a person's

psychological world, a s

revealed by t h e content o f conscious experience, a s t h e content o f observation requires a belief in f r e e

w i l l or at least in t h e possibility

o f self-generated

changes in behavior.

3. I n contemporary cognitive psychology

(Solso,

1979), t h e locus o f causation is t h e basic object o f study: t h e focus is on t h e mental determinants o f overt behavior.

For Solso, the content o f observation

Chapter 2

26

entails a direct object o f study--behavior--and

a n in-

direct, or inferred, object o f study--cognitive processes.

Selecting a p e r s o n 7 s cognitive processes, a s

revealed by overt behavior, a s the content o f observation requires adoption o f one o f t h e sacred c o w s o f folk psychology (see Stich, 1983): mental events control behavior.

4. In Freud's

(1939, 1949) depth psychology, the

locus of causation is t h e basic object o f study: the focus is o n t h e internal, especially unconscious, psychodynamic sources o f overt behavior.

For F r e u d , the

content o f observation entails a direct object o f study--behavior--and a n indirect, o r inferred, object o f study--psychodynamic events. o f a person's

Selecting t h e state

psychodynamic system, a s revealed by

overt behavior, a s the content of observation requires a belief in a psychic determinism. 5. In structuralism (Wundt, 1883, 1896; Titchen-

er, 1898, 1901, 19051, only a truncated content of observation i s employed: t h e basic object o f study is observed in a contextual vacuum and not related t o any locus of causation.

The object o f study i s t h e con-

tent o f the self-report o f one's sensory, experience.

conscious, especially

These sensory contents exhaust

the psychological universe for t h e structuralist and are not related to any potential input, such a s physical stimuli, o r output, such a s overt behavior.

SOME EVALUATION

The content o f observation

serves the same function in our analysis a s units of analysis do in other analyses (for instance, Kendler, 19811.

But t h e phrase "units o f analysis" d o e s not

connote the experiential, or observational, source o f psychological phenomena and only is relevant f o r objective, experimental systems.

I t s use is artificial

Methodology: Content of Observation; Orientation

27

in t h e context o f a subjective, phenomenologically based psychology. The use o f a content o f observation also absorbs t h e traditional concept o f object o f study. phrase "object o f

The

study" simply i s not precise enough

once one g o e s beyond t h e gross distinction between conscious experience and behavior.

A content o f ob-

servation can include both a direct object o f s t u d y , such a s behavior, and a n indirect, inferred object o f study, such a s mental processes, cognitive activity, psychodynamic events, and the like. At a methodological level, psychology's

compo-

sitional problem amounts t o the irresolvability o f the content o f observation: t h e r e is no standard interpretation o f the notion o f a content o f observation.

At

t h i s point in our analysis, it appears a s if solution o f t h e compositional problem via t h e construction o f

a satisfactory representational scheme for generating psychological events would require postulation o f a standardized interpretation o f the notion o f a content o f observation at t h e methodological

level.

PSYCHOLOGY'S OBSERVATIONAL QUANDARY If psychology is unique, it undoubtedly is due t o t h e fact that t h e discipline f o c u s e s on the very entity that psychologizes in t h e first place: t h e human organism (see the Preface].

Psychology is t h e study

o f t h e human being by the human being.

T h i s makes it

impossible f o r psychology t o be objective in any absolute sense.

Any research situation purporting t o

generate psychological data must consist o f both a n observed entity and a n observing entity.

In t h e proto-

typical c a s e , both o f these entities are human beings, although in t h e context o f contemporary research neither entity need be a n actual human being: f o r in-

chapter 2

28

stance, an electronic eye recording how often a preprogrammed robot crosses a certain line while performing i t s task.

In other words, either the observed en-

tity or the observing entity can be a human surrogate or analogue. The discipline's observational quandary derives from the following crucial fact: both the observing and observed entities are reactive, generative, causative agents.

B y way

o f comparison,

in a physical sci-

ence context where the observed entity is s o m e inanimate object, only the observer is reactive, generative, or causative.

More precise terminology here

would be self-reactive, self-generative, o r self-causative, because even in a physical science context the act o f observing and measuring a phenomenon c a n change it along one o r more dimensions: viz., the Heisenberg principle (see Heisenberg, 1962). In psychology, neither the observing entity nor the observed agent is unbiased.

The observer must de-

code what is occurring; t h e observed agent must produce what is occurring.

What is occurring is relative

t o either party of t h e transaction.

The problem en-

tails more than mere generality or representativeness: it is a n epistemological quagmire, which f o r many philosophers precludes any possibility o f coherent, objective knowledge [see Russell, 1945). The solutions that t h e discipline has proposed are endless, ranging from complete denial of t h e problem t o complete acceptance of the problem.

An in-

stance of the former would be traditional behaviorism (Watson, 1925), in which it is assumed that t h e observed organism is completely passive.

The latter is

represented by dialectical psychology (Riegel, 1975,

19791, in which it is assumed that both t h e subject


29

and experimenter in a psychological study constitute observing entities and observed agents concurrently, forming an emergent dyadic unit of analysis. At a purely methodological level [remember metaphysical methodological

level), it is possible t o in-

troduce various simplifying assumptions that attempt t o eliminate the self-reactivity or biasedness o f one party to t h e transaction.

This is where the notion of

orientation enters the picture: A specific set o f simplifying assumptions for resolving t h e observational quandary amounts to a n orientation.

The research psy-

chologist has many choices with respect t o orientation, and the popularity and acceptability of various orientations historically

have waxed and waned in cy-

clical fashion. The next section presents a comprehensive review of t h e orientation component of t h e metaphysical aspect of methodology. ORIENTATION In order t o distinguish among different t y p e s of orientations, it is necessary t o introduce some additional terminology.

The t w o parties t o a psychological

transaction no longer c a n be referred t o simply a s an observing entity and an observed agent.

Instead, t h e

two parties henceforth a r e called ( 1 ) the s e l f and ( 2 ) a significant other.

Unless specified otherwise, it

is t o be assumed that t h e self is t h e observer. Exposition is limited t o the two-party case. Situations with multiple observers or multiple observed agents d o not alter the assumptions and logic underlying the different types o f orientations, although they can influence methodology at t h e operational level of research practice. Four types o f orientations are described, put in

Chapter 2

30

historical perspective, analyzed, and related t o t h e language function.

Also, t h e two possible derivative

foci o f psychology--the self or a significant other--are put in perspective by relating them t o such methodological entities a s the method o f self-report, subject type, and experimental technique.

TYPES

At least four general classes o f orienta-

t i o n s exist [Hillner, 1985): (11 objective, ( 2 1 subjective, (3) quasi-objective, and (41 combined objective x subjective.

Each one will be characterized in t e r m s o f

its simplifying assumption(s1, general features, content o f observation, and associated content psychology. OBJECTIVE ORIENTATION

T h i s orientation at-

tempts t o resolve psychology's observational quandary by assuming that t h e self c a n be neutralized--i.e., become a n impersonal, unbiased observer--if it is removed from the potential psychological universe.

The poten-

tial components o f the psychological universe strictly are limited to ( 1 ) the external, or externally resolvable, activities displayed by the significant other and ( 2 1 the physical environmental milieu in which these occur. The significant other is called a subject.

The

self is called a n experimenter, but psychological knowledge is not stated from t h e perspective o f t h e experimenter.

This orientation seeks a psychological real-

ity independent o f the consciousness o f t h e self, a s observer, and mimics the way a physicist o r chemist constructs physical reality, such that the psychological universe is continuous with, o r a component o f , physical reality. Any sophisticated measuring instrument c a n serve as a self-surrogate, i.e., replace a human observer. This is supposed t o guarantee "pure objectivity;" how-


31

ever, t h e output from a n automated recording device i s a product o f

t h e way in which the experimenter orig-

inally set up the measuring instrument. In t h e strict application o f t h e objective orientation, t h e experimenter is not allowed t o make any kinds o f

inferences from t h e observations.

T h e content

o f observation strictly is a n input-output

relation, in

which behavior o f t h e significant other is t h e output and s o m e physical, environmental event is t h e input. Because no inferences are allowed, it is possible f o r an animal, machine, or any other entity displaying externally resolvable activity t o serve a s a subject in t h i s approach. The objective orientation establishes the notion o f a n action psychology, because t h e content o f obser-

vation encompasses both overt behavior and the presumed environmental events by which behavior is predicted and controlled.

An action psychology admits o f

practical application and possesses indigenous social relevance.

An action system often is referred t o a s

a descriptive system, because no reference is made t o inferable, hypothetical entities. T h e prototypical c a s e o f a n action system is descriptive behaviorism, o f exemplars:

which there are t w o primary

( 1 ) classical Watsonian behaviorism and ( 2 )

contemporary Skinnerian behaviorism.

Watson ( 1 9 1 3 ,

1925) formalized t h e objective approach t o psychology around 1912 in his "behaviorist manifesto." o f behaviorism

His brand

dominated academic, experimental psy-

chology to approximately 1930.

Skinner (1938) inheri-

ted Watson's mantle during the 1930s, and t h e succeeding fifty years have seen his radical behaviorism become t h e dominant form o f descriptive behaviorism. Skinner (1974) even considers his system to be a phil-

Chapter 2

32

osophy o f the science o f behavior. T h i s orientation is

SUBJECTIVE ORIENTATION

the virtual mirror image o f t h e objective approach: it attempts t o resolve psychology's

observational quan-

dary by assuming that t h e significant other c a n be neutralized if it is removed from t h e potential psychological universe. psychological

The potential components of the

universe strictly are limited t o those

phenomena associated with t h e s e l f that it c a n report on a s observer.

The self cannot conveniently report

on its own currently ongoing behavior; but it c a n externalize the content of its past and current perceptual and emotional consciousness.

The significant

other only can play two possible roles: (11 passive recording of t h e self's ruminations and ( 2 ) active induction o f t h e self's psychological world from the content o f its self-report. The self functions a s a n implicit subject, but rarely is called s u c h ; t h e significant other constitutes an implicit experimenter, but is not called such.

This orientation s e e k s a psychological reality

contingent on t h e consciousness o f t h e self, a s observer: t h e content o f observation is some aspect of the conscious experience or awareness o f t h e self and the nature o f the psychological world implicit in the self's verbal descriptions. The state o f t h e self's consciousness and psychological world is an internally resolvable event: only the self has direct access t o it.

This is t h e dis-

tinguishing feature of t h e subjective orientation. The content o f observation is not a publically observable, real-time and real-space event, subject t o external reliability and validity check.

Ordinarily

t h i s is no problem, because t h e reported psychological


33

world need only have meaning f o r t h e observer.

This

approach is e m p i r i c a l , a s opposed t o rationalistic; but it i s not experimental i n t h e usual s e n s e o f t h e term. The subjective orientation has generated t w o types o f psychology:

( 1 ) epistemological o r cognitive

and ( 2 ) understanding o r phenomenological.

Initial

subjective sy s t e m s were classical s c h o o l s o f epistemological or cognitive psychology; any contemporary subjective system i s a n understanding o r phenomenological psychology. The classical s c h o o l s encompassing t h i s orientation were Germanic in origin and included Wundt's (1873-1874, 1896) and Titchener's structuralism, Kclpe's tano's

( 1 8 9 8 , 1901, 1905)

( 1 8 9 3 ) structuralism, Eren-

(1874 ) act psychology, and Wertheimer's

19221, Kaffka's

(1912,

( 1 9 2 2 , 1935, 19631, and Kzhler's

(1920,

1929, 1947) Gestalt psychology

(at least with respect

t o perceptual consciousness).

Each o f t h e s e psycholo-

gies focused o n t h e self's sensory and/or perceptual consciousness o r t h e act o f thinking.

They rarely are

classified a s subjective in orientation, because they all studied t h e universal m i n d ; namely, c o n s c i o u s processes that were supposed t o be c o m m a n to all persons. Structuralism e v e n is regarded a s t h e first t r u e e x emplar o f an experimental psychology

(see Chapter 1).

Bu t, in t h e context o f o u r orientation t y p o l o g y , they have t o be classified a s subjective because t h e cognitive psychology inherent in these approaches is all based on self-report.

T h e canonical operational e x -

perimental te c h n i q u e associated with each of t h e s e systems was s o m e form o f introspection (see B o r i n g , 19531.

Gestalt psychology is t h e only o n e o f t h e s e

epistemological systems t o possess any significant

Chapter 2

34

contemporary residues. The primary contemporary exemplar o f t h e subjective orientation is t h e so-called third force movement in psychology

(Wertheimer, 19781: a loosely for-

mulated combination o f humanism, existential psychology, and phenomenological psychology, begun under the aegis o f Abraham Maslow (1962, 1968, 1971) in t h e early 1960s.

We can use t h e terms "humanietic psy-

chology" t o characterize t h e entire movement.

Unlike

classical subjective psychology, humanism f o c u s e s on all aspects o f t h e individual's experience,

The human

is regarded a s a n emergent phenomenon, discontinuous

with other t y p e s o f organisms, and a s a special type o f being.

The humanist f o c u s e s o n t h e individual or-

ganism's state o f

self-awareness and over-all level o f

adjustment to t h e environment.

The basic aim o f human-

istic psychology is the resolution of a n organism's psychological being in t e r m s o f its view o f t h e world, and t h e only justification f o r activist intervention

is t h e increased psychological health o f t h e organism. QUASI-OBJECTIVE ORIENTATION

T h i s orienta-

tion amounts t o a conceptual extension o f t h e objective approach, resolving the observational quandary in t h e very same manner, but with a significant addition: t h e self is allowed t o make inferences from the phenomena o f direct observation.

The self still is

excluded from t h e potential psychological universe, but i t s functions are expanded to include inference, besides observation.

The potential components o f the

psychological universe still are limited t o features o f t h e external

environment and aspects o f t h e signif-

icant other; however, t h e latter are expanded t o include any inferable internal event, besides directly observable external activities.


35

Most quasi-objective s y s t e m s o f psychology a r e experimental in nature and differ from objectively based descriptive behaviorism only i n t h e practice o f making inferences to unobservables.

The significant

other is a subject; t h e s e l f is a n experimenter; psychological knowledge presumably is not stated from t h e perspective o f t h e s e l f a s observer. Allowing t h e experimenter to make inferences from observables has its greatest effect o n t h e content o f observation: behavior o f t h e significant other still constitutes t h e basic object o f s tu d y ; however, t h e locus o f causation i s expanded to include any inferable internal entity.

Interest i n behavior now is

only incidental: it merely is a means for investigating t h e true objects o f c o n c e r n , t h e internal psychological determinants.

P h y s i c a l , environmental e v e n t s

still are presumed t o be c a u s a t i v e ; but they a r e subsidiary t o th e ultimate internal psychological determinants.

Psychological knowledge no longer is limited

t o descriptive causal laws o r correlations.

Hypothet-

ical constructs are permissible a s loci o f c a u s a t i o n , and psychological knowledge now c a n have a significant theoretical component.

T h e expanded content o f obser-

vation provides a vehicle f o r constructing a psychological reality with epiphenomena, o r output, continuous with the physical s c i e n c e s and loci o f

causation,

or input, unique t o living organisms: it a l l o w s t h e quantification o f objective behavioral e v e n t s and t h e postulation o f subjective psychological factors. The quasi-objective orientation has been very popular with academic psychologists o v e r t h e y e a r s and has given rise to a heterogeneous collection o f systems :

1. Contemporary epistemological o r cognitive psy-

Chapter 2

36

chology, such a s cognitive behaviorism or the information processing approach based on t h e computer analogy [Lindsay and Norman, 1977) and Piagetian genetic-epistemological psychology involving fixed developmental stages and various logical capacities [Piaget, 1953, 1970; Piaget and Inhelder, 1969).

2. The many versions of depth psychology, o f which Freudian psychoanalysis is t h e prototypical case [Munroe, 1955; Freud, 1 9 3 9 , 19491. 3. The classical school o f functionalism, which related behavior to t h e operations o f consciousness (Angell, 1904, 1907; Cart-, 19251: it can be viewed as either a n action or epistemological approach, depending o n whether its basic object o f study or locus o f causation is emphasized.

4. The many versions o f action oriented logical behaviorism (Mackenzie, 13771, such a s t h e classical learning psychologies o f

Hull ( 1 9 4 3 , 1951, 19521,

Guthrie (19351, and Tolman (1932): these approaches are known more as learning psychologies t h a n a s f o r m s o f behaviorism and dominated experimental psychology

from t h e late 1930s t o t h e early 1950s.

5. The contemporary mathematical model approach, characteristic o f Estes (1950, 19603, Bush [with Mosteller, 1951, 19551, Mosteller, Restle (1962, 19751, Bower (1959, 19621, Suppes (with Atkinson, 19601, Atkinson (19571, and others. Each o f t h e above psychologies, except f o r t h e Freudian approach, is indigenous t o t h e academic environment.

Freudian psychology originated in a con-

text where t h e s e l f , a s observer, is a therapist and the significant other is a patient.

Freud (1939, 19491

constructed a n elaborate psychodynamic system based o n inductions from patients' physical and verbal activity


37

exhibited during psychoanalytic s es s i o n s involving free association [see Chapter 11. It should be noted that both humanistic psychologists and Gestalt psychologists c a n operate i n t h e context o f

th e quasi-objective orientation.

T h i s oc-

curs for humanists when t h e y induce t h e nature o f t h e conscious experience and psychological world o f a significant other from its overt behavior, including verbal description.

Likewise f o r t h e Gestaltists when

they focus on t h e behavior o f a significant other and induce t h e nature o f t h e psychological environment in which it occurs. COMBINED OBJECTIVE X SUBJECTIVE ORIENTATION This orientation combines elements o f both t h e objective and subjective approaches, but not in a linear fashion.

It probably i s t h e most realistic s o l u t i o n

t o psychology's observational quandary; h o w e v e r , it is very difficult to implement in t e r m s o f actual practice.

Both t h e self and significant other a r e allowed

to contribute potential components to t h e psychological universe. The self and t h e significant other a r e assumed t o be both observers and a g e n t s simultaneously.

The psy-

chological domain consists o f a n interacting pair or dyad, each member o f which is both a self and significant other concurrently. This approach is objective in t h e sense that it focuses on externally resolvable behavior o f a significant other; but it also is subjective because t h e observer o f the significant other, t h e self, is a component o f the psychological domain and can affect t h e contents o f a n observation.

T h i s approach also is

subjective in another sense: either member o f t h e dyad can engage in observation o f its own conscious experi-

Chapter 2

38

ence

. The content o f observation is multifaceted.

One

possible interpretation is that it consists o f t h e behavior o f

the significant other a s it occurs in a n en-

vironmental milieu, tempered by t h e preconceptions o f the self, as observer.

Another i s that it consists o f

t h e content o f conscious awareness and state o f t h e psychological world o f t h e self. T h e closest approximation t o t h e combined orientation in the context o f contemporary psychology is Riegel's (1978, 1979) dialectical approach, which is a logical extension o f Rubinstein's

(1940) system.

[Rubinshteyn)

Rubinstein was a Russian psychologist

who advocated various versions o f dialectical psychology during his lifetime. Riegel presumably integrates t h e objective and subjective orientations by refusing t o deal with the psychological subject [significant other) independently o f t h e experimenter (self] and by refusing to deal with t h e environment ( a s a s e l f surrogate) independently o f the psychological subject.

Oialectical psy-

chology presumes that a transactional relationship exists between t h e subject and experimenter in any psychological investigation, such that the subject and experimenter together constitute a n irreducible, emergent unit of

analysis.

Psychological truth must be

stated in terms o f both parties to t h e transaction. The prototypical psychological situation f o r dialectical psychology is a dialogue between two organisms, either verbal o r nonverbal.

The content o f observa-

tion i s any meaningful description o f the events occurring within t h e dialogue. Riegel's

scheme amounts to a cognitively oriented

developmental psychology, in which t h e individual or-


39

ganism is viewed a s a point in a vast historical-cultural space.

Both the individual organism and t h e

historical-cultural milieu are assumed t o mutually influence and change each other over time. SOME HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

The four orienta-

t i o n s are divisible into t w o . n a t u r a 1 subclasses: ( 1 ) homogeneous and (2) heterogeneous.

1. The objective orientation underlying descriptive behaviorism and t h e subjective orientation, a s represented by contemporary understanding psychology, constitute contrasting, but homogeneous, approaches t o t h e creation o f psychological knowledge. 2. The quasi-objective and combined orientations,

in which both objectivity and subjectivity are involved, constitute less extreme, but more heterogeneo u s , approaches t o t h e creation o f psychological knowledge. The history o f disciplinary psychology over the past century i s characterized by t w o interrelated t r e n d s with respect t o t h e subclasses [Rychlak, 1977): (11 a preference cycling over time between t h e opposite poles [subjective, objective) o f the homogeneous subclass and ( 2 ) a relatively constant, but high degree o f interest in t h e heterogeneous subclass, primarily t h e quasi-objective orientation.

Four concep-

tual summary statements are germane in t h i s context.

1 . Every classical school

o f psychology, whether

experimental o r not, used t h e subjective or quasi-objective orientation until t h e advent o f Watsonian descriptive behaviorism.

2. The dominance o f t h e strict objective orientat i o n , associated with descriptive behaviorism, now is over.

The newest attempts at constructing psychologi-

cal reality involve either t h e quasi-objective or com-

Chapter 2

40

bined orientation.

3. The subjective orientation survives only in the context o f t h e contemporary humanistic approach.

4. The quasi-objective orientation h a s b e e n t h e most popular and durable approach f o r constructing psychological reality. SUBJECTIVE, OBJECTIVE POLARITY

The creators

psychology--strut-

o f t h e initial s y s t e m s o f academic

turalism, act psychology, Gestalt psychology (with respect t o perceptual consciousness),. and functional-

i s m (with respect to mental activities)--did not know that their sy s t e m s were subjective.

These s y s t e m s

amounted to epistemological psychology, in which both the content and function of consciousness served a s natural objects o f interest.

The basic polarity be-

tween subjective and objective s y s t e m s did not develop until the ascendance o f descriptive behaviorism, t h e epitome o f an action psychology.

But a purely objec-

tive system d e n i e s any uniqueness t o t h e human organism and removes any special status from psychological phenomena: every kind o f matter behaves.

To restore

some uniqueness t o psychological reality, t h e subjective orientation intentionally was reintroduced in t h e context OF humanism.

The f o c u s was o n consciousness

again: not every kind of matter presumably possesses consciousness.

T h i s t i m e t h e f o c us was o n conscious-

ness, as awareness or feelings.

Self-consciousness

was irrelevant i n t h e classical subjective s y s t e m s ; self-awareness is t h e central feature o f contemporary understanding psychology. QUASI-OBJECTIVE ORIENTATION POPULARITY

The

quasi-objective orientation underlies depth psychology, functionalism a 5 a whole, logical behaviorism, geneticepistemological psychology, cognitive behaviorism, and


mathematical modeling.

41

The prevalence and longevity

o f t h i s orientation primarily are due to its balanced

approach t o psychological reality.

The potential com-

ponents o f t h e psychological universe include both observables and unobservables, with many degrees o f f r e e dom with respect t o t h e locus o f t h e latter.

Unlike

the objective orientation, t h e components o f t h e content o f observation o f which must be physical events, and unlike the subjective orientation, t h e components o f the content o f observation

o f which must be non-

physical events, the quasi-objective orientation allows a content o f observation composed o f both physical and nonphysical elements.

The recent use o f the

combined orientation t o construct dialectical psychology represents another attempt t o unite t h e objective and subjective orientations, creating a psychological reality that i s at least continuous with those characteristic o f t h e quasi-objective orientation. PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT: RELATIVITY O F PSYCHOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE

None o f t h e four orientations allows

t h e creation o f a n absolute, o r perspective f r e e , psychological reality. OBJECTIVE

By eliminating t h e observing self

from t h e potential psychological universe, t h e objective approach merely reduces the problem o f t h e r e activity o f t h e experimenter to t h e operational level o f methodology.

One o f t h e goals o f technically pro-

ficient research practice is the creation o f a neutral, unbiased observer.

The objective approach only c a n

provide f o r t h e reactivity o f the significant other at a purely metaphysical level,

One form o f objective

psychology, traditional behaviorism [Watson, 1913,

19251, presumes that the human agent is a completely passive responder, i.e., a component o f a determinis-

Chapter 2

42

tic system.

An objectively oriented psychologist who

denies determinism h a s no realistic way of handling t h e reactivity o f t h e subject. SUBJECTIVE

The subjective approach ips0

facto denies t h e possibility o f a n absolute psychological reality: the self merely observes t h e s e l f ; or t h e observing entity and observed entity reside in the s a m e existential object.

No attempt even is made

t o escape t h e confines o f a n individualistic, personal istic psychological reality.

But the role o f the sig-

nificant other in the subjective orientation parallels t h e role o f t h e self in t h e objective orientation. The significant other, an implicit experimenter, minimally observes and records t h e observations o f t h e self and maximally makes interpretations o f t h e self's output.

"Neutral"

observation or interpretation in

t h i s context is a matter o f appropriate training at the operational level. QUASI-OBJECTIVE

The quasi-objective ap-

proach carries over all t h e problems associated with t h e strict objective orientation and adds i n t h e problem o f appropriate inferencing with respect t o the postulation o f internal, hypothetical entities.

This

involves the theoretical o r explanatory level o f anal-

ysis, which w i l l occupy u s in Chapter 4. COMBINE0

The combined objective x subjec-

tive approach, a s the case with t h e subjective orientation, denies t h e possibility o f a n absolute psychological reality.

The dialectically

conceived psycho-

logical universe is in even more flux t h a n t h e humanistically based, individual psychological

world be-

cause o f t h e more intricate interactional assumptions o f t h e combined

orientation.


43

REAL V A L U E OF THE ORIENTATIONS: TWO PERSPECTIVES Rather than successfully resolving the observational quandary, the proposed orientations merely refocus the problem and make t h e methodological constraints on the creation o f psychological knowledge more explicit.

If

it is conceded that psychological truth never c a n be perspective f r e e , o u r orientation review suggests that there are basically two possible classes o f perspectives: ( 1 ) that o f a n individual self and ( 2 ) a n externally imposed one, the exact content and constituency o f which are potentially multisourced and openended: they are not a methodological matter. Psychology must focus o n the self in t h e context o f the first perspective; it must focus o n a signific a n t other, or group of significant others,

text o f t h e second perspective.

in t h e con-

Focus o n t h e self re-

quires conscious experience, o r consciousness, a s the observable epiphenomena o f psychology; focus o n a significant other requires overt behavior a s t h e observable epiphenomena OF psychology.

F o c u s o n t h e self

methodologically involves first person access t o personal experience; f o c u s o n a significant other methodologically involves third person access t o external behavior. THE HUMAN AS A N OBJECT OF PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS Now it is possible to see why t h e human being c a n serve a s a n object o f psychological analysis in t h r e e different senses (see Chapter 1).

If the individual or-

ganism is focused o n a s a s e l f , it must be analyzed a s a n end in itself.

If the individual organism is

fo-

cused on a s a significant other, it can be analyzed either a s a means t o another end or a s a means and end concurrently: the former usually occurs in a n academic, experimental context; the latter usually occurs in a n

Chapter 2

44

applied, therapeutic context.

Psychology constructed

from t h e perspective o f a n individual self must treat t h e human being a s a n end in itself.

Psychology con-

structed from a n externally imposed perspective can treat the human being either a s a means or a s a means and end simultaneously.

THE LANGUAGE FUNCTION

Recall from Chapter 1 that

possession o f t h e language function is one o f t h e naces sary conditions f o r t h e creation o f a psychological r e ality.

It would be instructive to consider how each o f

the four orientations interprets t h e language function. This will be done in t e r m s o f the dominant contemporary approach associated with each orientation. OBJECTIVE: SKINNERIAN RADICAL BEHAVIORISM Skinner (1957, 1974) f o c u s e s o n verbal behavior, not language in the linguistic sense o f t h e term.

He sub-

mits verbal behavior t o t h e same kind o f functional analysis that is used for strictly physical, motor operants.

A given utterance is assigned to a specific

class o f verbal activity a n d - i s related t o its controlling stimulus condition o r reinforcement contingency. For instance, Skinner (19571 makes a basic distinction between a mand and a tact. request.

A mand essentially is a

A tact is some kind o f descriptive remark.

A mand is open-ended with respect t o source, but only c a n be reinforced by procurement o f t h e content o f the mand: f o r

instance, "Please give me a glass o f milk."

The content o f a tact is tied t o specific physical conditions, but i s unrestricted with respect to reinforcement: f o r instance, "It s u r e i s a nice day."

The tact

is Skinner's link t o the description o f the content o f one's perceptual o r introspective consciousness, and the expression o f self-awareness involves tacting responses about tacting responses.


Skinner's analysis o f

45

verbal behavior h a s not led

t o much research activity and has been bitterly attacked by Noam Chomsky (1959); but it never h a s been surpassed b y any succeeding behavioristic analysis (MacCorquodale,

1969, 1970).

It i s a brillantly conceived and executed

thesis that never really h a s been appreciated by Skinner's more linguistic and literary oriented contemporaries (for instance, Fodor, Bever, and Garrett, 1974). SUBJECTIVE: H U M A N I S M ; PHENOMENOLOGY

Phenom-

enologically based psychology does not analyze verbal behavior o r language in the sense o f specifying relevant mechanisms.

Humanistic psychology is mute with

respect t o mechanisms in general.

F o r the humanist,

such a s Rogers (1961) o r Keen (19751, language i s t h e primary mode o f expression o f t h e content o f one's consciousness.

Humanistic psychology primarily deals with

response o r response-inferred constructs, and t h e vast majority of'these

involve language responses.

The most

elaborately constructed psychology based almost exclusively o n language responses was structuralism ( W u n d t , 1896; Titchener,

lase),

which eventually w a s discarded

because t h e content o f consciousness cannot be meaningfully resolved strictly in t e r m s o f itself. QUASI-OBJECTIVE: COGNITIVE BEHAVIORISM

Most

cognitive behaviorists, s u c h a s Anderson ( 1 9 8 0 1 , f o c u s o n language a s a component o f mentation.

Language i s

treated a s a linguistic entity and consists o f various subsystems, such a s phonemics, morphemics, t h e lexicon, syntax, and grammar.

The ability to decode and encode

language i s assumed t o represent some underlying linguistic competence.

Although not a behaviorist,

Chomsky (1968) is credited with making contemporary cognitive research o n language possible by distinguishing between linguistic performance and competence.

Chapter 2

46

Chomsky explicitly assumes that t h e human being, and only t h e human being, is biologically predisposed, or prewired, to learn the different aspects o f language by induction from samples o f speech in the surrounding verbal community.

Although Chomsky's original stress

o n syntax and grammar h a s given way t o a current focus o n semantics [see Johnson-Laird, 19841, his approach has inspired a voluminous amount o f research o n language acquisition in the child [see Roger Brown, 1970, 1973).

The psychology o f language currently entails

a technical cognitive subspecialty called psycholinguistics. COMBINED: DIALECTICAL PSYCHOLOGY

Language i s

a crucial component o f dialectical psychology:

(11 It

is t h e usual medium o f exchange involved in any short term dialogue; and ( 2 ) it i s t h e primary link between the individual organism and its surrounding culture with respect t o long t e r m , developmental changes.

Rie-

gel (1978, 1979) postulates three different t y p e s o f language systems--proto-language, t o k e n language, and transaction language--the last o f which is assumed t o be dialectically determined.

In dialectical psychology,

language, a s is t h e case with consciousness, is both a social and socially sourced phenomenon.

Riegel uses

the monetary system a s a n analogue f o r language. Speech i s treated a s a good or commodity produced by labor.

These g o o d s , i.e.,

sentences, can operate a s

capital and serve a s the basis o f further production. CONCEPTUAL COMPARISON

Each o f t h e four or-

ientations t a p s a different aspect o f the language function:

1. The objective orientation t r e a t s language a s a real-time, real-space output system controlled by physical variables.


47

2. The subjective orientation formalizes t h e general public's

view o f language a s a method o f express-

ion.

3. The quasi-objective orientation r e l a t e s language t o cognitive functioning in general and t h e notion of

linguistic competence in particular.

4. The combined orientation views language a s a component o f

t h e over-all dialectical process and

gives it an essentially social interpretation. Given t h e diversity o f t h e discipline's treatment o f t h e language function itself, it is no wonder that

t h e compositional problem persists.

Note that t h e s e

different interpretations o f t h e language function do not contradict each o t h e r , but perform a complementary function. METHODOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF T H E TWO PERSPEC-

TIVES

The relativity o f psychological knowledge t r a n s -

lates into t h e fact that t h e human being can be studied from either o f t w o perspectives:

( 2 ) a n externally imposed one.

( I ] t h e self or

The first perspective

i s associated with t h e subjective orientation and resul ts in a fo c u s o n t h e self.

The second perspective

i s associated with t h e objective orientation and r e sults in a fo c u s o n a significant other.

In t h i s s e c -

tion we delineate t h e differential methodological ramifications o f t h e two possible f o c i , specifically with respect t o ( 1 ) t h e method o f self-report, ( 2 ) subject type, and (31 experimental technique. METHOD O F SELF-REPORT

Human beings "talk."

There probably is no more prosaic activity t h a n human speechifying.

It i s a n aspect o f t h e over-all langu-

age function.

No fundamental difference exists be-

tween speech in t h e context o f daily life and that which occurs in a laboratory o r therapeutic situation,

Chapter 2

48

w i t h t h e possible exception t h a t t h e l a t t e r tends t o be more s e l f - m o n i t o r e d

and focused,

A s an e x p e r i m e n t a l o r t h e r a p e u t i c t e c h n i q u e ,

the

a c t of s p e a k i n g i s c a l l e d t h e method of s e l f - r e p o r t . B u t a p s y c h o l o g i s t cannot d e a l w i t h " t a l k " o f an o r i e n t a t i o n ,

independent

i n d e p e n d e n t of a s e l f o r s i g -

i.e.,

n i f i c a n t other focus. OBJECTIVE APPROACH

I n this orientation,

t h e speaker i s t h e s i g n i f i c a n t o t h e r .

Speech s i m p l y

i s an e x t e r n a l l y r e s o l v a b l e a c t i v i t y d i s p l a y e d b y t h e

subject,

continuous w i t h every other possible class

of e x t e r n a l phenomena. Skinner,

I n b e h a v i o r i s m (Watson,

19571, speech i s s i m p l y a n o t h e r k i n d o f b e -

h a v i o r a l response,

verbal

i n nature, continuous w i t h

p u r e l y motor b e h a v i o r a l responses. t h e method of s e l f - r e p o r t method o f v e r b a l r e p o r t the fact other,

1925;

I n this context,

i s more o f t e n c a l l e d t h e

[Schultz,

198l), highlighting

t h a t t h e s o u r c e of speech i s a s i g n i f i c a n t

not a self.

The u s e o f t h e method o f v e r b a l r e p o r t i s one of mere c o n v e n i e n c e .

I n many s i t u a t i o n s ,

h a v e a s u b j e c t s a y lvyes'l

o r "no"

elaborate physical a c t i v i t y .

S a y i n g "yes"

h e r e i s e q u i v a l e n t t o r a i s i n g a hand, p o i n t i n g t o some o b j e c t , ative,

it i s easier t o

t h a n engage i n some

o r the l i k e .

o r "no''

pushing a button, These a r e i n d i c -

d i s c r i m i n a t i v e r e s p o n s e s t h a t a r e g i v e n meaning

b y r e f e r e n c e t o t h e e x t e r n a l l y imposed p e r s p e c t i v e , whatever i t i s .

A s external,

p u b l i c events,

they are

o b s e r v a b l e and r e c o r d a b l e b y one o r more e x p e r i m e n t e r s . To i n c r e a s e o b j e c t i v i t y ,

usually only a restricted set

o f v e r b a l response c a t e g o r i e s

mental s i t u a t i o n . sion--as

i s used i n an e x p e r i -

C o m p l e t e open-endedness

o f expres-

o c c u r s i n t h e p r e s e n c e of a R o r s c h a c h ( 1 9 4 2 )

i n k b l o t o r a M u r r a y (1938) and Morgan T A T p i c t u r e - -


49

typically is not allowed. SUBJECTIVE APPROACH t i o n , the speaker is a self. form of self-expression. response.

In t h i s orienta-

Speech functions a s a

It is not a surrogate motor

The purpose o f speech in t h i s context is

externalization of t h e contents of consciousness: perceptual, emotional, cognitive, and the like.

Because

the state o r content of consciousness is only amenable t o first person access, t h e method of self-report has assumed virtual hallowed s t a t u s in t h i s approach.

The

content o f t h e self-report itself s e r v e s a s t h e f o c u s of

interest.

\

Typically no constraints are imposed o n

t h e categories of self-report over and above t h e type of self-monitoring that occurs in normal everyday social intercourse: t h e subject simply "talks." As a tool o f t h e subjective orientation, t h e method of self-report has numerous derivative labels, contingent on the type o f psychology involved.

In t h e

classical schools o f structuralism and functionalism, it is called introspection; in Gestalt psychology, it amounts t o a free-wheeling phenomenology; in Rogerian client-centered, nondirective therapy or existential therapy, it has no special name (see Hillner, 19841. Structuralist introspection and Gestaltist phenomenology primarily are concerned with perceptual consciousness.

The self-report occurring in Rogerian o r exis-

tential therapy primarily involves emotional consciousness. The reality that is reified via self-report is individualistic and personalistic.

The content o f

self-report must be taken at face value, i.e., a s true f o r t h e reporting subject.

The notions of validity

and reliability simply are not germane, a s they are in a n objective context, where some universally appli-

50

Chapter 2

cable psychological truth is the goal.

A NOTE ON FREE ASSOCIATION

Note that

t h e Freudian psychoanalytic technique called f r e e association is omitted from the prior discussion.

Free

association (see Freud, 1939, 1949) certainly is a form o f self-report, primarily concerned with emotional consciousness; however, it differs from introspection, phenomenology, and Rogerian o r existential e f forts in two critical respects:

1. It is conceptualized in a quasi-objective orientation, not a subjective orientation.

Freud uses

the content o f verbal report o f a significant other t o construct a universal psychodynamics.

2. The content o f t h e verbal report is not taken at face value o r accepted at the level at which it is given: it is used t o induce the nature and state o f t h e patient's unconscious. The method o f self-report in a psychoanalytic context really is a combination o f t h e objective and subjective approaches: A universal psychodynamics is involved, not a n individual phenomenology; t h e content of

t h e report is used t o resolve t h e nature o f a n in-

dividual self, not solely t o pursue abstract, impersonal truth.

The special methodological s t a t u s o f

free association is a reflection o f t h e fact that t h e human organism serves both a s an end in itself and a s a means to another end in psychoanalysis [see Chapter

11. SELF-REPORT A N D THE CONTENT OF OESERVATION

Speech plays different roles in the content o f

observation associated with t h e objective and subjective orientations.

In t h e method o f verbal r e p o r t ,

speech is the basic object o f study: it literally c o n stitutes what is observed.

Whether t h i s has meaning


51

o r not is independent of t h e reporting subject.

It is

a matter f o r t h e locus o f causation and over-all interpretive framework.

In phenomenological self-report,

speech is neither the basic object of study nor t h e locus o f causation: it merely is t h e vehicle by which t h e basic object of study i s physicalized. observed i s t h e content of one's

What is

consciousness, and it

is t h e language function that allows t h i s t o become transformed into communicable form and externalized. The phenomenal meaning o f t h e content o f self-report is implicit or given--at least from t h e self's spect ive

per-

. SUBJECT TYPE

The problem of subject t y p e

usually is conceptualized a s a property o f t h e operational aspect of methodology: representative sampling, random assignment, statistical control, generalization limits, and t h e like (see Robinson, 1976).

However,

we only are going to be concerned with subject t y p e a s a metaphysical property o f methodology. SUBJECTIVE ORIENTATION

There is no

subject t y p e o r concept o f a subject type in t h e contemporary use o f t h e subjective orientation.

Subjec-

tive psychologies are constructed around t h e s e l f , a s t h e observing agent. a n island unto itself.

The self is unique, absolute, Analytically, t h e s e l f is not

a point in t h e real-space, real-time universe:

it

merely is a repository of consciousness, or various consciousnesses. Humanistic and existential psychologists, such a s Rogers ( 1 9 5 1 ) and Keen ( 1 9 7 5 1 , go to great lengths t o bypass o r subvert t h e various classificatory dirnens i o n s on which objective psychology attempts t o categorize people.

Even in situations where some abstract

generalizations are attempted [for instance: Maslow's

Chapter 2

52

(19701 induction o f t h e characteristics o f a self-actualized person] t h e classificatory dimensions or denotative properties used t o differentiate among people are subject, not experimenter, derived: they are response-defined or response-inferred constructs. The humanistic approach does get into difficulty because o f t h e methodological interdependence o f t h e notions o f s e l f and self-report.

A n y organism that

cannot engage in self-report, or coherent self-report,

is automatically precluded from functioning a s a potential self.

Preverbals or nonverbals--young

chil-

dren, mental retardates, chronic schizophrenics, certain aphasics, and animals--are functionally excluded from t h e psychological universe envisioned by t h e humanistic psychologist.

F o r humanism, the "typicalt'

s e l f is an educated, normal, verbally facile adult. Recall that in t h e subjective approach t h e organ-

i s m serves a s a n object o f psychological analysis a s an end in itself.

This translates into t h e need t o

conceptualize t h e self a s a holistic, intact entity. The individual organism constitutes an integral whole: it possesses a n integrity that cannot be violated.

The self is not a collection o f subsystems that can be analyzed independently or in isolation o f each other. OBJECTIVE ORIENTATION

The notion o f

subject type is indigenous t o t h e objective orientation, where t h e question, "Who can serve a s a significant other," is o f compelling import.

It is in t h e

context o f t h e objective approach that the proper domain o f psychology with respect t o epiphenomena and t h e appropriate organismic focus o f psychology with respect t o subject type constitute mutually contingent issues.

"Who can serve a s a significant other," is


53

equivalent t o asking "What constitutes t h e proper domain o f psychology?"

The concept o f a significant

other lies at t h e heart of t h e compositional problem. Unlike t h e situation with t h e self, t h e notion o f a significant other is open-ended. infinitely descriptive.

It potentially is

A psychologist cannot postu-

late t h e denotation and characteristics o f a significant other without simplifying assumptions: a significant other must be modeled.

The significant other

must b e a point in t h e real-space, real-time universe; but it is not limited t o a human being, a n intact human being, o r even a living being.

The significant

other simply is t h e entity exhibiting t h e phenomena conceived a s being psychological in nature.

In a re-

search context, t h e significant other even c a n be t h e locus o f the independent variable: f o r instance, male versus female, adult versus child, trained versus untrained, dull versus bright,

ad

infiniturn.

At t h i s point in t h e analysis, only four general observations need be made about subject types:

1. Unlike t h e notion o f the self, t h e concept

of

a subject type possesses no indigenous psychological reality, especially in contexts where the organism is treated a s a means to another end.

2. The boundary lines separating one subject type from another usually are functionally determined by decisions that a psychologist must make with respect to other aspects o f the potential psychological universe.

3. The popularity o f various subject t y p e s wax and wane a s t h e popularity o f various content psychologies and research foci wax and wane.

4. Any judgment that one subject type somehow is better t h a n another subject type really is a normative

Chapter 2

54

or moral decision, a s will be illustrated in Chapter

6 in the context o f abnormality.

EXPERIMENTAL TECHNIQUE

The s t a t u s o f t h e

notion o f experimental technique at t h e metaphysical level o f methodology is analogous t o that o f subject type

SUBJECTIVE ORIENTATION

Technically

speaking, no experimental technique is needed t o study t h e self: Determination o f t h e content o f consciousness should never be a f u n c t i o n o f t h e s p e c i f i c manner by which o r context in which t h e externalization process occurs.

The externalization process certainly

can be facilitated, but t h e physical situation in which the self-report o c c u r s i s not considered party t o t h e creation o f psychological knowledge.

T h e con-

text in which t h e method o f self-report i s employed i s analogous to t h e method o f self-report itself: it i s a component o f t h e vehicle by which t h e basic object o f

study i s physicalized. OBJECTIVE ORIENTATION

Implementation

o f t h e objective orientation requires an observation

situation.

T h e notion o f experimental t e c h n i q u e is a

crucial component o f t h e observation situation.

Ex-

actly what t h e significant other displays--exactly what is observed--is in part a function o f t h e experimental technique used. The use o f experimental techniques derives from t h e need for control over both input and output.

Ex-

perimental techniques potentially a r e infinite in number; and a specific generic technique--for instance, operant conditioning (see S k i n n e r , 1938; F e r s t e r and Skinner, 1957)--admits o f virtual infinite parametric variation.

F o r reasons o f convenience, c e r t a i n vari-

ants o f a generic technique a r e used more frequently


ss

than others, eventually leading t o a standardized form o r prototypical case.

These prototypical c a s e s tend

t o get reified and become e n d s in themselves. The popularity o f

various generic experimental

techniques, and even prototypical c a s e s , wax and wane a s t h e popularity o f different content psychologies and research foci wax and wane--as is t h e case with subject types.

Some experimental t a s k s are so

specialized and esoteric that they bear no reasonable correspondence t o anything t h e significant other could face in t h e context o f everyday life.

T h i s leads to

t h e problem o f practical applicability

or

social rel-

evance o f laboratory research findings.

THE COMPOSITIONAL PROBLEM A N D ITS POSSIBLE TION

SOLU-

At a methodological level, psychology's compo-

sitional problem amounts t o t h e arbitrariness o f orientation used.

the

Psychology can f o c u s o n the self

o r o n a significant other.

Focusing o n the self cre-

ates a psychology epistemologically and ontologically contingent o n human consciousness; focusing o n a significant other creates a psychology devoid o f human consciousness,

I n the first approach, psychological

reality is divorced from and not a component o f physical reality; in the second approach, psychological reality i s continuous with and a component o f physical reality,

Although the first kind o f psychological re-

ality is more personal t h a n the s e c o n d , it i s strictly received, or given, and cannot easily be manipulated. The second kind o f psychological reality is impersonal, but i s derivative, or not given, and admits o f relatively easy manipulation. Solution o f t h e compositional problem via t h e construction o f a satisfactory representational scheme f o r generating psychological events would require

56

Chapter 2

either a reasoned choice between a self f o c u s and a significant other f o c u s o r some kind of accommodation between these two foci at t h e methodological level.

57

CHAPTER 3

EPIPHENOMENA: CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE AND BEHAVIOR

The notion o f epiphenomena subsumes those observable or inferable events that t h e psychologist regards as constituting the psychological universe: they are the basic constituents o f psychological reality resulting from t h e discipline's

participation in t h e cross-clas-

sificational endeavor [see Chapter 1). Ideally, t h e domain o f t h e psychological universe and t h e specification o f its compositional elements derive from some logical, rational representational or generating scheme. However, the discipline o f psychology currently possesses no such scheme; and t h i s is why t h e discipline suffers t h e compositional problem [see Chapter 1). Psychology's foci o f interest, or objects o f study, have more-or-less accidentally evolved: they merely are a matter o f tradition o r convention.

Most

psychologists would agree that t h e discipline possesses two traditional objects o f interest:

experience and ( 2 ) behavior.

[ I ] conscious

These two notions are

metaphysical in nature and possess no indigenous psychological reality; however, they ultimately derive from t h e basic dichotomy established by Cartesian philosophy (Descartes, 1650, 1662): mind-body dualism. Conscious experience is a property o f t h e mind; behavior is a property o f t h e body.

Chapter 3

58

For our purposes, t h e notions o f conscious experience and behavior merely constitute descriptive labels or categories.

It will be assumed that they are

primitive t e r m s o f which we have a n intuitive understanding.

This assumption is necessary because there

are a s many theoretical interpretations o f t h e s e two notions a s there are content psychologies (see Hillner, 1984). Neither conscious experience nor behavior i s a n absolute property o f t h e naturally occurring universe (see Chapter 1).

Any reality they possess strictly is

a product o f t h e conceptual sunglasses the psychologist has been trained t o wear and use.

Their creation

strictly is contingent o n the way the psychologist perceives the world.

It is legitimate to ask why they

are psychological phenomena or o f what use o r relevance they are to the psychologist. Any attempt to formally analyze these t w o notions

is beset by numerous problems.

Some o f these will be

mentioned here so that t h e ultimate focus o f t h e chapter c a n be made explicit.

1 . Primarily due to their Cartesian origin, conscious experience and behavior are supposed t o possess diametrically opposed attributes.

Conscious experience

is a n internal, nonphysical, subjective event.

Behav-

ior i s a n external, physical, objective event.

But

such really is not the c a s e , and we have to demonstrate why. 2. Traditionally, conscious experience and behav-

ior are treated a s output; that is, a s the product o f a long series o f prior events.

In other words, they

traditionally are conceived a s occupying the basic object o f

study slot o f t h e content o f observation (see

Chapter 21.

However, either entity can occupy either


slot o f

59

t h e content of observation: both conscious ex-

perience and behavior c a n serve a s t h e locus o f causation or input.

Our semantics provides for t h i s with

respect t o conscious events.

When conscious events are

conceived a s causes, they are referred t o a s consciousness.

When conscious events are treated a s output,

they subsume t h e content o f conscious experience.

Our

semantics does not provide f o r t h i s with respect t o behavior: the same term is used f o r both cases.

In this

chapter we merely discuss these t w o entities a s epiphenomenal output: we f o c u s o n output behavior and the content o f conscious experience.

Input behavior and

consciousness are analyzed a s causative agents in Chapt e r 4--in t h e context o f t h e explanatory, interpretive aspects of the compositional problem.

3. Both the content o f conscious experience and consciousness are mental events. problem f o r psychology.

Mental events pose a

The problem o f mental events

is addressed briefly in t h e chapter, specifically in the context of analyzing t h e composition, or existential reality level, of conscious experience.

4. Although both the contents o f conscious experience and behavior are observable (i.e., t h e observat i o n a l , experiential given), there i s a sense in which they merely are signs or indicants o f something else. This something else i s what lies behind and gives meaning t o both conscious experience and behavior.

For

want o f better terminology, t h i s something else c a n be called "consciousness"

in t h e context of conscious ex-

perience and "action" in t h e context o f behavior.

In

other words, consciousness is given form or substance via conscious experience; action i s accomplished o r implemented via behavior.

Our analysis must include con-

sciousness (outside of its possible r o l e a s a locus o f

Chapter 3

causation) and action, in addition t o their derivative indicants.

For instance, in certain contexts a n ac-

tion can be implemented by the lack o f behavior: a n action is effected by the absence o f a physical response.

5. Both conscious experience and behavior c a n serve a s direct or indirect objects o f interest.

Con-

scious experience is a direct object o f interest in t h e first person access, self, subjective orientation cont e x t ; behavior is a direct object o f interest in t h e third person access, significant o t h e r , objective orientation context (see Chapter 21.

Conscious experi-

ence c a n be an indirect object o f interest in t h e third person access, significant other, quasi-objective orientation context: the experimenter can infer t h e conscious state o f

a significant other by observing its

We do t h e latter in the context o f

ongoing behavior.

everyday life a l l the time. direct object o f

Behavior c a n be a n in-

interest i n the first person access,

s e l f , subjective orientation context: t h e self c a n infer i t s current ongoing behavior or observe a byproduct of

its past behavior.

Our analysis presumes no funda-

mental metaphysical difference between direct and indirect objects o f interest: any difference between these two kinds o f epiphenomena resides solely at the methodological, or access, level. We must t a k e t h e discipline's

two traditional ob-

jects o f interest at face value and document t h e ramifications o f t h e compositional problem for t h e conduction o f

academic psychology at the epiphenomena1 level

in t e r m s o f them.

Both conscious experience and behav-

ior will be evaluated along a set o f common dimensions, including ( 1 ) existential content, ( 2 ) properties, (3) possible uses, and (41 s t a t u s in classical and contemporary psychology.

The notion o f behavior is consid-


61

ered first, purely f o r expository reasons. BEHAVIOR The critical issue concerning behavior is this: How d o e s the behavior exhibited by a living organism differ from t h e activity exhibited by other f o r m s matter?

of

What is the unique property o f organismic ac-

tivity that allows it to have a psychological reality or relevance?

This issue never has been addressed

systematically by the discipline.

Most psychologists

take t h e notion o f behavior a s a given and display little or no concern for any metaphysical properties t h e notion might possess.

Rather, much effort is ex-

pended o n demonstrating that behavior merely i s physiological activity or simply another kind o f physical activity; and great pains are taken to devise sophisticated methods o f isolating and recording actual response occurrences (see Sidowski, 1966). Oescartes' ( 1 6 5 0 , 1662) basically materialistic account o f t h e body separated animate motion from inanimate motion.

Inanimate motion became a matter o f

physics; animate motion became a problem o f physiology and ultimately psychology via functionalism and Watsonian behaviorism.

Functionalism [Angell, 1 9 0 4 ;

Carr, 1925) related mental activity to organismic adaptation, t h e latter operating a s a surrogate f o r behavior.

Watson (1913, 1916) was trained a s a func-

tionalist and eventually exclusively focused o n behavior f o r methodological reasons: he related behavior solely to external environmental events, eliminating consciousness a s a locus o f causation.

Watson iden-

tified behavior with stimulus-elicited reflexive responses: a particular instance o f

behavior involved a

physiological reflex or t h e concatenation o f t w o or more physiological reflexes.

Chapter 3

62

Modeling behavior a s physiologically based motion or physiologically based reflexes poses no methodological problems.

In effect, a physiological activity

is given straightway psychological representation a s a behavior.

However, it eventually became apparent

that t h i s approach t o behavior was too simplistic and sterile at a conceptual level (see Henle, Jaynes, and Sullivan, 1966). Skinner (1938, 1953, 1956) eventually focused o n the seemingly goal-directed, voluntary acts that organisms exhibit and conceptualized them a s operant responses under stimulus and/or reinforcement control. The vast majority o f human behaviors simply are emitted and are shaped by their consequences.

Skinner's

approach to behavior functions nicely at the procedural level, because it affords a means o f operationally specifying response occurrence in terms o f functional response definition.

Any stimulus situation or con-

text allows f o r t h e occurrence o f two possible response classes: ( 1 ) behaviors that result in consequence

X

and ( 2 ) behaviors that result in consequence

x.

For instance, in the standard Skinner box situation, any activity that depresses the bar and results in food procurement is a bar press response; and any activity that d o e s not result in bar press depression and d o e s not result in food procurement is a nonbar press response.

Skinner's approach allows a psycholo-

gist t o intervene in a natural life setting and manipulate response occurrence by exploiting a n organism's preferences f o r certain outcomes. For Skinner, behavior merely is functionally specified physical activity that is under t h e control of

other physical processes.

In his system, psycho-

logical reality is indistinguishable from physical re-


ality.

63

The same basic theme is carried through by t h e

designers of other action psychologies, such a s Hull

(19431, Tolman (19321, and Guthrie (19351, and their mathematically oriented descendants, such a s E s t e s ( 1 3 5 0 ) or Restle (1962). At t h i s point, we also must take t h e notion o f behavior at face value and assess it o n t h e following dimensions:

( 1 ) access, ( 2 ) objectivity status, (3) com-

position, (4) possible u s e , and ( 5 ) relationship t o substrata and superstrata.

Then t h e attempt will be

made t o give it psychological reality in t h e context of t h e concept o f action. ACCESS

Behavior is amenable t o both f i r s t person

and third person access.

In first person access, the

self is t h e locus o f both t h e observer and t h e observed; in third person access, t h e self is t h e observer and a significant other i s t h e observed. Virtually all content psychology focusing o n behavior a s the primary disciplinary epiphenomena is built o n third person access.

An organism's overt be-

havior only is susceptible t o third person access under standard observational conditions.

First person access

t o behavior is limited, unless a mirror is used or t h e behavior is filmed or videotaped.

The self also has

access t o t h e products of its past behavior.

There are

contexts in psychology where a n organism is allowed t o see its current behavior, usually not f o r quantification

purposes, but rather because it s e r v e s a s a kind of feedback (see Shapiro et a l . , 1973).

Most psycholo-

gists prefer third person access f o r a simple conceptual reason: it mimics the way the physical scientist constructs physical reality. Third person access t o overt behavior c a n be direct o r indirect.

In direct access, t h e experimenter

Chapter 3

64

observes the behavior in t h e raw a s it is being produced.

Quite often automated recording equipment

serves a s a surrogate experimenter t o prevent errors o f perception o r judgment o n t h e part o f a human obser-

ver.

In indirect access, some residual o f t h e prior

behavior o f an organism i s observed: f o r instance, some kind o f art work, intellectual construction, manufactured object, and t h e like.

T h i s kind o f access is

more prevalent in anthropological and therapeutic contexts.

Group mental or psychological testing typically

only affords indirect access.

Individual, one-on-one

testing allows both direct and indirect a c c e s s , with the residual test performance serving a s t h e major component. The digital aspects o f responding, subsuming allor-none occurrence, usually can be observed by the naked e y e ; but analogical attributes o f a behavioral event usually a r e only measurable with t h e use o f sophisticated recording equipment: f o r instance, the latency o f a salivary response, t h e intensity o f a bar press, or the loudness o f a nonsense syllable.

When

behavior i s conceived a s occurring within t h e skin ( f o r instance, brain waves, heart rate, stomach secretion, individual neuron or receptor firing), such activity only permits indirect access in t h e sense that only some residual physiological recording o f t h e event c a n be observed and measured.

An organism's verbal behav-

ior i s perfectly susceptible t o third person access, under t h e assumption that it i s simply a surrogate motor response: A behaviorist does not treat verbal behavior a s a n external indicant o f inner consciousness [see Chapter 2).

OBJECTIVITY STATUS

Third person access t o overt

behavior ostensibly is possible because it is a n exter-


nal, public, objective event.

65

Behavior may be exter-

nal and public, but it i s not objective in any absolute o r simplistic sense.

Behavior is much less ob-

jective, or much more subjective, t h a n its public i m age belies. Because behavior is a metaphysical notion, what qualifies a s a n instance o f behavior varies from one psychologist t o another.

Granted that a reflexive

response is behavior f o r Watson, Skinner, or any other action oriented psychologist, it is not such f o r a Gestalt o r humanistic psychologist.

Blind, trial and er-

ror activity in a Thorndike ( 1 9 1 1 ) puzzle box or a Skinner ( 1 9 5 6 ) box is behavior f o r a n S-R

association-

a1 learning theorist, such a s Hull; it is not f o r a Gestalt psychologist or a n S-S expectancy learning t h e o r i s t , such a s Tolman.

Button pushing is signifi-

cant behavior f o r Skinner; it is meaningless activity for a humanist.

Seeing is behavior f o r a Skinnerian.

Seeing is not behavior, but a perceptual process, f o r a cognitive psychologist.

Seeing is not behavior, but

experiencing, f o r a humanistic psychologist. What constitutes behavior f o r a psychologist depends o n t h e assumptions made, especially t h o s e pertaining t o t h e locus o f causation and permissible methodology.

Individual psychologists s e t their o w n cri-

teria f o r identifying and interpreting certain natural events a s behavior.

At a more basic level, each psy-

chologist decides t h e kind o f relationships o r laws in which behavior is supposed t o participate.

F o r Wat-

s o n (19161, behavior is a concatenation o f reflexive responses, amenable to classical conditioning.

For

Skinner (1938), behavior is a n operant under stimulus or reinforcement control.

F o r a Gestaltist, s u c h a s

Koffka (1935, 1963), behavior is molar activity, r e p -

66

Chapter 3

resenting t h e structure and dynamics o f t h e organism's psychological environment.

For Riegel ( 1 9 7 8 , 19791

,

behavior is a dialectically determined event. Given t h i s variety o f metaphysical conceptions o f behavior, it should not be surprising that t h e op-

erational specification o f behavior in any research context is a complex matter. chology [Skinner, 1938).

Consider operant psy-

A legitimate operant res-

ponse must be

1. easily performable by the organism, 2. part o f its natural behavioral repertoire, 3. easily isolatable and discretely countable,

4. autonomous or self-reifying, 5. subject t o reinforcement and stimulus control, and

6. physicalized a s activation o f some environmental manipulandum that is independent o f t h e organism's effector system. Even t h i s listing does not specify how a n operant is technically measured and recorded. Granted that an instance o f behavior is external, public, and identifiable in t h e context o f a given conceptual approach to psychology, t h e notion o f behavior itself i s subjective.

In s o m e systems--struc-

turalism, depth psychology, conceivably even humanism--behavior i s not even considered to be a component o f t h e psychological universe.

Even in the various

action systems, there is no basic continuity between one psychologist's conception o f behavior and that o f another. The experimental psychologist is forced t o create the illusion t h a t behavior is objective, in addition t o being bona f i d e l y external and public.

Elaborate

precautions are undertaken at the level o f research


67

practice (see Chapter 2 ) t o guarantee that observat i o n s o f behavior result in reliable and valid measurements: use o f sophisticated o r precalibrated recording apparati, elaborate experimental designs, standardized o r uniform instructions, restricted response categories, highly trained or practiced observers, multiple observers when t h e behavioral phenomenon is particularly esoteric or elusive, and t h e like.

Although

behavior is external and public, the objectification o f behavior, in effect, is t h e product o f a psychologist's combined conceptual and methodological efforts. COMPOSITION

Composition in t h e context o f behav-

ior c a n be interpreted t o mean existential reality level.

What is t h e substantive content o f behavior a s

a measurable real-space, real-time event?

Assuming

behavior occurs outside t h e s k i n , a n instance o f behavior consists o f t w o things: ( 1 ) activation o f some

ef-

fector system and (2) physical movement o f s o m e limb o r t h e body through space.

The first component gives

behavior a physiological reality: behavior is physiological activity o f some sort.

The second component

gives behavior a physical reality: behavior c a n be measured in t e r m s o f concepts indigenous t o physics. Note that t h e compositional specification o f behavior d o e s not define behavior o r identify instances o f behavioral

occurrence: it merely delineates its

compositional content.

Compositional content is what

allows already defined and identified instances o f behavior t o be measured.

Behavior possesses more t h a n a

physiological and physical reality: it also h a s a psychological reality, but t h e substance o f its psychological reality only c a n be specified by t h e dicta o f some externally imposed model or scheme o f t h e psychological universe.

Definition and identification o f

Chapter 3

behavior requires reference t o its characteristic psychological reality; and t h e r e is no monolithic, universally accepted scheme f o r assigning behavior psychological reality.

Once t h e psychological features

o f behavior are specified by a model o f t h e psycholog-

ical universe, it is possible f o r t h e absence o f effector activation and overt movement t o constitute a meaningful piece of behavior in certain contexts. Much has been made historically o f t h e distinction between involuntary and voluntary behavior (for instance, see Flanagan, 1984).

Although the notions

o f involuntary and voluntary are impossible t o opera-

tionally define (Rescorla and Solomon, 19671, we are going t o assume that Skinner's (1938, 19531 respondentoperant dichotomy approximates t h e involuntary-voluntary behavior distinction.

The respondent-operant di-

chotomy can be used t o illustrate t h e distinction between the composition of behavior and its psychological reality. A respondent is behavior that is given n o psycho-

logical representation above and beyond its physiological and physical composition.

It i s pure physiolog-

ical activity resulting in some kind o f physical movement in space.

A respondent i s elicited by a specific

stimulus and in psychological jargon usually is referred t o a s a reflexive response.

A respondent c a n be

d e f i n e d . a n d identified strictly in t e r m s o f i t s stimulus elicitor and compositional effector activation. Respondents served a s the model f o r all behavior in Cartesian philosophy because at t h e time the notion of movement was equivalent t o that o f behavior (Henle, Jaynes, and Sullivan, 1966).

Watson (1916) also re-

duced behavior exclusively t o individual respondents or a concatenation of respondents, at least a t t h e


69

conceptual level. An operant is behavior that is given functional specification in t e r m s o f its causal role.

The clas-

s i c example o f an operant is t h e bar press response o f a rat

in a Skinner box.

An operant possesses phys-

iological and physical composition, but they are irrelevant f o r its definition and identification.

The

psychological reality o f a n operant derives from its r o l e in a physical environmental contingency. Skinner's

In

(1938) system, it is the reinforcement con-

tingency that provides t h e necessary functional context.

An operant is a response that activates t h e

response manipulandum and duly g e t s reinforced.

Using

non-Skinnerian terminology, a n operant is a n act that manipulates the environment and has consequences f o r its performer.

The psychological reality that Skinner

assigns a n operant still is a physical reality: remember Skinner limits t h e psychological universe t o descriptive stimulus and response events. In nonbehavioristic s y s t e m s that f o c u s o n behavior, such a s Gestalt psychology and humanism, t h e psychological composition o f a piece o f behavior is high-

l y abstract and elusive.

Behavior in Gestalt psychol-

ogy must be embedded in a behavioral environment; behavior in a humanistic context must represent t h e fact that its performer is self-aware. USE

What is t h e possible use o r value associated

with behavior a s one o f t h e epiphenomena1 foci o f psyc h o 1 ogy ? The ultimate value o f behavior derives from its material composition, which allows psychology t o be conducted a s a scientific endeavor.

Instances o f be-

havior c a n be related to and studied a s a function discrete environmental events.

of

Experimental psychol-

Chapter 3

70

ogy s e e k s the uniformities in behavioral expression subsumed by nomothetic l a w s (see Watson, 1967).

It

is t h e most efficient and practical approach t o psychological intervention when a group o f organisms is involved in a common environmental situation. Third person access t o behavior c a n be actuated in a strict objective or quasi-objective orientation.

In t h e objective orientation, f o c u s o n behavior must serve a s a n end i n itself because no inference t o unobservables is allowed.

In t h e quasi-objective orien-

t a t i o n , focus o n behavior can serve a s a means t o another end because inference t o unobservables is allowed. Historically, psychology began t o focus o n behavior a s a logical extension o f its interest in t h e adaptive function o f consciousness in a quasi-objective orientation.

Organismic adaptation served a s an ex-

ternal indicant o f a n efficacious consciousness in t h e context o f classical functionalist psychology [Angell,

1904, 1907; Carr, 1925).

Under Watson's

( 1 9 1 3 ) tute-

lage, the discipline eliminated any reference t o consciousness and focused o n behavior a s a n end in itself in a strict objective orientation.

The end f o c u s

often has been criticized f o r dehumanizing u s (for instance, Maslow, 19711.

But t h i s criticism is misdi-

rected because a purely objective psychology merely is investigating t h e logical consequences o f conceptualizing t h e living organism a s a real-space, real-time materialistic entity.

T h e fact that behavior is pre-

dictable and controllable in a strict objective orientation need not detract from t h e s t a t u s o f t h e human being when it is used f o r benign goals and t h e betterment o f t h e human condition.

There is no more human-

istically oriented psychologist t h a n B. F . Skinner him-


71

self (1948, 1971, 19761, who was awarded t h e Humanist of t h e Year Medal by t h e American Humanist Association in 1972.

It is only that he prefers t o work f o r t h e

betterment of humankind in a deterministic, objective framework. Most contemporary content psychology

is construc-

ted in a quasi-objective framework (see Chapter 21, and interest in behavior strictly is instrumental. It allows focus o n t h e internal determinants of behavior: mental processes, unconscious forces, goals and strivings, and the like.

As w i l l become apparent in

a later section, contemporary psychology can construe virtually any event a s being a n instance of behavior, such that the notion has achieved an aura of metaphysical neutrality and indifference: t h e means-end dichotomy has become blurred. RELATIONSHIP TO SUBSTRATA A N 0 SUPERSTRATA

The

human being is a biological creature: this provides t h e substratum for our existence.

Human beings also

are social creatures: this provides t h e superstratum for our existence.

Note that an organism can be a bio-

logical creature without being a social creature, but an organism cannot be a social creature without being a biological creature.

Somewhat artificially, we can

say that the human essentially is a biological creature within t h e skin and a social creature outside t h e skin.

How does behavior interface with these two

aspects o f an organism? Behavior is always a biological entity and often a social entity.

Its biological nature is indigenous

to its material composition.

Any overt behavioral oc-

currence involves effector system activation and entails some form of physiological activity.

T h e social

basis o f behavior is more obscure: It does not derive

Chapter 3

12

from i t s material composition.

When behavior is trea-

ted strictly a s a reflexive response, or respondent, it is not social in nature.

The social aspect o f be-

havior arises when behavior i s given some psychological representation beyond its material composition. Specification o f t h i s psychological representation usually cannot be done without reference t o an organ-

ism's social environment.

The very fact that a n in-

stance o f behavior occurs in some social framework that gives it meaning helps distinguish behavior from the activity exhibited by matter o r material systems in general. The dual nature o f behavior accounts f o r t h e fact that it is very difficult t o distinguish between a physiological psychologist and an experimental physiologist, or a social psychologist and a sociologist, at a conceptual level (see Chapter 10).

In t h e con-

text o f a n action system, any distinction among biology, psychology, and sociology must be made a t the level o f locus o f causation.

THE CONCEPT

O F ACTION

Behavior is a real-time,

real-space event with measurable properties: it possesses material composition.

Its material composition

allows behavior t o be observed and recorded in some kind o f objective, third person access framework; however, possession o f material composition is not what gives a n instance o f behavior psychological reality. Possession o f material composition is not e v e n a necessary condition for a n event t o serve a s a n epiphenomenal object o f interest f o r the discipline: viz., conscious experience, Definition and operational identification o f behavior require a n externally imposed generative or representational scheme t h a t ideally specifies why be-


73

havior constitutes a n epiphenomena1 psychological entity.

Not every activity exhibited by a n individual

need be a n instance o f behavior and a n object o f psychological concern; likewise, instances o f behavior must be identifiable and isolatable from t h e totality of a n organism's activity. Some higher level o f abstraction must exist, so that t h e notion o f behavior c a n achieve meaning a s a psychological entity.

I n other words, t h i s is t h e

level at which critical psychological distinctions must be made and to which relevant psychological criteria must be applied.

T h e content of t h i s level

strictly is hypothetical and d o e s not even have t o involve real-time, real-space events.

T h i s level basi-

cally i s conceptual in nature, providing a n interpretive context f o r assigning behavior psychological representation. Although behavior must be observed and recorded a s a physical event, it is very difficult t o describe a s a physical event.

If you ask people what they are

doing, they never use t h e psychologist's response categories.

descriptive

Common-sense description invol-

ves reference t o some "action," oftentimes supplemented with a specification of t h e conscious intention, ultimate goal, or current mental state o f t h e actor.

A highly selective, but representative, list o f act i o n s would include t h e following: going t o t h e movies, eating a meal, studying f o r a n exam, writing a poem, talking o n t h e phone, planning a party, playing a game, building a house, making love, caring f o r a pet. We shall attempt no formal definition o f a n ac-

t i o n , other t h a n suggesting that acceptable alternative terminology would be "doing something."

Note

that many psychologists, such a s Watson (1919, 19251,

14

Chapter 3

like t o directly characterize behavior a s doing.

The

display o f action by a n organism d o e s not require cons c i o u s intelligence o r t h e language function [see Chapt e r 1); however, the realization t h a t action exists or is a function o f one's

being does require conscious

intelligence and the language function. T h e notion o f action is self-embedding and hierarchical.

It provides its own context and c a n be bro-

ken down into more specific levels o f description. For instance, "writing a poem" is decomposable into using a pen and paper, scrawling a series o f letters, making loops and lines,

ad

infinitum.

Somewhere along t h e sequence o f reduction one or more physical events occur that properly can be termed behavior.

A behavior is a way o f implementing or phys-

ically realizing a n action.

A specific action, in

principle at least, can be physicalized in many different ways, i.e., by many different behaviors: f o r instance, think o f making love,

A specific behavior

in

turn c a n be performed in many different ways at t h e level o f physiological effector activity. Skinner's

T h i s is

(1938, 1953, 1956) basic point in h i s func-

tional specification approach to response identification: a n operant response class can be actuated in an infinite number o f ways. What is being argued at a n informal level is that t h e concept o f action is what gives behavior psychological representation.

Behavior possesses psycholog-

ical reality because it i s a component o f a n action. Granted that a piece o f behavior c a n be observed and recorded in a n objective framework via third person access without any overt reference t o action, it is t h e underlying, implicit conception o f action shared by both t h e self, a s experimenter, and significant

Epiphenomena: Conscious Experience aid Behavior

other,

as s u b j e c t ,

75

t h a t makes t h e o b s e r v e d and p e r -

f o r m e d b e h a v i o r p o s s e s s r e l e v a n t epiphenomena1 s i g n i f i cance f o r p s y c h o l o g y i n t h e f i r s t p l a c e . The c o n c e p t of a c t i o n w i l l be d e v e l o p e d f u r t h e r i n C h a p t e r 9 a s a component of folk p s y c h o l o g y

Stich,

(see

1983).

C O N S C I O U S EXPERIENCE The n e u r a l s t r u c t u r e s c o m p r i s i n g t h e human b e i n g a r e a r r a n g e d i n s u c h a way t h a t t h e o r g a n i s m e x p e r i e n c e s t h e s u r r o u n d i n g p h y s i c a l w o r l d a n d a l s o knows that

i t i s aware

of i t s experience.

Persons can r e p o r t

o n t h e c o n t e n t of t h e i r c o n s c i o u s e x p e r i e n c e a n d a l s o c a n r e p o r t t h a t t h e y a r e aware of h a v i n g e x p e r i e n c e .

I n o t h e r words,

t h e human b e i n g p o s s e s s e s b a t h c o n -

s c i o u s n e s s and s e l f - c o n s c i o u s n e s s . Experience,

i n e i t h e r sense,

ological status:

has a u n iq u e e p is t e m -

a l t h o u g h t h e c o n t e n t o f c o n s c io u s ex-

p e r i e n c e and t h e p r o p e r t y of s e l f - a w a r e n e s s can be ext e r n a l i z e d v i a t h e language f u n c t i o n ,

they are i n t e r n a l ,

p r i v a t e e v e n t s t o w h i c h o n l y t h e e x p e r i e n c i n g self h a s d i r e c t access.

T h i s means t h a t (11 no one else c a n

t ' e x p e r i e n c e t l y o u r e x p e r i e n c e and ( 2 ) y o u c a n n o t " e x p e r ience"

anyone e l s e ' s e x p e r i e n c e .

T h i s s i t u a t i o n l e a d s t o two problems:

(1) t h e d i f -

f e r e n t i a l q u a l i a p r o b l e m a n d ( 2 ) t h e p r o b l e m of t h e e x i s t e n c e of o t h e r m i n d s ( s e e C h u r c h l a n d ,

1984).

The

f o r m e r means t h a t t h e r e i s no way of c h e c k i n g w h e t h e r two d i f f e r e n t p e o p l e who a r e r e p o r t i n g t h e same c o n scious contents are i n fact scious contents: v i c e versa. --

e x p e r i e n c i n g t h e same c o n -

my ' l r e d r r m i g h t be y o u r " g r e e n f t and

The l a t t e r means t h a t t h e b e l i e f t h a t

people o t h e r t h a n oneself

a r e c a p a b l e of c o n s c i o u s e x -

p e r i e n c e and awareness i s a n i n f e r e n c e , cal verification:

beyond e m p i r i -

j u s t because a s e l f p o s s e s s e s c o n -

Chapter 3

76

sciousness and self-consciousness is n o proof that a significant other d o e s also. T h e problem o f the existence o f other minds really is a component o f a more general question: what are t h e conditions under which mental s t a t e s c a n be assigned t o organisms other t h a n t h e self?

The general public is

unaware o f t h i s question; and the typical psychologist represses it, such that both conscious experience and self-awareness are assumed t o be universal phenomena. A s with t h e case o f behavior, no systematic at-

tempt has been made to justify conscious experience and self-awareness a s epiphenomena1 objects o f psychological interest.

Unlike t h e case o f behavior, belief in

the existence o f efficacious mental states is a n integral component o f folk psychology ( s e e Chapter 1).

Oes-

cartes (1650, 1662) gave special s t a t u s t o mental events in his philosophy; and his rationalistic approach t o mind led t o British empiricism (Locke, 1690; Berkeley, 1710; Hume, 17481 and i t s implicit cognitive psychology that eventually became physicalized in t h e structuralist approach t o conscious experience.

Wundt

(1873-1874) had no formal concept o f behavior and studied conscious experience because h e combined expertise in both epistemological philosophy and experimental sensory physiology (see Chapter 1).

No purer f o c u s o n t h e

content o f current conscious experience existed t h a n i n structuralism: sensations, images, feelings, and their combinations exhausted t h e psychological universe.

Ges-

talt psychology (Koffka, 1935, 19631 maintained t h i s epistemological, phenomenological f o c u s ; but d u e t o t h e influence o f Kantian (1781) philosophy, it took a more holistic approach t o perceptual consciousness.

Unlike

structuralists, t h e Gestaltists did have a formal concept o f behavior, but interpreted it phenomenologically.


77

Humanistic psychology (Maslow, 1962, 1971; Keen, 1975) eventually absorbed Gestalt psychology's phenomenal orientation, but expanded it t o include all a s p e c t s o f a n organism's

conscious experience.

I n humanistic psy-

chology, t h e notion o f a n individual consciousness is a surrogate f o r t h e human being's

s t a t u s a s a unique,

emergent, self-reifying being with significant feeling states, goals, and a n efficacious willing self.

In c o n

temporary psychology, consciousness is not s o much a perceptual state a s it is a normative state o f being: t h e nature or quality o f a person's self-awareness is more significant and relevant than i t s mere perceptual experience. Conscious experience will be assessed o n t h e same dimensions used t o analyze behavior:

(11 a c c e s s , ( 2 )

subjectivity status, ( 3 ) composition, (4) possible u s e , and (5) relationship t o substrata and superstrata. Then t h e attempt will be made t o give it psychological reality in the context o f t h e concept o f consciousness. ACCESS

Two modes o f access t o t h e content o f con-

scious experience exist:

( 1 ) first person and ( 2 ) third

person.

FIRST PERSON

In first person a c c e s s , t h e or-

ganism, a s observer, merely divulges t h e content o f its conscious experience via verbal or written self-report. Methods o f self-report vary from constrained structuralist introspection and free-wheeling phenomenology o f Gestalt psychology, both o f which are designed t o t a p sensory o r perceptual consciousness, t o Freudian free association techniques and Rogerian client-centered therapy that externalize t h e content o f emotional consciousness [see Chapter 2). First person access often is criticized o n t w o bases (for instance, Comte, 1830-1642; Maudsley, 1867;

Chapter 3

78

Watson, 19131: (1) Many philosophers and psychologists argue that the mind cannot observe itself; and ( 2 ) t h e act o f self-report can interfere with, it not destroy, t h e content o f conscious experience.

The act o f exter-

nalizing the content of current emotional consciousness

is particularly susceptible t o the second criticism. Reporting o n past emotional consciousness, a s in therapy, i s immune from the second criticism, but is subject t o errors o f memory and distortion. Although everyone concedes t h a t only t h e experiencing self h a s direct access t o t h e content of its cons c i o u s experience, the dynamics underlying t h i s access are still in dispute ( s e e Churchland, 1984; F l a n a g a n ,

1984).

We can distinguish between a traditional and a

more contemporary view. In t h e traditional v i e w , characteristic of Oescartes (1650, 1 6 6 2 ) and t h e structuralists (Wundt, 1 8 9 6 ; Titchener, 18981, functionalists (Angell, 1904, 1907; Carr, 1925), and Gestaltists (Wertheimer, 1912; Koffka, 1922; KGhler, 19201, the s e l f i s assumed t o directly observe its conscious experience.

The operative word

here is observe: The s e l f is assumed t o be i n direct contact with what it is experiencing.

Introspective

knowledge of t h e s e l f is immediate, noninferential, given.

As such, it is supposed t o be infallible and in-

corrigible. In a more contemporary view, characteristic of Freud ( 1 9 3 9 , 1949) and Skinner (1957, 19741, internal perception (self-knowledge] is modeled after external perception [knowledge o f t h e external world): t h e content o f conscious experience is constructed, derived, inferred, not given. and incorrigible.

A s s u c h , it is not infallible

In Skinner's view, t h e content o f

introspective consciousness i s externalized via the


19

same categories used t o report the perception of external objects.

These categories are supposed t o derive

from exposure t o reinforcement administered by t h e surrounding verbal community: they are socially sourced. T h e traditional view o f direct access imparts a n especial sanctity t o conscious experience a s a n object of psychological interest.

Psychological knowledge is

privileged; t h e psychological universe is special.

The

contemporary view of direct access reduces introspective knowledge of conscious contents t o simply another kind o f perceptual knowledge and, more importantly, removes any special status from conscious experience as a n object of epiphenomena1 interest.

THIRD PERSON

Third person access t o conscious

experience is required for nonverbals and preverbals: f o r instance, animals, retardates, chronic schizophreni c s , young children, and t h e like.

Freud (1939, 1949)

never psychoanalyzed children, not because they could not t a l k , but because they did not have sufficient past experience.

I n - t h i r d person access, t h e experimenter,

a s observer, attempts t o infer t h e content of an organism's conscious experience from its overt behavior. People engage in third person access in t h e context of their everyday life all t h e t i m e , a s when they attempt t o infer a friend's or relative's

mood, disposition, or

mental state in general via observation of overt behavior.

Structuralists ( W u n d t , 1883; Titchener, 1912) en-

gaged in "introspection

by analogy" with subjects that

could not engage in self-report.

Functionalists ( A n -

gell, 1907; Carr, 1925) even introspected about t h e content o f animal consciousness. Everyone concedes that third person access t o conscious experience strictly is constructional in nature in t h e same sense a s described in t h e context o f t h e

Chapter 3

80

c o n t e m p o r a r y a p p r o a c h t o f i r s t p e r s o n a c c e s s (Mackenzie,

1977).

T h i r d p e r s o n knowledge of m e n t a l s t a t e s No p r e t e n s e

i s i n f e r r e d and d e r i v e d . a significant other's served.

T h i r d p e r s o n i n f e r e n c e s r e q u i r e some s u r r o g a t e

psychological theory t h a t cratic,

i s e v e r made t h a t

m e n t a l s t a t e s a r e d i r e c t l y ob-

i s usually

and a n a l o g i c a l l y b a s e d .

implicit,

idiosyn-

N o t i c e how a p e r s o n

w i l l i n t r o s p e c t a b o u t t h e m e n t a l s t a t e s of a p e t dog o r

,

cat,

b u t w i l l n o t do so a b o u t a f l y o r c o c k r o a c h t h a t

happens t o be i n t h e room.

The v a l i d i t y o f

introspec-

t i v e a n a l o g i e s d e c r e a s e s t h e f a r t h e r down one goes o n the phylogenetic ladder.

The h i s t o r i c a l s t a n d a r d s a s -

s o c i a t e d w i t h t h i s t y p e o f a c c e s s have changed, that virtually

such

no c o n t e m p o r a r y academic p s y c h o l o g i s t

a t t e m p t s t h i r d p e r s o n j u d g m e n t s of c o n s c i o u s e x p e r i e n c e o r c o n s t r u c t s a c o n t e n t p s y c h o l o g y f r o m them.

S U B J E C T I V I T Y STATUS

D i r e c t access t o c o n s c i o u s e x -

p e r i e n c e i s l i m i t e d t o t h e f i r s t p e r s o n presumably because i t i s a n i n t e r n a l ,

private,

subjective event.

C o n s c i o u s e x p e r i e n c e may be i n t e r n a l and p r i v a t e ,

but

i t i s n o t s u b j e c t i v e i n any a b s o l u t e o r s i m p l i s t i c

C o n s c i o u s e x p e r i e n c e i s m u c h less s u b j e c t i v e ,

sense.

o r m u c h more o b j e c t i v e , The f a c t

t h a n i t s p u b l i c image b e l i e s .

t h a t p e o p l e c a n l a b e l a s p e c t s of t h e i r c o n -

scious experience c o n s i s t e n t l y o r t h e f a c t t h a t mental s t a t e s i n g e n e r a l have a c o n s i s t e n t r e l a t i o n s h i p t o b e h a v i o r d e m o n s t r a t e s t h a t some d e g r e e of o b j e c t i v i t y c a n

be a t t a i n e d i n t h e s t u d y o f c o n s c i o u s e x p e r i e n c e .

The

p s y c h o l o g y of s e n s a t i o n and p e r c e p t i o n , t h e t r a n s c e n dence of v a r i o u s e m o t i o n a l s t a t e s i n a t h e r a p e u t i c s e t ting,

o r t h e human b e i n g ' s s e l f - a w a r e n e s s

i n general

w o u l d be i m p o s s i b l e i f c o n s c i o u s e x p e r i e n c e were subj e c t i v e i n an a b s o l u t e sense. It i s t r u e t h a t the

qualia o r characteristic nature


of

81

a n organism's conscious experience--the actual

phenomenal experience o f s o m e essence, say r e d , green, pleasure, or pain--is ineffable and noncommunicable [see Fodor, 1981).

But t h i s is irrelevant, except on'

t h e strictest construal o f a phenomenology o f mental states.

Because o f this, t h e differential qualia

problem does not prevent a psychology, or taxonomy, of

conscious mental states.

A s long a s t h e s y m b o l s

representing t h e qualia are used in a consistent way and are interpretable in a common framework, it is irrelevant that a person's experienced essence might diff e r from another's.

Likewise, t h e empirical intract-

ability o f t h e existence o f other minds c a n be bypassed if the existence o f other minds is made a metaphysical assumption in s o m e consistent interpretive framework. The notion o f conscious experience is just a s metaphysical a s that o f behavior.

Psychologists have

to create and objectify conscious experience, just a s they do behavior.

What is primitive or given in con-

sciousness and what i s derivative in consciousness are unknown.

What constitutes t h e fundamental elements o f

consciousness and what constitutes t h e phenomenal output o f these elements are arbitrary.

While t h e exper-

ienced content o f a n essence might be automatic o r i m plicit, interpretation and externalization o f t h e content o f conscious experience via symbolization--the language function of Chapter 1--are not.

The content

of conscious experience is not reifiable independently o f a model o f consciousness.

Structuralists, function-

alists, Gestaltists, Freudian depth psychologists, humanistic o r existential psychologists, even Skinnerian descriptive behaviorists have different conceptions o f the concept o f consciousness and impose dif-

82

Chapter 3

fering strictures and categories o f self-report (see Hillner, 1984). In the context o f a given technique o f externalization and a given model o f conscious experience, first person reports o f conscious content must be taken at face value.

What the observer expresses must be ac-

cepted a s true for that observer.

Since no external

reliability or validity check is possible, t h e content o f one person's

phenomenalizing cannot be generalized

to other organisms.

First person reports of conscious-

ness only permit construction o f t h e psychological world o f the observer; they cannot be used t o construct a universal psychological reality applying t o all organisms.

The notion o f interpersonal or interorganism ob-

jectivity simply does not apply when conscious experience is t h e psychologist's terest.

epiphenomena1 focus o f in-

But in t h e limited confines o f individualistic

consciousness, the experimental datum is just a s objective, or subjective, a s that associated with t h e overt behavior o f

a group o f organisms.

COMPOSITION

Recall that t h e composition o f behav-

ior is no problem, because it primarily is material in nature: behavior is a property o f t h e body in t h e Cartesian mind-body dichotomy. scious experience--the

The composition of con-

existential reality level o f con-

scious experience--is a problem.

Conscious experience

is a mental event and a property o f t h e mind in t h e Cartesian mind-body dichotomy. sition o f

Addressing t h e compo-

conscious experience is equivalent t o addres-

sing the existential reality level o f a mental event. The nature o f a mental event is open-ended:

it consti-

tutes a philosophical, especially metaphysical, issue. Four possible approaches t o the nature o f a mental event are briefly abstracted here:

(11 Cartesian sub-


83

stantive, ( 2 ) logical, (3) physical/physiological,

and

(4) functional. 0

CARTESIAN SUBSTANTIVE

F o r Rene Descartes

( 1 6 5 0 , 16621, mental events are a property o f a substance called mind, which in t u r n should be contrasted with a substance called matter.

F o r Descartes, mental

events are real, but possess characteristics t h a t are opposite to those o f physical entities: immaterial, noncorporeal, indivisible, invisible, nonspatial, nont e m p o r a l , and t h e like.

Without elaborating o n all t h e

criticisms that have been leveled at Descartes' dualism, it should be obvious that his description o f mental events effectively removes them from that part o f t h e universe amenable t o scientific analysis.

The Cartes-

ian properties o f mental events do indeed make s u c h events a mysterious commodity to t h e empiricist.

No

Contemporary psychologist gives substance t o mental events--conscious experience--in a Cartesian framework ( B u n g e , 1980; Churchland, 1984).

The Cartesian substan-

tive approach only is important because it s e r v e s a s t h e canonical view o f mentation to which every contemporary approach must react. LOGICAL

Many contemporary philosophers, such

a s Carl Hempel ( 1 9 6 9 a , 1969b, 1972) and Rudolph Carnap

(1934, 1959, 1967), give t h e notion o f a mental event substance by transforming it into s o m e kind o f logical construct.

This approach is called logical positivism

in philosophy and logical behaviorism in psychology.

A mental event is assumed to be real if it c a n be r e duced to physical thing language or a set o f behavioral correlates.

F o r instance, t h e experience o f "red"

is

real a s long a s a verbal description o f t h e behavioral consequences o r correlates accompanying the experience of

"red"

is available.

T h i s approach in large part

84

Chapter 3

merely is semantic or linguistic in nature and is not as popular a s it once w a s [see Fodor, 19811. PHYSICAL/PHYSIOLOGICAL

This approach t o

mental events derives from the philosophical position called physical o r material monism Churchland, 1984).

[see F o d o r , 1981;

Physical monism is both a classic

and contemporary approach t o mentation in which mind is reduced t o matter: mental events are conceived a s

simply another kind o f physical event.

Contemporary

physical monistic theorists ( v i z . , Lewis, 1971; Kim, 1972; Place, 1956; Smart, 1959) explicitly equate mental events or states with physiological events or states: the so-called central state identity thesis.

A mental state is set in one-to-one correspondence with some physiological entity. C-fiber firing.

F o r instance, pain is

In t h i s approach, the reality status

o f the experience o f I r e d f f is some physiological cor-

relate in the organism's neural visual information processing system.

For a psychologist who ascribes t o

the central state identity thesis, both behavior and conscious experience possess physical and physiological reality, i.e., the s a m e material composition. FUNCTIONAL

Perhaps the most popular and ac-

cepted approach t o mentation currently is one called functionalism

[see Block, 1978, 1980; Fodor, 1981;

Block and Fodor, 1972).

Note: philosophical function-

alism should not be confused with the classical psycho logical school o f the s a m e name.

This approach is a

reaction to both logical positivism and material mon-

i s m and has achieved its major impetus from its compatibility with the computer simulation or machine representation o f conscious intelligence. alists reify a mental state

in t e r m s

Function-

o f its causal

role in the sequence o f events intervening between


stimulus input and response output.

85

For instance,

pain is a mental state because it possesses a causal role between aversive stimulation and withdrawal responses.

For t h e typical functionalist, it is irrele-

vant whether a mental s t a t e , such a s pain, possesses any actual physiological representation.

Functional-

i s m d o e s have trouble specifying t h e possible causal role o f a purely sensory qualia, such a s "red," unless t h e qualia is conceptualized a s a qualitative state of

another mental state.

The qualitative state o f

t h e mental state then can be defined in t e r m s o f its causal role.

While it may not be obvious, a function-

alist defines a mental event in t h e very same fashion that a Skinnerian defines a n operant: via causal role (see Skinner, 1938, 1953).

A functionalist approach

to specification allows both behavior and conscious experience to have t h e same composition--not

with res-

pect to material content, but with respect t o c a u s a l , functional role. INTERPRETIVE S U M M A A Y

It is important t o

note t h a t , with respect t o t h e discipline's over-all compositional problem and its possible solution, the two traditional epiphenomena1 objects o f interest-conscious experience and behavior--can have t h e same composition.

T h i s composition is implicitly material

in logical positivism, explicitly material in central state identity theory, and one o f equivalent causal roles in functionalism.

Because behavior and c o n -

scious experience have diametrically opposed compositions--pure material versus pure immaterial--in Cartesian philosophy, any possible solution o f t h e compositional problem could not proceed along Cartesian lines. USE

What is the possible use or value associated

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86

with conscious experience a s one o f t h e epiphenomena1 foci o f psychology? The ultimate value o f conscious experience der i v e s from its privacy and inaccessibility, especially when viewed from the level o f qualia.

These high-

light t h e fact that each person is unique and exists in a private psychological world, a state o f affairs which t h e objective approach focusing on behavior by its very nature must repress.

Each one o f u s h a s and

lives in a psychological environment that cannot be penetrated by another living organism.

Humanistic

psychology [Maslow, 1971; Rogers, 1961; Keen, 1975) continually r e m i n d s us that t h i s fact should not be forgotten.

To a lesser degree, Freudian depth psy-

chology (Munroe, 1955) d o e s t h e s a m e , although it d o e s presume the existence o f a universal psychodynamics o r psychic determinism that must be t a k e n into consideration. The human being is t h e only creature on earth that we can be reasonably sure possesses self-consciousness.

T h i s probably is the ultimate source o f

our ethical, moral, and religious consciousness, all o f which contribute t o t h e necessity o f

investigating

and understanding our psychological nature.

Our in-

telligence far exceeds t h a t o f any other living organ-

i s m , and it must be tempered by t h e reflection and rationality that self-consciousness allows. The discipline's

initial focus o n conscious e x -

perience served a s a n end in itself: t h e classical schools o f structuralism

(Wundt, 1896; Titchener,

1898) and Gestalt psychology [Wertheimer, 1 9 1 2 ; K o f f k a , 1 9 2 2 ; Kxhler, 1920) were interested in sensory and perceptual conscious experience solely a s a n intellectual endeavor.

The content o f

sensory and per-


a7

ceptual consciousness served a s t h e basic object o f study in the content o f

observation in t h e context o f

first person access and a s t h e indirect, inferred object o f

study in t h e content o f observation in t h e

context o f third person access.

In other words, con-

sciousness was treated a s a passive receptacle, flushable by various introspective techniques. Sensory and perceptual events no longer are regarded a s exhausting consciousness, but have devolved t o merely one aspect o f t h e psychological universe, a s emphasized by contemporary cognitive behaviorism

(Solso, 1979; Anderson, 1980).

It now is realized

that our mentation constructs many different conscious realities: memorial, epistemological, even motor.

In

addition, consciousness is conceived a s a dynamic en-

-

t i t y ; and its contents are hypothesized via externally imposed cognitive models a la third person a c c e s s in t h e quasi-objective orientation.

Cognitive conscious

experience now occupies t h e locus o f causation slot o f t h e content o f observation, t o be studied a s any other hypothetical unobservable. The discipline's current focus o n conscious experience serves a s a means to another end: contemporary interest in emotional consciousness, a s exemplified by humanistic psychology (Maslow, 1971; Rogers, 1961; Keen, 1975), revolves around t h e attempt t o bett e r understand the individual organism and its coming to t e r m s with t h e environment.

Only the emotional as-

pects o f consciousness now c a n serve a s the basic object o f study in the content o f observation, specifically in the humanistic therapeutic context that f o cuses o n the individual a s a n end in itself.

First

person access t o conscious experience in t h e subjective orientation now is limited t o those aspects o f

Chapter 3

88

t h e organism that help characterize its s t a t e of adjustment and general level o f self-acceptance and happiness. RELATIONSHIP TO SUBSTRATA AND SUPERSTRATA

Recall

that we are assuming that t h e human organism essentially is a biological creature within the s k i n and a social creature outside t h e skin.

Conscious experi-

ence c a n be either a biological entity o r a social ent i t y , or both, contingent on one's metaphysics. The materialist account of m i n d , subsumed by logical positivism and central state identity t h e o r y , would have no trouble treating conscious experience a s some kind o f physiological event.

The possible physi-

ological reality of conscious experience is irrelevant in functionalism.

Cartesian dualism denies any ulti-

mate physiological basis t o consciousness.

The fact

that consciousness is affected by all sorts of physiological manipulations, s u c h a s drugs, lesions, food or water deprivation, and t h e like, demonstrates that conscious experience is at least indirectly tied in with a n organism's substrata (Bunge, 1980). Consciousness is not a social entity in structuralism or Gestalt psychology.

It is implicitly social

in t h e functionalist s c h o o l , cognitive behaviorism, genetic-epistemological psychology, humanism, and depth psychology.

The surrogate f o r consciousness in

descriptive behaviorism i s explicitly social in nature.

Consciousness i s a n explicit social entity in

dialectical psychology, a n a n offshoot of dialectical materialism ( M a r x , 1867), and strictly social in origin. The ambiguous nature o f conscious experience makes those content psychologies that focus o n t h e individual organism a s t h e unit of analysis, such a s depth psychology and humanism, share overlapping boun-


89

daries with philosophy, theology, literature, and other humanities (see Chapter 10). THE CONCEPT OF CONSCIOUSNESS used t h e t e r m s "consciousness

,"

I n Chapter 1 , we

"intelligence, '' and

"conscious intelligence" equivalently.

In t h i s chap-

t e r , we have used t h e t e r m s "consciousness,"

"con-

s c i o u s experience," and "the contents o f c o n s c i o u s experience" equivalently and have allowed t h e specific context in which t h e t e r m s appeared t o identify t h e precise meaning o r usage intended.

T h i s approach is

justifiable, because aspects o f mentation, or mental events per se, can occupy either slot o f t h e content o f observation and c a n serve a s direct o r indirect

(inferred) objects o f study, depending o n t h e psychologist's orientation and goal.

It now is necessary

t o be more precise with respect to t h e usage o f these terms. The t e r m s "conscious experience" and "content o f conscious experience" are used t o refer t o epiphenomenal output o r basic object o f s t u d y , regardless o f its direct or indirect [ i n f e r r e d ) status.

The t e r m s

"consciousness" and "conscious intelligence" a r e used t o r e f e r to input, interpreted either a s a locus o f causation o r a s a higher level theoretical construct.

I n t h i s context, conscious experience gives form o r substance t o consciousness o r is a derivative o r product o f consciousness. Conscious experience, in and o f itself, possesses no inherent psychological reality.

In certain inter-

pretations, t h e composition o f conscious experience is continuous with that o f behavior; however, behavior's

material composition i s not t h e source o f its

psychological reality.

Analogously, we must go be-

yond t h e notion o f conscious experience itself in or-

Chapter 3

90

der t o give it psychological representation.

The most

convenient assumption t o make at t h i s point--and

it

will not be formally justified here--is simply that conscious experience derives its psychological reality by being the product o f consciousness.

Recall from

Chapter 1 that the necessary conditions for t h e creation o f psychological knowledge include possession o f conscious intelligence and t h e language function.

Con-

scious intelligence is t h e source o f conscious experie n c e , and the latter only can be symbolized and externalized via t h e language function.

In effect, we are

arguing that conscious experience possesses psychological reality because it interfaces with t h e t w o processes that are responsible f o r the creation o f psychological reality in t h e first place: when psychologists f o c u s o n conscious experience as a n epiphenomenon, they are studying an entity intimately associated with t h e origin o f the discipline itself. The cognitive component o f consciousness called belief will b e analyzed in Chapter 9 a s a n aspect o f folk psychology

[see Stich, 1983).

STATUS OF EPIPHENOMENA I N CLASSICAL A N 0 CONTEMPORARY PSYCHOLOGY Ouring t h e era o f t h e classical schools o f , p s y chology [rcrughly 1880 t o 19301, t h e issue o f t h e discipline's proper epiphenomena1 f o c u s o f interest constituted a crucial metaphysical battleground.

For

instance :

1. Structuralism explicitly focused on conscious experience and possessed no formal concept o f behavior.

2. Functionalism explicitly focused o n consciousness, but also implicitly focused on behavior. 3. Gestalt psychology explicitly focused o n both

conscious experience and behavior.


91

4. Watsonian behaviorism explicitly focused o n behavior and either denied the existence o f consciousness o r found it irrelevant. Conscious experience and behavior were regarded a s independent, absolute, metaphysical categories o f existence; and the adherents o f one school refused t o accept t h e epiphenomena1 f o c u s o f any other school a s psychology.

These deep metaphysical disagreements at

t h e epiphenomena1 level accentuated t h e discipline's compositional problem; however, it i s highly unlikely that t h e discipline was cognizant of any such problem: t h e trouble merely existed at a purely personal level --with other people who refused t o accept your own view o f psychology. Contemporary psychologists either do not formally distinguish between conscious experience and behavior o r , if they do

informal provision via.conversion

statements is made for t h e kinds o f phenomena subsumed by t h e other label ng.

In other words, psychologists

today realize that the distinction between conscious experience and behavior strictly is semantic: they merely constitute descriptive, linguistic categories. For instance:

1 . Skinnerian behaviorism focuses o n overt behavior, but extends the concept t o include t h e content o f perceptual

and introspective awareness or conscious

experience. 2. Cognitive behaviorism deals with various sym-

bolic o r mental processes interpreted a s physical events. 3. The object o f study o f humanism can b e concep-

tualized a s holistic adaptation, which is a behavioral construct, or a s subjective feeling/awareness, which i s a n aspect o f conscious experience.

Chapter 3

92

4. Freud's version o f depth psychology postulates a psychic determinism t h a t makes internal mental processes and overt behavior inseparable components o f a closed system.

5. Dialectical psychology studies nonalieneted, nonabstracted homo sapiens, in which context t h e distinction between conscious experience and behavior is vacuous. Whether contemporary psychologists r e f e r t o their f o c u s o f interest a s conscious experience or behavior primarily is a function o f goals.

Epistemological

psychology and understanding psychology primarily f o c u s o n conscious experience. structed in t e r m s o f behavior.

An action system is conDialectical psychology

t r e a t s both conscious experience and behavior.

Only

depth psychology focuses o n a metaphysical category not resolvable in t e r m s o f conscious experience or behavior: t h e unconscious, The basic semanticity o f the behavior-conscious experience distinction i s revealed by t h e isomorphism o f t h e Skinnerian and cognitive behaviorist approaches.

The way in which Skinner ( 1 9 5 3 ) defines a piece o f behavior and t h e way in which a cognitive psychologist, such a s Fodor [1981), defines a mental state are exactly t h e s a m e ; namely, in t e r m s o f functional, causal role.

For Skinner, all experience i s behavior: t h e

contents o f both introspective and perceptual awareness constitute reportable discriminable responses. Experience merely is behavior occurring within t h e s k i n , analyzable in t e r m s o f the s a m e physical categories used t o describe overt behavior.

F o r a cogni-

tive psychologist, mentation is assumed analogous to t h e behavior o f some physical system, such a s a computer.

Organismic mentation only differs from some

Epiphenometia: Conscious Experience and Behavior

form o f

93

mechanical information processing in t e r m s o f

t h e hardware involved.

F o r S k i n n e r , everything t h a t

occurs subsequent to t h e presentation o f some stimulus event is output; f o r a cognitive psychologist, everything that happens prior t o t h e occurrence o f a response event is input.

The portion o f the output oc-

curring within t h e skin f o r Skinner and t h e portion o f t h e input occurring within t h e s k i n f o r a cognitive

behaviorist consist o f t h e same functionally defined material events. The metaphysical neutrality o f behavior and cons c i o u s experience is even more pronounced in t h e context o f a comparison between radical behaviorism and humanism.

Both Skinner (19741 and a humanist, such

a s Giorgi (19701, allow third person access t o overt behavior and first person access to mental events. Skinner and a humanist only differ with respect t o t h e source o f t h e reference point used t o interpret t h e output in each case: they differ merely with respect t o t h e specification o f t h e locus o f causation.

Skin-

ner interprets output strictly in t e r m s o f t h e immediate environmental situation or t h e past reinforcement history o f t h e organism.

A humanist

interprets output

strictly in t e r m s o f the perceived psychological world o f t h e organism.

The change in status o f t h e discipline's two traditional epiphenomena1 objects o f study occurred for t w o reasons. 1. Psychologists eventually realized that neither analytical category is conceptually o r methodologically distinct from the other.

The skin even cannot be

used a s a n arbitrary dividing line separating c o n s c i o u s experience from behavior: virtually every internal physiological activity c a n b e conceptualized a s

94

Chapter 3

behavior.

Conscious experience only c a n be external-

ized through behavior (self-report or third person inferences), and behavior only can be given meaning by reference to some external framework that usually includes knowledge of an organism's mental s t a t e s (intentions, desires, and t h e like): cf. the concept of action.

2. Psychologists eventually realized t h a t where consciousness e n d s and behavior begins, or vice versa, strictly is arbitrary.

Consciousness d o e s not exist

in a vacuum; consciousness exists in a behaving organism.

Both the nature and quality o f the content of

consciousness depend on one's overt behavior, both in a short t e r m , episodic s e n s e and i n a long t e r m , structural sense.

Conversely, behavior does not occur in

a vacuum; behavior is t h e output o f a self-aware organ-

i s m o r a neuronal monitoring system in t h e brain. Meaningful behavior cannot occur without some preliminary mentation, even if it is conceptualized merely a s some kind o f physiological or brain activity. The epiphenomena1 aspects o f t h e compositional problem reduce t o a matter o f linguistic usage in contemporary psychology, a fact which should facilitate ultimate solution o f t h e compositional problem.

,

THE COMPOSITIONAL PROBLEM AND ITS POSSIBLE SOLUTION At a n epiphenomena1 level, psychology's compositional problem amounts t o a duality with respect t o basic object o f study.

The discipline c a n f o c u s o n

conscious experience or behavior.

The uses, status,

and Composition of t h e respective foci have changed aver t h e years. content o f

Classical psychology emphasized t h e

epistemological o r perceptual conscious-

ness, a s a n intellectual endeavor, justifying the original establishment of t h e discipline; contemporary


95

psychology stresses the nature and quality o f t h e individual's feeling state or self-awareness in a therapeutic context.

Classical psychology focused o n behav-

ior a s a n end in itself in a strict descriptive, objective framework; contemporary psychology s t u d i e s behavior a s a means of identifying i t s ultimate hypothetical, unobservable sources.

Both conscious exper-

ience and behavior have evolved from absolute metaphysical categories t o merely descriptive linguistic distinctions.

The respective compositions of t h e s e two

classes of epiphenomena also have begun t o converge: it is possible to conceive o f both conscious experience and behavior a s possessing the same material or functional composition. Solution o f t h e compositional problem via t h e construction o f a satisfactory representational scheme f o r generating psychological events would merely r e quire t h e adoption o f s o m e standard vocabulary at t h e epiphenomena1 level providing f o r t h e possible uses, status, and composition o f t h e discipline's t w o traditional objects of study.

T h i s vocabulary would have

t o reflect t h e r o l e of action and consciousness in ascribing psychological representation t o behavior and conscious experience respectively.


97

CHAPTER 4

EXPLANATION: FACE VALID CONSTRUCTS

One o f t h e functions o f a psychologist is to explain phenomena that are regarded a s psychological in nature.

Explanation is a multifaceted notion:

1 . It is just a s much a philosophical issue a s t h e mind-body problem, t h e nature o f the human being, or the nature and source o f knowledge.

2. At a psychological level, it can provide intellectual closure, emotional satisfaction, or both. 3. At a purely pragmatic level, it c a n be instru-

mental in the accomplishment o f other goals.

4. What constitutes t h e acceptable range and content o f explanatory constructs basically is a cultural matter.

5. Existentially, explanation i s always partial, approximate, a n ideal.

Explanation only appears com-

plete because it exists in some symbolic, conceptual context in which necessary presuppositions or background factors are implicit or understood. 6. Etiologically, it is a property o f our con-

s c i o u s intelligence [see Chapter 1).

Only t h e human

being demands explanations o f the milieu in which it finds itself. We must use the psychological aspect o f explanation a s our point o f departure in t h i s chapter.

In

t h i s context, explanation can perform either o f two

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98

functions: (1) interpretation at t h e strictly rational or logical level and ( 2 ) resolution at a strictly emotional o r feeling level.

Each o f t h e s e functions is

associated with a distinctive class o f explanation. In twentieth century Western culture intellectual closure primarily is achieved via scientific explanation; emotional satisfaction primarily is induced by a process called empathy or empathetic identification. Both scientific explanation and empathetic identification a r e formalized extensions o f folk wisdom and really constitute opposite e n d s o f a continuum.

Other

points o n this continuum can be labeled function-analytical explanation and ideology.

The former affords

intellectual closure; t h e latter yields emotional satisfaction. Scientific explanation is characteristic o f action, epistemological, and dialectical psychology. The function-analytical approach i s implicit in action psychology, but currently is associated basically with cognitive psychology.

Many psychologists consider

depth psychology, in general, and Freudian psychoanalysis, in particular, t o be a n ideology.

Empathetic

identification is a n attribute o f humanistic, existential, phenomenological psychology. The correlation between type of psychology and preferred explanatory mode i s both a cause and symptom of

t h e discipline's

of

t h i s problem can be highlighted by the following

compositional problem.

The depth

relational statements: Intellectual closure, specifically scientific explanation, is associated with the objective orientation, f o c u s o n t h e significant other, t h e subject as a means t o another e n d , and t h e use of a n externally imposed criterion t o define psychological reality; emotional satisfaction, primarily via em-


99

pathetic identification, is characteristic o f t h e subjective orientation, f o c u s o n the self, the subject a s a n end in itself, and psychological reality contingent o n individual consciousness.

The individual achieving

intellectual closure is t h e observer in a n objective context; t h e object o f empathy is t h e self, o r actor, in a subjective context. Neither class o f explanation is final in any absolute sense.

Infinite regression i s prevented in

each case simply because somewhere along t h e line the individual is satisfied with t h e current level and/or content o f t h e explanation.

But t h e nature o f t h e

satisfaction i s vastly different in each case.

Con-

trast t h e notion o f "happiness" a s defined and measured by a n experimental psychologist and a s experienced by a client in a therapy session.

B.

F.

Skin-

ner (1976) often is quoted a s never having experienced happiness.

This probably is d u e t o h i s ultrapositi-

vistic, i.e., strictly operational, orientation.

Con-

versely, Carl Rogers (1961) exudes happiness, but would never dream o f quantifying or measuring it. The two classes o f explanation ultimately derive from t w o different views o f t h e human organism (Scriven, 1964; Wertheimer, 1972).

Intellectual closure-sci-

ence is a correlate o f regarding homo sapiens a s a mechanism: the human is a real-time, real-space, physical-chemical entity, subject t o t h e same natural forces a s every other facet o f universe.

t h e naturally occurring

Indigenous t o mechanism is the concept o f

determinism.

Human beings c a n serve a n a n object o f

interest for science simply because their behavior is determined.

Emotional satisfaction-empathetic

identi-

fication is a correlate o f regarding t h e homo sapiens a s a moral agent: t h e human transcends the natural un-

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100

iverse, is a repository o f self-consciousness and self-determination, and is a n efficacious creator o f psychological reality.

Human beings serve a s a n ob-

ject o f psychological analysis simply because they are self-aware, are responsible f o r their own actions, and can serve a s arbiters o f their own future. T o document t h e ramifications o f t h e composition-

al problem for t h e conduction o f academic psychology at t h e explanatory level, we shall ( 1 ) analyze, evaluate, and compare the four modes o f interpretation lying along the explanatory continuum, ( 2 ) consider t h e epiphenomena o f Chapter 3--conscious experience and behavior--as possible explanatory entities (i.e., a s occupiers o f t h e locus o f causation slot o f t h e content o f observation), and (3) discuss the need f o r face valid explanatory constructs. SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION Scientific explanation is indigenous to action psychology--psychology

t h a t focuses o n behavior in a

third person access, objective or quasi-objective framework.

In t h i s context, behavior is viewed simply

a s another kind o f natural phenomenon--continuous with t h e activity o f inanimate objects focused on by physics and chemistry. ent o f ,

Psychological reality is a compon-

or at least continuous with, physical reality:

t h e individual organism producing behavior is not the focus o f interest; rather t h e behavior itself and its etiology a s a real-time, real-space event constitute the object o f analysis.

6 . F . Skinner (1974), the

prototypical contemporary descriptive behaviorist, even considers his system to be a philosophy o f science f o r behavior. T h e nature o f s c i e n c e , in general, and scientific explanation, in particular, is a philosophical issue--


101

one that we are not going t o explicitly address [but Suffice it t o say that ( 1 )

see Turner, 1967, 1971).

the goal o f science is a n account o f how t h i n g s really work a n d , a s a consequence o f this, (2) t h e scientific mode o f explanation allows prediction and/or control of

As

its objects o f interest--in our case, behavior.

inferred in the epistemology comments o f Chapter 2, t h e scientific approach and its attendant technology are so dominant today that they constitute t h e only acceptable extant mode o f reality resolution at a n intellectual, rational level.

Any emotional satisfaction, o r secur-

ity, afforded by scientific explanation merely is ancillary: t h e general public experiences little o r no benefit from science at t h e emotional level. We did not become a scientifically oriented culture and society overnight [Bronowski and Mazlish, 1960).

It required many centuries o f struggle against

established authority, buttressed by a strictly theological vision o f the nature o f existence.

T h i s helps

explain t w o aspects o f science that are viewed negatively by the public at large.

1. The conduction

of

science i s a self-conscious,

heavily self-monitored effort or) t h e part o f i t s practitioners: it is a n elitest endeavor o n t h e part o f its detractors.

Science is a bundle o f rules, procedures,

constrictions, limitations: it only c a n answer certain questions, in certain ways, and with no finality.

Sci-

ence is a delimited game: played according t o t h e rules, it c a n reap vast benefits; violation o f t h e r u l e s leads t o pure junk.

Behaviorism should be judged in t h i s

context: it is the only view o f t h e psychological universe t h a t the strict application o f t h e science game allows.

Behaviorism should not be judged a s a cornmon-

sense o r emotional approach t o t h e nature o f t h e human

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Chapter 4

being: divorcing behaviorism from i t s scientific strictures makes it seem artificial or worthless.

2. Scientific explanation only can be applied t o phenomena that are definable, describable, and measurable.

There c a n be no disagreement in science o n

what is to be explained.

Science only deals with re-

peatable, valid, nonelusive, stable phenomena.

Other

kitfds o f phenomena simply do not exist f o r t h e scientist.

Behaviorism precludes the existence o f many

phenomena that are held dear by t h e general public: parapsychological phenomena, spiritual love, miracles, and t h e like.

Again, t h i s situation should be judged

by t h e rules o f t h e science game.

Behaviorism i s not

a self-conscious conspiracy t o deny humanity o f its essence or t o misrepresent a person in all its emot i o n a l , spiritual, or cultural richness. The logic o f scientific explanation in a psychological context i s quite simple.

A piece o f behavior

is scientifically explained once it i s identified a s a particular instance o f s o m e general law or relationship.

The option exists t o resolve t h e law, in t u r n ,

in t e r m s o f some higher order interpretive framework, usually called a theory.

Thus, t w o interrelated hier-

archical levels o f scientific explanation exist:

(1)

descriptive and ( 2 ) theoretical (Hillner, 1978). Watson ( 1 9 1 3 ) and Skinner (1938, 1953) advocate descriptive behaviorism. explanation.

They only allow descriptive

Contemporary cognitive behaviorism (An-

derson, 1980) and t h e many variants o f logical behaviorism (Hull, Guthrie, Tolman: see Chapter 2) use theoretical explanation, in addition t o descriptive explanation. Recall that one o f t h e correlates o f scientific explanation i s determinism.

Scientific explanation


103

and determinism mutually imply each other ( s e e Underwood, 1957).

The various interpretations o f deter-

minism associated with t h e dominant f o r m s o f behaviorism must be presented. Descriptive explanation will be analyzed f i r s t , f o r t w o basic reasons:

( 1 ) it is the specific entity

to which a given theoretical explanation usually is applied; and ( 2 ) it is more intimately related t o t h e correlate o f determinism. DESCRIPTIVE EXPLANATION

A given psychological

phenomenon, such a s behavior, is descriptively explained by relating it t o t h e real-time and real-space environmental events that control its occurrence.

A

descriptive explanation entails t h e specific causal law o r functional relationship that underlies t h e occurrence o f a given behavioral phenomenon [see Hillner, 19781.

The notion o f

was implicit in Chapter 2.

a descriptive explanation It amounts t o t h e input-

output relationship that constitutes t h e content o f observation for t h e Watsonian and Skinnerian behavioristic systems.

The primary descriptive variables for

Watson and Skinner involve conditioning and/or reinforcement contingencies (see Skinner, 1969). Descriptive explanation imposes two restrictions o n t h e environmental events that c a n serve a s input variables:

( 1 ) they only c a n precede o r be concurrent

with t h e output variable in t i m e , and ( 2 ) t h e total number o f

preceding and concurrent environmental

events associated with a given output variable must be finite.

Sometimes the second restriction is re-

ferred t o a s t h e assumption o f finite causation (Under wood, 1957). The primary advantage o f descriptive explanation is t h a t it affords prediction and control.

Once a

104

Chapter 4

particular behavioral phenomenon h a s become part o f a n input-output relationship and has been descriptively explained, in principle its future occurrence can Knowledge o f t h e values

be predicted o r controlled.

o f t h e input variables allows predictive statements

t o be made about t h e occurrence o f t h e output phenome n a ; active manipulation o f t h e values o f t h e input variables allows the occurrence o f t h e output phenomena to be controlled. The distinction between prediction and control merely is semantic in nature.

Which o f t h e t w o is

occurring in any given c a s e is a function o f t h e psychologist's intentions.

The conceptual relationship

existing between prediction and control has changed over t h e years a s descriptive behaviorism h a s evolved. In Watsonian behaviorism, which assumed a hard core interpretation o f determinism, predicti'on i s logically prior t o control; and t h e ability to predict behavior underlies t h e ability t o control behavior.

In

Skinnerian behaviorism, which t a k e s a softer view o f determinism, control is logically prior t o prediction; and t h e ability t o control behavior underlies the ability t o predict behavior. It is in t h e context o f the softer view o f determinism that Skinner (1953) is said to explain by control.

For Skinner, once a specific piece o f be-

havior is controllable, all possible relevant empirical knowledge about the behavior has been exhausted. One need not dig deeper and seek other levels o f explanation. It should be noted t h a t many functional relationships are probabilistic in nature: they constitute statistical regularities. havior

1

The probability t h a t be-

occurs in conjunction with o r following vari-


able

X

105

is less t h a n one, but greater t h a n zero.

Prob-

abilistic laws do not vitiate descriptive explanation. They merely demonstrate that complete predictability of

o r control over behavior i s a n ideal, difficult t o

obtain in actual practice. not connote lack o f

Statistical regularity d o e s

predictability o r control, only

imperfect predictability or control. THEORETICAL EXPLANATION

Logical behaviorism and

cognitive behaviorism go beyond t h e descriptive level o f analysis.

Determining t h e set o f empirical vari-

ables o f which a particular piece o f behavior is a f u n c tion d o e s not constitute a complete explanation o f t h e behavior.

These f o r m s o f behaviorism ask t h e question

"Why is behavior

- -

1a

function o f variables

51, & , &,

EN?"

* Y Resolving t h i s question requires reference t o a higher order level o f explanation, t h e theo-

retical level.

The explanatory device existing at t h i s

level is called a theory.

A theory [see Hillner, 1 9 7 8 , 1979) is a set

of

verbal statements [blueprints, r u l e s , o r axiomatic syst e m ) which, if explicitly actualized, would generate a n aspect o f t h e descriptive level o f analysis, either t h e input situation, t h e output situation, or both [ a n input-output relationship).

Behavioristic theories come

in all shapes and sizes, ranging from a simple, informal theory composed o f a few sentences in the vernacular t o a complex, highly abstract, formal theory stated in axiomatic and mathematical form.

A theory constitutes a higher order explanation

of

some aspect o f t h e descriptive level o f analysis in t h e sense that t h e descriptive aspect is derivable from it. In t h e ideal c a s e , derivation occurs through explicit logical deduction; in less t h a n t h e ideal c a s e , derivation i s done implicitly: t h e descriptive statement is

Chapter 4

106

a n informal implication o f t h e theory. A theory must fulfill a crucial requirement if it A

is t o be taken seriously: empirical testability.

theory must be amenable t o empirical validation in o r der t o serve a s a source o f higher order explanation in t h e context o f science.

Functionally t h i s means

that t h e theory must generate one o r more predictions, commonly called hypotheses, other t h a n the input-output relationship it putatively explains, that are capable o f

empirical assessment in a specific laboratory

or research situation.

S o a scientific theory not

only explains; it also must predict. The substantive content o f a theory involves reference t o one or more so-called theoretical constructs. Theoretical constructs, as is the case with theories themselves, come in all s h a p e s and sizes.

A theoreti-

cal construct usually c a n be given a specification o n each o f

two independent dimensions [Hillner, 19781:

( 1 ) level o f

reality and ( 2 ) existence status.

1. Two general levels o f reality exist: constructive and reductive.

A constructive theoretical con-

cept is stated at t h e same level o f reality a s t h e descriptive fact t o be explained: behavioral or psychological.

A reductive theoretical construct is

stated at some level o f

reality lower than t h e fact to

be explained, usually t h e physiological level.

Ex-

plaining a behavioral fact in terms o f t h e underlying physiology involved technically is referred t o a s reductionism [Turner, 1967).

2. Existence status refers t o whether o r not the denotation o f exists.

t h e theoretical construct actually

Theoretical constructs that possess t h e exis-

tence property usually a r e called hypothetical constructs; theoretical constructs that do not possess


107

the existence property usually are c a l l e d intervening v a r i a b l e s (MacCorquodale and M e e h l ,

1948;

Marx,

1951).

R e c a l l f ro m Chapter 2 t h a t l o g i c a l b e h a v i o r i s m a series o f

e s s e n t i a l l y c o n s i s t s of

learning theories

t h a t dominated t h e d i s c i p l i n e b e g i n n i n g around 1930. The h i s t o r y o f l o g i c a l b e h a v i o r i s m , a s a l e a r n i n g p s y c a n be c h a r a c t e r i z e d i n t e r m s of f o u r t h e o -

chology,

r e t i c a l phases ( H i l l n e r ,

1979):

1. The m a c r o t h e o r e t i c a l e r a ( 1 9 3 0 - 1 9 5 0 ) a t t e m p t s were made b y H u l l r i e (19351, process o f 2.

(1943,

1951,

i n which

19521,

and Tolrnan ( 1 9 3 2 ) t o e x p l a i n t h e o v e r - a l l learning.

The r n i c r o t h e o r e t i c a l e r a

(1930-now]

i n which

a t t e m p t s were and a r e made b y Osgood ( 1 9 4 9 ) , (19621, (1944,

Underwood ( w i t h S c h u l z , 1959),

and Amsel

(1958,

19601,

The macromodel e r a

Neal M i l l e r

situation.

(1950-1960)

t e m p t s were made b y E s t e s ( 1 9 5 0 , M o s t e l l e r , 1951,

Postman

1962) t o e x p l a i n t h e

l e a r n i n g t h a t occurs i n a s p e c i f i c

3.

Guth-

i n which a t -

19601,

Bush ( w i t h

1 9 5 5 ) , M o s t e l l e r , and R e s t l e (1962,

1975) t o m a t h e m a t i c a l l y f o r m a l i z e t h e l e a r n i n g p r o c e s s . 4.

The r n i c r o m o d e l e r a

(1960-now)

t e m p t s a r e made b y Bower ( 1 9 5 9 , Atkinson,

19601,

19621,

i n which a t -

Suppes ( w i t h

and A t k i n s o n ( 1 9 5 7 ) t o m a t h e m a t i c a l l y

f o r m a l i z e t h e l e a r n i n g t h a t occurs i n a s p e c i f i c s i t u ation.

Many of t h e c u r r e n t m i c r o m o d e l s of l e a r n i n g

a r e c o g n i t i v e i n n a t u r e and i n v o l v e c o m p u t e r p r o g r a m s and s i m u l a t i o n .

T h e r e i s n o h a r d and f a s t d i v i d i n g

l i n e between c u r r e n t i n f o r m a t i o n p r o c e s s i n g p s y c h o l ogy and t h e rnicromodel

investigation o f learning.

The f o u r phases u n d e r l y i n g e f f o r t s a t l e a r n i n g t h e o r y c o n s t r u c t i o n a r e a n a l y z a b l e i n t e r m s o f two interacting trends and ( 2 )

formality.

(Hillner,

1979):

(1) generality

G e n e r a l i t y r e f e r s t o e x a c t l y what

Chapter 4

108

is being explained: t h e macro approach f o c u s e s o n t h e over-all learning process itself; t h e micro approach only deals with learning a s it occurs in a particular experimental situation.

Formality involves how ex-

planation actually is accomplished: theory r e f e r s to any nonmathematical means o f deduction; model refers t o explicit use o f mathematical equations t o effect deductive predictions.

T h u s , the history o f learning

theory is divisible into successive cycles o f

and

high formality, superimposed o n each o f which are successive subcycles o f high and

generality.

Note

that t h e low formality, low generality strategy (i.e., microtheory] never did d i e out. The general shift in f o c u s from logical behavior-

i s m t o cognitive behaviorism that occurred during the 1960s was accompanied by t h e replacement o f mechanist i c , peripherally locused theoretical constructs with constructional, centrally locused theoretical mechan-

isms.

Such concepts a s habit strength, drive, res-

ponse threshold, and behavioral oscillation (see Hull, 19431 were replaced by s u c h constructs a s strategy selection, attention, stimulus salience, short term memory, coding, and cuing [see Restle, 1975). I n general, a psychologist's effort t o construct acceptable theoretical explanation does not occur in a conceptual vacuum.

Exactly what aspect o f behavior

should be explained, t o what degree o f preciseness, and by what t y p e o f theoretical construct do not constitute fixed constants: they are themselves variables that t a k e o n different values a s a function o f a whole host o f

other factors.

T o some degree, t h e conduction

o f psychology at the interpretive level i s a faddish

endeavor, responsive to changing s t y l e s and patterns o f theorization.


109

The discipline o f psychology is a n avaricious borrower:

it absorbs more from other f i e l d s of endeav-

A

o r t h a n other f i e l d s have ever absorbed from it.

socially acceptable way o f expressing t h i s is t o say that psychology possesses recipient status.

T h e only

exception t o t h i s rule is Freudian psychoanalysis (Munroe, 1955); but remember that t h i s is a nonacademic, nonexperimental psychology. Considering t h e fact that behavior possesses material composition (see Chapter 31, it should not be surprising that physics and physiology historically constitute t h e primary external influences o n psychological theorization (see Hillner, 1984 and Chapter

10).

Recently chemically and biochemically based mod-

els have begun t o appear (for instance, see Oeutsch,

1971).

The basic conceptual theme underlying t h e dis-

cipline's recipient status is that o f reductionism. Prior t o t h e development o f t h e computer, which allows t h e use o f functionally defined (see Chapter 3) o r logically derived constructs that are essentially cognitive in nature, only strict adherence t o t h e Watsonian and Skinnerian proscription o f theoretical explanation could mitigate against t h e historical thrust o f reductionism

(Turner, 1967).

DESCRIPTIVE VERSUS THEORETICAL EXPLANATION

EX-

planation by control and explanation by deduction are continuous and complementary entities.

The former in-

puts into t h e latter, and t h e latter completes t h e former.

Either type o f explanation is perfectly ac-

ceptable in t h e context o f a n objective, externally based resolution o f

overt behavior.

Skinner ( 1 9 7 4 )

limits himself t o t h e descriptive level because his goal i s control.

Logical and cognitive behaviorists

use a n additional theoretical level because they seek

Chapter 4

110

a more comprehensive understanding and vie t o emulate the "harder"

physical sciences.

Neither t y p e o f ex-

planation ever will supplant the other.

Descriptive

never will replace theoretical because o f t h e sheer intellectual f u n o f

theory construction and evaluation;

theoretical never will replace descriptive because o f

(1) t h e contingent relationship existing between them and ( 2 ) the exigencies o f practical application. The mechanics o f progress are completely different in the context o f descriptive and theoretical explanation (Kendler, 1981).

The success o f explana-

tion by control i s a function o f such factors an hardware technology; ethical standards or judicial decisions; and selection, training, and ability o f behavioral modification specialists.

The success o f explana-

tion by deduction is a more subjective and elusive notion that is contingent o n standards o f precision and predictability, strictness o f empirical evaluation criteria, available modes o f acceptable theory construction, and faddish c y c l e s in theoretical construct preference.

Explanation by control is constrained

mostly by externally imposed procedural factors, while explanation by deduction i s constrained by considerat i o n s that are a n inherent part o f t h e theory construction and evaluation process, specifically dicta associated with t h e philosophy o f science [see Brodbeck, 1968). DETERMINISM

The principle o f determinism is a

metaphysical assumption, associated with t h e mechanistic view o f t h e human organism, that the behaviorist applies t o overt behavior.

Because o f its metaphysi-

cal status, no amount o f empirical research c a n ever validate t h e principle.

The experimental psychologist

does not perform research t o demonstrate the validity

Explanation: Face Valid Constructs of

t h e assumption o f

111

determinism; t h e assumption jus-

tifies laboratory investigation o f behavior in t h e first place.

Likewise, attempts t o control behavior

in t h e natural environment outside the laboratory constitute applications, not vindications, o f t h e principle

determinism.

of

Psychologists that do not ac-

cept t h e principle o f determinism profess a vastly different psychology: e.g., phenomenologically oriented humanism

( K e e n , 1975).

As is t r u e o f any metaphysical concept, t h e prin-

ciple o f determinism admits o f numerous interpretations.

We shall simplify t h e analysis somewhat by as-

suming that there are only two broad interpretations o f t h e notion o f

determinism:

( 1 ) a traditional strict

one and ( 2 ) a more contemporary flexible one.

Each o f

these versions o f determinism not only has differential consequences f o r the relationship between prediction and control [ a s indicated previously), but a l so has differential consequences f o r t h e acceptability o f t h e use o f various behavioral control techniques

f o r t h e general public. TRADITIONAL INTERPRETATION

In t h e strict

view o f determinism, t h e input conditions are t r u e c a u s e s ; and the output phenomenon, usually behavior,

is a t r u e effect.

The notion o f a n empirical relation-

ship encompasses a bona f i d e causal law.

Causation is

physical in nature (see N a g e l , 1961, especially Chapt e r 10). causation.

Mechanical systems serve a s t h e model o f The activity or movement o f one physical

body, a s cause, imparts t h e necessary energy or force f o r t h e activity o r movement o f another physical body, a s effect. sequence.

Cause and effect is a n explicit, automatic Determinism is absolutistic in nature.

Ef-

f e c t s are deterministic, a s opposed t o probabilistic,

112

Chapter 4

occurrences.

Knowledge of t h e c a u s a l l a w g o v e r n i n g

t h e o c c u r r e n c e of a s p e c i f i c n a t u r a l e v e n t i s s u f f i c i e n t t o c o n t r o l t h e o c c u r r e n c e of t h a t e v e n t . diction i s logically prior t o control.

Pre-

T h i s interpre-

t a t i o n of d e t e r m i n i s m t e n d s t o g i v e t h e n o t i o n o f b e h a v i o r a l c o n t r o l a b a d name i n o u r s u r r o u n d i n g c u l t u r e : viz.,

George O r w e l l ' s 1 9 8 4 . C L A S S I C A L WATSONIAN BEHAVIORISM

Watson-

i a n d e s c r i p t i v e b e h a v i o r i s m c a n be c o n s t r u e d a s advocat i n g a s t r i c t i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of d e t e r m i n i s m a n d s e r v e s as t h e b e s t example of t h i s i n t e r p r e t a t i o n i n t h e b e h a v i o r i s t i c context.

Watson ( 1 9 1 3 ,

19251 made e x t r e m e

environmental i s m t h e c o r n e r s t o n e o f h i s system, to

i n part,

j u s t i f y h i s o b j e c t i v e a p p r o a c h t o human b e h a v i o r .

Of c o u r s e , s t i m u l i d i d n o t cause r e s p o n s e s i n a d i r e c t , m e c h a n i c a l t r a n s f o r m a t i o n of e n e r g y sense;

however,

W a t s o n ' s emphasis o n t h e r e f l e x made t h e o r g a n i s m a p r i s o n e r of i t s e n v i r o n m e n t .

A l t h o u g h Watson d i d n o t

appeal t o u n d e r l y i n g p h y s i o l o g y t o e x p l a i n o v e r t behavior,

he assumed t h e c l a s s i c ,

push-pull

c o n c e p t i o n of a

r e f l e x i n which response o u t p u t i s an a u t o m a t ic f u n c t i o n of a t e l e p h o n e t y p e n e u r o n a l hookup s y s t e m .

The

p r i m a r y s o u r c e of b e h a v i o r a l change w a s l e a r n i n g .

A l l

l e a r n i n g was assumed t o be a n i n s t a n c e o f c l a s s i c a l conditioning.

C l a s s i c a l c o n d i t i o n i n g was a n a u t o m a t i c

pr o cess over which t h e organism had n o r e a l c o n t r o l . B o t h t h e u n c o n d i t i o n e d r e s p o n s e and t h e c o n d i t i o n e d r e s p o n s e were r e g a r d e d a s i n v o l u n t a r y i n n a t u r e . CONTEMPORARY INTERPRETATION more f l e x i b l e v i e w of d e t e r m i n i s m ,

I n the current,

i n p u t v a r i a b l e s and

output v a r i a b l e s merely are n a t u r a l events t h a t are r e l a t e d t o each o t h e r and c o v a r y .

A n empirical relation-

s h i p subsumes a f u n c t i o n a l r e l a t i o n s h i p i n w h i c h t h e d e p e n d e n t v a r i a b l e i s some f u n c t i o n of t h e i n d e p e n d e n t

Explanation: Face Valid Constructs variables.

The notion o f

113

"is some function o f "

is not

a l l that explicit; however, it can entail more t h a n mere correlation.

Perhaps a good analogy is that o f

a mathematical equation in which a rule specifies how many units o f one variable are equivalent t o so many units o f

another variable.

Determinism is symbolic

and relativistic in nature ( s e e Nagel, 1961, especially Chapter 14).

Response output basically is a prob-

abilistic, a s opposed t o deterministic, event.

Since

behavioral events are probabilistic, t h e ability t o control underlies t h e ability to predict.

Control is

logically prior t o prediction. It can be argued that logical behaviorism, Skinnerian radical behaviorism, and contemporary cognitive behaviorism either do assume o r only c a n assume t h i s more diluted form o f determinism.

The implica-

t i o n s o f t h i s interpretation o f determinism f o r t h e public at large will become apparent very shortly in the context o f Skinner's system. LOGICAL BEHAVIORISM

Recall that t h e

many variants o f logical behaviorism encompass both descriptive and theoretical explanation.

Overt be-

havior is related to both external environmental events and postulated theoretical constructs intervening between t h e stimulus input and response output. The many possible hypothetical relationships existing among the intervening theoretical constructs admit a n element o f randomness into any experimental situation. Hull ( 1 9 5 1 ) even built a formal oscillation factor int o h i s system.

The kinds o f experiments that such

learning macrotheorists a s Hull (19511, Guthrie ( 1 9 3 5 1 , and Tolman (1932) performed did not afford a high degree o f control over the organism's behavior; and they had t o absorb t h e consequent lack o f predic-

Chapter 4

114

tability into t h e theoretical level o f analysis.

As

extensions o f classical learning macrotheory, both t h e macromodel and micromodel approaches construct probabilistic models o f

learning and explicitly make res-

ponse probability the primary dependent variable f o r representing behavioral occurrence

[ f o r instance, Es-

t e s , 1950; Bower, 1962). SKINNERIAN RADICAL BEHAVIORISM

Recall

that Skinnerian radical behaviorism strictly i s a descriptive system in which behavior i s related only t o external environmental events. in Skinner's

Psychological reality

( 1 9 5 3 , 1974) system is structured in

t e r m s o f correlations between classes o f stimulus events and classes o f response events.

In t h i s con-

t e x t , Skinner focuses o n only one response variable, r a t e , and manipulates only two kinds o f operational contingencies: reinforcement and stimulus discrimination.

This particular combination o f input and output

events--generating the Skinnerian contingencies--allows a pre-emptory degree o f behavioral control a n d , consequently, predictability. It would be misleading t o presume that Skinner is a s t r i c t , or unidirectional, determinist.

Skinner

does assume t h a t organismic behavior is controlled by environmental contingencies.

But the response term

is a component o f such contingencies, and Skinner also assumes that t h e organism can change the environment. The environment and organismic behavior mutually influence each o t h e r , much a s in t h e case o f dialectical psychology (see Riegel, 1978).

Oeterminism is recip-

rocal or bidirectional, a s opposed to unidirectional. In prototypical laboratory operant conditioning, the experimenter is conditioning the subject; but t h e subject also is conditioning the experimenter.

The sub-

Explanation: Face V d d Constructs

115

ject's response rate increases a s a function o f reinforcement delivery, and the experimenter's rate o f reinforcement delivery increases a s a function o f t h e subject's responding. Walden

Two

The basic t h e m e o f Skinner's

(1948) and Beyond Freedom

and

Dignity

(1971) is the design and construction o f environments that encompass benign contingencies f o r t h e control o f human behavior.

The application o f Skinnerian operant conditioning principles t o certain applied settings, known a s behavior modification, c a n be interpreted t o involve a contractual determinism, whereby t h e organism yields certain power t o the psychologist through a kind o f contractual social agreement (Erwin, 1978): t h e behavioral psychologist assumes control over t h e means o f access t o reinforcement and its delivery for t h e betterment o f t h e organism.

T h e arbitrariness o f control

in t h i s setup is demonstrated by the fact that t h e t e r m s o f the social contract can be resisted and changed, for any number o f reasons.

Behavior modifi-

cation specialists engaged in private practice are encouraged t o use actual physical contracts specifying t h e t e r m s , goals, and techniques o f t h e treatment program. The ultimate in behavioral control is self or personal control, a s opposed to external o r social control ( L a z a r u s , 1971).

F o r example, t h e best way to

prevent crime i s not by having police stationed every fifty feet in t h e environment, but rather by conditioning people to refrain from criminal behavior regardless o f t h e state o f the external stimulus situation.

In other words, people carry the environment with them: the relevant controlling stimuli have become internalized.

Skinner's

(1974) admission o f internal stimuli

116

Chapter 4

that c a n be discriminated through proper training, and o f self-planned and self-generated reinforcement, makes t h e individual organism more than a mere prisoner o f its immediate physical surroundings.

The ob-

ject o f many behavior modification programs is selfimprovement through self-control:

improved study

skills, weight reduction and control, efficient use o f work o r recreational t i m e , and extinction o f smo-

king behavior (see Craighead, Kazdin, and Mahoney, 1981) * COGNITIVE BEHAVIORISM

.

The information

processing approach to human cognition r e l a t e s overt behavior t o hypothetical, internal cognitive processes.

Responding is not a direct function o f external,

physical stimulus events, but rather o f how they are processed by cognitive mechanisms in t h e organism's brain (Anderson, 1980).

The locus o f behavioral con-

trol is internal in cognitive behaviorism, as it i s in t h e context o f logical behaviorism.

A strict in-

terpretation o f determinism is impossible in t h i s context.

Prediction and control constitute much more

elusive goals in cognitive behaviorism (Neisser,

19761.

The ultimate source o f behavior makes it very

difficult t o control a n d , consequently, very difficult to predict. FUNCTION-ANALYTICAL EXPLANATION Just a s explanation by control and explanation by deduction are continuous and complementary entities, scientific explanation a s a whole and function-analytical explanation are continuous and complementary strategies o f explanation.

Scientific explanation in-

volves a subsumption strategy: an empirical phenomeno n is treated a s a n instance o r application o f some descriptive causal law t h a t in t u r n is resolvable in

Explamtion: Face Valid Constructs

t h e context o f

117

s o m e general covering theory or higher

order explanation.

Function-analytical explanation

involves a s y s t e m s analysis strategy: t h e f u n c t i o n o f a n empirical phenomenon is determined, and t h e n t h e manner in which t h e function is performed is specified (see Cummins, 1975).

A scientist in general and a n experimental psychologist in particular must t a k e a function a s given: t h e function o f

t h e entity t o be explained usually is

assumed t o be i t s customary u s e , which is equivalent operationally t o t h e t a s k t h a t t h e entity performs. Otherwise, t h e notion o f function g e t s confounded with t h e notion o f purpose; and problems associated with Aristotelian final. cause o r teleology might e n s u e ( C u m m i n s , 1983). The creative aspect o f function-analytical explanation resides at t h e level o f specifying exactly how t h e t a s k performed by t h e entity is accomplished. T h i s typically i s done by analyzing t h e over-all t a s k into a s e r i e s o f subtasks or suboperations and t h e n relating them via s o m e organizational program or combinatorial sequence.

Everyday examples o f t h i s in-

clude (11 a flow chart f o r t h e components o f a production line, ( 2 ) a diagram o f t h e circuitry o f s o m e electronic device, (3) a n organizational chart f o r t h e departments o f a hospital, and (4) a n outline o f t h e subroutines o f a computer program.

Note t h a t in

t h e s e simple physical examples even t h e subcomponents or suboperations a r e given o r obvious. T h e s y s t e m s analysis strategy c a n be applied t o any psychological phenomenon requiring explanation. Wundt (1896) and Titchener ( 1 8 9 8 ) implicitly used it in t h e i r analysis by s y n t h e s i s approach t o t h e content o f conscious experience.

Watson ( 1 9 1 6 ) analyzed a

Chapter 4

118

piece o f behavior into a concatenation of conditioned response units.

The complex mental abilities studied

b y contemporary cognitive behaviorism

(Anderson, 1980)

are particularly amenable to functional analysis.

Gen-

uine theoretical creativity is involved in t h e cognitive context because neither t h e suboperations nor t h e combinatorial rule are given or obvious: they must be postulated and evaluated--as is t h e case with any theoretical construct used at the theoretical level o f scientific explanation. A successful function-analytical explanation

in

psychology, especially cognitive psychology, possesses three characteristics (Cummins, 1975): 1. T h e suboperations are simple, unsophisticated, or merely mechanical in nature.

It is possible t o

break down a specific suboperation into a s e r i e s of subsuboperations, with their own combinatorial r u l e ; however, to prevent infinite regression with respect to t h e postulation o f s u b

. . .

suboperations, some-

where along t h e line o f reduction a subsumption t y p e o f explanation must be used or t h e current level o f suboperations must be accepted at f a c e value.

2. The suboperations are different from t h e phenomenon t o be explained with respect t o typology. of

Use

suboperations that only differ from the entity t o b e

explained with respect t o complexity and not typology makes the function-analytical form o f explanation degenerate.

3. The organizing program or combinatorial rule is sophisticated.

T h i s is necessary to reduce t h e gap be-

tween the differential complexities and typologies of the entity t o be explained and t h e suboperations. Ideal function-analytical explanation i s approached in t h e context of automata theory (Boden, 19811,


119

where a complex cognitive process is analyzed into a concatenation o f simple computational steps.

The con-

temporary functionalist approach t o mind (see Chapter

3) is a subset o f t h e s y s t e m s analysis strategy.

A

mental event is defined in t e r m s o f i t s causal r o l e , or function, in t h e over-all mentation system and related t o t h e input and output o f t h e system.

A men-

tal event isolated in t h i s manner c a n either be analyzed into subproperties o r serve a s a subproperty of a higher level event. EMPATHETIC IDENTIFICATION To properly understand t h e empathetic identification approach t o psychological explanation, it is necessary to repress scientific explanation, o r any other means o f effecting intellectual closure, a s a possible comparative reference point.

Empathetic

identification is not concerned with consensually Validated, objective knowledge o r how t h i n g s really work; it d o e s not deal with universals, generalities, o r comprehensive truths. The purpose o f empathetic identification is t h e achievement o f a n intuitive understanding o f a n individual organism's state o f consciousness or behavior (Nettler, 1970).

The organism c a n be ( 1 ) t h e

self, in a first person a c c e s s , self-report c o n t e x t , or (2) a significant other, whose behaviors are observed in a third person access framework.

T h e con-

tent o f t h e intuitive understanding, a s well a s t h e process of its attainment, c a n be perfectly rational; however, t h i s explanatory technique only affords emotional satisfaction o n t h e part o f t h e understander because it yields subjective, idiosyncratic knowledge beyond empirical test.

In other words, t h e emotional

satisfaction o f t h e understanding agent is t h e only

Chapter 4

120

criterion of t h e success of t h e attempt at empathetic identification. Empathetic identification is indigenous t o understanding or phenomenological psychology, specifically a s physicalized by t h e contemporary humanistic approach that f o c u s e s o n t h e self in a first person access, subjective framework (Maslow, 1970; Rogers, 1951, 1961; Keen, 1975).

More precisely, empathetic

identification is the only explanatory strategy possible in the phenomenological context.

The empathy

approach is possible in a third person a c c e s s context-presuming no externally imposed interpretive scheme is used--but it i s not indigenous to t h i s context and does not exhaust the explanatory strategies applicable t o t h i s context.

The third person access context is

t h e prototypical bailiwick o f scientific explanation (Cummins, 1983). To be fair t o t h i s kind of explanation, it must be emphasized that intuitive understanding a m o u n t s t o a kind of personal knowledge (see Kendler, 1981). Such knowledge c a n occur in virtually any kind o f context o r endeavor, regardless of its technical classification.

Judgments involving intuitive understanding

occur in mathematics, science, esthetics (i.e., beaut y , symmetry, simplicity, harmony), philosophy, ethics, morality, and t h e like. Personal knowledge i s most easily communicated via literary o r artistic creations.

Although t h e com-

munication o f any kind o f knowledge involves s y m b o l s and descriptive constraints, t h e literary/artistic f o r mat is less restrictive t h a n t h e scientific one.

A

painting, novel, o r play is supposed t o be a creation that uniquely and exhaustively captures t h e inner essence o f some facet o f existence, such a s a person.


121

These creations not only inform and educate, but also are meant t o be esthetically experienced o r emotionally felt.

A good painting, novel, or play is t h e most

efficient attitude and belief change device ever devised. T h e empathetic identification approach is t h e prototypical explanatory strategy employed in any reallife, practical application context (Nettler, 1970): the experience o r behavior o f a patient in therapy, a defendant in a court o f law, a character in a novel or play, or a contestant o n a TV game show is usua1l.y resolved via a n empathetic identification that a l l o w s intuitive understanding. The nature o f the empathetic identification explanatory strategy c a n be presented adequately by

(1)

describing its underlying dynamics, ( 2 ) considering some o f

its more cogent criticisms, and (3) providing

a n interpretive summary.

The criticisms are not inten-

ded t o put intuitive understanding in a bad light, specifically with respect t o any intellectual closure technique; rather they merely are a convenient way o f revealing some o f t h e unique features o f t h i s explanatory approach. DYNAMICS

Recall that t h e empathetic identifica-

tion approach is associated with t h e conception o f the human organism a s a moral agent: t h e individual organi s m creates and lives in i t s o w n psychological world and has control o f and responsibility f o r its o w n behavior.

A person's

thoughts, feelings, actions, and

t h e like cannot be referred t o any impersonal, external criterion f o r explanation or evaluation.

Rather these

only c a n be resolved in t e r m s o f psychological mechanisms t h a t derive from t h e organism's status a s a moral agent.

Chapter 4

122

The individual's experience and behavior are explainable in t h i s context when they c a n be assigned meaning (see K e e n , 1975). o r "significance" here.

Meaning means "relevance"

Meaning is superimposed on

t h e purely physical and physiological properties o f overt behavior and o n t h e content o f t h e self-report o f conscious experience.

Meaning is achieved when t h e

psychological mechanisms responsible for the experience or behavior are made explicit and intuitively understood. Meaning superimposition requires the process o f empathetic identification: The observer assigns meaning t o a person's

experience and behavior by using

the s a m e entities that it uses t o explain i t s o w n experience and behavior.

These entities usually are

some combination o f feelings, desires, motives, goals, intentions, beliefs, and t h e like--concepts indigenous to folk psychology [see S t i c h , 1983).

The empathetic

identification resulting in intuitive understanding really is a matter o f analogy: the entities that make another individual's feelings and actions understandable are the very same entities that the observer uses t o make its o w n thoughts and activities plausible. The entities that serve as plausible reasons f o r one's own experience or behavior are extended t o t h e significant other by analogy. The impetus f o r or locus o f empathetic identification is irrelevant at t h e level o f dynamics:

1. Person person

1 by

5

can be made to intuitively understand

t h e inducement o f a third person

I, a s

oc-

c u r s in a court o f law where t h e defense lawyer induces intuitive understanding o f the defendant o n t h e part o f the

judge.

2. Person

5

comes t o intuitively understand per-


son

1

123

by its own efforts, a s occurs in a Rogerian

(1942) counseling session where t h e therapist ultimately understands t h e client. 3. Person

X

c a n force intuitive understanding o f

itself o n the part o f person

1, a s

occurs when a hus-

band c o m e s home very late in t h e evening and h a s t o diff u s e t h e anger o f his wife.

4. Person

2

1 can

and person

be involved in t h e

process o f mutually intuitively understanding each other, a s occurs o n numerous occasions during courtship. Regardless o f t h e specific situation, any instance o f intuitive understanding

involves a n ultimate psycho-

logical identification between two o r more organisms that permits a n emotional appreciation o f at least one of

the parties o n the part o f t h e other.

Operationally,

one person can be said to understand another person when it realizes that it would have felt o r acted in t h e s a m e manner in the s a m e set o f circumstances.

The

ultimate empathy induction context is physically realized in a case study or biography, where revelation o f virtually every facet o f a person's life helps to create empathetic identification [for instance, see Runyan, 1982). CRITICISMS

The empathetic identification approach

t o explanation is subject t o at least three cogent c r i ticisms that derive from t h e nature o f the internal dynamics involved.

Note that we shall not be concerned

in t h i s section with any externally sourced criticisms o f t h i s approach t o explanation--specifically

o n e s de-

rivable from an intellectual closure perspective.

1 . Because t h e dynamics

o f empathetic

identifica-

tion are based on analogy, similarity between t h e actor [person t o be understood) and t h e observer [ t h e potential understander] is required.

The presumption that a

Chapter 4

124

relationship o f similarity exists between a n actor and any potential observer is not universally valid.

The

prototypical violation o f t h i s presumption occurs when t h e actor is a member o f a "special population:"

clin-

ical (e.g., schizophrenic, retardate, psychopath), child, o r exotic [e.g., primitive tribesperson, hermit, saint) [see Stich, 1983).

A member o f a special popu-

lation simply i s beyond t h e bounds o f comprehension o f a standard observer: t h e feelings or behavior o f t h e actor are bizzare and meaningless.

In such c a s e s , it

is necessary t o defer to some form o f intellectual closure strategy, such a s relating the actor's

feelings

and actions to environmental circumstances, a s occurs in descriptive behaviorism

[Skinner, 1974).

In t h e

more prosaic cases o f everyday life where it is impossible t o establish a relationship o f similarity between two people (i.e., a judge and a convicted mass murderer), an appeal can be made to so-called conventional pity by an agent (defense lawyer) trying t o induce empathetic identification (Nettler, 1970).

2. The substance o f a given instance o f intuitive understanding--the psychological content o f a given case o f empathetic identification--is strictly contingent o n the psychological beliefs o f t h e observer (see Stich, 1983).

These in large part are a function o f

the potential understander's abilities and past experiences.

A person with limited abilities and/or past e x -

perience, or even a person with a distorted view o f t h e world, i s not capable o f very insightful or high quality identifications.

Not everyone can function a s a

good therapist, be a good judge o f human nature o r character, or construct a credible, realistic character in a novel or play.

T h i s criticism merely is a concep-

tual extension o f the similarity assumption: t h e lack


of

125

similarity is due t o t h e deficiency o f t h e obser-

ver, not to any characteristic o f the actor. 3. In certain circumstances, it i s possible f o r

two observers to have diametrically opposed empathetic identifications with and intuitive understandings of

t h e s a m e actor [Nettler, 1970).

F o r instance, a

father and his daughter frequently c o m e up with vastly different conceptions o f her boy friend and potential mate.

The empathy approach provides n o mech-

anism f o r the immediate resolution o f such cases. This situation also i s a variant o f t h e similarity precondition:

t h e two observers [father, daughter)

are using vastly different models o f similarity o r incongruent s e t s o f

similarity indicators by which t o

identify with t h e actor (boy friend]. INTERPRETIVE SUMMARY

The empathy approach t o

psychological explanation amounts to a canonization o f f o l k psychology.

It is t h e way t h e general public

interprets or assigns meaning to the feelings and act i o n s o f others o n a day-to-day basis.

In t h e c o n -

text o f everyday life, empathetic identification occ u r s implicitly with no real self-conscious effort or knowledge.

The explanatory entites are t h e time-hon-

ored mentalisms and informal concepts o f f o l k psychology [ S t i c h , 1983): desires, beliefs, goals, intentions, purposes, and t h e like. It i s in t h i s context that t h e relatively recent appearance o f humanistic psychology

(for instance,

Giorgi, 1970) should be evaluated.

Humanistic psy-

chology represents a movement back t o f o l k psychology. The goal o f humanistic psychology is t o restore t h e individual organism to i t s original s t a t u s a s t h e locus o f its psychological world and arbiter o f its psy-

chological destiny.

Humanistic psychology posits no

126

Chapter 4

psychological mechanisms--with o f self-fulfillment

t h e possible exception

a s a process o r goal (see Maslow,

1970)--other t h a n those t h a t are implicit in folk psychology.

Humanistic psychology, in effect, formalizes

empathetic identification and intuitive understanding: t h e only way a n observer c a n appreciate t h e psychological world o f a s e l f , a s respondent, is via emotional identification involving folk psychological concepts. IDEOLOGY Ideology, by all rights, has n o place in academic, experimental psychology.

You w i l l not find it in tra-

ditional textbook discussions o f psychological explanation.

The content o f t h i s section reflects Nettler's

(19701 conception o f ideology, but is not necessarily congruent with it. An ideology is a belief s y s t e m , put forward a s dogma, accepted by faith.

An ideology does help re-

solve t h e nature o f reality, but by Fiat or self-righteous declaration.

It operates as a world view: relig-

ious, political, mythical ideologies constitute the prototypical cases.

One becomes a believer in a n ide-

ology via some kind o f active conversion or passive conditioning process.

The term h a s taken o n a nega-

tive connotation since t h e ascendance o f Communist ideology in t h e Soviet Union: Americans accept t h e superiority o f democracy a s a nonideological, self-evident t r u t h , while they regard Communism as a n obvious perverse ideology. An ideology is an intellectual and emotional trap. An ideology d o e s not touch bases with the real world, as science does, although t h e adherents o f o n e presume

it does.

It affords no intuitive understanding, ex-

cept f o r its proponents.

An ideology violates virtual-

ly every r u l e o f t h e science game, while denying any


127

validity to folk-based empathetic identification.

Be-

cause science does not yield absolute truth and emotional satisfaction techniques afford only private universes, ideology presumably fills the gap.

What

an ideology d o e s i s t o prescribe t h e dimensions o f similarity and attendant mechanisms t o be used in an empathetic identification situation in such a way as to make t h e outcome appear a s scientifically validated truth. In effect, an ideology falsifies one or more aspects o f reality in order t o justify a particular interest o r interest group.

Even if people disclaim ad-

herence t o any ideology, they are labeled a s passive agents o f the ideological system associated with those holding political power, i.e., the establishment, and t h u s the unwitting dispensers o f tions and practices.

ideological proposi-

This is the central theme o f

"critical psychology," a s promulgated by Ingleby

(1972, 1974, 1980) in Great Britain and Holzkamp (1970, 1972, 1973, 1983) o n t h e Continent. Ideology exists in t h e amorphous never-never land between objective knowledge and personal knowledge. The reason an ideology is so dangerous is that i t s adherents profess absolute truth with an extreme degree o f emotional commitment.

Ideologies give u s not

only t h e Ten Commandments, but also t h e Holocaust and the Gulag Archipelago.

Ideologies are implicit moral

systems, heavily value-laden. systems vie benignly with

ad

Competing ideological hominems and destructive-

ly via war. Even at a purely intellectual or academic level, ideologies are "no win" entities. be addressed with a neutral stance.

Ideologies cannot The very act o f

evaluating a n ideology makes one ideological.

It is

Chapter 4

128

far from clear whether any academic discipline can be truly free o f any ideological inclinations or propositions. The notion o f ideology i s relevant f o r a n analysis o f

psychological explanation f o r two basic reas-

ons :

1. Irrespective o f Freud's ( 1 9 3 9 , 1949) intentions, many scholars [for instance, Nettler, 1970) consider psychoanalysis t o be an ideology with all o f its negative connotations.

2. Many people, particularly those critical o f behavioral science (e.g., Krutch, 1954; Koestler,

19671, consider any system o f psychology, especially Skinnerian behaviorism, t o be an ideology--again with all o f its negative connotations.

F R E U D I A N DEPTH PSYCHOLOGY

Psychoanalysis does

possess all t h e trappings and external indicants o f an ideology.

Its propositions are beyond meaningful

empirical evaluation: Freud himself even scorned t h e idea that it should be subject to e x p e r i m e n t a l t e s t . At best, his epistemological source; namely, self-report in a therapeutic context, only affords t e s t s o f the internal consistency o f h i s inductions.

Psycho-

analysis is t h e private vision o f one person, ome that has been institutionalized and excommunicates nonbelievers.

The legitimacy o f psychoanalysis solely

rests on Freud a s an authority figure: his writings are read as the Bible is read--to discover t h e true meaning o f existence.

T h e system resolves virtually

everything from a few basic principles; more crucial-

l y , it is only capable o f p o s t hoc, or after-the-fact, explanation: it postdicts, not predicts. haved a s an ideologue, engaging in

ad

Freud be-

hominems against

his critics and displaying no capacity for divorcing

129


his thought from his own personal identity (Fancher,

1973; Rieff, 1959).

S K I N N E R I A N RADICAL BEHAVIORISM

Skinner's

(1974)

system i s t h e symbol, if not the substance, o f a psychology conceived and practiced as a science.

If one

does not like or appreciate scientific psychology and its materialistic view o f

t h e human being, one pos-

sible response i s t o consider it a n ideology. Unlike psychoanalysis, t h e external indicants o f a n ideology possessed by radical behaviorism merely are superficial in nature.

Emotional commitment is

required o f its practitioners, but it is directed toward impartial, objective, consensual evaluation. Skinner inadvertantly functions a s a n authority figure, but h i s exegesis i s a reflection o f t h e depth o f h i s thought, rather t h a n t h e examination by a personality cult.

One c a n disagree.with Skinner, but still remain

a behaviorist.

Skinner is just a s doctrinaire a s

Freud, but no one has ever accused him o f in a personal crusade.

engaging

Skinner is dogmatic about con-

t r o l , but f o r t h e betterment o f t h e human race.

His

image is one o f a dehumanizer, but he is a flaming liberal by contemporary standards.

Skinner d o e s es-

pouse a few basic principles, but they have t o be adapted t o and tempered by t h e specific psychological situation t o which they are applied. There are only two legitimate bases o n which scientific psychology and/or Skinner's

behavioristic ver-

sion c a n be judged a s an ideology:

1. If they are viewed a s the only route t o t h e promised land;

2. If they c a n be construed a 5 harboring s o m e vested interest over and above that o f t h e search for truth a s defined by t h e scientific vision.

Chapter 4

130

The first basis certainly is t r u e ; the second ba-

sis i s more problematical and serves a s a f o c u s o f analysis in Chapter 6. COMPARISON AND EVALUATION

So far we have emphasized two functions that an explanation c a n fulfill--intellectual

closure and emo-

tional satisfaction--and discussed t w o examples o f each: scientific explanation and function-analytical explanation a s closure techniques; empathetic identification and ideology a s sources o f satisfaction.

We

also have performed some preliminary comparison and

evaluation:

1. Scientific explanation, as well a s i t s conceptual extension o f function-analytical explanation, provides objective, consensually validated knowledge that allows prediction and control, but d o e s not provide final, absolute, nonprobabilistic truth.

2. Empathetic identification provides subjective, idiosyncratic, personal knowledge or intuitive understanding o f t h e individual c a s e via f o l k psychology mechanisms.

T h i s approach is explicitly constrained

by t h e necessity o f a similarity relationship existing between an actor to be understood and any observer a s potential understander. 3. Ideology amounts to a comprehensive belief

system that claims objective status, but without t h e liability o f empirical testability, and provides emotional succor for an adherent with appropriate moral commitment.

Ideological explanation i s used t o jus-

tify various vested interests and cannot be countered by any rational arguments. We also have identified the characteristic con-

tent psychology associated with each type o f explanation: behaviorism for scientific explanation; cogni-


131

tive psychology for function-analytical; humanistic, phenomenological psychology f o r empathetic identificat i o n ; psychoanalysis f o r ideology (at least provisionally). It now is necessary t o perform a more formal evaluation o f these four strategies o f explanation in t e r m s of

a common set o f analytical criteria.

It absolutely

is essential that these criteria be neutral: they must

not contain preselection characteristics that automatically favor one t y p e o f explanation over another.

Such

a set is readily available if we use t h e characterist i c s that philosophers usually employ t o evaluate explanations: ( 1 )

&

hocness, ( 2 ) post hocness, (3) cir-

cularity, and (4) teleology ( C u m m i n s , 1983).

These

four characteristics typically are negatively valued by the philosopher: an acceptable explanation should not possess any o f these characteristics.

Each o f

these characteristics now will be applied t o t h e four strategies o f explanation.

A D HOCNESS -

An ad hoc explanation is one that is

brought in at random, usually after-the-fact, t o deal with a special case.

Its very randomness suggests

that t h e phenomenon cannot be explained by t h e usual systematic means.

In other words, the phenomenon can-

not be conventionally explained.

The

&

hocness o f an

explanation can only be determined by reference t o some background, baseline level o f normal o r regular explanation. The notion o f

hocness does not really apply t o

a descriptive scientific explanation.

Descriptive ex-

planation strictly is instrumental, or all-or-none, in nature.

In t h i s context, a piece o f behavior is ex-

plainable if it is controllable; if t h e behavior is uncontrollable, by definition it has not been explained.

132

Chapter 4

For Skinner (1956), uncontrollable activity simply does not constitute behavior.

The absence o f a descrip-

tive explanation f o r a piece of behavior logically d o e s not occasion t h e search f o r an ad hoc explanation. The notion o f

&

hocness does apply t o theoretical In t h i s context, t h e r e is a

scientific explanation.

sufficient amount of research activity t o provide a baseline f o r a judgment o f

ad

hocness.

hocness ari-

s e s when a psychologist posits ( 1 ) another explanation for a research finding that contradicted t h e prediction o f t h e theory from which

it derived or ( 2 1 a n explana-

tion for a research finding that was not originally predicted by any theory.

Ad hoc explanations a r e not

rare in experimental psychology; however, researchers are conscious o f them and willingly acknowledge such cases.

The scientific discipline i s capable of tolera-

ting o r absorbing a certain degree of

&

hocness be-

cause it does not occur in t h e vast majority of cases. Also, the rules o f the science game specify what has t o be done t o remove

&

hocness from a situation: con-

duct more and better controlled research.

A function-analytical explanation is s o complex and detailed and requires such appreciable setup time that it is procedurally inconvenient to employ ad hocness in t h i s context.

The demonstrated inapplicability

o f function-analytical

explanation

A

usually leads t o

the construction and test of a new function-analytical explanation

5.

But explanation

fi

i s not postulated

randomly and usually is regarded a s a conceptual extension of explanation

A.

The empathetic identification context is anomalous with respect t o

&

hocness.

Because t h e goal of empa-

thy is to intuitively understand t h e experience or behavior o f

a n individual organism, it could be argued


133

that every empathetically derived explanation is

hoc.

ad

Every application o f t h i s approach amounts t o a

unique situation.

On t h e other h a n d , because each ap-

plication is unique, i.e., t h e r e is n o background, baseline context, it could be argued that t h e notion of

ad

hocness d o e s not apply.

The critical issue in

t h i s context is how random empathetic explanations are in general.

Because both t h e postulation and use o f

folk psychological concepts are unsystematic endeavors in practice, empathetically derived explanations legitimately c a n be regarded a s random. Ideological explanation, a s represented by Freudian (1939, 1949) psychoanalysis, also is anomalous with respect to

ad

hocness.

Because an ideological

system is arbitrary in t h e first place, every explanation it yields is ad hoc.

On the other hand, ideolog-

ical systems are incapable o f prediction--this is especially true o f Freudian psychology--such that t h e notion o f a background, baseline context d o e s not apply; and no judgment o f

ad

hocness c a n be made.

My

intuitive judgment is that much, if not a l l , o f depth psychological explanation is not random.

Psychoanaly-

s i s is a systematic body o f principles that c a n be consistently applied by a trained professional.

I

doubt very much that practicing psychoanalysts feel that their day-to-day explanations o f client behavior are ad hoc. P O S T HOCNESS fact explanation.

Posthoc -

explanation is after-the-

The natural phenomenon occurs first

in t i m e , and a n explanation is not posited until t h e event is over.

Post hoc explanation postdicts, a s op-

posed t o predicts.

Virtually anything can be explain-

ed after-the-fact: postdiction is much easier than prediction.

Post hoc explanation also t e n d s t o be

ad

134

hoc:

Chapter 4

after-the-fact explanation t e n d s t o be posited

randomly.

Prediction never can be ad hoc: it is based

on deductive logic. The status o f descriptive scientific explanation with respect t o post hocness is parallel t o t h a t o f hocness: the notion o f not apply.

ad

after-the-fact explanation does

The occurrence o f a controlled piece o f be-

havior is coincident with its descriptive explanation. It is impossible t o give a descriptive explanation to a piece o f behavior after it h a s occurred. The notion o f post hocness d o e s apply t o theoretical scientific explanation.

Any valid psychological

event can be given an after-the-fact theoretical scientific explanation; however, t h i s kind o f explanation h a s very low s t a t u s in science.

If a theory merely al-

lowed postdiction, it would be empirically untestable a n d , consequently, nonscientific in nature.

The ideal

scientific theory both predicts and postdicts.

There

is nothing wrong with postdiction in science in any absolute sense.

It is just that prediction is consider-

ed a stronger and more relevant property o f a scientific theory.

In actual practice, scientific theory is

constructed after-the-fact t o help resolve a n accumulated set o f research data; however, unless t h e resulting theoretical construction also yields s o m e testable predictions, it h a s no scientific value.

Theory that

merely affords postdiction, and not prediction, only can survive in a scientific context if it i s exceedingly high level and abstract.

Such theory helps guide

the construction o f lower level theory that i s closer to t h e data.

Exceedingly high level and abstract theo-

ry in a physical science context would be analogous t o a system in psychology.

A psychological system never

is directly tested: it provides t h e context f o r lower


135

level, predictive models. The status o f post hoc explanation in a functionanalytical explanatory context is parallel t o i t s stat u s in t h e context o f scientific theory: a functionanalytical explanation is constructed after-the-fact, but it must yield testable predictions in order t o be considered a viable explanatory device. Any psychological explanation arising in t h e empathetic identification context is post hoc.

The ex-

perience o r behavior that is t o be intuitively understood i s always past experience o r past behavior.

The

post hocness o f a n empathetic explanation is accepted a s a fundamental property o f t h i s kind o f explanation. Because prediction is irrelevant in t h e empathetic identification context--folk psychological mechanisms are employed that need not touch bases with a universal, absolute reality--postdiction does not possess t h e qualitatively lower status that it d o e s in t h e scientific context. The status o f post hoc explanation in ideology, especially a s represented by Freudian (1939, 1949) psychology, is parallel t o i t s status in t h e context o f empathetic explanation.

The hallmark o f Freudian theo-

ry is that it affords only postdiction, not prediction. This i s basically why t h e typical academic, experimental psychologist d o e s not t a k e it seriously.

Freud

functioned in a postdiction context: therapeutic intervention is an after-the-fact endeavor. is "rich."

Freudian theory

It i s s o r i c h , Freud could not have predic-

ted even if he desired to do so.

Freudian theory both

overdetermines and multidetermines its phenomena o f interest: a phenomenon c a n be the result o f a number o f different mechanisms, and a mechanism c a n result in a number o f different phenomena.

T h i s situation prevents

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one-to-one linkages between input and output events that are necessary for prediction.

O n the other hand,

t h e multilinkages between input and output in Freudian theory are ideal for after-the-fact tracing o f t h e particular events that led up to t h e phenomenon o f concern. CIRCULARITY

Other terminology f o r circular ex-

planation includes nominal explanation and explanation by labeling [Hillner, 1978, 19851.

These alternative

descriptions suggest t h e etiology o f a circular explanation.

T h i s kind o f explanation arises when t h e

phenomenon requiring explanation inspires t h e creation o f a name or label which then is used t o resolve the

phenomenon.

The use o f t h e name o r label is circular

because t h e only evidence for the appropriateness o f the denoted entity a s an explanatory device is the very phenomenon requiring explanation.

Stated more

formally, a circular explanation involves t h e conjunction o f t h e following t w o conditions: 1. The evidence for t h e conceptual entity phenomenon

5

is

1.

2 . The explanatioh o f phenomenon

ceptual entity

1

is t h e con-

5.

A circular explanation invariably i s a n after-the-fact explanation: t h e explahatory conceptual entity is not postulated until after t h e phenomenon occurs. At a logical level, a circular explanation is a tautology: the two parts o f t h e explanatory statement-that prior to t h e verb and that posterior t o t h e verb-are redundant and refer t o t h e s a m e denotative object.

A circular explanation i s not definitionally tautologous; it is s u c h because o f the manner o f i t s construction. Classic examples o f circular explanation in the

137


psychological literature include ( 1 ) instincts [McDougall, 19231, evil spirits o r demonic possession

[Zil-

boorg, 19671, (3) phrenological t r a i t s (Temkin, 19471,

(41 t h e basic Freudian (1939, 1949) concepts, s u c h as id, e g o , superego, and ( 5 1 t h e concept o f human nature itself: it is human t o love.

The use o f various folk

psychological explanatory entities [ S t i c h , 1983) also is circular: they typically are not postulated independently o f t h e phenomenon t o be explained. The use o f circular explanation is not particularly subtle; yet people have great difficulty decoding instances o f circularity when they occur.

It is not

until t h e following question is asked that t h e circular nature o f a n explanation c a n become apparent: D o e s the conceptual entity allow you t o control and/or predict t h e phenomenon? cularity.

A negative reply indicates cir-

A circular conceptual entity simply cannot

serve a s a locus o f causation in a relevant content o f observation: it cannot serve a s an input variable in a functional relationship. DESCRIPTIVE SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION

No des-

criptive scientific explanation, in and o f itself, is ever circular: The substance o f a descriptive explanation--a causal law or functional relationship--is not established by a labeling procedure leading t o circularity.

The constituents o f an empirical relation-

ship--input and output variables--are t w o independent entities.

But the inappropriate use o f a causal

law o r functional relationship can lead to circularity. This primarily occurs when t h e behavior in the situation in which t h e causal law is originally established is explained by reference t o t h e validated causal law. To avoid circularity, a causal law only c a n be applied to a situation other than t h e one in which it w a s or-

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iginally verified. The classic case o f t h e circular use o f a causal law involves t h e relationship between reinforcement and learning (Meehl, 1950).

Skinner (1953) defines a

positive reinforcer a s any stimulus that raises t h e rate o f responding in an operant conditioning context. The only way we know that a particular stimulus can serve a s a positive reinforcer is by observing its behavioral effects in an operant conditioning setup. But t h e increase in rate o f t h e specific response class that is used to identify the positive reinforcing property o f a stimulus in the first place cannot be explained by saying it is reinforced.

T h e reinfor-

cing effects o f a stimulus only can be used t o explain learning, or t h e conditioning o f a response, in a situation other t h a n t h e original assessment one. THEORETICAL SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION

Recall

that t h e scientific explanation o f a psychological phenomenon, such a s behavior, is a two-step procedure:

( 1 ) T h e behavior is descriptively explained by embedding it in some empirical relationship; and ( 2 ) t h e empirical relationship in t u r n is explained by deriving it in deductive fashion from a set o f higher order conceptual statements operating as a theory.

The theory

itself is composed o f one or more so-called theoretical constructs. Circularity enters t h e process o f theoretical s c i entific explanation when t h e existence of a theoretical construct is inferred directly from the occurrence o f t h e behavior it is supposed to explain.

This happens

in certain evaluational, i.e., research, contexts when there is no way t o independently verify the existence of t h e theoretical construct other than by inference from the occurrence o f t h e predicted behavior.

For in-


139

stance

1

The theoretical construct is s o m e phys ological

mechan s m o r process; and i t s existence cannot b e documented via some physiological technique, apart f rom the occurring behavior.

2. The theoretical construct i s s o m e cognitive ent i t y , e.g., cognitive dissonance; and its existence cannot be demonstrated by some measurement technique not involving t h e predicted behavioral effect. A s a matter o f custom, research psychologists do

not engage in independent verification o f t h e existence o f a postulated

theoretical construct even when it is

methodologically possible t o do so.

Any number o f r e a -

s o n s c a n be posited f o r this.

1. Many theoretical constructs are not even assumed t o possess t h e existence property and merely function a s predictive or calculational devices, in which context independent verification i s a moot point.

2. Sophisticated theories involve t h e integration o f both explicit and

implicit theoretical constructs

existing at different levels o f abstraction: It i s virtually impossible to independently verify t h e existence o f a theoretical construct

in isolation from others.

3. Theoretical psychologists feel that their ex-

planatory efforts and resulting constructions are sufficiently removed from those o f informal f o l k psychology, such that a n indictment o f circularity is not really germane.

The content o f a sophisticated psycho-

logical theory is not self-obvious or based o n commonsense.

Theoretical constructs d o ultimately derive

from observed behaviors, but d o not constitute t h e mere relabeling o f such behaviors. There are many people [see Nettler, 1970) ( 1 ) who regard the scientific enterprise a s a gigantic tau-

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tology, or circular endeavor, o r ( 2 ) who consider scientific truth t o be a redundancy at s o m e level o f abstraction; however, no kind o f knowledge or explanation is immune from t h i s criticism. FUNCTION-ANALYTICAL EXPLANATION

T h e logic

underlying th e occurrence o f circular explanatory statements in t h e context o f function-analytical explanation parallels t h e c a s e o f theoretical scientific explanation, with a n added stipulation. o f a function-analytical

The elements

explanation--for instance,

a regimen f o r t h e performance o f s o m e cognitive task-never are independently verifiable.

Conduction o f con-

temporary cognitive behaviorism in a third person access framework with sophisticated computer models virtually guarantees circularity at a conceptual level. This situation must be accepted a s t h e price o f t h i s kind o f psychology.

\

The descriptive behaviorist, a la

Skinner (19771, refuses t o pay t h i s price.

EMPATHETIC IDENTIFICATION

Empathetic identi-

fication is t h e "home" o f circular explanatian.

The

situation in which empathetic identification arises is functionally equivalent to t h e situation which typical-

l y generates circular explanatory constructs: t h e nature o f a specific instance o f experience o r behavior must be resolved in an after-the-fact manner.

The de-

velopment o f a n intuitive understanding o f a n organ-

ism's experience or behavior involves a relabeling o f that experience or behavior in t e r m s o f categories that have face validity, or plausibility, f o r t h e observer. These face valid constructs usually are folk psychological concepts that are circularly sourced in t h e first place. IDEOLOGY

An ideology, a s represented by

Freudian (1939, 1949) depth psychology, implicitly gen-


141

erates circular explanatory statements.

An ideological

system is self-contained, not subject to empirical evaluation, and selectively constructed to foster certain interests.

An ideologue specifies t h e content o f

t h e categories that t h e t r u e believer c a n use t o relate t o other organisms in a n empathy context.

Mention al-

ready h a s been made o f t h e circularity s t a t u s o f Freud's

basic explanatory constructs.

For instance:

Mary Keller's highly moralistic behavior is due t o a very strong superego, and we know s h e h a s a very strong superego because s h e displays highly moralistic behavior.

Skinner ( 1 9 5 4 ) is particularly critical o f Freud's

habit o f relabeling h i s patient's symptoms in a post hoc manner. -

F o r instance: J o h n Jones' incessant hand

washing behavior is labeled a s compulsive and t h e n explained via a compulsive neurosis. TELEOLOGY

A teleological explanation r e s o l v e s t h e

nature o f a phenomenon by means o f future event ( H i l l n e r , 1978, 1985).

a n appeal t o s o m e

A current event

happens in order t o guarantee the occurrence o f a specific future outcome.

In cause and effect terminology,

t h e effect precedes the cause.

Teleological explana-

tion i s indistinguishable from Aristotle's notion o f final cause (see Rychlak, 19771. In a psychological context, behavior is teleologically explained by relating it t o intentions, purposes, a i m s , or future goals: e.g., Phil Baker i s studying hard in order to obtain an A grade in a course. Teleological explanation is s o ingrained in folk psychology that t h e average person is not even aware o f it.

We specify t h e ultimate outcome o f a piece o f be-

havior a s its causal source constantly in everyday life. The plausibility o f a teleological explanation is unquestioned in a psychological context.

It is only

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when teleology is applied to the behavior o f inanimate objects that the appeal to immanent purpose commences to seem funny.

For instance: Water runs downhill,

rather than uphill, in order to get to the sea; it is the immanent purpose o f water to return to the sea. This statement is unacceptable to us because we have been conditioned to assume that water obeys the laws o f gravity, i.e., they serve as a sufficient descrip-

tive scientific explanation for the movement o f water. DESCRIPTIVE SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION

A des-

criptive scientific explanation is never teleological. In fact, descriptive scientific explanation is explicitly constructed so as to preclude teleology.

The

causes o f a natural event must either precede it o r concur with it in time.

Descriptive scientific e x -

planation is modeled after Aristotle's notion o f efficient cause [Rychlak, 1977).

Relating an event to

its efficient cause(s1 allows its prediction and/or control. An experimental psychologist, especially a behavioristically oriented one, often is faced with the problem o f explaining away an instance o f teleology. For instance: A rat presses the bar in a Skinner box, and the delivery o f a f o o d pellet immediately ensues. The purpose o f the bar press response is procurement o f food.

Even a Skinnerian concedes that the bar

press behavior is under the control o f food delivery, as a reinforcer; but it is the past food deliveries constituting a specific history o f reinforcement that operates as the controlling variable, not the impending delivery o f the next pellet.

Descriptive e x -

planation is instituted here simply by altering the temporal reference point.

Such an approach works

nicely in this case, except for the occurrence o f the

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143

very first bar press response that has no prior history o f reinforcement.

Teleology cannot handle t h e

occurrence o f the very first bar press response either: t h e rat does not know food delivery w i l l follow and cannot anticipate it a s a goal. In situations where a behaviorist cannot resolve an obvious instance o f teleology in terms o f a revised descriptive explanation, an appeal to higher order theoretical explanation must occur: The critical theoretical psychological mechanisms controlling t h e behavior, which usually are invisible and inferred, are assumed t o be prior t o or coincident with t h e behavior in time. THEORETICAL SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION

Scien-

tific theories are explicitly designed to be nonteleological in nature; however, a s is t h e case with t h e descriptive level o f analysis, scientists must e x plain away the immanent purpose or "grand design" that appears to pervade the natural universe ( S a g a n , 1973). In t h e context o f psychology, t h e focus o f attention is intentional or purposive behavior--behavior explicitly performed t o achieve a certain outcome. In a s e n s e , t h e basic task o f action psychology

is t o

explain away such behavior by resolving it in a strictly mechanistic context (Boring, 1964).

Skinner ( 1 9 3 8 ,

1953) operates strictly at a descriptive level and conceptualizes such behavior a s operants under t h e control o f environmental contingencies.

Logical be-

haviorism, in t h e context o f peripheral learning macrotheory (Hull, 1943; Guthrie, 19351, conceptualized t h e problem a s a conditioning o n e in which various instrumental responses partake o f different associative connections under t h e control o f specific incentive conditions.

Cognitive behaviorism

(Tolman, 1932; Ander-

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s o n , 1980) relates goal-directed responses t o various hypothetical significating structures existing in an organism's brain. The primary problem in classical learning theory involved resolving t h e apparent backward or retrograde effects o f response-contingent reinforcement at the theoretical level ( H i l l n e r , 1978).

This was accom-

plished by either o f two classes o f approaches: co-occurrence o r (2) succession.

(1)

In t h e co-occur-

rence approach, some theoretical representation o f t h e physical response is assumed t o persist through time and co-occur with t h e activation o f t h e theoretical reinforcement mechanism; or some theoretical representation o f t h e reinforcement mechanism is assumed to co-occur with t h e physical response.

The succes-

sion approach postulates that the theoretical reinforcement mechanism affects t h e stimulus situation such that it is changed by the next trial or response occurrence. The basic design principle that action psychology uses to resolve teleology is quite simple.

Because a

psychological theory contains many hierarchical levels, what appears t o be teleological at one level o f abstraction can be reduced t o a mechanistically determined event at another level o f abstraction. FUNCTION-ANALYTICAL EXPLANATION

Recall that

t h i s kind o f explanation is indigenous to a systems analysis context.

It is very easy to specify a func-

tion within a system teleologically: special care must be taken to insure a nonteleological description o f t h e functions o f a system.

Many systems appear t o act

intelligently, with foresight, and t h e like: they are self-regulating.

This characteristic o f a system is

handled mechanistically by t h e use o f various feedback


145

mechanisms or servomechanical processes [see Wiener,

1948). There is n o real problem with teleology when the function-analytical explanatory strategy is applied t o cognitive psychology.

In t h e simulation o f human

thought processes, computers c a n b e programmed t o achieve certain goals, choose between alternate g o a l s , choose between alternate means to t h e same g o a l , and t h e like; however, t h i s i s all done by t h e simple additive combination of countless mini s t e p s o r decisions, ultimately based o n Boolean logic [Boden, 1977).

It i s

not generally realized that t h e degree t o which a computer program appears t o be exhibiting intentional o r goal-directed activity is a function of t h e nature and number o f self-monitoring features it possesses. EMPATHETIC IDENTIFICATION

Psychological ex-

planations derived from empathetic identification have a high probability of being teleological in n a t u r e , f o r two reasons:

1. Psychologists operating in t h i s context, such a s humanists and phenomenologists

( K e e n , 19751, presume

t h e individual is a moral agent and t h e ultimate source of its behavior.

T h e notions of goals, purpose, inten-

t i o n , and t h e like are indigenous t o t h i s context.

2. F o l k psychological concepts (Stich, 1983) customarily are used t o resolve t h e psychological nature o f the person who i s t o be intuitively understood.

In general, t h e psychological context in which empathetic identification is an appropriate explanatory strategy f i n d s it impossible t o resolve t h e nature o f a n organism without implicit reference t o t h e future. One o f t h e ultimate purposes o f empathetic identification is t o externalize t h e actor's, o r respondent's, hopes, desires, plans, motives, and t h e like.

These

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entities are implicitly future oriented.

Any f o c u s o n

the individual a s an end in itself is implicitly proc e s s oriented, not at t h e level o f psychological mechanisms, but with respect t o its s t a t e and degree o f adjustment.

The human being is assumed t o be in a con-

stant state o f becoming, which is a future oriented notion. IDEOLOGY oriented.

Ideologies are implicitly future

One o f the functions o f ideology is to con-

struct a vision o f t h e future (Nettler, 1970).

Ideolo-

gies define both appropriate ends and means by fiat. Religious ideology is t h e most comprehensive and inclusive tool that organized society has evolved t o give meaning and purpose t o life.

in theology.

Teleology is rampant

Political ideologies, especially t h e more

enlightened ones, find it impossible to divorce accepted governmental practices from future goals.

The

ideologies implicit in classical mythology specify what c a n be expected out o f life. The Freudian (1939, 1949) world view is not future oriented at t h e psychodynamic level.

No o n e h a s ever

accused Freud o f being teleologically oriented.

His

psychic determinism puts a premium o n t h e past history o f an organism.

The primary source o f adult neuroses

and other psychic disturbances is events occurring in childhood. theory o f

Freud is t h e originator o f the continuity psychological development.

Reflective o f

the rnultipredictive and postdictive aspects o f his approach, Freud can explain either "getting there" or "not getting there."

In a sense, t h e basic purpose o f

psychoanalysis is to free the individual from its past. CONCEPTUAL SUMMARY

A conceptual summary can be

constructed around ( 1 ) t h e individual explanatory strategies, ( 2 ) t h e set o f evaluative criteria, (3) t h e t w o


147

possible functions o f explanation, and (4) s o m e final perspective. EXPLANATORY STRATEGIES

1. Descriptive scientific explanation renders

ad

hocness and post hocness irrelevant because it is a n immediate, all-or-none control device.

A descriptive

explanation never is circular with respect t o origin, but can be circular with respect t o application.

Be-

cause it is explicitly constructed t o preclude teleology, it serves a s a convenient means o f resolving apparent c a s e s o f teleology at t h e observational or operational level. 2. Theoretical scientific explanation can be

either ad hoc or post hoc.

An explicit attempt is

made t o keep t h e former t o a minimum, and the latter simply d o e s not constitute a positive attribute or critical evaluational feature o f scientific theory.

Most

theoretical constructs in science are circular at an etiological or logical level; however, the profession considers itself t o be protected from t h e low level circularity that typically occurs in a f o l k wisdom context.

Scientific theories are explicitly constructed

to be nonteleological in nature and serve a s mechanisms for resolving apparent cases o f teleology occurring at a lower level o f analysis.

3. Function-analytical explanation does not lend itself to

hocness, and its status with respect to

post hocness parallels that o f scientific theory. Function-analytical explanatory constructs in cognitive psychology are implicitly circular and not amenable t o independent verification.

The context o f function-

analytical explanation inherently is teleological in nature; however, t h e goal-directed aspects o f a functionally analyzed system are easily handled at a mech-

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anistic level.

4. The empathetic identification approach generates psychological explanations that a r e ad hoc, post

*,

circular, and teleological.

This is basically due

to t h e fact t h a t it t r e a t s t h e organism a s a n end in itself and accomplishes intuitive understanding via f o l k psychological concepts.

5. Ideology, in general, yields ad hoc, post hoc, circular, and teleological explanatory constructs; however, what is considered to be t h e closest approximation t o an ideology in t h e context o f psychology, Freudian (1939, 1949) psychoanalysis, does not necessarily generate

ad

explanations and definitively i s

not teleological in orientation.

EVALUATIVE CRITERIA

-

1. Ad hocness is explicitly definable and measurable in the context o f high level scientific theory; it is much more o f an amorphous notion in a n emotional satisfaction milieu; it i s not applicable t o descriptive scientific explanation. 2 . Post hocness is a property o f every explanatory

strategy considered, except f o r descriptive scientific explanation.

3. Circularity is implicit in t h e intellectual closure context; it is explicit in an emotional satisfaction milieu.

4. Teleology is consciously avoided in t h e intellectual closure context; it is a perfectly acceptable property o f a n explanation affording emotional satisfaction.

TWO EXPLANATORY FUNCTIONS 1. An intellectual closure technique, with t h e exception o f

descriptive scientific explanation, c a n be

meaningfully judged with respect t o

ad

hocness, post


149

hocness; every intellectual closure technique suppresses circularity and avoids teleology.

2. An emotional satisfier is not meaningfully judged with respect t o

ness a s

ad

hocness, accepts post hoc-

a given, and d o e s not devalue circularity or

teleology.

3. T h e critical difference between t h e t w o possible functions o f an explanation relates t o their differential posture with respect t o circularity and teleology.

4. T h e only indicator that differentiates between closure and satisfaction in an absolute sense is teleology.

F I N A L PERSPECTIVE 1. Descriptive scientific explanation essentially constitutes a unique category o f explanation: it is not subject t o an

hocness o r post hocness evaluation

and automatically precludes circular and teleological explanatory constructs.

2. No explanatory strategy involving a theoretical level o f analysis successfully survives evaluation by the four philosophical criteria.

Even scientific

theory c a n be devalued f o r post hocness and its implicit circularity.

3. Any explanatory strategy involving a theoretical level o f analysis represents a compromise between different vested interests or purposes, such that the ideal o f perfect explanation only can be approximated. EPIPHENOMENA AS EXPLANATORY ENTITIES Recall from Chapter 3 that conscious experience and behavior constitute psychology's two traditional epiphenomena1 objects o f interest: they occupy the basic object o f study slot o f t h e content o f observation. It also is possible f o r each o f these entities t o oc-

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150

cupy the other slot o f t h e content o f observation: the locus o f causation.

In t h i s r o l e , the discipline's

epi-

phenomena s e r v e as possible explanatory entities: either conscious experience o r behavior c a n serve a s t h e source o f either conscious experience or behavior. Considering the differential metaphysical properties o f conscious experience and behavior, conscious experience always must be inferred a s t h e locus o f causation; and behavior i s directly observable a s t h e locus o f causation.

Conscious experience i s a n in-

direct object o f study when it is used a s a n explanatory entity. Conscious experience can be used a s an explanatory entity in either a first person access or third person access context.

In first person access, it amounts t o

a self's subjective psychological world that helps resolve the content o f its epiphenomena1 self-report.

In

third person access, it amounts t o t h e mentation, consciousness, or cognitive processes o f a significant other and usually is employed t o help explain t h e significant other's

overt epiphenomena1 behavior.

Note

that in contemporary psychology it is not fashionable to infer a significant other's state o f consciousness: t h i s amounts t o introspection by analogy [see Boring,

19531.

Mentation a s a causal variable in t h e third per-

s o n access context is a property o f s o m e impersonal, externally sourced cognitive model that i s applied t o the situation. Behavior can be used as a n explanatory entity only in a third person access context. of

The current behavior

a significant other only can be used to explain its

future behavior or the current or future behavior o f another significant other.

Or alternatively: The past

behavior o f a significant other only can be used to ex-


151

plain its current behavior or t h e past or current behavior o f another significant other.

These temporal

relationships are dictated by t h e constraints o f descriptive scientific explanation. The status o f

behavior and conscious experience

a s explanatory entities is vastly different. STATUS OF BEHAVIOR

Behavior is an external, pub-

lic, materially composed event.

When used explanator-

i l y , it constitutes a physical input variable, although it is not a s easy t o control or regulate a s a prototypical environmental stimulus event unmediated by some organism's responses.

Behavior rarely is el-

evated t o t h e status o f a higher level theoretical construct.

When a significant other's current behav-

ior is resolved in terms o f its past behavior, a s occ u r s in developmental psychology, t h e past behavior merely is an indicator variable representing t h e nature o f t h e significant other's past experience. When a significant other's future behavior is resolved

in t e r m s

of

its current behavior, a s occurs in all

sorts o f practical application contexts, t h e relationship is strictly predictive:

current behavior

erating a s a predictor variable.

is op-

When a significant

other's current behavior is resolved in t e r m s o f another significant other's

current behavior, w e have

met t h e minimal requirements for a social interaction situation: t h e behavior o f t h e other significant other merely is a semantic designation representing t h e fact that t h e other significant other is operating a s a social stimulus. STATUS O F MENTATION

Conscious experience is an

internal, private event o f problematical composition: it is an inferred, hypothetical mental event.

When

some aspect o f mentation, such a s belief, disposition,

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152

intention, or preference, is used explanatorily, it is strictly a theoretical construct.

When a mental event

occupies the locus o f causation s l o t , t h e explanatory relationship merely allows understanding in a first person access context or prediction in a third person access context, never control in either context. The dynamics relating conscious experience t o self-report

in a first person access context are i m -

plicit or accepted a s a matter of course.

A humanis-

t i c , phenomenological psychologist, such a s Keen ( 1 9 7 5 1 , does not worry about how a person's

psycholog-

ical world actually determines its behavior or other conscious experience. T h e dynamics relating mentation or cognitive processes t o overt behavior in a third person a c c e s s context are not implicit.

They circumscribe t h e tradi-

tional mind-body problem at a philosophical

(see Hillner, 1985; Bunge, 19801.

level

The resolution of

t h e dynamics relating mentation t o behavior i n t h i s context depends on the composition that is assigned to mental events. Four possible approaches to composition were discussed in Chapter 3: ( 1 ) Cartesian substantive, ( 2 ) logical, (3) physical/physiological, and (4) functional.

Only in Cartesian dualism are t h e respective com-

positions o f mental events and behavior incompatible. In t h e other three conceptions, both mental events and behavior have either implicit o r explicit material composition or functionally equivalent status. There is no metaphysical problem associated with one physical event causing another physical event or with the interaction o f two functionally defined entities. In contemporary cognitive psychology

(Fodor, 19811,

mentation merely constitutes another physical or func-


153

tional process: there is n o problem with a n aspect o f consciousness determining o r affecting 'overt behavior. It should be emphasized that t h e explanatory stat u s t h a t mentation enjoys in contemporary experimental psychology, a s opposed t o t h e d a y s when descriptive behaviorism

[Watson, 1913; Skinner, 1938) and

peripherally oriented logical behaviorism

[Hull, 1943;

Guthrie, 1935) dominated academic psychology, critically depends o n t h e ability t o operationally, o r methodologically, manipulate surrogate or simulated mental events o n a computer ( B o d e n , 1981).

THE NEED FOR FACE VALID EXPLANATORY CONSTRUCTS We begin t h i s section with a review o f how

experimental psychologist,

(1) an

( 2 ) humanist o r phenomen-

ologist-, (3) psychoanalyst, and (4) the typical person resolve behavior and conscious experience, so t h a t t h e notion o f f a c e validity c a n be developed. 1. The academic, experimental psychologist res o l v e s t h e behavior o f a significant other in a third person access, objective o r quasi-objective framework by relating t h e behavior t o purely descriptive entit i e s possessing t h e s a m e level o f reality as t h e behavior itself or to hypothetical theoretical entities, presumed t o exist at s o m e higher, more abstract level o f reality.

The validity o f either o f these k i n d s o f

explanatory entities solely depends o n their capacity t o meet t h e verification requirements associated with the scientific approach in general.

2. A humanistic psychologist, a phenomenologically oriented therapist o r counselor, o r a n existential psychologist resolves t h e behavior and c o n s c i o u s e x perience o f a s e l f in a first person access, subjective framework by relating them t o aspects o f t h e self's psychological world: personal goals, basic

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154

needs, self-image, conflicts, frustrations, and t h e like.

The self's

behavior and conscious experience

are explained once an understanding o f their meaning and significance in t h e self's subjective world is developed.

The validity o f any explanatory entity used

t o interpret t h e self's psychological world strictly

is intuitive: t h e psychological mechanisms and processes revealed by empathetic identification only possess face validity. 3. A depth psychologist, such a s a Freudian psy-

choanalyst, resolves the behavior and conscious experience o f a significant other in a third person access, quasi-objective framework by relating them t o hypothetical psychodynamic concepts originally induced from prior, similarly conducted psychoanalytic therapy sessions.

Psychoanalytic explanatory concepts are

not subject t o objective scientific verification techniques, nor are they intuitively valid.

They only

can b e assessed with respect to their possible consistent use: 00 t h e concepts provide an explanation displaying internal consistency?

On the other hand,

Freudian concepts seem intuitively valid f o r t h e vast majority o f t h e general public: Freudian notions possess face validity for them.

4. The typical person resolves t h e behavior and experience o f

another organism via a process o f em-

pathetic identification that ultimately leads to an intuitive understanding o f the organism.

T h i s intui-

tive understanding incorporates psychological mechanisms and processes that t h e person finds plausible in

the context of its own daily life.

In other words,

t h e general public's explanatory entities possess face validity. SIGNIFICANCE OF FACE VALIDITY

The sociologist


155

Nettler (1970) argues that t h e bulk o f what passes f o r explanation o f human behavior i s a n amalgam o f hortat o r y , prescriptive, and descriptive feeling-sentences, i.e., statements expressing understanding o r "correct feeling."

He also regards t h e scientific definition

o f explanatory concepts a s unimportant

relative t o t h e

definitions used by the people whom psychologists are interested in studying in t h e first place.

In other

words, Nettler i s arguing that psychological explanatory entities must possess face validity. A f a c e valid explanatory construct only c a n pro-

vide emotional satisfaction, not intellectual c l o s u r e ; however, a humanist, psychoanalyst, t h e general public, or any subscriber t o f o l k psychology in general is not seeking intellectual closure anyway.

Only experimental

psychology, which strives t o resolve behavior in t e r m s o f s o m e external criterion o r objective r e a l i t y , is

concerned with intellectual closure.

The problem with

most scientifically sourced psychological explanatory concepts i s that they merely provide intellectual closure.

Many o f them are anti-intuitive and violate t h e

sensibility o f even those who are sympathetic t o academic psychology. The human being c a n perform and experience a n infinite number o f t h i n g s in infinitely many ways. o f t h e concepts o f folk psycho

Many

ogy [see S t i c h , 1983)

provide f o r this: they are f a r more denotatively rich and subtle than any scientific notion yet devised.

For

instance, the English language has verbs, o r action terms, f o r more mental s t a t e s

han academic psychology

could ever hope t o classify or identify with specific physiological states.

T h i s is not t o suggest t h a t aca-

demic psychology formalize f o l k psychology o r forsake the construction o f a psychological reality t h a t pro-

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156

vides intellectual closure.

Rather, the discipline

must accept t h e fact that acceptable explanation o f its epiphenomena1 objects o f

interest must involve a

constructional level o f reality t h a t is congruent with the general public's conception o f psychological determination. THE COMPOSITIONAL PROBLEM AND ITS POSSIBLE SOLUTION At an interpretive level, t h e discipline's failure t o integrate intellectual closure and emotional satisfaction is both a source and symptom o f t h e compositional problem.

Descriptive scientific explana-

tion does constitute a n adequate prediction and control device; however, although higher level scientific theory might provide logical and intellectual insights and please some philosophers o f s c i e n c e , it d o e s not resolve the complex psychological nature o f t h e human organism to anyone's satisfaction.

O n t h e other hand,

the empathetic identification approach, implicit in

f o l k psychology and explicit in humanism, generates explanatory c o n c e p t s with face validity and intuitive appeal.

The dualisms or mentalisms indigenous t o the

empathy context do not permit prediction or control, but t h e s e are a n anathema t o humanists and t h e general public anyway.

Descriptive explanation, a s exempli-

fied by Skinnerian radical behaviorism, rarely g e t s beneath the s k i n ; intuitive understanding, representative o f humanistic, phenomenological psychology, rarely gets outside t h e skin. Solution o f construction of

the compositional problem via t h e a satisfactory representational scheme

for generating psychological events would require the realization that certain psychological contexts call f o r prediction and control and o t h e r s are m o r e appropriately resolved via an intuitive understanding at


the interpretive level.

157

There is nothing written in

cement that operational control and epistemological explanation must be resolved in the confines o f the same basic underlying conceptual framework, e.g., the scientific one.


159

CHAPTER 5

METAPHYSICS: SCHEMES F O R DEFINING PSYCHOLOGICAL EVENTS

Every aspect o f psychology treated so far--methodological, epiphenomenal, and interpretive--involves metaphysical decisions; however, we have not a s yet considered t h e fundamental metaphysical issue o f t h e discipline: On what basis are some natural phenomena iden tified a s psychological in nature and others not?

The

reader should be reminded that t h e discipline has not systematically or rationally addressed t h i s issue. This is one reason why the discipline's

compositional

problem persists. Historically, t h e differentiation between t h e p s y c ho 1o g i ca 1 '' and t h e "no np sy c ho 1 o g i c a 1 I' h a s be en

If

informally accomplished by a loose combination o f ( 1 ) goals, ( 2 ) t y p e s o f psychology, and (3) s y s t e m s (Hilln e r , 1984, 1985).

As t h e interpretations o f these

three aspects o f t h e discipline vary over t i m e , t h e denotation o f t h e psychological and nonpsychological also varies.

In other words, certain goals f o r the

discipline are postulated and sometimes justified, a type o f psychology is promulgated, and finally a s p e cific system is developed.

This is not to argue that

every psychologist associated with t h e creation o f a system h a s explicitly followed t h i s sequence or consciously addressed each o f its first two elements. It merely serves a s a didactic way o f deriving t h e i m -

Chapter 5

160

plicit means of identifying the psychological and nonpsychological heretofore used by t h e discipline.

The

very fact that different conceptions of t h e psychological and nonpsychological coexist and compete with each other demonstrates that no ultimate or absolute set o f criteria f o r delimiting the domain of the discipline has ever been developed. Resolution o f the proper domain o f t h e discipline

is not independent o f a s e r i e s o f related questions:

1 . What kind of organism or entity c a n exhibit phenomena that are deemed psychological in nature?

2. D o e s each kind o f organism require a separate psychology?

3. What is t h e nature of the human being; is there anything unique about t h e human being?

4. How is t h e potentially infinite domain of psychology reduced to. manageable proportions?

5. Is the conduction of psychology purely a descriptive endeavor, or also a normative enterprise? The resolution OF any one of these questions cannot be done in isolation o f the others: they are resolved a s a package, with t h e respective solutions mutually contingent o n each other. The ramifications o f t h e compositional pro,blem for t h e conduction of academic psychology at t h e metaphysical level will be abstracted in t e r m s o f ( 1 ) possible goals and derivative types o f psychology, ( 2 ) nature of a system, (3) significance and r o l e s o f t h e different t y p e s of psychology, (4) infinite domain of the discipline, (5) neture o f the human being, ( 6 ) possible subject t y p e s and attendant psychologies, and ( 7 ) t h e descriptive-normative stance of t h e discipline.

Metaphysics: Schemes for Defining Psychological Events

161

POSSIBLE GOALS A N 0 DERIVATIVE TYPES OF PSYCHOLOGY There are five possible goals o f psychology a n d , consequently, five types o f psychology.

1 . To resolve t h e nature o f t h e mind or aspects o f t h e mind: t h e content o f conscious experience,

both perceptual and introspective; consciousness; thinking; cognitive processes in general; and vario u s kinds o f

mental states.

This f o c u s establishes

t h e notion of epistemological psychology, although contemporarily it is more often termed cognitive psychology, and places psychology within a time-honored philosophical tradition: t h e mental o r epistemological philosophizing characteristic o f Oescartes ( 1 6 5 0 ,

16621, British empiricism ( L o c k e , 1690; Berkeley, 1710; H u m e , 17481, and Kant (1781).

Although practi-

cal application goals are definable within t h e epistemological f o c u s , t h i s t y p e o f psychology i s conducted primarily a s a n intellectual endeavor.

2. To understand t h e nature o f organismic adaptation to the surrounding physical and social world: t h i s goal requires a n implicit o r explicit f o c u s o n overt behavior.

The focus is implicit in a system

such a s functionalism (Angell, 1904, 1907; Carr, 1925) that conceives o f adaptation a s t h e result o f t h e

ef-

ficacy o r utility o f consciousness interpreted a s mental activity; t h e focus is explicit in any behavioristic system (e.g., Watson, 1925; Skinner, 1938; Hull, 1943; Guthrie, 1935; Tolman, 1932).

Concern for adap-

tation establishes the notion o f action psychology and puts psychology squarely in t h e Oarwinian ( 1 8 5 9 , 1871) evolutionary tradition.

The intellectual and practi-

cal application aspects o f psychology are indistinguishable in a n action system.

3. To understand the psychological world o f the

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individual organism, particularly a s it relates t o i t s goals, self-image, feeling states, and quality and degree o f self-awareness in general: t h i s f o c u s establishes the notion o f understanding psychology and places psychology in the general Continental phenomenological and Verstehen traditions (Husserl, 1931; Oilthey, 1924).

Although intellectual goals are defin-

able within a phenomenological, Verstehen f o c u s , t h i s type o f psychology constitutes an applied endeavor in the United States (see Giorgi, 1970; Rogers, 1951; Maslow, 1970).

4. To resolve the nature o f t h e individual organi s m a s a psychic entity: t h i s goal postulates t h e existence o f a psychological universe within each individual seething with instinctual and unconscious forces. Conceptualizing t h e organism a s a psychodynamic entity establishes t h e notion o f depth psychology, o f which Freudian psychoanalysis (Munroe, 1955) constitutes t h e prototypical case.

Depth psychology does not place

the discipline in any particular historical or philosophical framework, other than perhaps a medical one (Zilboorg, 1967): the notion o f t h e human organism a s a distinct psychological entity is indigenous to this approach.

The intellectual and practical application

aspects o f psychology are indistinguishable in depth psychology.

5. To comprehend t h e organism as a point in a vast historical-cultural

space, both subject to and

contributing t o various dialectical forces and developments: this focus establishes t h e notion o f dialectical psychology (Riegel, 1978, 19791 and places psychology in the Hegelian (18071, Marxist ( 1 8 6 7 ) philosophical tradition.

The intellectual and practical

application aspects o f psychology are indistinguishable

Metaphysics: Schemesfor Defining Psychological Events

163

in dialectical psychology. THE NATURE OF A SYSTEM Psychologists do not construct "types"

o f psy-

chology; psychologists construct 'lsystems" o f psychology.

Not every psychologist constructs a s y s t e m ; only

s o m e of

them do.

The notion o f a system i s important

for t w o reasons:

1. It is t h e closest approximation

we

have t o a

metaphysical scheme f o r defining psychological events (McGeoch, 19331. 2. The development o f academic psychology since

its inception can be viewed a s a progression o f a bas i c set o f dominant or highly influential s y s t e m s [Hillner, 1984). DEFINITION A N D CHARACTERIZATION

EvePy psycholo-

gist must make certain assumptions, usually philosophical in nature, about such t h i n g s a s reality, t r u t h , organisms o f interest, object o f s t u d y , locus o f causation, and methodology.

The content o f these assump-

t i o n s collectively defines a psychologist's conceptual approach t o psychology, which existentially c a n be referred t o a s a system (Lichtenstein, 1967).

A sys-

tem entails t h e specific set o f beliefs that underlies a particular brand o f psychology. The critical aspect o f a system, for our purposes, relates t o its permissibility component.

The

philosophical assumptions implicit in a system determine t h e permissible objects o f s t u d y , methodological techniques, organisms o f interest, loci o f causation, and t h e like.

It is in t h i s sense t h a t a system is

said to define and prescribe t h e domain o f t h e psychological universe.

A system is all-pervasive, universal, totalistic. It establishes t h e intellectual o r conceptual rele-

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164

vance o f an academic discipline in the first place, because it specifically entails an object o f study and methodology not subsumed by any other academic discipline.

No psychology exists independent o f ,

or out-

side the confines of, a system. The notion o f a system really is a class or generic concept,

It is possible for a system of psychol-

ogy t o be composed o f or reducible to many different subsystems or subvariants.

For instance, literally

dozens o f different brands o f behaviorism exist (Mackenzie, 1977); the same is true o f depth psychology (Munroe, 1955). The concept o f a system often is confused with high level theoretical explanation (see Chapter 4). Most systems c o n t a i n t h e o r y , but the theory is distinct from the system itself.

Theory is focused

around a specific psychological process or a specific content area o f psychology: learning, motivation, perception, personality, and the like.

A system merely

constrains the forms and types o f theory an adherent of

the system c a n use: it sets limits to the range of

acceptable variation o f theory construction efforts. HISTORICAL PROGRESSION: EPHEMERAL TRUTH

The op-

posite side o f the coin conceptualizing the development o f academic psychology as a progression o f highly influential systems is the fact that a system o f p s y chology entails only ephemeral truth: a system rarely survives the death o f its founder or principal adherents.

Even when a system does survive, it is subject

to evolutionary changes and adaptations. Two factors determine the effective life span o f a system: ( 1 ) the type o f psychology it subsumes and ( 2 ) the degree to which it has been institutionalized

b y its founder(s1.

Oepth psychology and understanding


165

psychology are not experimental systems: they are constructed a s dogma accepted by faith.

Epistemological,

behavioristic, and dialectical psychology are experimental systems, continually subject t o empirical validation and revision.

The latter kind of system h a s

virtually no chance o f survival in original form. Only three systems of psychology have lasted more than half a century: ( 1 ) Freudian ( 1 9 3 9 , 1949) depth psychology, ( 2 1 Piagetian ( 1 9 7 0 , 19711 epistemological-genetic psychology, and (3) Skinnerian ( 1 9 3 8 , 1974) radical behaviorism.

Freud's psychology sur-

vived because he institutionalized h i s dogma and inspired future generations of neo-Freudians (Horney, 1950; Fromm, 1947; Sullivan, 19531.

It is t o o early

to tell whether Piaget's system w i l l survive h i s r e cent death.

Skinner still is alive and in a position

t o defend his system; however, second and third generation operant psychologists already have significantly altered his original system (for instance, Herrnstein,

1970, 1977; Staddon, 1 9 6 7 , 19801. Structuralism and t h e many versions of learning macrotheory (logical behaviorism) precipitously declined once their founders died.

Gestalt psychology

was able to survive Wertheimer's

and Koffka's deaths

in t h e early 1940s because Kb'hler lived for another quarter century.

But o n c e Kzhler died in 1967

Watsonian behaviorism

. . . .

did not even survive its foun-

der, who had t o leave academia and enter private business.

Functionalism had no explicit founder(s1 and

ultimately was absorbed by a more belligerent behaviorism.

Dialectical psychology more than likely was not

sufficiently institutionalized prior t o Riegel's death in 1977. life.

Cognitive behaviorism probably

is at mid

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166

The extreme ephemerality o f a system demonstrates that the metaphysical criteria f o r t h e psychological and nonpsychological have not been resolved.

The fact

that t h e creator(s) and principal adherents o f a system always must be in a position t o defend it suggests that t h e continued viability o f a system depends o n ad hoc -

efforts and stopgap measures.

By way o f com-

parison, we c a n appeal t o physical science, especially physics, where Newton's and Einstein's views were not affected by their deaths.

In a science with paradig-

matic coherence (see Preface), t h e mechanism o f change

is impersonal [Kuhn, 1970). SIGNIFICANCE A N 0 ROLES O F THE FIVE TYPES OF PSYCHOLOGY The discipline o f psychology d o e s not exist in a conceptual or societal vacuum,

Each type o f psychol-

ogy makes a distinctive contribution, by fulfilling certain perceived conceptual needs and being responsive t o different elements o f society and t h e demands they put o n t h e discipline.

As s u c h , they complement

each other and guarantee a place in t h e discipline f o r virtually any kind o f psychological practice or practitioner. EPISTEMOLOGICAL; COGNITIVE

The first recognized

system o f experimental psychology, structuralism, was o f t h e epistemological t y p e [see Chapter

1).

It f o -

cused on the content o f conscious experience, through the first person access o f highly %rained, verbally facile, graduate students.

Its content o f observation

representsd a technical, professional adjustment by Wilhelm Wundt [l896], who combined t h e t a l e n t s o f an epistemologically oriented philosopher and a n experimental physiologist in t h e empirical study o f t h e structure o f t h e mind.

Structuralism constituted a

pure psychology, with no practical application rele-


167

vance, and succeeded in effecting psychology's acceptance by the academic community a s a Legitimate intellectual discipline. Although t h e s e e d s o f structuralism were planted in t h e United S t a t e s by Titchener (legs), t h e practical and pragmatic orientation o f American c u l t u r e fostered a concern f o r t h e utility o f consciousness that was physically realized in t h e context o f a loosely formulated epistemological system called functionalism (Angell, 1904, 1907; C a r r , 1925).

In t h i s concep-

tual approach, t h e activities o f consciousness constitute t h e locus o f causation; and overt b e h a v i o r , for all practical purposes, s e r v e s a s t h e object o f direct observation.

Functionalism provided t h e necessary

context for America's

interest in mental t e s t i n g ,

child and adolescent psychology, educational psychology, effective teaching and learning t e c h n i q u e s , and t h e like. Gestalt psychology (Wertheimer, 1912; Koffka, 1922; KGhler, 1920) w a s a f o r m a l , academically oriented cognitive system that revolutionized t h e psychology o f perception, kept t h e epistemological f o c u s alive during t h e heyday o f descriptive behaviorism, and functioned a s a germinal form of humanistic, phenomenological psychology.

At a conceptual level, it

served a s an antithesis t o t h e molecular, associationistic focus o f both structuralism and behaviorism. Probably t h e ultimate significance o f Gestalt psychology is ancillary t o its s t a t u s a s a n epistemological system.

It was both a product o f German rationality

and intellectualism and a casualty o f German irrationality and racism.

The history o f t h e Gestalt movement

should serve a s a n eternal reminder that t h e discipline o f psychology exists at t h e whim o f t h e govern-

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168

mental institution. Cognitive behaviorism (see Solso, 1979; Anderson,

1980) constitutes t h e dominant contemporary American physical realization o f a n epistemological psychology. It effects a third person access t o mentation by employing a computer-brain analogy at both a conceptual (modeling) and evaluational

(methodological) level.

Cognitive behaviorism is an advanced, o r more sophisticated, form o f functionalism with overt behavior r e lated t o highly formalized and codified mental events. Piagetian ( 1 9 5 3 , 1954, 1970, 1977) s t r u c t u r a l , genetic-epistemological psychology mapped t h e rational, intellectual side o f our nature, just a s Freud ( 1 9 3 9 , 1949) did f o r t h e irrational, instinctual components.

It constitutes t h e canonical cognitive-de-

velopmental system t o which other conceptual approaches to mentation invariably are compared.

Piaget's system

continues the traditional Continental emphasis o n mind and epistemology: structuralism, act psychology, Gestalt psychology, and t h e like.

It also derived from

th e general Kantian (1781) framework in which structure, both in a logical and physical realization s e n s e , is regarded a s a necessary component o f anyone's world view.

Piagetian thought t r a n s c e n ds psychology and is

unorthodox by strict behavioristic, experimental standards; but th i s fact makes Piaget similar t o Freud in that his contributions t o intellectual history belie his classification a s a mere psychologist. ACTION

T h i s t y p e o f psychology f i l l s t h e need f o r

an objectively based, experimentally oriented psychology by focusing o n overt behavior a s t h e object o f direct observation.

Functionalism constituted a n impli-

cit action system and served a s a necessary transitional school between structuralism and Watsonian behavior-


ism.

Any kind o f behaviorism

169

is an action psychology.

Watsonian (1925) and Skinnerian ( 1 9 7 4 ) behaviorism are strictly descriptive in nature, in t h e sense that external stimulus events exhaust t h e locus o f causation. Logical behaviorism, or learning macrotheory ( H u l l ,

1943; Guthrie, 19351, relates overt behavior t o postulated internal events, most o f which are assumed peripheral in nature.

Cognitive behaviorism, in t h e

tradition o f Tolmanian (19321 learning theory, relates overt behavior to presumed internal, central brain events. Descriptive behaviorism, especially t h e Skinnerian (19531 variety, constitutes an applied psychology

par excellence: for instance, behavior therapy, contingency management, token economies, self-help programs, and programmed

learning.

Its interpretation

o f t h e content o f observation a s an input-output re-

lation affords a pre-emptory havior.

degree o f control o f be-

Because its content o f observation also de-

emphasizes t h e specific t y p e o f organism exhibiting behavior, it permits a methodologically viable animal psychology:

Commercial animal training, animal psycho-

physics, animal psychopharmacology, and animal psychophysiology are made possible by Skinnerian operant conditioning techniques. UNDERSTANOING

This kind o f psychology

is best

exemplified in a contemporary context by humanistic, phenomenological, existential psychology

(Maslow,

1970; Rogers, 1951; Keen, 1975; Giorgi, 1970). person access t o t h e content o f a n organism's

First

emotion-

al consciousness, or general feeling state, is used t o infer t h e quality and degree o f its self-awareness, t h e nature o f its over-all adjustment to life, and t h e like.

Humanistic psychology

literally constructs t h e

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170

psychological world in which each individual exists. It is a conceptual extension o f Gestalt psychology and represents a rebirth o f interest in consciousness after decades o f neglect due t o t h e dominance o f descriptive behaviorism.

Although empirical in nature, humanistic

psychology is not a n experimental system and basically amounts to a form o f therapeutic intervention. DEPTH

depth psychology exist,

Many variants o f

although Freudian (1939, 1949) psychoanalysis constitutes t h e canonical form (Munroe, 19551.

Depth psy-

chology has no formal concept o f behavior and de-emphas i z e s rational, cognitive mentation occurring at t h e level o f immediate awareness.

It regards t h e individ-

ual organism a s a psychic entity, subject t o conflicting strivings, wishes, and f o r c e s , many o f which are assumed to be unconscious.

The psychological universe

i s strictly localized within t h e s k i n and subsumes a psychodynamic system incorporating psychic determinism. Psychoanalysis possesses a tremendous degree o f face validity f o r t h e general public.

It h a s had a n immense

influence on t h o s e disciplines that focus o n t h e individual organism a s the unit o f analysis: f o r instance, art, literature, drama, history, and theology.

Psycho-

analysis heavily interfaces with t h e personality, devel opmental, and motivational areas o f mainstream psychology.

Freud ( 1 9 3 9 , 1949) put the psychogenic approach

to abnormality and therapy o n the psychological map. It was psychoanalysis, not one o f t h e academic s y s t e m s , that orginally proffered t h e notion that t h e human organism is a psychological entity and that a characteristically unique psychological reality exists. DIALECTICAL

This t y p e o f psychology i s indigenous

t o Russia; however, beginning in t h e late 1960s, Klaus Riegel (1978, 1979) constructed a n American version in

Metaphysics: Schemesfor Defining Psychological Events

171

an attempt to combine t h e objective orientation o f behaviorism and t h e subjective orientation o f humanism ( s e e Chapter 2 ) .

What resulted was a hybrid cogni-

tive-developmental psychology, quite similar t o Skinner's

(1974) descriptivism.

Dialectical psychology,

at t h i s point in t i m e , is strictly a n academic s y s t e m , although its potential practical application relevance is unlimited because it conceives o f t h e individual o r ganism a s a point in a combined historical (developmentall-cultural

(social environmental) space.

INFINITE OOMAIN O F

PSYCHOLOGY

There i s no facet o f human activity and experience that potentially does not have s o m e psychological aspect associated with it.

The psychological universe

i s infinite in nature, regardless o f t h e model o f psychological reality used t o represent it.

Any system

o f psychology must be capable o f dealing with a n in-

finite number o f events.

Both t h e epiphenomena o f in-

terest t o psychology and t h e possible determinants o f these epiphenomena are infinite in number.

A

labora-

tory experiment can be conducted in an infinite number o f ways; naturalistic observation involves a n infinite number o f environments and behaviors; a therapy session admits o f infinite variation; a specific practical application technique c a n be physically realized in an infinite number o f ways. The discipline employs three not necessarily mutually exclusive ways o f dealing with a potentially infinite domain: ( 1 ) use o f generic concepts, ( 2 ) postulation o f key mechanisms o r processes, and ( 3 ) assumption o f a prototypical situation o r activity. GENERIC CONCEPTS

The denotation o f any psycho-

logical t e r m , regardless o f whether it r e f e r s t o an operation, a piece o f behavior, a n experiential e v e n t ,

172

Chapter 5

a process, or even a theoretical construct, is generic

in nature: it does not refer to just one entity, but to a class o f related entities.

No psychological con-

cept is physically realizable in only one way, but in a number o f related ways.

For instance, at the opera-

tional level, operant conditioning (Skinner, 1938,

1953) is a generic term for a host o f procedures involving response-contingent delivery o f positive reinforcement; structuralist introspection (Wundt, 1873-

1874; Titchener, 1901, 1905) is a generic term for a host o f procedures involving self-report on the content o f immediate conscious experience.

For reasons

o f convenience, certain variants o f a technique tend

to be used more often than others and come t o constitute the prototypical case.

A generic term usually is defined in terms

o f

other generic terms, which in turn are defined in terms o f

other generic terms,

ad

infinitum.

The high-

er the level and more abstract a specific psychological concept is, the more open-ended it is.

I n behav-

iorism (see Hillner, 19841, concepts such a s stimulus and response that constitute the primary metaphysical units o f analysis possess virtually infinite interpretive possibilities.

In humanism (see Hillner,

19841, a concept such a s the self or self-realization

is infinitely descriptive.

KEY MECHANISMS OR PROCESSES

No psychologist can

give equal weight to every possible psychological mechanism or process.

Every system o f psychology em-

phasizes certain mechanisms/processes to the exclusion o f others.

The emphasized ones constitute the primary

entities responsible for psychological adjustment and change in the system. Oue to the assumption o f key mechanisms/processes,


173

each system possesses a distinctive "psychological flavor" or psychodynamics.

The descriptive behaviorist

Skinner ( 1 9 6 9 ) reduces everything to reinforcement contingencies.

Personality theorists, such a s Allport

(1955, 19661, emphasize structural traits.

Freudian

depth psychologists (see Munroe, 1955) resolve behavior in t e r m s of a n internal psychic world seething with instinctual strivings and culturally based prohibitions

A humanist, such a s Maslow (1971) o r Rogers ( 1 9 6 1 1 , advocates t h e flowering o f t h e individual psyche (self) in t h e absence of a s many externally sourced psychological constraints a s possible.

The psychodynamics of a system cannot be altered without running t h e risk o f system destruction because it essentially constitutes t h e psychological substance of t h e system.

This is especially t r u e f o r nonexperi-

mental systems, such a s depth psychology and humanistic or phenomenological psychology, in which no pretense is made with respect to independent, external validation o f psychological truth.

Refocusing of t h e criti-

cal psychological mechanisms in depth psychology amounts to heresy, while refocusing in a version o f experimentally oriented behaviorism merely constitutes a refinement. PROTOTYPICAL SITUATION OR ACTIVITY

Creators of

models of psychological reality make n o s e r i o u s attempt at universality and exhaustiveness.

Rather, a specific

situation o r activity is focused o n , raised t o hallowed status, assumed to b e the key element o f psychological reality, treated a s t h e most representative psychological phenomenon, and used a s a "model"

f o r t h e rest of

the psychological universe. The choice o f a prototypical situation/activity i s related more t o t h e goals o f a system than to any other

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114

aspect o f t h e system.

T h e operant conditioning situa-

tion slowly evolved in Skinner's he prized behavioral control.

(1956) hands because

The notion o f a stan-

dard psychoanalytic therapy session developed because Freud was engaged in helping hysterical patients [Breuer and Freud, 1895).

The Gestaltists (Wertheimer,

1912; Koffka, 1922; Kshler, 19201 focused o n t h e phi phenomenon and other perceptual phenomena demonstrating immanent organization because they reacted in a phenomenal fashion t o t h e structuralist program o f analysis and synthesis (Wundt, 1896; Titchener, 18981. Humanism

( s e e Keen, 19751 focuses o n individual self-

awareness because it attempts to recapture t h e uniqueness and inviolability o f t h e individual.

When mathe-

matical modeling was applied t o psychology in a rneaningful way f o r t h e first t i m e , in t h e early 1950s, learning (especially probability learning and pairedassociate learning] constituted t h e prototypical situation simply because these activities afforded stable, predictable, discretely probabilistic data (see Bush and Mosteller, 1951, 1955; Estes, 19501. No psychologist h a s ever attempted t o design a

system accommodating all t h e individual reference points used by other extant systems. impossible.

The task would b e

What i s possible in many cases i s a trans-

scription o f t h e basic reference point o f one system into t h e terminology and concepts o f another system. But advocates o f t h e original system d o not accept t h e transcription.

For instance, Skinner (1957, 19741 re-

defines self-awareness a s tacting responses about t a c ting responses; but no humanist accepts this.

Con-

versely, a Rogerian wants to translate Skinner's concept o f

response-contingent positive reinforcement in-

t o t h e noncontingent delivery o f unconditional positive


175

regard; but a Skinnerian regards t h i s a s folly (Rogers,

1956).

A dialectical psychologist, such a s Riegel

(1978, 19791, attempts t o combine behaviorism and humanism by treating t h e subject-experimenter relationship a s a n emergent unit o f analysis; but t h i s violates t h e sensibilities o f both t h e behaviorist and humanist. Note that only in a n action s y s t e m , such a s Watsonian o r Skinnerian behaviorism, d o e s the notion o f action and/or i t s derivative, instrumental behavior (see Chapter 31, correspond to the prototypical activit y ; that is, action/behavior s e r v e s a s t h e prototypical psychological situation for modeling t h e rest o f t h e psychological universe (Hillner, 19841.

In every other

t y p e o f psychology, with t h e possible exception of dialectical, the prototypical psychological situation/activity is located within t h e organism.

N A T U R E OF THE HUMAN BEING A good c a s e could be made f o r the fact t h a t t h e follow ng three statements apply t o u s [Hillner, 19851:

1

We are both materially composed a s s o m e kind o f

biolog cal organism and functionally characterizable a s some kind o f emergent being.

2. We possess a rich inner life, one o f both cognitive and emotional experience.

3. We have an outer existence by which we constitute a n active component o f some kind of surrounding physical universe. Various philosophical views o f t h e nature o f homo sapiens exist because these characteristics c a n be differentially emphasized.

Recall t h e t w o broad classes

o f approaches mentioned in Chapter 4: ( 1 ) homo sapiens

a s mechanism and (2) homo sapiens a s moral agent.

The

mechanistic approach emphasizes our outer existence and material composition; the moral agency approach empha-

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si z e s our inner life and emergence. These differential philosophical emphases carry through to t he psychological level and influence t h e construction of psychological reality.

In mechanism,

psychological reality is modeled after and continuous with physical reality.

In moral agency, psychological

reality tends t o take on the trappings o f a theological reality (Royce, 1961). The moral agency approach w i l l be considered f i r s t , simply because it is the older o f t h e two views. MORAL AGENCY

This view is implicit in our over-

all culture, folk psychology, the legal system, and the Christian o r Western religious tradition (Wertheimer, 1972).

It considers each individual t o be an au-

tonomous creature, capable o f self-generated thought and activity, and in control o f its own destiny.

Hu-

man beings possess free will and ar e morally responsible for their actions.

The defining attribute o f hu-

manity is t h e possession o f consciousness, or more technically self-consciousness.

We ere unique in t h e

sense that we constitute more than a mere animal presence; we are emergent creatures, rising above our biological substrata or material composition.

Mind, men-

talism, or mental life is an efficacious property o f our nature.

Mind has t h e same status and r o l e in mor-

al agency a s it has in Cartesian dualism ( s e e Chapter 31

,

although a contemporary philosopher espousing t h i s

view o f homo sapiens typically does not accept t h e Cartesian duality o f substance{ mentation d o e s not involve a strange, mysterious noncorporeal entity diffused throughout the body.

A belief i n moral agency

merely connotes that mental events, a s materially or functionally defined, can influence and control physical events: aspects o f consciousness do regulate and

Metaphysics: Schemes for Defining Psychobgical Events

177

guide overt behavior. Moral agency provides t h e metaphysical underpinnings f o r understanding psychology in general and humanistic, phenomenological, existential psychology in particular. MECHANISM

This view is indigenous t o science or

t h e naturalistic conception o f t h e universe and reality (Wertheimer, 1972).

Because homo sapiens c a n be

described materialistically at a physical, chemical, and physiological level, it i s assumed that homo sapi-

ens can

be described materialistically at a psychologi-

cal level.

No aspect o f humanity is impervious t o sci-

entific analysis. The notion o f a human being is foursquare denotable by its material and physiological composition: it d o e s not transcend its physiological substrata o r evolutionary input.

The human being i s a component o f

a n over-all mechanistic system such that its thought and activity are circumscribed by natural law.

Human

behavior is determined or at least o c c u r s in a deterministic system.

The individual person cannot be held

morally responsible f o r its own actions.

Responsibili-

ty i s a socially defined notion or a property o f t h e over-all system.

F o r instance, while it i s possible

t o punish some criminal offender with incarceration, it makes more s e n s e t o change t h e environmental milieu or social context in which t h e offense occurred [see Skinner, 1971). In the mechanistic approach, t h e human being is not necessarily a unique form o f life. merely is the highest form o f animal.

Homo s a p i e n s We are regarded

a s such because we possess self-consciousness, have an active symbolic life o r t h e speech function, and exhibit superior intelligence [see S a g a n , 1977).

O n t h e ba-

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178

sis o f other criteria, t h e insect i s t h e highest form o f life:

lack o f pollution, sheer adaptability to the

environment, efficiency o f morphologic design, and enormous physical strength to weight ratio. Our continuity with t h e animal often i s extended to t h e machine.

We simply are another kind o f machine

[LaMettrie, 1748).

What is meant by machine in t h i s

context is t h e properties encompassed by a machine at a conceptual level, not a n actual physical embodiment o f one.

The contemporary conception o f t h e human or-

ganism a 5 a computer (see Fodor, 1981; Boden, 1981) i s a subset o f t h e traditional human-machine analogy; analogously, modeling t h e functions o f the brain after those o f a computer is a subset o f t h e subset. The notion o f mind is tricky business in mechanism.

The Cartesian view o f mind i s not allowed.

Men-

tation must.be resolved physicalistically and can be interpreted a s active or passive in nature. Active mentation--mental

events affecting physical

events, such a s behavior--is allowed if (11 it is construed in a material monistic orientation o r (21 it is assumed merely to have functional reality.

In cogni-

tive behaviorism [ e . g., Anderson, 1980), cognitive processes are physical events--products o f a n information processing system, erstwhile called mind. Passive mentation--mental

events simply are t h e

epiphenomena1 effects o f physical/physiological

activi-

ty--is allowed: consciousness is never efficacious, merely the incidental byproduct o f neural activity.

In

Skinnerian (1974) behaviorism, mental events [construed a 5 conscious experience) a r e the automatic output o f physical stimulation and merely constitute internal behavior to which t h e organism has introspective access under t h e control o f verbal reinforcement contingencies.


179

Mechanism provides t h e metaphysical underpinnings f o r much o f epistemological psychology and all o f action, depth, and dialectical psychology.

IS THERE ANYTHING UNIQUE ABOUT THE HUMAN BEING? The human being is a unique form o f life in t h e context o f moral agency.

Quite literally, t h e human is

above t h e animal, but below the angel, in t h e over-all order o f things.

In t h i s approach, our self-conscious-

ness is not so much a physical property a s it is a n indication o f the fact that we are the creation o f some kind o f

divine agency with which w e should iden-

tify. The question o f uniqueness really is an issue on-

l y in t h e mechanistic context.

We cannot be unique in

t e r m s o f the elements or constituents o f our cornposition.

Any uniqueness must derive from how t h e s e

elements are organized or combined t o compose t h e entity called homo sapiens.

In other words, w e only

could be unique with respect to t h e functions o r processes that our constitutive elements allow u s t o perform (see Bunge, 1980).

Two views are possible in

t h i s context: ( 1 ) continuity and ( 2 ) discontinuity.

1. In t h e continuity view, t h e human simply is a more complex animal, differing from it merely at a quantitative level.

The human differs from t h e ani-

mal in degree, not kind.

We are not unique.

This

view allows t h e animal t o be the model o f t h e human. This is the justification f o r the traditional descriptive and logical behavioristic preference f o r animal research and its straightway generalization t o t h e human c a s e (Skinner, 1938; Hull, 1943). 2. In the discontinuity view, t h e human is not

only quantitatively more complex than the animal, but also qualitatively different from the animal.

The hu-

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man differs from t h e animal in both degree and kind. We are unique; that is, an emergent combination o f material elements. th e human.

Animals cannot s e r v e a s t h e model o f

T h i s is' t h e justification for contemporary

cognitive behaviorism ( S o l s o , 1973): cognitive mechanisms, indigenous to t h e homo s a p i e n s , c a n s e r v e a s t h e model for animal cognition. It also might be possible t o specify t h e nature o f our uniqueness in t e r m s o f an appeal to self-con-

sciousness [ f o r instance, see Mueller-Freienfels,

1935).

The existence o f consciousness in t h e content

sense in an animal is a matter o f t h e now discredited third person a c c e s s mode: we no longer introspect by analogy with respect t o t h e mentation o f a n i m a l s in t h e laboratory.

The existence o f self-consciousness or

self-awareness in a n animal strictly is a metaphysical issue, in my view, with no empirical concomitants.

My

preference at a purely metaphysical level is t o assume that no creature other t h a n homo s a p i e n s possesses c o n sciousness in t h e self-awareness sense.

By extension,

no automata programmed t o display intelligence--no artificial intelligence systems--could ever exhibit s e l f awareness either. POSSIBLE SUBJECT TYPES AND ATTENDANT PSYCHOLOGIES What kind o f organism or entity c a n exhibit phenomena deemed psychological in nature?

T h i s question i s

unresolvable independently o f a consideration o f t h e proper domain o f t h e discipline: they constitute opposite sides o f t h e s a m e coin.

The notion o f subject

type merely i s a conceptual abstraction or convenience [see Chapter 2).

It cannot be defined without refer-

ence t o t h e methodological, epiphenomenal, interpretive, and metaphysical levels o f t h e discipline.

Subject

types only are identifiable within t h e context o f var-


181

ious loci o f causation, orientations, epiphenomena1 foc i , explanatory approaches and mechanisms, and views o f animate life.

It i s fashionable today t o define psychology a s the study o f human behavior and experience (for instance, McMahon and McMahon, 19821, reflecting t h e inroads o f humanism into mainstream psychology and t h e resurgence o f popularity o f cognitive psychology.

Our

analysis o f t h e discipline's compositional problem and its consequences h a s followed t h e line o f least resistance and implicitly assumed that t h e human being is t h e natural focus o f psychology.

But this assumption

only is justifiable if t h e experience o f some self-reporting organism is regarded a s t h e sole or primary epiphenomena1 interest o f t h e discipline.

A s long as

psychology is not arbitrarily limited t o the study o f experience via first person access [and remember from Chapter 3 that experience only can be externalized via behavior), there i s no basis f o r assuming that t h e psychological universe is an exclusive property o f t h e human organism. Third person access to behavior c a n be effected in virtually any context: human, animal, insect, machine (robot, computer), conceivably even plants.

Behavior

even can be exhibited by a n entity other than a c o m pletely intact organism or mechanical device: decerebrate preparation, spinal preparation, brain damaged individual, malfunctioning r o b o t , and the like. within t h e class o f

Even

human beings one must distinguish

between t h e so-called normal population and special populations: clinical, c h i l d , exotic [see Chapter 4). Within t h e class o f "normal" humans it is possible to distinguish between regular states o f consciousness and t h o s e induced by drugs or chemical agents in gener-

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al: These entities create short term special populations.

Behavior also c a n be conceptualized a s a pro-

perty o f emergent structures that possess a reality over and above their constituent elements: t h i s is t h e focus o f social psychology.

A social group need not

even be exclusively composed o f organisms o f t h e s a m e type: automobiles today a r e built by humans and r o b o t s laboring together.

Human-machine interaction s y s t e m s

are studied by industrial psychologists, especially human factor specialists. Conceding that t h e discipline o f psychology i s open-ended with respect to subject t y p e and admitting that t h e latter merely is a conceptual abstraction make t h e issue o f whether each kind o f subject t y p e r e q u i r e s a separate psychology largely circular in nature (see Chapter 4).

Subject t y p e s and t y pe s o f psychology a r e

mutually defined and classified in t e r m s o f each other in t h e first place.

Only in t h e context o f a moral

agency resolution o f t h e nature o f a human b e i n g , buttressed by a strong s e n s e o f our moral worth or spiritual dignity, would t h e gross distinction between human and nonhuman psychology even be meaningful.

THE DESCRIPTIVE-NORMATIVE STANCE O F THE DISCIPLINE Is t h e conduction o f psychology purely a descriptive endeavor, or also a normative enterprise?

Is psy-

chology fundamentally concerned only with what is, or

is it also concerned with what should be?

T h i s ques-

tion is addressed in detail in Chapter 6; h o w e v e r , one o f t h e constraints circumscribing t h e issue is discus-

sed here primarily because it i s anti-intuitive. Recall t h a t t h e mechanistic view o f t h e human being results in a psychological reality indistinguishable from physical reality: t h e r e i s nothing unique about t h e psychological universe.

Also recall that t h e


moral agency conception o f

183

humanity yields a psychologi-

cal reality divorced from physical reality: t h e psychological universe inherently is unique. Acticn psychology, especially behaviorism (viz., Skinner, 19741, is conducted a s a science; understanding psychology, especially humanism

(viz., Keen, 19751, is

conducted a s a phenomenological endeavor.

Both science

and phenomenology are conducted a s descriptive endeavors. The Watsonian and Skinnerian behavioristic s y s t e m s constitute t h e canonical examples o f a purely descriptive psychology: they exclusively deal with observables.

Hu-

manism focuses o n t h e content o f emotional consciousness, a s given: it deals with subject matter that i s not immediately relatable to underlying theoretical entities. Because t h e psychological universe is indigenously unique in humanistic, phenomenological psychology, it can be practiced strictly a s a descriptive endeavor: t h e mere cataloguing o f t h e individual's psychological world guarantees uniqueness t o t h e discipline.

Conversely,

psychology conducted a s descriptive behaviorism cannot impart any uniqueness to t h e discipline.

Descriptive

behaviorism must, in addition, be normative in order f o r the psychological universe t o be unique: t h i s t y p e o f behaviorism must deal with what should ethical sense.

be

in a moral or

Descriptive behaviorism in combination

with s o m e moral imperative is necessary for t h e discipline o f psychology to be substantively distinguished from t h e other sciences.

In other words, when psychol-

ogy i s conducted a s a science, it must be a normative endeavor if uniqueness i s a goal!

THE COMPOSITIONAL PROBLEM A N D ITS POSSIBLE SOLUTION The metaphysical aspects o f psychology lie at t h e heart o f t h e discipline's

compositional problem: t h e

proper domain o f t h e discipline, the nature o f t h e human

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184

org anism, differentiation among different subject typ es, t h e virtual infinity o f its subject m a t t e r , and the possible normative s t a n c e o f t h e discipline constitute interrelated metaphysical issues t h a t must be addressed before t h e denotation o f t h e psychological and nonpsychological c a n be resolved.

Historically,

t h e closest approximation psychologists possess t o schemes for defining t h e psychological and nonpsychological are various s y s t e m s o f psychology constructed in t h e context o f different t y p e s o f psychology a s derived from possible g o a l s f o r t h e discipline. Solution o f t h e compositional problem via t h e construction o f a satisfactory representational scheme for generating psychological events would r e q u i r e a rational way of assigning uniqueness to both t h e notion o f a psychological universe and its physical real ization in th e context of s o m e subject t y p e at t h e metaphysical level.

More than l i k e l y , t h i s would in-

volve the canonization o f s o m e process, f e a t u r e , or capability o f t h e human organism that is not emphasized by traditional psychology.

185

CHAPTER 6

ETHICS: ABNORMALITY

The public relations image o f science connotes a n objective, value-free endeavor with no vested interest beyond discovery o f pragmatic truth.

A practicing

scientist is not supposed t o be concerned with morality or values: Technologically oriented knowledge constitutes an end in itself, and let t h e chips fall where they may.

Technology has become so advanced

over t h e past generation [for instance, intercontinental nuclear missles, genetic engineering, instantaneous world-wide communication) that the scientific establishment now takes cognizance o f t h e possible effects o f its endeavors; however, very few scientists realize that the conduction o f science at t h e input e n d , t h e act o f generating scientific knowledge itself, is inherently a moral or normative endeavor (Nettler, 1970). Two possible indications o f t h i s already have been alluded t o i n prior chapters:

( 1 ) some people

consider science t o be an ideology with vested interests, and ( 2 ) t h e conduction o f psychology a s descriptive behaviorism must include an explicit moral component if the psychological universe is t o be differentiated from t h e physical universe. Social science is much more open t o t h e charge o f being value-laden than physical science because it f o -

Chapter 6

186

cuses on and classifies people.

Physical s c i e n c e is

standard across t h e g l o b e with r a r e exception, e.g., erstwhile Nazi physics [ s e e S h i r e r , 1960).

Nations do

not compete with respect t o t h e nature and content o f truth in physics, c h e m i s t r y , o r astronomy.

They might

compete with respect to technology, but not with respect to t h e knowledge t h a t makes t h e technology possible. Psycholo g y , conceived a s a social s c i e n c e , is not primarily or exclusively an intellectual endeavor.

It

also is a sociological, political, moral, e t h i c a l , evaluative, normative affair.

T h e discipline's composition-

al problem at t h i s level t r a n s l a t e s into a n extreme cultural relativism: psychology possesses a distinctive national character.

American, Russian, F r e n c h ,

British, and Scandinavian psychology--to name a f e w - have their own characteristic flavor and r e l a t i v e emphases.

Psychology is part o f t h e cultural competi-

tion among nations ( S e x t o n and Misiak, 1976).

A l l psychology, r e g a r d l e s s ducted a s science--certainly

of

whether it is con-

depth psychology and un-

derstanding psychology a r e not scientific--is a moral, ethical, evaluative, normative endeavor.

Nonevaluative

observation, description, classification, o r explanation o f

people simply d o e s not occur.

The problem is

that t h e discipline's normative s ta n c e largely is i m plicit and not part o f i t s conscious image.

Ingleby

( 1 9 7 2 , 1980) is correct when he a r g u e s that no nonideological knowledge exists, s u c h that unrecognized ideological knowledge implicitly r e f l e c t s t h e values o f t h e political establishment. Amoral observation, description, classification, or explanation would not necessarily s o l v e t h e problem. It would not transform ethical relativism into ethical

Ethics: Abnormality

187

absolutism, but rather into ethical nihilism.

Natural

phenomena without moral meaning are viewed a s trivial. For instance, one o f t h e r e a s o n s humanists [viz., Giorg i , 1970) laugh at conditioning t h e bar press response o f a rat i s that in their view the phenomenon

moral relevance.

h a s no

Behavior modification i s often de-

fined a s t h e application o f

conditioning principles t o

socially significant o r meaningful behaviors: t h e only difference between behaviorism a s a set o f abstract principles and behavior modification, conceived a s an applied endeavor, is t h e social relevance o f t h e behaviors of interest [Craighead, Kazdin, and Mahoney, 1981). The purpose o f t h i s chapter is t o demonstrate that no psychological fact is value-free: t h e compositional problem extends t o t h e normative level.

Following t h e

presentation o f a f e w rudimentary examples o f o u r tendency t o engage in moral stipulation, t h e conduction o f psychology a s a n evaluative endeavor w i l l be documented at t h e observational, descriptive, definitional, epiphenomenal, causal input, classificational, explanat o r y , and practical application levels.

The negative

consequences o r aspects o f t h e discipline's implicit normative stance then will be illustrated in t h e context o f ( 1 ) t e s t s and testing and ( 2 ) abnormality. MORAL STIPULATION Recall from Chapter 1 that psychology is a product o f our conscious intelligence.

The content o f our s e l f -

awareness is discriminative in nature.

We

give mean-

ing to ourselves in terms o f a set o f dimensions that also is used t o classify every other human being. These classificatory dimensions certainly are not absolute properties o f t h e universe and essentially are arbitrary in nature.

Consequently, they are notions

possessing a high degree o f evaluative content: they

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188

have been used t o assign people to qualitatively distinct classes o f differential worth o r desirability. In other words, discriminative characteristics with evaluative content tend t o become discriminatory agents These evaluative characteristics include, but are not limited t o , ( 1 ) age, ( 2 ) s e x , (3) r a c e , and (4) intelligence quotient.

The special populations alluded to

in Chapters 4 and 5--clinical, child, exotic--basically derive from evaluative qualitative distinctions. AGE

The notion o f t i m e i s inherently arbitrary:

we tend to measure the passage o f time in t e r m s o f t h e movements o f heavenly bodies. causal variable.

Time per se is never a

Time changes nothing.

in time is the efficacious entity.

What happens

We infer t h e exis-

tence o f time from the changes that occur in objects, usually their degeneration.

An organism is incremented in age by a unit

o f one

on its birthday with the passage o f each calendar year. In J a p a n , a newborn baby already i s considered one year old. Age serves a s a convenient associator o r classifier.

Knowledge o f a person's age t e l l s you a lot

about the person.

It also serves a s a convenient legal

and governmental criterion for access to certain privileges o r obligations: voting, drinking, driving, legal responsibility, retirement, and t h e like. Age is not generally viewed a s a n arbitrary discriminator.

Chronological age is discriminatory be-

cause it is not perfectly correlated with a person's biological or psychological capability.

T h i s discrep-

ancy h a s its most severe effects with respect t o discriminatory employment practices. of

Have you ever heard

a university hiring a 45 o r 55 year old assistant

professor?

Other areas exhibiting age-related discrim-

Ethics: Abnormality

189

ination include marriageability, financeability, and adoptive parenthood. SEX

No absolute definition o f sex typing e x i s t s ,

except possibly at the chromosomal level [Money and Ehrhardt, 1972).

A person's

sex i s identified at

birth o n the basis o f certain blatant primary s e x characteristics.

Prenatal determination o f sex t y -

ping also i s possible.

During childhood and adult-

hood, sex typing is a heterogeneous combination o f primary and secondary biologically based characteristics, behavior patterns, psychological expectations, social r o l e s , dress c o d e s , and t h e like.

In e f f e c t ,

sex is a constellation o f a host o f convenience indicators. Historically, t h e list o f evaluative adjectives differentially associated with each sex is e n d l e s s [Nicholson, 1984).

T h e Women's Liberation Movement

and "Women's Studies" really are calling our attention to t h e devastating consequences o f sex as an evalua-

t i v e concept.

Sexual discrimination is pervasive.

While it no longer is taken f o r granted in t h e United States, it still is governmentally and religiously institutionalized in most parts o f t h e world. We probably never will achieve a satisfactory ac-

commodation with t h e evaluative component o f sex for two reasons:

( 1 ) sex i s t h e normal channel o f biologi-

cal reproduction and t h e maintenance o f o u r s p e c i e s ; and ( 2 ) in behavioristic t e r m s , sex probably is t h e most powerful and compelling reinforcer we c a n experience.

A s a Jewish rabbi once divulged to a Catholic

priest, "It sure beats ham." RACE

N o t only is t h e notion o f r a c e arbitrary,

it also is ridiculous.

It is impossible to operation-

ally define r a c e , although people make implicit racial

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190

identifications all t h e time--primarily on t h e basis o f biological

appearance and superficial behavioral

characteristics (McCauley, Stitt, and Segal, 1980). The notion o f nationality is a low grade form o f racial differentiation, in which social or sociological characteristics are emphasized.

Have you noticed

lately on affirmative action questionnaires that the Spanish or Mexican nationality has been elevated to the full status of a race: Hispanic? Race is a powerful differentiator because it ( 1 )

is confounded with institutionalized governmental, economic, and religious interests and ( 2 ) easily is ideologized. insidious.

Racial discrimination is invidious and The biological and social indicators o f

race w i l l disappear long before t h e evaluative aspects of t h e notion become moot.

It took the Civil War in

America t o define the slaves a s human beings; it took another century to define their progeny a s equal human beings. Union o f

It w i l l t a k e a similar bloodbath in t h e

South Africa to accomplish t h e same goal.

INTELLIGENCE QUOTIENT

Unlike t h e three prior dis-

criminators, t h e notion o f intelligence quotient [ I Q ) strictly is psychological in nature.

It usually is

defined a s general scholastic or verbal ability ,(Kamin, 1974).

Human intelligence is far from a mono-

lithic entity, but you would never know it based on the standard I Q test.

The notion o f IQ is not only

arbitrary, but also fanciful. of

It h a s achieved an aura

legitimacy d u e to its ( 1 ) institutionalization by

the educational establishment and ( 2 ) association with psychometrics (Garcia, 1974). of

The evaluative aspects

I Q are devastating f o r two reasons: ( 1 ) I Q is used

a s a sociological, allocational tool for determining how certain scarce cultural opportunities or benefits

Ethics: Abnormality

191

are distributed; and (21 I Q s e r v e s a s t h e source o f a special subpopulation: t h e developmentally disadvantaged,

cum

mentally retarded,

cum

mentally defective.

Note t h e evolutionary progression o f labels associated with t h e special subpopulation: "developmentally

disad-

vantaged" evokes f a r less stigma than "mental defective."

More w i l l be said about IQ later in t h e con-

text o f t e s t s and testing.

E V A L U A T I V E ASPECTS O F PSYCHOLOGY The conduction o f psychology inherently is a morally stipulative endeavor [Nettler, 1970; L a d d , 1957). No statement purporting t o express psychological content merely rtis.rrAny psychological statement contains implicit evaluative distinctions and subsumes normative value judgments.

More often than n o t , these are quite

subtle and beyond the awareness o f t h e originator or user o f t h e psychological statement. The moral nature o f t h e psychological universe derives from t h e fact that it is arbitrary and involves numerous degrees o f freedom at various choice points. T h e selection process occurring over a s e r i e s o f decisions h a s a cumulative evaluative effect: t h e values associated with t h e accepted options are implicitly enhanced; those associated with the rejected options a r e implicitly discarded. Psychological knowledge does not exist in a social or political vacuum.

It must reflect t h e general moral

beliefs and normative standards o f t h e surrounding culture.

In totalitarian societies, controlled by a n ex-

plicit and rigid ideology, the government guarantees that t h i s happens: for instance, t h e Soviet Union.

In

democratic societies, maintained by a more implicit and flexible ideology, the shaping o f t h e evaluative aspects o f psychological knowledge is more s u b t l e and

192

Chapter 6

involves professional peer reaction and recognition:

v i z . , the United States. The conduction o f psychology as an evaluative endeavor w i l l be illustrated at eight different levels:

( 1 ) observational, ( 2 ) descriptive, (3) definitional,

(4) epiphenomenal, (5) causal input, (6) classificational, (71 explanatory, and ( 8 ) practical application.

Note that t h e evaluational activity occurring

at one level is not necessarily independent o f that occurring at other levels. OBSERVATION cess.

Observation is not a value-free pro-

It is generally conceded that perception is

selective [Dember and Warm, 1979). we want t o perceive.

We perceive what

Usually this state o f affairs is

interpreted at a strictly epistemological or factual level.

But our perceptions are colored by a pair o f

moral sunglasses, just a s they are by a set o f conceptual ones: actually they are melded together in t h e same pair. In the context o f everyday life, people are not perceptually sensitive t o events that are not congruent with their over-all belief structure: t h e events simply do not exist for them.

The liberal Democrat

sees poverty; the conservative Republican does not see poverty.

The Christian sees divinely inspired

acts o f goodness or sacrifice; t h e athiest d o e s not. Members o f the Society for t h e Prevention o f Cruelty to Animals see untold acts reflecting the name o f the organization t o which they belong; nonmembers do not. In t h e psychological

laboratory, especially in

the context o f third person access, what is observed [ i n the sense o f being actively searched f o r ) primar-

i l y is contingent on system affiliation and theoretical preference.

Systems and theories involve value

Ethics: Abnormality

193

judgments over and above purely conceptual o r epistemological distinctions. T h e behaviorist [e.g., S k i n n er , 1974) values predictability and c o n t r o l ; t h e humanist (e.g., R o g e r s ,

1951) values appreciation and understanding.

These

differential values help s t r u c t u r e t h e r e s p e c t i v e behavioristic and humanistic perceptual universes.

For

instance, when traditional behaviorists, such a s Hull

[1943), study motivation, they s e e behavior d r i v e n by t h e hunger, t h i r s t , or sex drive or by t h e need t o escape or avoid pain.

When humanists, such a s Maslow

(1970), study motivation, they see perceptual indicants o f an organism's goal structure, intentions, and degree o f self-fulfillment. The Freudian ( 1 9 3 9 , 1949) values irrationality; a cognitivist , s u c h a s Anderson [1980), values rationality.

A Freudian often i s criticized f o r s e e i n g

in everything: phallic s y m b o l s a r e ubiquitous.

sex

A cog-

nitive psychologist sees activities reflecting d i f ferent degree s o f intelligence: round objects and long, pointed objects merely a r e a matter o f geometry and t h e information processing r u l e s used f o r t h e i r decoding. DESCRIPTION

Description amounts t o a s e l e c t i v e

labeling process (Skinner, 1974; K e e n , 1975).

The

dimensions o f a description--the aspects o f a n event that get represented in a labeling--are in part a function o f values and normative stance.

Observation

and description amount t o opposite s i d e s o f t h e s a m e coin: in a se n s e observation is i np u t , while description is output.

What is observed is eventually t r a n s

formed t o verbal form and described. Examples from everyday life ar e endless.

An ar-

tist describes a painting in vastly different t e r m s

Chapter 6

194

A teenager's

than a nonartist.

and matron's

descrip-

tion o f a car are not commensurate with each other. A lover's and ffneutral" bystander's

same woman extensively differ.

description o f t h e

A Catholic's

and non-

Catholic's description o f t h e Pope are measurably different.

In a psychological context, t h e relevant descriptive dimensions o f a piece o f behavior are different for a humanist and a behaviorist.

The humanist values

the psychological milieu underlying a piece o f behavior; t h e physical characteristics o f a piece o f behavior are irrelevant.

The behaviorist values t h e very

denotation or content o f an act; it is the psychological milieu in and o f itself.

A humanist, such a s Gi-

orgi (19701, would never describe, or measure, the intensity with which a piece o f behavior occurs; conversely this can be a critical piece o f information for t h e behaviorist.

To a humanist, sheer frequency

counts (a description o f all-or-none occurrence) are trivial; for some behaviorists, such a s Skinner (1938,

19531, they exhaust the relevant descriptive domain. To a humanist, divorcing a piece o f behavior from its exhibitor is an immoral a c t ; to a behaviorist, divorcing an organism from its behavior is an immora1,act. DEFINITION

What explicitly is meant b y defini-

tion in this context is operational definition: a statement o f

t h e procedure one must follow t o measure

the occurrence o f an event or to physicalize t h e realization o f some abstract concept (see Underwood, 1957). Operational definition merely amounts to a procedural logic; it has no substantive content in and o f itself. The danger associated with operational definition, a s is t h e case with methodology in general, is t h e fact that it tends to become an end in itself.

Operational

Ethics: Abnormality

195

definition underlies both observation and descript on and i s always evaluatively stipulative.

Even more cri-

tically, t h e importance one attaches t o operationa

def

-

inition in the first place also is a reflection o f one ' s values. The humanist values t h e inner essence o r intuitive meaning o f things. destroy this.

Operational definition t e n d s t o

For t h e behaviorist, an unmeasurable

phenomenon i s a nonexistent phenomenon.

The operation-

al definition o f a concept exhausts any empirical meaning a concept could possibly have. T o illustrate the stipulative nature o f operation-

al definition, let us refer back t o t h e concept o f motivation.

The preference for prediction and control

underlies Skinner's operational definition o f motive; intuitive understanding underlies a humanist's conception o f motive.

F o r Skinner (19531, t h e meaning o f t h e

term motive is exhausted by whatever operation a n e x perimenter applies to a subject t o measure it: f o r instance, food deprivation f o r 24 hours.

When a n organ-

ism i s said t o be hungry, it only means that it h a s been deprived o f food for a specified period o f time. A humanist would never operationally define motive t h i s

way. on.

Motivation i s not an externally sourced phenomenMotivation is self-generated and has t o d o with a n

organism's goals and intentions.

A humanist

(e.g.,

Giorgi, 1970) would operationally define a motive simply in terms o f the content o f self-report.

A person

is motivated t o achieve s u c c e s s , f o r example, simply if it s a y s so. Learning psychologists in t h e laboratory customarily operationally define t h e successful acquisition o f some knowledge in t e r m s o f two error-free productions o f t h e material in a row.

T h i s i s a n exceedingly lax

Chapter 6

196

criterion o f

learning, but one dictated by t h e focus

on t h e learning process itself. inition o f

This operational def-

learning attainment would be irrelevant if

one were focusing on the learning abilities o f t h e organism itself, especially learning deficits.

if t h e organism had some

The learning psychologist values

statistical truth (Hillner, 1978, 19791; a learning disabilities specialist or special education instructor has no use for statistical truth (Roberts, 1975). EPIPHENOMENA

Recall that experience and behavior

constitute psychology's jects o f interest.

traditional epiphenomenal ob-

These notions are inherently evalu-

ative. The humanist's

(e.g., Maslow, 1970) value system

downgrades behavior a s t h e sole or primary f o c u s o f the discipline: t h e human being's uniqueness is best captured in terms o f experience.

The behaviorist's

(e.g., Skinner, 1974) value system downgrades experience a s t h e s o l e or primary focus o f t h e discipline: t h e mechanism that is homo sapiens is best represented

in t e r m s

o f behavior.

These evaluative preferences

persist even though t h e distinction between experience and behavior merely is semantic in nature (see Chapter

3).

There also is t h e c a s e o f Freud (1939, 1949) who

downgrades both conscious experience and behavior in preference to various unconscious entities. Even within an epiphenomena1 c l a s s , evaluative priorities exist.

A l l possible behaviors or experi-

ences are not o f equal significance or importance.

In

humanism, a significant piece o f behavior must reflect the fact that t h e organism is a moral agent; in behaviorism, a significant piece o f behavior merely is one that is amenable t o prediction and control.

In human-

i s m , significant experience is that o f which t h e organ-

Ethics: Abnormality

197

ism is self-aware; in behaviorism, significant experience is undefinable. S o c i e t y , in general, values certain behaviors and devalues others [Nettler, 19701.

Behavioral phenomena

are assigned t o t w o evaluative classes: (11 good and

( 2 ) bad.

When a mother a s k s her s o n whether h e is be-

having, s h e means whether he is being g o o d , not whether he is engaged in some kind o f activity.

The classic

evaluative distinction i s that between normal and abnormal behavior [ S z a s z , 1961, 1970): t h e former is considered appropriate o r good; t h e latter is considered inappropriate or bad.

The moral nature o f t h e normal-

ity-abnormality distinction i s evidenced by ( 1 ) t h e extreme cultural relativism associated with these concepts and ( 2 1 the qualitatively distinct etiology associated with each kind o f behavior. A therapist attempts t o increase a client's

good

or positive experiences, while reducing i t s bad o r negative experiences.

Good and bad are defined in

t e r m s o f t h e therapist's value system: What constitutes a desirable experience f o r one therapist i s not necessarily t h e case for another therapist [Prochaska, 19791. CAUSAL INPUT

Recall t h a t locus o f causation is

one o f t h e components o f t h e content o f observation in conjunction with basic object o f study [see Chapter

2).

Causal input is evaluative in general, and more

significantly t h e normative values o f t h e components o f the content o f observation are not independent o f

each other. Society by and large dictates t h e acceptability o f various classes o f causes. ample o f

The best contemporary ex-

t h i s involves the etiology o f IQ.

Our cur-

rent values will allow a combined heredity x environment interpretation

of

IQ or an exclusive environmental

Chapter 6

198

etiology o f IQ; they w i l l not permit a pure 100% determination o f I Q by hereditarial factors [see Society for t h e Psychological Study o f Social Issues, 1969; Kamin, 19741.

The latter ( 1 ) would justify an immu-

table assignment o f lower I Q individuals t o qualitatively distinct classes o f inferiority

(i.e., they are not

worth t h e time, expense, and effort o f training) and

( 2 ) would have devastating social effects if t h e classes o f inferiority were correlated with any o f t h e t r a -

ditional discriminators, such a s age, s e x , o r rac'e.

In

fact, whether o r not the 1 Q o f American racial minoritie s is being assessed fairly and whether or not their lower average performance on standard I Q t e s t s is genetically based currently constitute explosive social issues [Garcia, 1974).

The situation is so emotional

and value-laden that a proponent o f t h e 100% genetic determination o f IQ view is reflexively labeled a bigot or racist. T h e evaluative status o f a cl a s s o f behavior and its causal source must be the same (Nettler, 1970): good behaviors are the result o f good causes, and bad behaviors are t h e result o f bad causes.

It is incon-

ceivable that a good cause could result in bad behavior o r a bad cause could result in good behavior.

In

general, folk psychology (Stich, 19831 stipulates that good behavibrs are purposeful or intentional in nature: they are t h e result o f the individual's own moral agency and conscious choice.

Conversely, bad behaviors

are looked upon as forced or dictated by external circumstances: the individual had no choice [ L e i f e r , 19641. For instance, chromosomal aberration, brain t u m o r s , hormone imbalance, even demonic possession constitute the causes o f various antisocial acts such a s murder and sexual abuse.

Ethics: Abnormality

CLASSIFICATION

199

Classification i s a logical ex-

tension o f both description and operational definition [Hillner, 19781.

Any classification s c h e m e with

psychological content is morally stipulative: Any method used t o differentiate among people involves vested interests and value judgments. T h e four traditional discriminators discussed previously--age, s e x , r a c e , and IQ--constitute i m plicit classification schemes.

The normality-abnor-

mality distinction i s classificational in nature.

The

abnormality category i s divisible into numerous s e t s o f hierarchically

related subclassifications.

Con-

versely, the normality category never h a s given r i s e

to a system o f subcategories.

The special populations

--clinical, c h i l d , exotic--also amount t o implicit classification schemes. Probably t h e most widespread tool used by t h e discipline t o classify people i s t h e psychological test [Kaplan and Saccuzzo, 1982).

The personality

test i s next t o t h e IQ test in saliency f o r t h e general public.

Many o f

these are conceptualized in

t e r m s o f traits: they measure t h e testee o n i t s degree o f possession o f various habitual s t y l e s o f responding.

A trait is a notoriously evaluative concept.

Society values certain t r a i t s and devalues others. Most o f t h e t r a i t s assessed by a personality test happen t o be those that are negatively evaluated by society.

We have special t e s t s for t h e authoritarian

personality, free-floating o r manifest anxiety, and aggressiveness.

We don't

seem t o have special as-

sessment devices f o r saintliness, honesty, o r integrity. EXPLANATION

Both intellectual closure, a s pro-

vided by scientific theory, and emotional satisfaction

Chapter 6

200

devolving from empathetic identification (see Chapter 4 ) have moral components and are normatively stipulative. INTELLECTUAL CLOSURE

Scientific theory is

germane t o third person access, objective psychology resolved in t e r m s of external criteria.

Theoretical

constructs are explicit components o f the externally imposed criteria and must reflect the value system o f the surrounding culture. T h i s societal influence i s particularly telling with respect t o t h e nature o f the human being and is usually exhibited negatively.

Modeling t h e human be-

ing after the animal, characteristic o f t h e traditional versions o f behaviorism

(e.g., Watson, 1925; H u l l ,

1943; Guthrie, 1935), is an anathema t o many segments o f o u r society.

Modeling mind after t h e computer i s

bitterly resented by die-hard dualists committed t o a significant presence o f t h e divine spirit in human affairs,

Hull's

(1951, 1952) hypothetico-deductive 4

system now is passe, not only because it is intellectually simplistic, but also because its theoretical constructs do not interface in any significant way with the current conception of t h e human being a s an entity possessing certain psychological rights or status.

The theoretical presumptions o f dialectical psy-

chology concerning the nature o f t h e human organism (Riegel, 1978, 1979) are foreign t o American democratic ideology.

Freudian theory (Munroe, 1955) was and still

is criticized f o r making t h e human being a mere instinct-driven beast. In general, t h e American populace has a preference for theoretical constructs that reinforce its conception o f the United States a s t h e land o f ( 1 ) equal opportunity and ( 2 ) reward based on exhibited performance

20 1

Ethics: Abnormality

or ability.

In t h i s context, the ideal psychological

universe would de-emphasize immutability based o n innate psychological mechanisms and s t r e s s adaptability and change based o n environmentally driven psychological mechanisms.

It is no accident that t h e functional-

istic tradition i s indigenous t o t h e United S t a t e s ; t h e same is true f o r t h e spirit, but not t h e mechanisms, o f behaviorism.

The general public s e e k s different explanations f o r approved and unapproved behavior, a s variants o f the good-bad and normal-abnormal distinctions.

Ap-

proved behaviors are regarded a s self-determined; unapproved behaviors involve s o m e externally imposed pathology. EMOTIONAL SATISFACTION

It c a n be argued that

to emotionally empathize is t o moralize.

It is much

easier t o emotionally identify with and achieve an intuitive understanding o f people whom we like o r o f whom we approve.

The similarity requirement

t e r 4) extends t o t h e normative dimension.

(see Chap-

T h i s is

why folk psychology [Stich, 1983) and understanding psychology (Dilthey, 19241, o f which contemporary humanism [Giorgi, 1970) is prototypical, are so easily exploitable.

It is fortuitous that t h e value system

and goals o f humanistic psychology correspond in large part to those o f Christianity.

The Verstehen psy-

chology that dominated Germany in t h e 1920s and 1930s justified the institutionalized racism and bigotry o f Nazism (Shirer, 19601. PRACTICAL APPLICATION

The practical application

potential o f abstract psychological principles is limit-

less; however, decisions must be made with respect t o ( 1 ) who should receive psychological assistance and (2) what techniques should be used.

These decisions inher-

202

Cttapter 6

ently are evaluative and ethical in nature.

Society

makes value judgments about who is worthy o f psychological intervention, because psychological

resources

are in limited supply, a s is the ca s e with most other natural resources.

Technique selection is not a s i m -

ple procedural matter: it involves considerations o f

( 1 ) t h e possible loss o f personal freedom, decision making capacity, or self-control o n t h e part o f t h e recipient, ( 2 ) possible discomfort or pain experienced by t h e recipient, and (31 possible negative side e f fe c t s for the recipient. The social acceptability o f practical application

is contingent on the kind o f behavior and/or special population that is the focus.

Using psychological

principles to increase work production or satisfaction in the industrial environment i s simply good business practice; using the same principles t o regulate the life of a mental retardate, prison inmate, or chronic schizophrenic has some stigma attached. Luckily, the practical application facet o f psychology is an area o f t h e discipline whose ethical aspects are consciously realized and under virtual continuous review (see Erwin, 1978).

Unlike any o f the

other seven evaluative aspects discussed, psychological application also has legal connotations and consequences (McNarnara and Barclay, 1982).

T h e best ref-

erence point for modeling both the ethical and legal aspects o f

the delivery o f psychological services is

the practices o f the medical astablishment. TESTS A N D TESTING Psychological tests and testing constitute both a commercial enterprise and a social phenomenon o f gigantic proportions in America (see Kaplan and Saccuzza, 1982; Sweetland and Keyser, 1983).

Such com-

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Ethics: Abnormality

panies a s t h e Psychological Corporation and t h e Educational Testing Service produce and market t e s t s that can have a profound effect on t h e educational and professional future o f virtually every American.

Tests

are used a s selection and placement devices in indust r y , education, and t h e armed f o r c e s ; they are used a s diagnostic devices for t h e detection o f possible abnormality in intelligence, reading ability, personality traits, o r sensory and motor abilities. EVALUATIVE NATURE individual differences.

T e s t s are supposed t o measure What t h i s really means is that

t e s t s are used t o classify people.

A test constitutes

t h e specific procedural means by which some presumably psychologically relevant discriminator, o r discriminat i v e characteristic, is operationalized.

A t e s t really

is a n operational definition specifying how s o m e ab-

stract psychological concept is measured.

It already

h a s been pointed out in t h e chapter t h a t ( 1 ) any psychological discriminator possesses evaluative compone n t s and ( 2 ) any operational definition is morally stipulative.

The evaluative nature o f t e s t s and testing is

enhanced by four rather unique features o f t h i s kind o f classificational endeavor [Kaplan and Saccuzzo, 1982). 1 . The testing movement by and large developed

outside t h e confines o f academia and uninfluenced by the precepts associated with any major system o f imental psychology.

exper-

This means that t h e testing move-

ment evolved in a conceptual or metaphysical vacuum: it developed in a milieu where the underlying evaluative and normative assumptions were implicit and unrecognized.

People still do not realize that a specific

operational definition o f 1 9 or o f a collection o f

per-

sonality traits represents value judgments with potential harmful effects.

204

Chapter 6

2. Psychometrics, t h e process o f test construction, basically is atheoretical in nature.

It is a-

theoretical in t h e sense that no psychological theory

is involved.

Test theory does exist; but it is mathe-

matical, statistical, correlational, factor analytic in nature.

Psychometrics amounts t o applied statis-

tics, not an applied behaviorism o r humanism.

This

means that test construction proceeds in a conceptual or metaphysical vacuum.

The evaluative components o f

the resulting discriminators and t h e moral content o f the resulting operational definitions are t h e accidental byproduct o f statistical convenience and tractability.

The mere ability t o "number crunch" people's

overt response activity in a certain way dictates their morally significant aspects or characteristics.

3. Because a test is a measuring device, it must possess the property o f validity: it must be demonstrated empirically that t h e collection o f items composing a test in fact measures what it is supposed to measure.

The assessment o f t h e possible validity o f

t h e items constituting a test cannot be done in any logical, rational, o r conceptual way because there is no psychological theory underlying t h e construction o f the test.

A l l t h e psychometrician can do is t o take

advantage o f t h e fact that a test is a presumably objective sample o f behavior in one situation and find out whether it allows prediction o f behavior exhibited in some other situation.

In technical t e r m s , a test

is declared valid if performance o n t h e items composing t h e test is correlated with performance in another situation, called t h e criterion.

The prototypical cri-

terion for an IQ test is academic performance; t h e criterion for a personality test is more amorphous, but usually involves some indicant o f the over-all level

Ethics: Abnormality

205

o f adjustment o f a n individual.

The choice o f a criterion by which t o a s s e s s t h e possible validity o f a t e s t strictly is evaluative in nature: it is solely based o n values and normative judgments.

The meaning or significance o f IQ t e s t s

would be vastly different today if academic performance were not t h e prototypical criterion.

The salient

t r a i t s personality t e s t s measure would be vastly different today if assessment o f possible abnormality were not their primary aim.

4. The cultural significance o f testing i s independent o f any real concern f o r t h e nature o f t h e human organism, either a s a psychological being or a s a n object o f psychological analysis.

Tests perform a cer-

tain distributive, allocational, o r classificatory function in society.

A test i s more

o f a sociological

tool than a psychological tool in many respects.

A

test assesses various psychological s k i l l s , but t h e s e tend t o be t h e o n e s society deems necessary f o r its survival.

The very act o f administering a test repre-

s e n t s t h e implementation o f s o m e prior implicit evaluative decision.

It is no accident that t h e t w o periods

o f greatest expansion in t h e use o f t e s t s in America

corresponded t o World Wars I and 11. T h i s sociological, allocational aspect o f t e s t s and t e s t i n g . s h o u l d be discussed more fully.

TESTS AS SOCIAL CONTRACTS OR POLITICAL INSTRUMENTS The content and purpose o f any kind o f t e s t , a s a n assessment device, are arbitrary.

For instance, t h e con-

cept o f I Q is not a noncontingent notion: it i s not a God-given construct; it is o u r invention. of

The notion

I Q , and IQ t e s t , amounts t o a social contract be-

tween psychometricians and t h e general public t h a t certain i t e m s and t e r m s will be used in certain ways.

Chapter 6

206

The problem with a social contract is t h a t certain elements o f society can view it a s a social conspiracy (Garcia, 19741.

When t h e terms and consequences o f t h e

social contract are interpreted a s being unfair t o a certain segment o f the population, t h e contract becomes a conspiracy.

The concept o f I Q , and IQ t e s t , is under-

going much current criticism because it is viewed a s only being a fair assessment device f o r , and consequently a political instrument o f , the WASP: White, AngloSaxon, Protestant (Kamin, 1974). versy relative to Jensen's physicist Shockley's o f t h e American

The current contro-

(1969, 1973, 19801 and the

belief in the genetic inferiority

Black with respect t o over-all IQ level

really is a social or political o n e , not a biological or genetic one.

A projective personality test , such a s t h e Aorschach (19421 Ink Blot Test'and th e Murray (19381 and Morgan TAT (Thematic Apperception Test], also is a political instrument, not so much because t h e concept o f personality is arbitrary, but rather because t h e proces s o f taking such a test can violate one o f t h e fundamental rights guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment o f the United States Constitution: th e right not t o incriminate oneself (Auch, 1974).

An American has t h e

right not t o answer an objective question if t h e answer

w i l l incriminate i n any way.

An item on a projective

personality test possesses no face validity whatsoever. The responder has no idea what is being tested for or how the response information w i l l be interpreted and used. ABNOAMALITY The notion o f ture.

abnormality is metaphysical

in na-

The term can be applied to either overt behav-

ior or the presumed internal framework underlying overt

207

Ethics: Abnormality

behavior: mental events, thought processes, physiological functioning, or neural activity.

Academic, experi-

mental psychologists typically are not concerned with abnormality at either level because they usually focus on general psychological laws characteristic o f some average or statistical subject in a framework that r e duces extreme individual variation t o random error. Conversely, the physician, psychiatrist, or clinical psychologist operates in a context in which t h e basic object o f interest does not arise until normal functioning at either level breaks down.

We shall f o c u s

on abnormality at t h e epiphenomena1 level o f behavior and only refer t o abnormal underlying processes where necessary. The normality-abnormality distinction is t h e classic moral stipulation o f t h e discipline and t h e one with t h e most far-reaching consequences.

The notion of

abnormality is t h e most value-laden term in t h e psychological literature and t h e one that is most easily exploitable and shapeable in t h e service of vested interests.

Politically dissident behavior in t h e Soviet

Union even is labeled a s abnormal, and t h e unfortunate dissident is committed t o a n insane asylum ( S z a s z ,

1961, 1970).

The concept of abnormality is s o in-

grained in the psychological universe that many psychologists don't even realize that it carries a heavy bag o f evaluative components.

The normality-abnormal-

ity distinction does not exist in a physical science context, although sometimes natural phenomena unexplainable by physical, mechanistic means are referred to a s "anomalous.

"

Abnormality functions a s a convenience c o n c e p t , much a s age, s e x , or race does.

Once a piece o f b e -

havior has been assigned t o t h e abnormal category, it

208

Chapter 6

helps resolve t h e nature o f the behavior and t h e manner in which it should be addressed.

In other words,

the notion o f abnormality provides t h e psychologist with much emotional satisfaction. . The basic problem associated with t h e notion o f abnormality is that it requires a comparative reference point.

T h e logical reference point t o use would

be that o f normality: abnormality normality.

is t h e absence o f

But the discipline has no serviceable or

viable conception o f normality. a focus o f concern.

Normality

i s not even

We have no elaborate classifica-

tion scheme f o r normal behaviors.

Everything is con-

structed in terms o f abnormality.

We have handbooks

o f abnormality

that rival those o f physical disease

(e.g., Williams, 19801. The evaluative nature and consequences o f the concept o f abnormality c a n be illustrated by considering three o f its separate, but interrelated, aspects:

( 1 ) reality level, ( 2 ) etiology, and (3) operational identification.

REALITY LEVEL

Two broad conceptual approaches

to t h e reality level o f abnormal behavior exist:

(1)

a traditional view, characteristic o f t h e medical or psychiatric establishment (Zilboorg, 1967), and ( 2 ) a more contemporary view, characteristic o f American behavioristic psychology, especially Skinnerian radical behaviorism

(Craighead, Kazdin, and Mahoney, 1981).

TRADITIONAL V I E W

Abnormal behaviors really

exist, constituting real-space and real-time events in t h e naturally occurring universe.

Abnormality

regarded a s an absolute property o f behavior. o f behavior judged t o be abnormal

is

A piece

is fundamentally

different from a piece o f behavior judged t o be normal.

Normal behavior and abnormal behavior constitute

209

Ethics: Abnormality

qualitatively distinct epiphenomena1 classes.

By ex-

tension, a person exhibiting abnormal behavior is fundamentally different from a person exhibiting normal behavior; and abnormality also c a n be regarded a s an absolute property o f t h e individual.

It i s perfectly

meaningful to categorize a person a s insane, deranged,

or mentally ill, a s if t h e s e were absolute f e a t u r e s structurally possessed by t h e individual ( P a g e , 1971).

A good analogy f o r t h e traditional conception

o f

abnormality i s that o f physical disease o r biological defect.

Either one o f t h e s e is a n absolute structural

property o f t h e organism.

F o r instance, a person di-

agnosed a s having cancer is fundamentally different from a person who d o e s not have c a n c e r ; o r a person who i s deaf is fundamentally different from a person with no hearing loss. It is presumed in t h e traditional approach that a piece o f behavior, or t h e organism exhibiting t h e behavior, can be unambiguously classified a s normal or abnormal.

Given a set o f behaviors exhibited by a n

individual, it is easy t o assign t h e individual t o t h e normal o r abnormal category.

The psychiatric es-

tablishment over the last one hundred years h a s evolved a n elaborate catalogue o f specific c l a s s e s and subclasses o f abnormality, one which is analogous t o t h e voluminous catalogue o f physical diseases/biological defects developed by t h e medical profession.

The

latest version o f such a catalogue is the OSM-I11 (Williams, 19801. CONTEMPORARY V I E W

Abnormality merely is a

descriptive label attached t o a piece o f behavior o r t o t h e organism exhibiting t h e behavior by culture and society (Szasz, 1961, 19701.

T h e notions o f normal

and abnormal are like t h e descriptive social labels o f

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210

( 1 ) Democrat and Republican, (2) Catholic and Protestant, or (3) liberal and conservative.

These are char-

acteristics that can be used to differentiate people, but they are not regarded as absolute properties of the organism: People can change their party affiliation, religious belief, o r political philosophy anytime they wish. Abnormality is a subjective, relative notion. Abnormality and normality merely constitute opposite ends o f t h e same continuum, and t h e boundary

line sep-

arating these two categories o f behavior is arbitrary. An organism and/or its behavior cannot be unambiguousl y classified a s normal or abnormal.

Contemporary be-

haviorism, a s exemplified by the behavior modification approach (Craighead, Kazdin, and Mahoney, 19811, does not place much value on a systematic typology o f abnormality.

Behavior modification rejects any elabor-

ate attempt to assign specific behaviors and individuals t o the traditional psychiatric diagnostic classificatory slots.

It deals directly with the content o f

the specific behavior in question, independently o f any descriptive labeling it could receive. sequence o f

As a con-

this, behavior modification can and does

focus on certain maladaptive behaviors that are not regarded a s abnormal in the traditional, psychiatric sense o f

the term: test anxiety, smoking, poor study

habits, overeating, and such.

EVALUATIVE CONNOTATIONS

In the traditional

approach, we have two fundamentally distinct classes of

behavior that are legitimatized by analogical ref-

erence to physical disease categorization practices. In t h e contemporary approach, we merely have descriptiv e , linguistic labels that operate a s convenience indicators.

The first approach is much more easily

Ethics: A bnorrnality

211

exploitable than t h e second and s e r v e s a s the source of

moral inferiority, or social stigma, because it

reifies abnormality a s an absolute property o f t h e universe.

The second approach subordinates t h e notion

of

abnormality to that o f t h e less evaluative concept

of

maladjustment and does not lead t o reflexive clas-

ses o f

inferiority: it recognizes t h e inherent ambi-

guity and arbitrariness associated with the use o f the normality-abnormality distinction. ETIOLOGY o f the etiology

There are t w o classic interpretations o f abnormal

behavior (Zilboorg, 1967):

( 1 ) a somatogenic view, characteristic o f nineteenth

century German psychiatry, and (21 a psychogenic view, associated with t h e nineteenth century French psychopathological movement. SOMATOGENIC V I E W

This interpretation relates

abnormal behavior exclusively to disturbances in bodi-

l y , physiological, o r neuronal activity.

The somato-

genjc view o f abnormality was emphasized by nineteenth century German psychiatry.

Wilhelm Griesinger (1845)

believed that t h e brain and i t s pathology was the essential factor in all f o r m s o f mental illness.

He rec-

ognized no distinction between neurology and psycholo g y , and any instance o f abnormal behavior had t o be diagnosed a s possessing a physiological cause.

Emil

Kraepelin ( 1 8 8 3 , 1892) postulated two major classes o f psychoses: dementia preecox and manic-depressive.

He

related dementia praecox t o sex gland activity and manic-depressive psychosis to metabolic dysfunction. Eugen Bleuler ( 1 9 1 1 ) later reconceptualized t h e monolithic notion o f dementia praecox a s the more heterogeneous concept o f schizophrenia.

The somatogenic view

allowed orthodox clinical medicine to absorb psychiatry and its focus o n extreme f o r m s o f abnormality, such a s

212

Chapter 6

the psychoses.

This interpretation o f t h e source o f

abnormality survives today, not monolithically, but in the context o f the organic psychoses--those

psychoses

with known physiological causes. PSYCHOGENIC VIEW

This interpretation re-

lates abnormal behavior exclusively t o psychological causes.

The psychogenic interpretation o f abnormality

primarily originated with nineteenth century French psychopathology.

The chief figures in this movement #

were Charcot (1872-18871, Liebeault (1891), and Janet (1892).

( 1 8 6 6 1 , Bernheim

Charcot and Janet were

I

neurologists; Liebeault and Bernheim were practicing physicians.

They were concerned with ( 1 ) hypnosis,

( 2 ) hysteria, and (3) their relationship.

Hysteria

is a classic form o f neurosis, involving limb paralysis, body anesthesia, blindness, o r deafness, all with

no known neurological cause:

The French psychopathol-

ogists demonstrated that hysterical symptoms were both treatable and reproducible through the use o f ' hypnotic suggestion, either alone or in combination with other operations.

Janet formulated the first formal psycho-

genic theory for hysteria in particular and neuroses in general, employing the concept o f dissociation o f consciousness. Freudian psychology can be regarded a s a logical extension o f the French psychopathological [see Chapter 1).

movement

Freud (1939, 1949) studied under

both Charcot (1872-1887) and Bernheim ( 1 8 9 1 ) and also treated hysterical patients in Vienna with Breuer (with Freud, 1895).

Freud's interpretation and treat-

ment o f hysterical neuroses led to t h e founding o f psychoanalysis, the most inclusive psychogenic approach t o abnormality ever devised.

Freud's resolu-

tion o f the neuroses, a less extreme form o f abnormal

213

Ethics: Abnormality

behavior than t h e psychoses, at a psychogenic level institutionalized the psychotherapeutic approach to the treatment o f abnormal behavior. ary form o f

Every contempor-

psychotherapy is an outgrowth o f o r reac-

tion t o psychoanalysis (White and Watt, 1973).

Freud-

ian and non-Freudian psychotherapeutic techniques basically differ with respect t o t h e denotation o f t h e critical psychological factors leading t o abnormal behavior.

Psychoanalysis, a s a depth psychology, stres-

ses internal, organismic events.

Many contemporary

non-Freudian psychotherapeutic techniques, such a s behavior modification, emphasize external, environmental events.

The psychogenic view o f abnormal behavior s u r

vives in t h e context o f t h e neuroses, the functional psychoses, and any form o f maladaptive behavior that

is assigned only t h e descriptive label o f abnormal.

E V A L U A T I V E CONNOTATIONS

The somatogenic

view permits pathology to be forced on t h e individual and t h e result o f bad causes.

The psychogenic view is

more heterogeneous and is open-ended with respect t o t h e evaluative nature o f abnormality; however, it does not necessarily prevent social stigma from being associated with assignment t o t h e abnormal category. OPERATIONAL IDENTIFICATION

Regardless o f how t h e

existential and etiological aspects o f abnormal behavior are resolved, we still have t h e problem o f identifying instances o f abnormality when they occur.

While

it could be argued that t h i s usually is done c a priciously, there are three general classes o f operational definition for t h e specification o f abnormality (Wright et al., 1970, Chapter 20): ( 1 ) t h e statistical o r frequency approach, ( 2 ) the cultural o r relative approach, and (3) t h e personal adjustment criterion.

These three classes o f operational specifica-

214

Chapter 6

tion are not mutually exclusive.

Quite often t h e

same piece o f behavior w i l l be classified a s abnormal by all three operational criteria. proaches t o abnormality

Each o f these ap-

identification is inadequate

in at least one respect, and this fact w i l l be emphasized in the ensuing discussion.

To provide some con-

tinuity in presentation, each o f t h e operational criteria w i l l be illustrated in terms o f t h e s a m e example; namely, homosexuality a s an instance o f abnormality. STATISTICAL, FREQUENCY APPROACH

T h e notions

o f normal and abnormal are resolved at a quantitative

level.

The most frequently occurring behaviors in a

population o f behaviors are classified a s normal, and the least frequently occurring behaviors in a population o f behaviors are classified a s abnormal. behavior is normal; rare behavior is abnormal.

Modal What

the vast majority o f people do is considered normal; what t h e small minority o f people do is considered abnormal (Coleman, Butcher, and Carson, 19801.

Homosex-

uality is abnormal because only a few individuals engage in homosexual behavior relative t o t h e entire population. This operational approach to abnormality involves no qualitative considerations whatsoever.

It just so

happens that t h e population o f people living outside mental institutions exceeds the population o f people consigned t o institutional incarceration.

T h e total

number o f people who commit behaviors that lead t o institutional commitment is less tha n t h e total number of

people who do not commit behaviors that lead to in-

stitutional commitment.

If the situation were t h e re-

verse, the people who commit behaviors that are regarded a s normal according to t h e current situation would

Ethics: Abnormality

215

have t o be forcibly separated from society.

For in-

stance, if most people hallucinated, nonhallucinators would be abnormal and have t o be removed from society. There are two problems associated with t h e statistical, frequency approach t o abnormality:

( 1 ) More

often t h a n not, t h e exact distribution of a class of behavior in t h e general population is unknown; and ( 2 ) even when the distribution is known, t h e cutoff line separating the normal and abnormal categories is arbitrary.

F o r instance, with respect to the first problem,

we do not really know the exact frequency of occurrence o f different variants o f heterosexual and homosexual

behavior in t h e general population (Masters and Johnson,

1979).

We can illustrate t h e second problem

by a n

appeal t o a psychological characteristic whose exact distribution in t h e general population is known; name-

l y , t h e intelligence quotient or IP.

An organism's

IP

level is not a piece of behavior, but certainly is an inference based on overt behavior.

I Q is distributed

randomly, or normally, in the general, unselected population with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of approximately 15.

This is t h e case because of t h e way

in which IQ tests are constructed (Kamin, 1974).

The

partitioning of t h e over-all distribution into distinct subnormal and supernormal categories of intelligence is strictly arbitrary.

Oesignations of idiot, imbe-

cile, moron, gifted, genius, and the like are strictly capricious. EVALUATIVE ASPECTS

The statistical,

frequency approach to operationally defining abnormality is morally stipulative at many levels:

1. It functions a s a variant of Thomas Hobbes' (1650, 1651) ethical principle that "might makes right. ''

Chapter 6

216

2.

I t amounts t o a t y r a n n y

3.

A l l o w i n g q u a n t i t a t i v e frequency t o connote

of t h e m a j o r i t y .

q u a l i t a t i v e i n f e r i o r i t y h a s no r a t i o n a l b a s i s .

4.

The c h o i c e o f

a particular cutoff

s c o r e on a

d i s t r i b u t i o n t o d e t e r m i n e t h e n o r m a l and a b n o r m a l c a t e g o r i e s i s m o r a l l y s t i p u l a t i v e i n and o f i t s e l f . CULTURAL, RELATIVE APPROACH

T h i s approach

t o i d e n t i f i c a t i o n i s indigenous t o sociology, r e a d i l y extendable t o psychology. t i n g u i s h between s o - c a l l e d deviant behavior,

but i s

Sociologists dis-

d e v i a n t b e h a v i o r a n d non-

o r b e t w e e n d e v i a n t i n d i v i d u a l s and

nondeviant i n d i v i d u a l s (Scheff,

19661.

The n o t i o n o f

d e v i a n t i n s o c i o l o g y c o r r e s p o n d s t o t h a t of a b n o r m a l i n psychology;

t h e n o t i o n of n o n d e v i a n t c o r r e s p o n d s

t o t h a t o f normal.

D e v i a n c y and n o n d e v i a n c y a r e o p e r -

a t i o n a l l y d e f i n e d b y r e f e r e n c e t o t h e s o c i a l norms that are characteristic of ture.

a g i v e n c u l t u r e o r subcul-

A p i e c e of b e h a v i o r t h a t i s i n a c c o r d w i t h t h e

s o c i a l norm i s n o n d e v i a n t ;

a piece o f behavior t h a t

v i o l a t e s t h e s o c i a l norm i s d e v i a n t . Society,

i n general,

does n o t v a l u e d e v i a n c y ,

p r o b a b l y because one o f t h e p u r p o s e s o f a s o c a l norm i s t o p r e s e r v e t h e i n t e g r i t y and c o n t i n u i t y o f s o c i e t y .

T h i s i s u n f o r t u n a t e because d e v i a n c y s e r v e s a s a p r i mary s o u r c e of s o c i a l / c u l t u r a l

change.

Heterosexual-

i t y i s n o n d e v i a n t because i t i s i n a c c o r d w i t h t h e over-all

s o c i a l norm s p e c i f y i n g a p p r o p r i a t e s e x u a l e x -

pression.

H o m o s e x u a l i t y i s d e v i a n t because i t v i o -

lates the over-all expression.

s o c i a l norm r e g a r d i n g p r o p e r s e x u a l

Heterosexual behavior helps maintain t h e

c o n t i n u e d i n t e g r i t y o f s o c i e t y because i t l e a d s t o r e cruitment,

t h e a c q u i s i t i o n of new members f o r s o c i e t y .

Homo6exual a c t i v i t y does n o t l e a d t o s o c i e t a l r e c r u i t ment.

Ethics: Abnormality

217

The basic problem with t h e cultural approach to abnormality derives from its relativity, both with respect t o ( 1 ) space and ( 2 ) time.

1. At a given point in t i m e , two spatially separated cultures, o r two subcultures existing in t h e same essential s p a c e , c a n have different social norms. F o r instance, in ancient Greece homosexuality w a s acceptable among members o f t h e upper class, but not among members o f t h e lower class [Churchill, 1967). Analogously, there are subcultures in America today in which homosexuality i s t h e norm: in San Francisco and New York C i t y ,

As an example o f t h i s kind o f rel-

ativity not involving sexual behavior, consider a man with long hair in a flowing white gown claiming t o be revealed t o by God.

If t h i s happened o n a mountain

t o p in rural North Carolina, t h e man probably would be revered by t h e local population; if t h i s happened on Times Square in New York City, the people in t h e litt l e white c o a t s eventually would c o m e and take him t o Bellevue.

2. At a given point in s p a c e , t w o temporally separated cultures c a n have different social norms.

For

instance, while homosexuality flourished in ancient Greece among t h e upper c l a s s , t h i s is not t r u e o f contemporary Greece (Churchill, 1967).

As a n example o f

t h i s kind o f relativity not involving sexual behavior, we c a n refer t o a woman in Salem, Massachusetts exhibiting certain bizzare behaviors.

In Puritan times,

s h e would be labeled a s a witch and be in danger o f being burned at t h e s t a k e ; now s h e simply would b e labeled a s odd and perhaps encouraged t o undergo some form o f therapy.

EVALUATIVE ASPECTS

The cultural, rel-

ative approach t o operationally defining abnormality

Chapter 6

218

explicitly

is morally stipulative: it allows t h e val-

ues underlying t h e social norms characteristic o f a culture/society

t o determine the content o f t h e nor-

mal and abnormal categories.

This approach t o opera-

tionalizing abnormality h a s the potential o f being the most ideologically influenced specification method: in certain contexts, it is possible f o r the notion o f normality to be fully equated with that of morality and for the notion o f abnormality t o be equivalent to that o f immorality.

For instance, in a religious con-

t e x t , abnormal usually is defined in terms o f unnatura l ; but what t h e theologian means by unnatural is i m moral--as based on Holy Writ ( L . B. Brown, 1973). PERSONAL AOJUSTMENT CRITERION

Normality and

abnormality a r e defined i n terms o f t h e degree o f personal adjustment exhibited by the individual.

An or-

ganism is normal to t h e ' e x t e n t that its behaviors do not interfere with its adjustment t o life; that is, do not interfere with its everyday interaction with t h e surrounding physical and social environment (White and Watt, 1973).

At the level o f behavior, a response

activity is normal to t h e extent that it is adaptive. Normality and abnormality are not really digital, allor-none states in this approach; rather they are graded entities, coexisting in certain degrees. The personal adjustment criterion suffers t h e same deficiency that t h e cultural approach does: relativity. ity.

This is easily illustrated with homosexual-

A nighttime janitor who is an avowed homosexual

would not necessarily be classified a s abnormal.

His

homosexuality d o e s not interfere with his life: who cares if a nighttime janitor is a homosexual?

On the

other hand, t h e star player o f a college basketball team who is an avowed homosexual is in grave danger o f

Ethics: Abnormality

being labeled abnormal.

219

H i s homosexuality d o e s inter-

fere with his life: t h e alumni and alumnae will not tolerate a homosexual scoring points. Other examples o f the relativity o f t h e personal adjustment criterion might be helpful.

Assume a person

avoids people, refuses to talk on t h e t e l e p h o n e , and walks close t o t h e wall down corridors.

If t h e person

is a nighttime janitor, t h e s e behaviors do not inter-

fere with personal adjustment; if t h e person is a lawyer, doctor, o r business executive, t h e s e behaviors do interfere with personal adjustment.

Finally, consider

t h e c a s e o f professional r o c k musicians: they c a n engage in all s o r t s o f bizzare behaviors and wear all s o r t s o f offbeat clothes.

The same behavior and cloth-

ing exhibited by a member o f t h e clergy would lead t o immediate social disapproval and perhaps even expulsion from t h e pulpit.

E V A L U A T I V E ASPECTS

The personal adjust-

ment criterion is t h e least morally stipulative operational approach t o abnormality identification.

Achiev-

ing a satisfactory adjustment t o life is rarely viewed a s evaluatively negative.

Evaluative problems arise

because t h e notion o f satisfactory adjustment t o life, in t u r n , must be operationally defined.

It is at t h i s

level t h a t cultural values and vested interests c a n have a n influence. INFORMAL, IMPLICIT OPERATIONAL SPECIFICATION The operational specification o f abnormality in t h e applied medical/clinical ( P a g e , 1971).

context t e n d s t o be subjective

Anyone who is in t h e profession o f

treating abnormality, such a s a doctor, psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, psychotherapist, counselor, member o f t h e c l e r g y , or behavior modification specialist, i m plicitly uses the personal adjustment criterion.

A

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220

psychological practitioner usually knows that a given piece o f behavior i s maladaptive and, therefore, abnormal through t h e self-judgment and self-report o f the client/patient according t o ' a personalistic criterion o f adjustment.

Quite often, t h e individual on-

ly knows that something i s wrong o r reports anxiety or unhappiness. Many times t h e original identification o f abnormality is implicitly done by an informal link in t h e over-all helping chain, such a s a spouse, minister, or family doctor.

The therapist accepts the client's

predetermined abnormal status at f a c e value.

T h i s sug-

gests that abnormality really i s a constellation o f r e lated entities.

Behavior that tends t o make one un-

happy or anxious also tends t o interfere, t o be against the social norm, and t o be exhibited by a small percentage o f the population.

EVALUATIVE ASPECTS

Informal, implicit

operational specification o f abnormality i s not easily exploitable.

Self-determination o f abnormality is i m -

plicit and requires no formal operational definition. Determination o f abnormality by a spouse or fellow family member usually i s done via empathetic identification and achievement o f some intuitive understanding; but t h i s is a context in which t h e evaluative aspects o f common values, mutual approval, and liking work for

t h e benefit o f the pathological diagnosis.

THE COMPOSITIONAL PROBLEM A N D ITS POSSIBLE SOLUTION Psychology is a moral, ethical, evaluative, normative endeavor, primarily because it involves people making judgments about other people.

Value-free psy-

chological knowledge is an unattainable ideal.

Ba-

cause o f this, the discipline can only ( 1 1 make its value-laden status explicit so that psychological

Ethics: Abnormality

221

truth is not easily exploited or exploitable and ( 2 ) construct psychological truth in a manner t h a t provides f o r a s many legitimate interests and moral concerns a s possible. The discipline's evaluative nature complicates t h e compositional problem.

Specification o f t h e de-

fining properties o f a psychological event cannot b e done in a normative vacuum.

Any attempt t o d o s o

could only result in undesirable implicit moral consequences: It i s impossible t o be nonideological with out being implicitly ideological.

Solution o f t h e

compositional problem via t h e construction o f a s a t isfactory representational scheme f o r generating psychological events would require t h e postulation o f some explicit evaluative guidelines t o minimize t h e effects o f t h e inherent normative stance o f t h e discipline.


223

CHAPTER 7

COMPOSITIONAL PROBLEM: A POSSIBLE SOLUTION

The notion o f a psychological universe, reality, o r domain is perfectly meaningful.

It i s implicit in

f o l k psychology and explicit in both academic and ap-

plied psychology.

The discipline's participation in

t h e over-all cross-classificational endeavor originally w a s justified in the guise o f a technical realignment o f boundaries among scholars interested in t h e epistemological aspects o f t h e human being: empirical methods were applied to unraveling t h e content o f mind (structuralism).

Later t h e discipline focused

o n t h e efficacy o f consciousness a s a n antecedent to organismic adaptation (functionalism).

Eventually any

reference t o mind, either a s output (epiphenomena) or input (locus o f causation), w a s abandoned; and t h e discipline focused on t h e organism a s an active, doing being (behaviorism).

Coincident with each o f

these three possible foci was t h e treatment o f t h e individual organism 8s a psychodynamic entity unto itself ( d e p t h psychology).

More recently the psycholog-

ical universe was made coextensive with an individual's own private subjective world (humanism], a s well a s conceptualized a s a dialectical entity (dialectical psychology). There are many ways o f characterizing t h e discipline's variable approach t o the cross-classification-

Chapter 7

224

a1 endeavor: heterogeneous, pluralistic, nonparadigmat i c , t o name a few.

Throughout t h e book we have re-

ferred to this state o f affairs a s psychology's compositional problem: the discipline's

historical inabil-

ity t o isolate the defining properties o f a psychological event.

The ramifications o f t h i s problem f o r

t h e conduction of academic psychology have been documented at five levels: ( 1 ) methodological, ( 2 ) epiphenomenal, (3) explanatory, (4) metaphysical, and (51 normative.

By way o f quick review, t h e compositional

problem can be conceived a s minimally consisting o f the following issues:

1. The irresolvability o f the content o f observation and the arbitrariness o f orientation;

2. The duality o f traditional epiphenomena: conscious experience and behavior;

3. The need for face valid explanatory constructs;

4. The codetermination o f domain and subject type i

5. The implicit evaluative nature of many psychological concepts. The purpose o f this chapter is t o outline one possible solution to t h e compositional problem.

In

the process o f constructing a representational scheme for generating psychological events, it w i l l be discovered which problems, in principle, are resolvable and which problems are intractable.

The proposed

solution to t h e compositional problem necessarily must involve some value judgments--which

a s they are labeled a s such. be structured

in terms

of

is okay, a s long

The presentation w i l l

( 1 ) presuppositions, ( 2 )

goal o f the discipline and derivative focus, (3) definitional criteria for a psychological event, (4) prescriptive statements regarding the five aspects o f t h e

CompositionalProblem: A Possible Solution

225

compositional problem, and (5) a representational scheme f o r generating psychological events. PRESUPPOSITIONS The assumptions underlying our proposed solution o f t h e compositional problem

need t o be made explicit.

1. The psychological universe must be unique. Otherwise, the discipline cannot conceptually justify its participation in the over-all cross-classificationa1 endeavor.

The psychological universe associated

with t h e initial system o f academic psychology--structuralism ( W u n d t , 1896; Titchener, 1898)--was unique; however, t h e evolutionary development o f t h e field has led t o systems and foci t h a t do not preserve t h e uniqueness o f psychological reality.

F o r instance, it w a s

demonstrated in Chapter 5 that psychology practiced a s a descriptive behaviorism

(Watson, 1925; S k i n n e r , 1974)

eliminates any functional distinction between psychological and physical reality unless it contains an explicit normative component.

2. The psychological universe need not be physical in nature: it need not be composed o f entities that are indigenous objects o f interest to physics or are amenable t o the analytical categories or measurement convent i o n s o f physics.

In other words, psychological reali-

ty need not be visible to t h e untrained eye: it is something that i s superimposed o n real-time and real-space events, a s defined by physics, and gives them an entirely new or emergent interpretation and status.

I am not

arguing that psychological reality is not r e a l , merely that it is not necessarily coextensive with reality a s defined by the hard physical sciences.

3. The notion o f psychological only c a n properly be applied t o phenomena exhibited by an autonomous (or at least semi-autonomous) energy-driven, information

Chapter 7

226

processing system.

The intent o f t h i s presupposition

is t o limit psychological phenomena t o events requiring some kind o f nervous system or nervous system surrogate for their production.

The presupposition i s

not a s restrictive as it appears. about potential subject types.

It s a y s nothing

The only entities that

it functionally excludes from the potential psychological universe are phenomena exhibited by simple inanimate objects.

The notion o f an autonomous energy-

driven, information processing system includes human beings, animals, insects, certain machines s u c h a s t h e computer, robots, dyads, larger social groups, and t h e The system even could be a subsystem o f a more

like.

comprehensive entity: e.g., a rat's feeding s y s t e m , a computer's memory system, a company's public relations department, a person's speech system.

Nor i s t h e state

or status o f t h e entity comprising t h e system a relevant consideration: psychological phenomena c a n be e x hibited by less than an intact organism or by t h e member o f any short term or long term special population, such as an amnesiac, drug addict, o r retardate.

4. Granted that the conduction o f academic psychology primarily is an epistemological endeavor and the conduction o f applied psychology i s a matter, o f social action, the psychological universe should represent a fusion o f these t w o interests.

A psycholog-

ical fact should be a combined epistemological and social action statement.

Traditional psychology is

characterized by a n artificial dichotomy between the laboratory situation and t h e so-called natural environment.

The former is treated a s a rarefied epistem-

ological entity, while t h e latter constitutes an arena of

practical application.

This presupposition speci-

fies that the notion o f a psychological universe


221

should not only be an intellectual artifice, but also a dynamic, efficacious entity. GOAL OF THE DISCIPLINE AND DERIVATIVE FOCUS The basic goal o f t h e discipline o f psychology should be the attempt t o understand our humanity. Homo sapiens should serve a s t h e basic reference point o f t h e discipline.

This d o e s not mean that psychology

should only focus on the human being.

Psychological

knowledge derived in an animal context or obtained via analysis o f machine systems might be relevant for an understanding o f our psychological nature.

There is

no way o f defining a psychological event s o t h a t it is only applicable t o homo s a p i e n s anyway. "understand"

The notion o f

at t h i s point should be interpreted gen-

erically: it can subsume any interpretive device that allows prediction, control, emotional identification, or theoretical deduction. It could be argued that virtually every other academic or intellectual discipline also i s concerned with

homo

sapiens, either directly or indirectly: art,

music, literature, theology, law, history, sociology, economics, political science, anthropology, biology, and s o forth.

But these disciplines ( 1 ) do not f o c u s

on t h e human being a s a n entity unto itself and ( 2 ) typically are concerned with only one aspect/facet o f humanity.

For instance, theology relates t h e human t o

some divine being; history is a record o f our past. Psychology focuses on homo sapiens a s a n entity unto itself with no vested interests other than resolving its psychological nature o r status. Both the nature o f t h e human organism and whether it possesses any unique characteristics are metaphysical questions, a s discussed in Chapter 5.

Historical-

l y , different philosophical views o f homo s a p i e n s have

228

Chapter 7

justified different t y p e s o f psychology: f o r instance, recall that moral agency underlies humanistic psycholo g y , while mechanism underlies behaviorism.

But it is

not t h e function o f psychology to attempt a resolution o f t h e metaphysical status o f homo sapiens or t o ar-

bitrate among different visions o f its possible uniqueness, just as it is not a function o f any o f t h e above mentioned disciplines to do so either. Neither t h e professional psychologist nor t h e public at large conceives o f t h e human organism solely a s a metaphysical entity or limits its concern t o the human's metaphysical status.

Within the context o f some

metaphysical tradition, it i s the function o f psychology t o devise a credible empirical account o f homo sap-

iens.

Metaphysical principles can serve as a guide f o r

this, but d o nothing to fill in t h e thousands o f relevant facts about

homo

sapiens as a n actual living,

thinking, doing, feeling being.

In other words, both

academic psychology and folk psychology view t h e human being a s t h e generator or repository of events %hat are self-obviously psychological in nature. It is in t h i s framework that t h e following question serves as t h e critical problem o f the discipline: what aspect o f homo sapiens makes it a psychological entity or allows it to exhibit psychological phenomena? In other words, what confers o n homo sapiens i t s s t a t u s a s a psychological being? The answers t o these questions cannot b e behavior and/or conscious experience, t h e discipline's traditional epiphenomena1 objects o f interest.

Remember

these entities possess no indigenous psychological reality.

To demonstrate t h i s , it only i s necessary t o

substitute these t e r m s in one o f t h e above queries: what aspect o f homo sapiens allows it t o exhibit behav-


ior and/or conscious experience?

229

S o m e other entity

must confer psychological s t a t u s on these two epiphenomena. The denotation assigned t o t h i s conferring entity i s arbitrary, but critical, because it solves t h e compositional problem.

The assignment i s equivalent t o

specifying what makes u s human.

By f i a t , we are going

t o assume that the possession o f

conscious intelligence

confers psychological s t a t u s o n homo sapiens and specifies t h e substance o f our humanity.

So, t h e goal o f

psychology is t h e attempt t o resolve the nature and ramifications o f our conscious intelligence, Recall from Chapter 1 that our possession o f conscious intelligence in combination with the language function s e r v e s a s a necessary condition for t h e creation o f psychological reality.

The fact that evolu-

tion h a s produced an organism possessing these two properties i s t h e ultimate source o f psychology.

Recall

from Chapter 2 that the discipline focuses o n t h e very entity that psychologizes in t h e f i r s t - p l a c e : t h e human organism.

The fact that psychology i s t h e study

o f t h e human being by the human being can now be trans-

lated t o mean that psychology i s t h e process o f c o n scious intelligence studying itself.

There i s abso-

lutely nothing untoward or circular about t h i s statement. The reason both behavior and conscious experience --as external manifestations o f

action and conscious-

ness respectively (see Chapter 3]--possess psychological reality i s that they minimally are related to or maximally are caused by conscious intelligence.

More

generally, if it c a n be demonstrated that any natural phenomenon is related t o or derivative o f conscious intelligence, it possesses psychological reality.

Chapter 7

230

The ultimate denotation o f conscious intelligence itself is a metaphysical issue [ s e e Chapter 1 1 1 .

No

attempt w i l l be made t o assign t h i s notion a s e t o f absolute defining properties.

Conscious incelligence

is not necessarily limited to the human organism.

tingent o n one's

Con-

operational specification o f conscious

intelligence, a n animal, machine, o r even some a s yet unknown extraterrestrial being could possess conscious intelligence.

This is why the psychological universe

cannot be confined to t h e human organism. Explicitly what i s not intended to be connoted by the term conscious intelligence is mere I Q , o r scholastic ability, or t h e traditional cognitive processes in general, such a s perception, memory, decision making, problem solving, and t h e like.

Conscious intelligence

is a state or property o f being, t h e ultimate reifier o f all sorts o f realities (see Chapter

1).

Resolving

t h e discipline's compositional problem in t e r m s o f t h i s concept in no way makes psychology epistemologically oriented or confers special status t o t h i s t y p e o f psychology.

The human being's

physical reactivity is just

as much a function or product o f i t s conscious intelligence a s its complex, symbolically r i c h , inner world of

private experience.

Depth psychology is not even

precluded, because the unconscious is subsumed by the notion o f conscious intelligence. The ultimate physical basis o f conscious intelligence is neural activity or a surrogate thereof.

The

exact physical realization o f the hardware responsible for conscious intelligence is irrelevant: t h i s is one o f t h e basic t e n e t s o f philosophical

Chapter 31.

functionalism (see

T h e human being's conscious intelligence

is primarily, but not exclusively, a neocortical phenomenon: a s our neocortex evolved, our reifying capacity


23 1

and self-awareness evolved (see Sagan, 1977). It is interesting t o note that there is much current evidence that our t w o cerebral hemispheres operate in diametrically opposite epistemological modes. The left hemisphere primarily is rational, verbal, analytic, logical; t h e right hemisphere is intuitive, nonverbal, synthetic, nonlogical [Ornstein, 1975). Sometimes t h i s is spoken o f a s t h e "split-brain." The left hemisphere engages in vertical t h i n k i n g ; t h e right hemisphere engages in lateral thinking [DeBono, 1970).

The left hemisphere, in isolation, would cre-

ate a psychological reality reminiscent o f behaviorism; t h e right hemisphere, in isolation, would create a psychological reality reminiscent o f understanding psychology, in general, and humanism, in particular. DEFINITIONAL CRITERIA FOR A PSYCHOLOGICAL EVENT In folk psychology [Stich, 1983) it is t a k e n for granted that a person thinks, feels, acts, perceives, hurts, experiences pleasure, is self-aware, is intelligent, talks, calculates,

infinitum.

Folk psy-

chology d o e s not have to worry about the existential reality level o f these notions, nor d o e s it have t o worry about t h e intricacies o f logical relationships or causal connections between various kinds o f input and output entities.

Folk psychology simply i s not

concerned with any ultimate defining criterion for t h e psychological.

Folk psychology may be imprecise, in-

consistent [yield contradictory predictions), and common-sensical; however, it is not to be scorned: it provides the everyday vocabulary that even t h e professional psychologist uses t o express statements subsuming psychological truth. The five t y p e s o f psychology, along with their derivative systems [see Chapters 2 and S ) , d o entail

232

Chapter 7

specific, delimited psychological domains: 1. In every epistemological system, any mental event i s a psychological event; in s o m e epistemological systems, overt physical behavior also is a . p s y chological event.

2. In every action system, overt behavior and environmental events have a psychological r e a l i t y ; in s o m e action systems, events occurring within the skin also are psychological in nature if they fulfill certain logical criteria o f existence.

3. In understanding psychology, any aspect of an individual's conscious experience or consciousness possesses psychological reality; whether overt behavior also does i s a semantic matter.

4. In depth psychology, the psychological universe is limited t o a n internal psychodynamic economy that is characterized by a psychic determinism.

5. In dialectical psychology, virtually any verbalizable entity--internal or external, experiential or behavioral--constitutes part o f t h e psychological domain. It is impossible to generate a coherent conception o f a psychological event merely by abstracting from the inclusive features of these different t y p e s o f psychology:

their psychological domains simply are

too disparate. CHARACTERISTICS O F A N ACCEPTABLE DEFINITION

Er-

win (1978) argues that a viable definition o f a concept must possess four properties:

( 1 ) clarity, ( 2 )

inclusiveness, (31 exclusiveness, and (4) no reference t o contingent attributes.

Clarity entails

whether o r not t h e definition is explicit enough t o be useful.

Inclusiveness and exclusiveness are mirror

image opposites: t h e definition must include every


233

single positive instance o f t h e concept and exclude every single negative instance o f t h e concept.

The

fourth property simply means that any accidental o r random attribute that t h e concept might possess should not b e included in i t s definition: f o r instance, apples might only grow in temperate regions o f t h e e a r t h , but you would not want t o make t h i s characteristic o f an apple o n e o f its definitional attributes. The problem with Erwin's account o f a viable definition should be obvious.

T h e second and third prop-

erties could never be implemented, o r at least tested, without a prior definition o f t h e concept t o b e defined. Otherwise, how would we know what to include o r exclude?

A more realistic application

of

Erwin's criteria would

involve either t h e process o f comparing alternative definitions or the process o f deriving an ultimate definition through a s e r i e s o f preliminary provisional definitions.

The latter c a s e would correspond more

closely t o our attempt to provide a n adequate definit i o n o f a psychological event, primarily because it i s not being done in a conceptual vacuum.

OENO ATIVE PROPERTIES O F A PSYCHOLOGICAL EVENT

In

order f o r an event t o be classified a s psychological in nature

it must fulfill the following three condi-

tions: 1. It must be exhibited by an autonomous ( o r at least semi-autonomous) energy-driven, information processing system.

In other words, it must be produced by

some kind o f nervous system o r surrogate thereof.

2. It must involve o r be related in some way t o conscious intelligence.

3. It must be capable o f specification with respect to either a material composition o r a functional role.

The former would identify i t s exact nature a s a

Chapter 7

physical or physiological entity; t h e latter would delineate its causal agency among a series o f events comprising a system or subsystem. These t h r e e conditions operate a s the metaphysical criteria f o r a psychological event: they specify its metaphysical status.

It also is possible for a

phenomenon classified a s psychological in nature by this set o f

criteria to be subject t o various method-

ological and normative constraints: f o r instance, the phenomenon might not be amenable t o direct empirical investigation; or it might violate a certain standard o f moral decency.

The first condition restricts psychological phenomena t o living systems o r automata that simulate l i v ing systems. source o f

The second one reflects t h e ultimate

psychology and t h e primary distinguishing

characteristic o f humanity. way o f

The third condition is a

incorporating t h e existence criteria that are

acceptable in contemporary philosophy (see F o d o r ,

1981).

Refer to Chapter 3 for a more detailed discus-

sion o f the notions o f

material composition and func-

tional role specification. The respective psychological domains o f t h e five t y p e s o f psychology would be derivable from t h i s particular metaphysical specification o f a psychological event, with one possible exception: t h e environmental stimuli characteristic o f action psychology and dialec tical psychology.

Such events are related t o con-

scious intelligence and are properly specifiable materially or functionally; however, not all such events are mediated by the activity o f another living organ-

i s m or its surrogate. There are a number o f ways available t o rectify t h i s exclusion.

The addition o f a fourth condition


235

would be t h e simplest, but would result in a lack o f economy.

The notion o f a n autonomous system could be

expanded to include its environmental input; however, t h i s would be too ad hoc.

A third tack is simply t o

remind t h e reader that in t e r m s o f actual practice a behaviorist or dialectical psychologist d o e s not regard environmental stimuli and organismic responses t o be two independently isolatable events: one o f them always i s operationally defined in t e r m s o f t h e other. As s u c h , they constitute only one independent item o f

observation.

In other words, once a piece o f behavior

is speciFied in a behavioristic or dialectical con-

t e x t , its attendant stimulus term is also.

A fourth

option would involve a semantic slight o f hand: a n environmental stimulus becomes part o f the psychological universe once it i s decoded by an autonomous energydriven, information processing s y s t e m , i.e., stimulus decoding is an activity exhibited by a n autonomous energy-driven, information processing system. PRESCRIPTIVE STATEMENTS RELATIVE TO THE FIVE ASPECTS O F THE COMPOSITIONAL PROBLEM

It now is time t o see whether or t o what degree t h e compositionally related problems, associated with t h e five levels at which academic psychology is conducted, c a n be resolved. METHODOLOGICAL

The compositional problem at t h i s

level amounts t o ( 1 ) the irresolvability o f t h e content o f observation and ( 2 ) the arbitrariness o f orientation. CONTENT O F OBSERVATION

Each type o f psy-

chology, a s well a s its constitutive systems, h a s its own interpretation o f t h e components o f t h e content o f observation: basic object o f study and locus o f causation are contingent o n decisions made at t h e metaphysi-

236

Chapter 7

It is impossible t o derive a standard in-

cal level.

terpretation o f t h e content of observation at any reasonable level o f abstraction; however, t h i s problem is not really intractable because t h e distinction between the discipline's two traditional epiphenomena1 objects of interest--conscious experience and behavior--merely is semantic.

The dividing line between these t w o epi-

phenomenal categories is strictly arbitrary, and one o f the phenomena cannot be studied o r assigned psychological meaning without reference t o t h e other.

The notion

of a content o f observation merely s e r v e s a s a convenient analytical device f o r describing exactly what a specific psychologist currently is doing--in t h e sense o f directly observing and indirectly inferring.

The

ultimate neutrality of t h e notion is demonstrated by the fact that either conscious experience o r behavior can occupy either slot.

At a given moment in t i m e , a

specific natural event c a n be both epiphenomena1 and causative, contingent o n t h e psychologist's perspective. For instance, in a behavioristic context, event be a piece o f behavior produced by person ulus f o r person

A

&

can

and a stim-

simultaneously.

ORIENTATION

Although four orientations were

discussed in Chapter 2--[1) objective, ( 2 ) subjective, (3) quasi-objective, and (4) combined--they reduce to

the fact that t h e human being can be studied from either o f two perspectives: ternally imposed one.

( 1 ) t h e self or (2) an e x -

The first perspective i s associ-

ated with the subjective orientation and r e s u l t s in a first person access f o c u s o n t h e self.

The second per-

spective i s associated with the objective orientation and results in a third person access focus o n a significant other.

These two perspectives have differential

implications f o r such methodological entities a s the


237

method o f self-report, subject t y p e , and experimental technique. The option o f two perspectives constitutes a n intractable compositional problem f o r t h e discipline, a s manifested by t h e perennial antagonism existing between humanism and behaviorism.

Whether t h e notion o f a psy-

chological reality is better represented by a subjective psychological world contingent o n a self's consciousness or by a n objective psychological universe that i s continuous with physical reality cannot be r e solved empirically.

The issue strictly is metaphysical

and evaluative in nature. One o f our presuppositions specified that t h e psychological universe must b e unique.

T h e humanist's

subjective psychological world is inherently unique. The descriptive behaviorist's

psychological universe

is not indigenously unique, but can be made s o if supplemented by explicit normative dicta [see Chapter 5). Humanistic psychology inherently is more evaluative than behaviorism; however, t h e latter is not exactly ideology-free. Using t h e notion o f conscious intelligence a s t h e ultimate entity conferring psychological s t a t u s o n homo sapiens and i t s experiential and behavioral activities d o e s not arbitrate t h e humanism-behaviorism dichotomy: t h e notion o f conscious intelligence i s basic t o either vision o f the psychological universe. EPIPHENOMENAL

Compositional complications associ-

ated with t h e discipline's dual f o c u s o n behavior and conscious experience by and large have been resolved by t h e devolution o f these two epiphenomenal categories from absolute, metaphysical entities t o purely descript i v e , semantic labels.

The epiphenomena1 terminology

that contemporary psychologists use primarily is a func-

Chapter 7

238

tion o f system adherence and personal preference, which in turn basically derive from t h e nature o f their graduate training.

The phenomena that t h e discipline

either directly or indirectly investigates today are so diverse and varied that they defy simplistic classification a s pure cases o f behavior or experience. We have emphasized repeatedly

in t h e analysis t h a t

neither behavior nor conscious experience possesses inherent psychological reality.

Instances o f behavior

and contents o f conscious experience are observed, measured, and classified; but they merely serve a s external indicants o f a n underlying psychological reality. In Chapter 3 w e related behavior t o t h e notion o f action and t h e content o f conscious experience t o that o f consciousness: it is t h e concepts o f action and consciousness that are assumed t o be integral parts o f the psychological universe and confer psychological reality o n the external indicants.

In t h i s chapter, we

have extended t h e argument t o t h e effect that it i s t h e possession o f conscious intelligence by a n organism that in turn c o n f e r s psychological reality o n i t s act i o n s and conscious awareness. EXPLANATORY

Compositional complications arise at

t h e interpretive level because o f the need t o generate explanations t h a t provide both intellectual closure and emotional satisfaction.

The discipline has been unsuc-

cessful in its attempts t o integrate these t w o funct i o n s o f a n explanation.

The problem probably is in-

tractable and is best addressed by accepting t h e fact that certain situations require technical interpretation and others more appropriately call f o r explanat i o n s possessing face validity. It i s at the explanatory level that t h e psychologist c a n be t h e most creative.

It also i s t h e level


239

at which purely psychological concepts can be introduced, either a s physical causative agents or a s high level interpretive constructs.

Unfortunately, if the

history o f psychology over t h e past one hundred years provides any lessons, it is that general high level psychological explanation is an elusive, if not unattainable, goal.

The human organism can do and ex-

perience an infinite number o f things in infinitely many ways, such that even in a mechanistic context it can be modeled in virtually any manner desired. Contemporary psychological theory is more complex, sophisticated, and quantitatively precise t h a n its historical forebears; however, t h i s advance was achieved at great cost: a distinct loss o f generality.

Current

theories are s o limited in domain, it is virtually i m possible ( 1 ) for a psychological principle t o be both an epistemological and social action statement and ( 2 ) for a theoretical construct t o possess face validity. Psychology should be conducted primarily a s a descriptive endeavor.

This puts a premium on t h e objec-

tive and subjective orientations.

Watsonian ( 1 9 2 5 )

and Skinnerian (1938, 1953) behaviorism are customarily recognized a s descriptive endeavors: in principle, they deal exclusively with observables, such that input-output relations exhaust psychological reality.

Humanis-

t i c , phenomenological psychology (Giorgi, 1 9 7 0 ; Keen, 1975) also primarily is a descriptive endeavor, but usually is not recognized a s such.

What is being des-

cribed is t h e content o f emotional consciousness--subject matter that ( 1 ) is not immediately relatable t o abstract, underlying theoretical entities and ( 2 ) only can be appreciated via an intuitive understanding afforded by t h e use o f face valid constructs from folk psychology

(Stich, 1983).

Chapter 7

240

What really is being prescribed here is a joint reliance on ( 1 ) technical prediction and control and ( 2 ) informal interpretive efforts affording emotional

satisfaction.

Academic, experimental psychology is em-

inently successful with respect to t h e former, but d o e s not permit the latter.

Folk psychology or humanistic

psychology is incapable o f t h e former, but is eminent-

l y successful with respect to the latter. METAPHYSICAL

The compositional problem at t h e

metaphysical level primarily amounts t o the need t o jointly specify the proper domain o f t h e discipline and The situation is not

its appropriate subject types.

intractable; however, any proposed solution is evaluative in nature and open t o debate and ultimate r e j e c tion by others. The proper domain o f psychology should be organ-

ismic action and consciousness, as manifested via behavior and conscious experience.

Both action and con-

sciousness possess psychological reality because they are properties o f conscious intelligence.

Conscious

intelligence is not necessarily limited to t h e human being, so it is impossible to dictate a monolithic conception o f subject type.

Both animals and inanimate

conceptual s y s t e m s , such a s a computer, c a n exhibit phenomena properly deemed psychological in nature. The uniqueness o f t h e psychological domain derives from the fact that psychological knowledge, i.e., the psychological way o f conceiving o f things, is contingent o n human consciousness,

Focus o n individualistic

human consciousness yields the private, subjective psychological worlds characteristic o f humanist;

J,

phen-

omenological psychology; f o c u s on the behavioral uniformities exhibited by each individual through the use o f a n external perspective

yields a presumably univer-


241

sally applicable or efficacious psychological universe analogous t o t h e physical world o f t h e hard sciences. The psychology subsumed by systems that employ an external perspective is still contingent on consciousness; however, it is constructed so a s to exclude the unique or idiosyncratic aspects o f an individual's c o n sciousness from contributing t o t h e specification o f the psychological universe. When the human being is conceptualized a s a s e l f , it constitutes a metaphysical entity unto itself: it i s inherently unique, s p e c i a l , and self-reified. When the human being is treated a s a significant other, i t s metaphysical s t a t u s i s that o f representative membership in some class.

The nature o f t h e

class, its significant defining properties, and t h e like are a function o f t h e particular external perspective used to construct psychological reality.

A

significant other merely is a n abstraction, but a convenient o r instrumental o n e f o r many purposes.

The

constructional nature o f a significant other in a psychological context is highlighted by t h e fact that t h e hard sciences possess no analogue for a self: t h e objects o f interest o f physics, chemistry, astronomy, and t h e like are devoid o f consciousness or conscious intelligence. NORMATIVE

The discipline o f psychology cannot

avoid being a normative, evaluative endeavor because it focuses on t h e human being.

Focus on a s e l f in-

volves the value-laden process o f emotional identific a t i o n ; focus o n a significant other involves classificatory dimensions or descriptive indicators with evaluative components.

The prototypical instance o f

a normative psychological concept is that o f abnormality, where extreme variation connotes deficiency or

Chapter 7

242

inferiority. It is too simplistic t o say t h a t psychology is ideological in nature or a reflection o f society's valPsychology can be proactive, as well a s reactive.

ues.

Psychologists are in t h e unique position o f being able to both advocate and justify a tolerant, inspirational view o f humanity, because they are looked o n a s society's experts o n matters o f human behavior and experiIt is no accident that the unconstrained and un-

ence.

censored conduction o f academic, experimental psychology only i s possible in a n enlightened democracy. Although psychology i s subject t o intradisciplinary factionalism and vested interests, its only legitimate constituency i s people and people-surrogates. This is why t h e notion o f special populations i s so insidious.

An arbitrary distinction originally made

for methodological or explanatory reasons becomes reified a s a qualitative, moral one that c a n have intolerable consequences: For instance, t h e wholesale use o f electroshock "therapy"--the

youngest recipient o f such

therapy on record was three months old--and t h e indiscriminate use o f chemotherapy o n people who are classified a s some kind o f psychotic; even the barbaric use o f psychosurgery to make people less aggressive

[Berger, 1978; Kalinowski and H o c h , 1952; Kalinowski and Hippius, 19691.

In principle, there is no dis-

tinction between these techniques and the erstwhile punishments and deprivations associated with a demonic possession view o f mental illness. The notion o f abnormality might not seem absurd in the context o f bizarre behavior o f mysterious, unknown origin.

"Bizarre"

itself is an evaluative term.

But consider t h e case o f color vision (Rushton, 1962, 19641.

The vast majority of people are trichromats:

243


all'^ colors.

they see capable o f

(Note: some trichromats are

finer color discrimination than others, con-

tingent on past training.

The notion o f "alltr in this

context merely is a social convention.) are dichromats or monochromats: colors.

Some people

they do not see "all"

They suffer some form o f

color blindness.

Color blindness is neither bizarre nor mysterious.

It

is a genetically determined variation, analogous t o or continuous with countless other variations in t h e natural universe.

Yet t h e criteria psychology uses t o

identify abnormality

( s e e Chapter 6) would reify color

Is there something sacred

blindness a s an abnormality. about trichromatism?

Did some divine being preordain

trichromatism a s orthodoxy?

Not really!

Natural sel-

ection is merciless: fine color discrimination is adaptive.

But everything is relative.

No human can decode

ultraviolet or infrared rays; other organisms can. D o e s t h i s make t h e human abnormal?

organisms that a're abnormal?

O r , is it t h e other

The point is that there

is rich intraspecies and interspecies variation in color vision capacity.

Variation in receptor-contingent

perceptual realities is one o f t h e facts o f t h e universe. It is idiotic to identify any one intraspecies or interspecies variation a s abnormal.

If there is any sin in t h e universe it is depriving homo sapiens o f its humanity or self-respect. Psychology's

implicit normative stance must always be

regulated by a basic moral precept: never allow some pragmatic technical distinction to function a s some arbitrary qualitative discriminator.

Psychological

truth should be constructed and promulgated

in an at-

mosphere where its ethical implications can be made explicit and evaluated.

There is no cure for psychol-

ogy's ideological status--just the realization that it

Chapter 7

244

is such in combination with a set o f humanitarian goals.

A REPRESENTATIONAL SCHEME FOR GENERATING PSYCHOLOGICAL EVENTS Figure 7-1 (on pages 246 and 2471 presents a representational scheme for generating psychological events.

It consists o f three parts:

( 1 ) an initial

decision t r e e, comprising the metaphysical criteria for a psychological event, that operates a s a preliminary filtering device; ( 2 ) a null depository area for nonpsychological events; and (31 a second decision tree, comprising some psychological distinctions made previously in the analysis, that operates a s a classificatory device specifying the exact reality status o f a component o f the psychological universe.

T h e structure

and content o f the representational scheme by and large are self-explanatory; however, the following points must be noted. 1. Failure o f a natural phenomenon

2

t o meet any

one o f t h e metaphysical criteria i s sufficient t o classify t h e event a s nonpsychological in nature.

2. The number o f classificatory decisional dimensions used in the psychological universe space beyond level four strictly is arbitrary.

The current format

with five total dimensions is sufficiently didactic f o r our purposes. 3. The fifth dimension--specific denotations--is

illustrative only.

Only two o f the tree branches are

even extended to or given content at this level o f specification.

The terminated branches could be given

further specification, contingent on t h e purposes or perspective o f the reader. 4. The terminal point o f each branch is numbered: there are twelve branches in all.

The t y p e s o f psycho1

245


ogy discussed in t h e t e x t , a s well a s their derivative systems, can be mapped onto t h e psychological universe simply by identifying t h e specific branches associated with them.

F o r instance, descriptive behaviorism is

a combination of ( 1 ) + ( 7 ) .

A listing o f some type/system identificational mappings follows. TYPE/SYSTEM

IDENTIFICATIONAL MAPPINGS

ACTION PSYCHOLOGY:

(1) + (4) o r ( 5 ) or (7)

Descriptive Behaviorism:

(1) + ( 7 )

Guthrian, Hullian Logical Behaviorism: (1)

+

(41

Tolmanian Logical Behaviorism: (1)

+

(51

(1)

Cognitive Behaviorism:

+

(5)

EPISTEMOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY CLASSICAL: ( 3 ) or ( 8 ) ; ( 1 ) + ( 5 ) or (101 o r ( 1 2 ) Structuralism:

(3) or ( 8 )

Gestalt: (6); ( 1 ) + (12) Functionalism: ( 1 ) + ( 5 ) o r ( 1 0 ) CONTEMPORARY:

(1) + ( 5 )

Cognitive Behaviorism: (1) + ( 5 ) Piagetian Genetic-Epistemological Psychology:

(1) + ( 5 )

FREUDIAN DEPTH PSYCHOLOGY: ( 1 ) + (6) UNDERSTANDING PSYCHOLOGY: (9) + ( 1 2 1 DIALECTICAL PSYCHOLOGY: ALL BRANCHES FOLK PSYCHOLOGY: (1) + ( 3 ) + ( 8 ) + (9) + ( 1 0 ) + (11) + (12)

PSYCHOMETRICS (R-R LAWS):

(1) + ( 2 )

S O M E COMMENTS ON THE LISTING

1. The identificational mappings for action psychology are straightforward.

Action systems either

METAPHYSICAL CRITERI A FOR A PSYCHOLOGIC A L EVENT

UCT OF AUTONOMO -3 R I V E N INFORMATION PROCESSING SYSTEM RELATED TO CONSCIOUS I N T E L L I GENCE P O S S E S S I O N O F M A T E R I A L COMPOS I T I O N OR F U N C T I O N A L S P E C I F I CATION

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PSYCHOLOGICAL REALITY STATUS OF EVENT

CURRENT BEHAV-

PAST BEHAVIOR

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SPECIFIC ILLUSTRATIVE DENOTATIONS

EXTHEOPERRETIIENCE CAL CONSTRUCT

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ERAL PHYSIOLOGICAL

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F I G U R E 7-1

COGNI-

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CURRENT BEHAVIOR

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A R E P R E S E N T A T I O N A L SCHEME F O R G E N E R A T I N G P S Y C H O L O G I C A L E V E N T S

b

Chapter 7

248

focus o n or refer to behavior in a third person access, significant other context and only differ with respect to locus o f causation.

2. The mappings for epistemological psychology might seem obscure and might be difficult t o interpret.

A critical analytical distinction must be made between classical and contemporary epistemological systems: recall from Chapter 2 that t h e former primarily were subjective, while the latter are quasi-objective in orientation.

[(el]

Structuralism focused on an introspecting self

or an observer introspecting for a significant

other by analogy [(S)].

Gestalt psychology's

approach

to conscious experience is mapped by ( 8 ) ; its approach to behavior is mapped by ( 1 )

+ (12). Functionalism,

which also could be classified as an action system, is mapped by the combination o f ( 1 ) + (5) or (10): the distinction between ( 1 0 ) and (5) represents t h e methodological source o f the mental activity, either standard introspection o r introspection by analogy.

Any contem-

porary cognitive system is represented by t h e combination o f ( 1 ) + (5), reflecting the fact that it i s conducted in a third person access, significant other context. 3. Only Freudian depth psychology, i.e., psycho-

analysis, is derivable in t h e current format.

Other

forms o f depth psychology, e.g., Jungian ( 1 9 1 6 , 19531, Adlerian (19591, and t h e like, would be mappable if additional branching lines were appended to t h e theoreti-

cal construct

node o f the scheme.

4. The mapping for understanding psychology only represents humanism's canonical endeavor o f relating qualitative feeling states to one's psychological world. Mapping for its possible focus on behavior or perceptual conscious experience, or for third person access t o


249

experience, is not presented, but certainly is possible.

5. The exhaustiveness o f dialectical psychology is represented by t h e fact that any branch o f t h e classificational device potentially c a n be employed by t h i s type o f psychology.

6. The identificational mapping for folk psychology is provisional.

Note how t h e configuration f o r folk

psychology c u t s across the technical self-significant other distinction with respect t o epiphenomena and avoids t h e theoretical constructs characteristic o f academic, experimental psychology.

7. The structure

o f psychometrics, a s encompassing

R - R laws o r correlations, i s easily mapped by t h e combination o f ( 1 ) + ( 2 ) .

In t h i s mapping, past behavior

i s not s o much a locus o f causation a s a locus o f prediction.

The past behavior-current behavior relation-

ship also could be specified a s a current behavior-future behavior relationship. OTHER DISCRIMINATIVE MAPPINGS AND FEATURES 1. Third person access t o behavior and first per-

s o n access to experience are represented by t h e ( 1 ) branch and the combination o f ( 8 ) + (9) branches r e s pectively. 2. Note that mental activity i s derived a s a locus o f causation twice in the scheme.

activity i s different in each case.

The status o f mental In (51, mental ac-

tivity functions a s a theoretical construct, postulated in the context o f a formal cognitive model in a third person access framework.

In (lo), mental activity is

directly observed in a first person access context via introspection.

3. Different regions o f t h e psychological space have a distinctive "feel"

associated with them.

For

instance, the psychology associated with a ( 1 ) + ( 7 )

Chapter 7

250

combination is vastly different from a psychology only involving ( 8 ) .

4. The derivational source o f a specific instance o f epiphenomena or locus o f causation determines i t s

meaning and significance.

F o r instance, t h e experience

associated with (3) and that associated with (81 + (9) are vastly different entities; t h e psychological world in (12) is vastly different from a theoretical c o n struct in (4) o r (51 or (6).

5. Dialectical psychology notwithstanding, it is considered poor methodological practice today t o combine any o f t h e first s i x branches with any o f t h e last five branches: branch ( 7 ) s e r v e s a s a physical and conceptual dividing line within t h e represented psychological universe. chology.

Folk psychology is not professional psy-

Combinations such a s (1) + ( 1 0 ) o r ( 1 ) + (12)

only occur in classical schools, not contemporary systems. 6. No contemporary system is representable by only one branch: f o r instance, the (3) or ( 8 ) o f structuralism.

Such a system would have an incomplete content o f

observation: all epiphenomena, no locus o f causation.

7. Our prescription relative t o conducting psychology strictly a s a descriptive endeavor would require a combination representation: either ( 1 ) + (7) o r (9) + (12). Descriptive endeavor merely means avoidance o f branches (4) or (5) or (6) a s loci o f causation.

25 1

CHAPTER 8

PSYCHOLOGICAL APPLICATION

T o t h e extent that academic, experimental psychology

s e r v e s a s t h e basis o f psychological application endeavors, applied psychology cannot escape t h e ramifications o f

t h e compositional problem.

It is not neces-

sary f o r u s t o empirically assess t h e degree t o which t h e conduction OF applied psychology depends on t h e principles and prescriptions subsumed by systematic, theoretical psychology because one o f the prescript i o n s discussed in Chapter 7 specified that a psychological fact should be a combined epistemological-social action statement: t h e psychological universe should be both an intellectual entity and a n arena o f social action.

The compositional problem i s a s in-

herently germane to psychological practice a s it is t o psychological theorization and conceptualization. Many o f t h e contemporary problems associated with applied psychology derive from nonrecognition o f t h i s f a c t , i.e., t h e view that t h e application o f psychological principles constitutes a professional endeavor unto itself.

The primary source o f tension and con-

flict within t h e profession today is not philosophical or systemic orientation, but professional identification a s a pure o r applied psychologist

(McNamara and

Barclay, 1982). The academic psychologist's basic aim is t h e gen-

Chapter 8

252

eration and dissemination o f knowledge, while t h e applied psychologist's basic aim is to implement psychological change.

The experimental psychologist desires

to b e judged a s some kind o f knowledge specialist, while t h e applied psychologist likes t o be appreciated and evaluated a s a component o f t h e helping profession. Oisputes are inevitable between psychologists o f such disparate goals and values. There is very little conflict between t h e epistemological and technological aspects o f the hard physical sciences because their pure and applied aspects constitute separate professions: for instance, physicist vers u s engineer o r physiologist versus medical doctor. The social sciences in general and psychology in particular have been unable t o bifurcate their pure and applied aspects into separate professions (viz., Lowman,

1979).

Whether t h i s is a reflection o f the more amor-

phous epistemological s t a t u s o f t h e softer sciences o r merely a sociological-economic phenomenon i s unclear. Although both physical science and social science are normative, evaluative endeavors [see Chapter 61, the application o f psychological knowledge is a vastly different enterprise than the application o f physical principles: compare the problem o f designing a new radio t o that o f designing a n optimal environment or social control system in a mental institution.

When

the human being serves a s t h e object o f social control and change, you are dealing with a self-reflective, reactive organism--a situation suffused with moral concerns and arbitrary judgmental truth.

The act o f re-

pairing, kicking, or discarding a malfunctioning radio is a trivial, nonmoral event; the act o f dealing with a malfunctioning human is a moral event o f

enormous

magnitude: kicking or discarding i s not allowed, and

Pgtchological Application

253

repair is not a simple matter o f replacing a defective component. The rights that any form o f life possesses are a function o f t h e belief system held by the surrounding culture and society.

The human's right to life itself,

or continued life, derives from religious belief: human life is sacred.

Our legal rights and obligations de-

rive from the way our society is organized a s a political entity.

Our psychological rights analogously are

contingent o n t h e belief that a psychological reality o r universe exists--one that imparts special characteristics t o the notion o f humanity.

The concept o f psy-

chological reality serves a n instrumental function or possesses utilitarian status in t h e over-all order o f things. The application o f psychological principles for the betterment o f humankind cannot be separated f r o m our s t a t u s a s a psychological being: psychological control and psychological rights merely are opposite sides o f the same coin.

It is in t h i s sense that applied

psychology constitutes an explicit ethical o r moral endeavor. In t h i s chapter we are going t o distinguish between t h e descriptive and normative change imperative and assess the metaphysical status o f psychological application in t h e context o f some key analytical notions introduced previously in t h e text: ( 1 ) moral agency,

(2) mechanism, (3) self, (4) significant other, and (51 t y p e s o f psychology.

We also shall present some

suggestions relative to implementing t h e prescription that psychological knowledge should encompass dual epistemological and social action aspects and analyze the ethical mapping potential o f Skinnerian radical behaviorism.

Chapter 8

254

THE CHANGE IMPERATIVE Any model o f p s y c h o l o g i c a l r e a l i t y m u s t a l l o w f o r t h e p o s s i b i l i t y o f change,

either

i n a descriptive,

mechanical sense o r i n a n o r m a t i v e , e t h i c a l sense.

A

s y s t e m of p s y c h o l o g y m u s t assume t h a t t h e r e l e v a n t p s y c h o l o g i c a l a s p e c t s of an o r g a n i s m a r e m a l l e a b l e , e v e r t h e y may b e .

what-

Granted t h a t t h e v a r i o u s p s y c h o l o g i -

c a l systems c o n s t r u c t e d o v e r t h e p a s t c e n t u r y bear d i f f e r i n g d e g r e e s o f a p p r o x i m a t i o n and commitment t o t h i s imperative,

no system p o s t u l a t e s a p s y c h o l o g i c a l r e a l i -

t y t h a t e x c l u d e s any k i n d o r d e g r e e of change.

If

p s y c h o l o g i c a l s t a t e o f an o r g a n i s m were i m m u t a b l e ,

the psy-

c h o l o g y w o u l d b e i r r e l e v a n t and h a v e n o m e t a p h y s i c a l reason f o r being. The d e s c r i p t i v e i m p e r a t i v e t o change encompasses t h e o p e r a t i o n a l change mechanisms c o m r i s i n g t h e c o n t e n t o f a g i v e n model o f p s y c h o l o g i c a l r e a l i t y .

The

n o r m a t i v e i m p e r a t i v e t o change i s r e l a t e d t o t h e e x p l i c i t end g o a l s o f t h e m o d e l .

A l t h o u g h t h e r e i s no

h a r d and f a s t d i v i s i o n b e t w e e n t h e s e t w o k i n d s o f change p r i n c i p l e s ,

t h e d e s c r i p t i v e one i s more r e l a t e d

t o and j u s t i f i e s academic,

experimental psychology,

w h i l e t h e n o r m a t i v e one i s more r e l a t e d t o and j u s t i fies

applied psychology.

The change i m p e r a t i v e m o t i -

v a t e s e v e r y t h i n g f r o m t h e d e v e l o p m e n t o f a new Form o f the rapy t o p h i l o s o p h i c a l s p e c u l a t i o n about t h e n a t u r e

of U t o p i a . The n o r m a t i v e change p r i n c i p l e i s more comprehens i v e t h a n t h e d e s c r i p t i v e change p r i n c i p l e , i m p l i e s t h e e x i s t e n c e o f an o u g h t , e x i s t e n c e o f an

is.

because i t

i n addition t o the

I t i m p l i e s t h a t an i d e a l p s y c h o -

l o g i c a l r e a l i t y e x i s t s t h a t i s not only worthwhile, also attainable.

but

The t r e n d i n t h e more r e c e n t l y d e v e l -

oped s y s t e m s o f p s y c h o l o g y ,

such a s l a t t e r - d a y

depth

255


psychology (Rapaport, 19591, humanism

( R o g e r s , 19611,

and dialectical psychology ( R i e g e l , 19791, is toward a more explicit recognition o f and emphasis o n t h e normative change principle. METAPHYSICAL STATUS OF PRACTICAL APPLICATION MORAL AGENCY

Recall from Chapter 5 that moral

agency posits that the human organism is a self-reifying, self-determined, emergent creature that transcends its material composition.

T h e individual organism is

both t h e original source o f practical application goals and t h e ultimate judge o f their moral worth.

It cannot

be forced t o undergo psychological change procedures without i t s informed consent. In moral agency, practical application is not so much a set o f techniques a s it is a process--one which is a n indigenous feature o f t h e psychological universe. The normative change imperative is logically prior to and conditions specific descriptive change techniques. The epistemological and social action components o f psychological truth are not artificially divorced: a n epistemological statement implicitly is a social action statement and vice versa. In moral agency, psychological adjustment is regarded a s a n ongoing, never-ending, lifetime process. The need f o r psychological change cannot be divorced from an organism's moral responsibility f o r i t s own state o f being or activity.

The organism possesses not

only t h e right but sometimes also t h e obligation t o seek psychological help t o aid in i t s adjustment t o life and society. MECHANISM

Recall that mechanism posits that the

human organism is simply another component o f t h e naturally occurring universe, subject t o the s a m e physical laws that apply t o all matter ( s e e Chapter 5).

The

Chapter 8

256

psychological universe i s not divorced from t h e physical universe.

The epistemological aspects o f psychol-

ogy are indistinguishable from those o f science.

Prac-

tical application in t h i s context really is a property o f t h e system t o which t h e human being belongs and is

externally sourced and imposed on t h e organism.

It

subsumes a collection o f techniques that are designed to alter t h e external environment and/or encourage or discourage certain classes o f behavior.

Mechanism de-

emphasizes the normative change imperative: it i s not goal-directed and does not seek to justify a particular set o f ends.

Rather, it focuses o n and evaluates spe-

cific descriptive change mechanisms, according t o some pragmatic criterion o f success. Psychological adjustment is not viewed a s some ongoing, holistic process.

Certain actions o f an or-

ganism might interfere with adjustment, i.e., they a r e maladaptive, and are dealt with on an individual basis. Unlike the case o f moral agency, mechanistic practical application is not person o r individual organism oriented.

Mechanistic reality is constructed in t e r m s o f

abstract processes, and t h e s e serve a s the implicit f o c u s o f practical application efforts. SELF

Recall that t h e self constitutes a metaphys-

ical entity unto itself (see Chapter 2 1 .

When the hu-

man being i s conceptualized a s a self, practical application usually is dispensed in a moral agency framework.

Each person is assumed t o exist in i t s own pri-

vate psychological world: t h e limits o f psychological reality are circumscribed by the nature and quality o f one's self-awareness or consciousness.

This d o e s not

mean that similarities do not exist among people or that they do not possess shared experiences; it simply means that practical application is indistinguishable

257


from a person's ongoing attempt t o understand i t s awareness or t o change its psychological world. Practical application in t h i s context a m o u n t s to therapy.

Therapeutic endeavors in t u r n involve expli-

cit attempts t o understand t h e individual organism via emotional identification.

Humanistic, phenomenological,

or existential therapy constitutes t h e canonical case (Keen, 1975).

The end goal o f therapy in many c a s e s

can be described a s t h e attainment o f self-realization, self-fulfillment, or self-actualization (Maslow, 1970). SIGNIFICANT OTHER

The significant other is a con-

ceptual entity or statistical abstraction: it is a point in t h e real-time and real-space universe, representing a collation o f values o n numerous externally imposed, but presumably relevant psychological classificatory dimensions.

It is t h e locus o f various psycho-

logical processes o r mechanisms, a s manifested by action occurring in some environmental context (see Chapt e r 2). When t h e human being is conceptualized a s a significant other, practical application usually is dispensed in a mechanistic framework.

The specific envir-

onmental milieu defines t h e nature and appropriateness o f various practical application efforts: home, school,

work, recreational, athletic, and t h e like.

Specific

behaviors o r s k i l l s are targeted f o r improvement o r change and are selectively modeled, reinforced, brought under stimulus control, and t h e like.

The hallmark

of

practical application efforts in t h e significant other context i s t h e empirical assessment o f t h e efficacy o f t h e specific techniques employed. The comparative framework in which t h e concept o f a significant other achieves meaning also generates t h e notion o f special population

(see Chapter 6).

The

Chapter 8

258

member of a special population differs from a standard significant other on at least one analytical dimension considered crucial by psychology: f o r instance, for a child it i s age.

When t h e deviation involves some

physiological o r psychological deficiency, i.e.,

brain

damage, mental retardation, drug addiction, and t h e like, active psychological intervention is called for via special training or remedial techniques.

The clin-

ical population--neurotics, psychotics, and t h e like-requires therapeutic efforts; but, unlike t h e self context, individual consciousness is bypassed in favor o f some behavioral change regimen (Craighead, Kazdin, and

Mahoney, 1981).

TYPES OF PSYCHOLOGY FOLK

Folk psychology ( S t i c h , 1.983) is a n ap-

plied psychology in the degenerate sense that it is what the general public u s e s t o understand others and assign meaning to their actions.

I n f o l k psychology,

the dichotomy between t h e laboratory and t h e natural environment d o e s not exist because t h e former does not exist.

Folk psychological concepts possess f a c e valid-

ity and allow emotional identification, but they do not permit prediction and control. Because folk psychology is not associated with any coherent conception o f a psychological reality, it d o e s not serve a s a n impetus o r means t o psychological change.

Folk psychology provides n o descriptive change

mechanisms, merely semantic verbalisms; it i s incapable of

any normative change principles independent o f the

surrounding culture and political establishment.

It is

exclusively an evaluative endeavor--one unchecked by any epistemological criterion or code o f ethical belief. Folk psychology is easily exploitable: it c a n be used after-the-fact t o justify any course o f action or be-


259

lief. Folk psychology possesses the trappings o f moral agency and a f o c u s on t h e self; however, t h e s e are merely superficial.

The most appropriate reference

point f o r interpreting the essence of folk psychology

is theology, not any aspect o f technical psychology. The primary guide f o r proper conduct and belief in folk psychology is various moral aphorisms distilled from Christianity and Scottish mental philosophy (Sahakian,

1975). Folk psychology never has done anything t o raise the s t a t u s o f humanity or mitigate "homo sapiens' inhumanity to homo sapiens."

The f o l k psychological ap-

proach to descriptive classification, in general, and abnormality, in particular, is intellectually simple at best and emotionally primitive at worst. Folk psychology persists for three reasons: (11 It is a n ineluctable component of our cultural belief system; ( 2 ) t h e general public f i n d s it reinforcing; and (3) it fills a n intellectual vacuum created by lack o f education.

ffFolkf'physics, chemistry, astronomy,

and t h e like no longer exist. f o r it would be folk medicine.

The only extant analogy Perhaps disciplinary

psychology is unique in the sense that it has t o combat a n all-pervasive cultural tradition to get its epistemological and practical application dicta accepted by the general public.

The degenerate applied s t a t u s o f

folk psychology is t h e primary obstacle t o the rational implementation of abstract psychological knowledge today. ACTION

Action psychology i s conducted in t h e

materialism-significant other tradition and admits o f practical application.

Functionalism

[Angell, 1904;

Carr, 19251 was t h e first system o f psychology to f o c u s

260

Chapter 8

o n organismic adaptation, which it related t o t h e utility o f consciousness.

Descriptive behaviorism ( W a t s o n ,

1.925; Skinner, 1974) is constructed in terms o f overt

stimulus and response events, such that its u n i t s of epistemological focus are mappable onto events in t h e natural environment in a one-to-one manner.

Watson

(e.g., 1928) w a s a great publicist f o r t h e benefits arising from t h e conscious implementation o f behavioristic conditioning principles.

Skinner ( 1 9 7 6 ) himself

is t h e greatest tinker o r gadgeteer t h e discipline has ever spawned, and his system amounts t o a virtual behavioral technology: teaching machines, token economies, industrial incentive plans, commercial animal training, pharmaceutical assessment, experimental communes, and behavior modification techniques in general. Action psychology, especially descriptive behavior-

i s m , amounts t o a virtual physical realization of t h e descriptive change imperative, because it explicitly is constructed at t h i s level: f o r instance, Skinner (19691 treats the contingencies inherent in operant conditioning a s the model f o r how t h e real world actually works (or should work).

The problem with applied behaviorism

is that it is misperceived by our culture and regarded with suspicion by t h e general public, which decries determinism, views reinforcement a s bribery, assumes that conditioning violates our humanity, and the like. It generally is not realized that action psychology is mute with respect t o the normative change imperative.

This kind o f psychology is in no ready position

t o devise or justify various end goals or ideal states. Both Watson ( 1 9 2 5 ) and Skinner (1974) are in t h e general utilitarian, instrumentalist philosophical tradition (Russell, 1945) and subscribe t o standardized American values.

There is absolutely nothing revolutionary or


261

radical about the goals implicit in their suggested use of

behavioral control principles.

Descriptive behavior-

i s m h a s transformed t h e institutional environment o f t h e developmentally disadvantaged, erstwhile mental ret a r d a t e , and also has liberalized t h e conception and treatment o f

other special populations.

Behavior mod-

ification is even applicable t o t h e more mundane aspects of everyday life: efficient use o f t i m e , weight control, test anxiety, fear o f public speaking, and minor sexual problems. EPISTEMOLOGICAL

Although epistemological

psychology focuses o n what is traditionally regarded a s the m i n d , it is not indigenously a n applied endeavor. The first recognized system of experimental psychology --structuralism

(Wundt, 1896; Titchener, 1898)--dep-

lored practical application: it was a pure psychology of

conscious contents.

T h e other classical s c h o o l s o f

epistemological psychology, such a s act psychology ( B r e n t a n o , 1874) and Gestalt psychology (Wertheimer, 1912; Koffka, 1922; Kb'hler, 1920), also used t h e subjective orientation and first person access t o consciousness. Functionalism

(Angell, 1904; C a r r , 1925) w a s t h e

first epistemological system t o relate aspects o f consciousness to overt behavior. classified a s a n action system.

Remember it also can be Contemporary epistemo-

logical psychology, such a s Piaget's

(1953, 1 9 7 0 ) gen-

etic-epistemological system and cognitive behaviorism or t h e information processing approach (Solso, 19791, is constructed in a quasi-objective, third person acc e s s framework, reminiscent o f Tolman's (1.932)cognitively oriented logical behaviorism.

This kind o f

epistemological psychology c a n be extended to t h e applied level, although such extension is not one o f the

262

Chapter 8

priorities of a cognitive psychologist.

Piaget left

any practical application consequences o f h i s system t o be worked out by others, and cognitive behaviorists typically do not study epistemological problems arising from everyday life.

In f a c t , much of information

processing psychology currently is criticized f o r possessing no external validity (see Neisser, 1976). Epistemological psychology is not really geared f o r t h e prediction and control of overt behavior.

Its

possible application is limited to knowledge acquisition, retrieval, and use: optimal learning strategies, memory enhancement, efficient problem solving, and t h e like. UNOERSTANOING

Because understanding psychol-

ogy amounts t o a f o c u s o n t h e self via first person a c c e s s in a moral agency context, it is indigenously applied.

In America at least, t h e humanistic, existen-

t i a l , phenomenological orientation has not had a tremendous impact o n academic, experimental psychology: t h i s type o f psychology merely functions a s a way of resolving the psychological status or being o f a n individual organism, usually in a therapeutic context [for instance, Rogers, 1951, 1961).

In understanding psychology, the psychological universe i s strictly given or received: it amounts t o a person's

own private view o f t h e world.

Because o f

t h i s , it has many elements in common with folk psychology: emotional identification, highly evaluative nature, easily exploitable knowledge.

What raises it above

pure folk psychology is ( 1 ) its foundation in t h e Germanic idealistic and phenomenological tradition (see Robinson, 1979) and (2) t h e conceptual orientation and expertise o f its humanistic practitioner. force movement

The third

(Maslow, 1970) is a n explicit reaction


263

against ( 1 ) behaviorism, especially descriptive, and ( 2 ) depth psychology, especially t h e Freudian variety.

It is not a return to o r reincarnation o f folk psychology, just a refocusing o n t h e self a s t h e center o f t h e psychological universe.

The self-reporting subject

does use folk concepts t o describe its psychological world, but these a r e implicitly interpreted in t h e framework o f whatever conceptual scheme and technical terminology t h e humanistic psychologist uses. T o t h e academic, experimental psychologist, under-

standing psychology merely is a n approach t o psychologi cal adjustment: phenomenologically derived knowledge c a n have personalistic, pragmatic value; but it has no objective epistemological s t a t u s and d o e s not afford prediction and control.

To t h e humanist, understanding

psychology is t h e only viable route to psychological truth: received psychological reality is t h e only epistemologically valid reality and is t h e closest t h e psychologist c a n get t o t h e real world.

Prediction and

control are a n anathema t o t h e humanist.

Understanding

psychology amounts to a virtual reification o f t h e normative change imperative; b u t , it must be mute with respect t o specific mechanistic, descriptive change techniques.

DEPTH

Freudian psychoanalysis ( M u n r o e , 1955)

constitutes t h e canonical case o f a depth psychology. Both t h e epistemological and applied aspects of Freudian (1939, 1949) psychology are unique.

It is t h e most

comprehensive epistemological approach t o psychology ever created and t h e most f a c e valid interpreter o f real world psychological phenomena ever devised; but it originated in a n applied therapeutic context (see Chapter 1 1 , and only the general public and academic disciplines other than psychology value its epistemo-

264

Chapter 8

logical resolving capacity.

Even in a technical psy-

chological milieu, its applied relevance i s strictly after-the-fact, affording no prediction o r control, and i s only meaningfully carried out in an abnormality context. The unique status o f psychoanalysis derives from two things: ( 1 ) it t r e a t s t h e psychological subject both a s a means and a n end in itself (see Chapter 2 1 , and (2) it locates t h e psychological universe strictly within t h e individual organism.

I n the context o f # 1 ,

t h e person is focused on remedially a s a s e l f , but constitutes a significant other a s t h e source o f psychological knowledge.

With respect t o 8 2 , Freudian

psychodynamics o r psychic determinism does not afford empirical referents: Freudian concepts cannot be mapped onto the real world. The s t a t u s o f Freudian psychology as a n ideology [see Chapter 41 is particularly telling in t h e con-

text o f practical application.

Many people feel com-

fortable using it to rationalize and explain the psychological s t a t u s o r state o f a person in a therapeut i c situation: it is no more empirically unassessable in t h i s context than many other therapies.

The gen-

eralization o f psychoanalysis to normal behavior in the real world is more problematical: its empirical intractability prevents it from being a behavioral control technique.

The normative change imperative is

implicit in psychoanalysis; however, the descriptive change imperative is incapable o f physical realization. Freudian psychoanalysis is best described a s a literary psychology.

I t s ability t o explain phenomena

in t h e real world is a reflection o f this fact.

But

literary psychologies do not entail real-space and


real-time universes. of

265

Outside the restricted confines

therapy, its ability to effect psychological change

is nonexistent.

Freudian psychology is applied, but

paradoxically not practical. DIALECTICAL

Dialectical psychology ( R i e g e l ,

1978, 1979) possesses a n implicit practical orientation because o f its comprehensive and all-inclusive view o f t h e psychological universe.

T h e natural environment,

with its interminable interconnections among events at different levels o f analytical abstraction, s e r v e s a s the model f o r t h e laboratory situation, which is just t h e opposite c a s e from traditional action psychology. The subject and experimenter in a laboratory study are viewed a s constituting a n emergent unit o f analysis, such that psychological truth must be stated in a transactional fashion.

Dialectical psychologists,

such a s Riegel ( 1 9 7 8 , 19791, pride themselves o n their concern f o r ecological, or external, validity.

One

has t h e impression that Riegel is attempting t o combine t h e best elements o f both objectively oriented behaviorism and subjectively oriented humanism. A t t h i s stage in its development and degree o f influence o n mainstream American psychology, t h e dialectical approach merely amounts t o a prescriptive policy statement.

End states and goals are explicit in t h e

system because they are dialectically determined: t h e saliency o f t h e normative change imperative is predetermined by t h e nature o f t h e system.

Actual descrip-

tive change mechanisms are still at a programmatic stage o f development: dialectically inspired techniques really only differ from traditional behavioristically derived ones at a semantic level. CONCEPTUAL SUMMARY

There are three nonmutually

exclusive senses in which a given content psychology

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Chapter 8

can be viewed a s applied o r affording practical application:

1. The s e l f serves a s t h e implicit o r explicit f o c u s o f interest.

This sense is explicit in under-

standing psychology and implicit in depth and dialectical psychology.

2. Psychological reality is directly constructed

in t e r m s o f what is occurring in t h e so-called real world o r natural environment.

This sense is explicit

in depth and dialectical psychology and implicit in folk psychology. 3. The natural environment, i.e.,

nonlaboratory

situation, is modeled after t h e psychological universe subsumed by t h e delimited confines o f t h e laboratory situation, conceived a s a generic concept.

T h i s sense

is explicitly characteristic o f action and epistemological psychology. It is no accident that both action psychology and epistemological psychology constitute t h e prototypical -physical realizations o f academic, experimental psychology.

Both understanding and depth psychology con-

stitute applied, therapeutic endeavors in America. Dialectical psychology still is t o o germinal t o definitively assign t o either class; however, its primary professional identification at t h i s point is a s a n academic, experimental psychology.

Folk psychology is

not a technical psychology o f either variety, experimental or applied; however, it is all-pervasive, providing the contextual milieu in which both academic psychology and applied psychology are conducted. PSYCHOLOGY AS A COMBINED EPISTEMOLOGICAL-SOCIAL ACTION ENOEAVOR Epistemological in t h i s section should be interpreted t o mean "intellectual;" it d o e s not r e f e r t o


267

cognitive psychology. APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY VERSUS PRACTICAL APPLICATION Perhaps t h e reader has sensed a subtle distinction between t h e notions o f applied psychology and psychological or practical application. S o m e t y p e s o f psychology are explicitly constructed a s applied psychology: f o r instance, understanding psychology and depth psychology.

The domain o f psy-

chology presumably is coextensive with the real world o r t h e received world a s given.

Epistemological as-

pects o f such psychology merely are secondary.

The

paradoxical characteristic o f a n applied psychology is that it d o e s not yield any real practical application techniques, i.e., descriptive mechanisms, by which actual psychological change c a n be implemented.

T h i s is

due t o t h e fact that applied s y s t e m s are nonepistemologically oriented and do not necessarily touch bases with t h e real world. S o m e t y p e s o f psychology are explicitly constructed a s epistemological systems: they are supposed t o represent, model, or provide a coherent interpretation o f t h e natural universe.

More importantly, t h e degree

o f correspondence existing between t h e constructed psy-

chological universe and t h e real world is empirically assessable.

Action psychology and contemporary cogni-

tive psychology are empirically oriented s y s t e m s in t h e tradition o f t h e hard sciences.

Epistemologically or-

iented systems derivatively constitute a n applied psychology: practical application techniques, amenable t o empirical evaluation, are derivable from t h e abstract psychological principles subsumed by these systems. The normative change imperative is built into the very fabric o f applied psychology; it is only a secondary consideration in a n epistemological system affor-

268

Chapter 8

ding practical application.

This i s one reason why

the understanding and depth approaches are so evaluative and subject t o exploitation.

The descriptive

change imperative is not directly representable in an applied psychology; it i s o f primary importance in an epistemological system affording practical application.

This is one reason why action psychology and

cognitive psychology can be so explicit about specific means by which to implement psychological change.

Ap-

plied psychology inherently provides ends, but not means; epistemological systems affording practical application explicitly provide means, but not ends. What must be devised i s a way o f implementing psychological change that indigenously incorporates both epistemological and social action components: we need a n approach that explicitly covers or provides f o r both t h e normative and descriptive change imperative. SOME SUGGESTIONS

Recall from Chapter 7 that the

compositional aspects o f t h e explanatory level o f analysis c a n only meaningfully be resolved by ( 1 ) conducting psychology primarily a s a descriptive enterprise and ( 2 ) acceding t o t h e fact that the general public only

will accept psychological explanations that possess face validity, even though t h e latter have no status in and perform no function for t h e discipline. Implementation o f psychological change primarily is a descriptive endeavor.

High level, abstract the-

o r y , regardless o f its technical s t a t u s or competence, simply is not involved.

Psychological problems that

arise in the natural environment only can be dealt with at t h e mechanism level, not theory level. Two contemporary f o r m s o f psychology inherently are descriptive:

( 1 ) Skinnerian ( 1 9 7 4 ) radical behav-

iorism and ( 2 ) phenomenologically oriented humanism


(e.g., Giorgi, 1970).

269

The former provides means, but Hu-

not e n d s ; the latter provides ends, but not means. manism cannot b e expanded to include physical change mechanisms.

Radical behaviorism c a n be expanded t o in-

clude a n explicit normative o r ethical component. course o f

This

action w a s suggested in Chapter 5 i n order

t o make t h e behavioristic psychological universe discontinuous with t h e universe envisioned by physical science.

8. F . Skinner (1971) already has provided a

tentative ethical context/interpretation f o r h i s behavioristic system in his Beyond Freedom

and

Dignity, a n

evaluation o f which follows. RADICAL BEHAVIORISM AS A COMBINED EPISTEMOLOGICAL-SOCIAL ACTION ENDEAVOR

In his retirement

years, Skinner (1976) has become a virtual social philosopher.

This is not unique t o Skinner.

Both Carl

Rogers (1956, 1974) and Sigmund Freud (1927, 1930) also made t h e transition during the latter s t a g e s o f their professional careers.

Piaget (1970) somehow resis-

ted t h e impulse t o trace t h e ethical consequences o f his genetic-epistemological system. Skinner d o e s not radicalize psychology in t h e tradition o f Marxists (see Ingleby, 1980).

If his ap-

proach constitutes a n ideology, it i s a n informal, low key o n e , although some o f his detractors (see Wheeler, 1973) find it convenient t o label Skinner a n ideologue with all o f its negative connotations.

Affixing t h e

label "radical" t o behaviorism classifies Skinner's approach at the epistemological, intellectual level, not t h e social action level.

Radical behaviorism differs

from t h e more traditional f o r m s o f behaviorism in that it expands t h e psychological universe t o include experiential events within the skin interpreted a s epiphenomenal, physicalistic output subject t o direct a c c e s s

270

Chapter 8

on t h e part of

the self under the control o f t h e ver-

bal reinforcement contingencies o f t h e surrounding culture.

In other words, radical behaviorism con-

ceives o f conscious experience or consciousness a s a social product o f the individual organism's in a culture or society

membership

(see Skinner, 19741.

Reference to the notion o f a culture or society here is particularly relevant because the purpose o f Skinner's

(1971) Beyond Freedom

and

Oignity is t o argue

that t h e fate o f humankind is intimately connected with the design o f a new culture.

Skinner transforms his

epistemological system into a correlative social action system in the context o f providing a program for the survival o f the human race. Skinner postulates no new normative, ethical principles: he merely relabels the fundamental epistemological entities o f his system in the framework o f t h e overall utilitarian, instrumentalist philosophical tradition [see Russell, 1945).

This is demonstrated by the

fact that he cannot present any metaphysical reason why the survival o f humankind and its attendant culture constitutes t h e ultimate good: he tak e s t h i s proposition as self-obvious.

The reason Skinner cannot justify our

survival a s t h e ultimate good is that ''a good'' or "the good''

is a property o f a reinforcing event o r contin-

gency, and Skinner is intelligent enough t o realize that it is impossible f o r a good such a s cultural survival t o have any immediate or current reinforcing effects.

The unique aspects o f Skinner's ethical pre-

scriptions derive from his rejection o f the individual organism a s an efficacious moral agent [autonomous man in his terminology) and construal o f social action a s a property o f t h e holistic, physical or naturalistic system t o which the human organism belongs.

271


SKINNERIAN EPISTEMOLOGY: REINFORCEMENT

A N D PUNISHMENT

The epistemological foundation o f

Skinnerian (1953) psychology i s t h e fact that behavior has consequences and is under t h e control o f i t s consequences.

Reinforcing consequences make behavior

more probable; punishing consequences suppress behavior.

It is artificial t o conceive o f a n instance o f

behavior and its consequence a s t w o separate e v e n t s because the nature o f a consequence only c a n b e identified in t e r m s o f its effect o n behavior.

T h u s , the

notion o f reinforcement or punishment is best interpreted a s a contingency between a piece o f behavior and its consequence.

In Skinnerian psychology, behav-

ior is exhaustively, albeit descriptively, explained once i t s controlling contingency h a s been identified. The real world amounts t o a matrix o f controlling contingencies o f differential degrees o f complexity. Reinforcing and punishing contingencies derive from either o f t w o sources:

(1) evolution

o f the

species, i.e., they are part o f t h e genetic endowment of

a n organism; and (2) individual organismic life

history, i.e., they are products o f learning.

The re-

inforcing or punishing property o f t h e first kind o f contingency is innate o r given; t h e reinforcing o r punishing property o f t h e second kind o f contingency is acquired o r conditioned. Contingencies not only control overt behavior; they also give r i s e to epiphenomena1 feelings, i.e., conscious experience conceptualized a s behavior occurring within t h e s k i n ,

Remember that it is Skinner's

willingness t o consider and focus o n such events that makes h i s behaviorism radical.

It is these socially

o r culturally sourced epiphenomena1 feelings that provide Skinner with a bridge t o the evaluative, ethical

Chapter 8

212

level. ETHICAL MAPPING

Skinner ( 1 9 7 1 ) trans-

f o r m s his epistemological principles into a science o f values by conceptualizing t h e contingency-derived feeling states a s normative entities.

People react

t o and label feelings associated with reinforcing contingencies a s tfgood.'? Those associated with punishing contingencies a r e labeled "bad."

Note that t h e no-

t i o n s o f good and bad a r e descriptive labels, or naturalistic entities, ultimately derivable from t h e biological/genetic base o f t h e organism. Using less technical language, reinforcing a g e n t s are good and implicitly valued, while punishing agents are bad and implicitly devalued.

In the real world,

both epistemological and normative events occur concurrently: they are t h e s a m e set o f events, mappable by two separate kinds o f categories.

In t h i s context,

Skinner distinguishes among three k i n d s of good: ( 1 ) those entities that are personally g o o d , ( 2 ) those entities that a r e good f o r others o r t h e society at large, and (3) the survival o f a culture. 1. The notion o f a personal good is focused around those myriad biological and cultural entities that people find reinforcing: f o o d , water, s e x , entertainment, relaxation, children, and t h e like.

T h i s cate-

gory o f good merely s e r v e s t o highlight t h e fact that t h e act o f making a value judgment about something amounts to classifying it in terms o f its reinforcing effects.

This sense o f good de-emphasizes t h e behav-

ioral term o f a reinforcement contingency.

The pro-

curement o f a n entity that operates a s a personal good typically is not contingent o n the performance o f a n activity that itself is labeled rrgood.l'

2. The concept o f what is good f o r o t h e r s allows

Ps.vchologica1 Application

273

Skinner t o translate t h e traditional ethical notions of

should o r ought into radical behavioristic termin-

ology.

Should and ought entail normative, ethical in-

junctions: either prescriptions o r proscriptions.

Skin-

ner d o e s not account f o r t h e i r normative s t a t u s per s e , i.e., t h e content o f

specific prescriptions o r proscrip-

t i o n s ; he merely gives a psychological interpretation of

certain universally regarded moralistic behaviors.

Skinner translates any moral precept involving a should or ought into a contingency under which a person is induced t o behave f o r t h e good o f others.

F o r instance:

The moral dictum that one ought to tell t h e t r u t h amounts t o the contingency that one is reinforced by the approval o f one's

peers if one d o e s not lie.

Anal-

ogously, t h e commandment, "Thou shalt not steal,'' reduces t o t h e fact that such behavior universally h a s punishing consequences.

In t h i s context, a person who

lacks values is one f o r whom structural, societal reinforcers are not operative: such a person cannot be induced t o behave f o r the good o f others.

3. The ultimate good f o r Skinner i s survival o f humankind a s a cultural entity.

He cannot derive o r

describe t h i s good a s a moral precept because t h e appropriate consequential term cannot partake o f any i m mediate effective contingency.

He merely uses t h i s

good a s justification f o r h i s program o f redesigning culture according t o radical behaviorist principles. In t h i s context, Beyond Freedom means t h e dismantling o f all aversive and punishing contingencies; and

Be-

yond Dignity means strict use o f reinforcing contingencies f o r behavioral control.

T h i s program i s anti-

thetical t o t h e folk psychology f o c u s o n moral agency, in which reinforcing control techniques are decried. In Skinner's opinion, t h e ultimate irony o f folk psy-

214

Chapter 8

chology derives from the fact that it must use punitive contingencies t o solidify its precept that t h e human being is responsible f o r its behavior. SOME

ILLUSTRATIVE S K I N N E R I A N SOCIAL AC-

TION DESCRIPTIONS/CONSEQUENCES 1. The issue o f fairness or justice often c a n be reduced to a matter o f "good husbandry:" t h e wise use o f reinforcers.

2. The perennial conflict between individual rights and societal rights highlights t h e need f o r a balance between personal reinforcers and societal reinforcers

.

3. The notions o f good and bad are given alternative labels in different institutional contexts with attendant changes in specification o f the contingencies: law--legal and illegal; religion--pious and sinful; education--correct and incorrect; therapy--normal and abnormal; family life--supportive and disruptive.

4. The ultimate benefit from a radical behaviorist analysis o f social control derives from its explicit recognition o f the significance o f remote consequences.

Quite often, immediate reinforcing conse-

quences are followed by delayed punitive ones; and i m mediate punishing effects lead t o ultimate reinforcing consequences.

An example o f t h e former is gambling be-

havior; a n example o f t h e latter is wearing a n uncomfortable protective hard hat.

Gambling must be de-

clared illegal to make it immediately punitive; hard hat protection must be a mandated job requirement to accommodate t h e time interval before a n accident happens. 5. Skinner is aware o f t h e fact that reinforcing

contingencies can be exploited to subvert s o m e personal or societal good.

For instance, t h e use o f occasional

275


reinforcing contingencies c a n keep a person around in a context diffused with blatant punitive contingencies [as is t h e case with a citizen o f a totalitarian regime]; s o m e symbolic reinforcers are issued without any intention o f allowing them t o be cashed in f a r any ultimate physical benefit [ a s occurs in flattery); s am e reinforcing contingencies are inherently exploita-

t i v e [e.g., very high fixed ratio piece work payment schedules). CONCEPTUAL SUMMARY

Skinner's epistem-

ology limits t h e psychological universe t o stimulus input and response output events.

Included in t h e

latter i s consciousness, conceptualized a s socially labeled internal behavior.

He maps traditional ethi-

cally relevant concepts/distinctions onto t h e feeling states associated with reinforcing and punitive contingencies.

By extension, positive consequences come

t o be regarded a s goads; and negative consequences come t o be reganded a s bads.

Normative precepts in-

volving should or ought are conceived a s contingencies that induce organisms to act for t h e good o f society a s a whole.

A person devoid o f values simply is one

who cannot be induced t o act For t h e benefit o f society. of

In t h i s context, Skinner postulates t h e survival

society/culture a s t h e ultimate good and believes

that only the active implementation o f radical behaviorist control principles c a n accomplish t h i s goal. It c a n be argued that Skinnerian descriptive principles entail a naturalistic ethics or social act i o n program; however, t h e normative change imperative is not a n indigenous component o f t h e Skinnerian psychological universe.

Law level goods are g i v e n , con-

tingent o n t h e evolutionary inputs into homo sapiens and t h e individual organism's idiosyncratic cultural

276

history.

Chapter 8

Relational o r societal goods derive from

pragmatic social contingencies.

The ultimate good o f

societal preservation--the closest Skinner can get to a n ethical absolute--strictly

is a n extrasystemic pos-

tulation because it defies physical realization a s an operable contingency.

211

CHAPTER 9

FOLK PSYCHOLOGY: ACTION AND BELIEF

As indicated in Chapter 1 , academic, experimental psychology and applied, professional psychology d o not exhaust t h e domain o f the discipline. folk

A common-sense,

psychology is both coextensive with and constrains

many aspects o f t h e field.

Prior allusions t o t h i s

type o f psychology have not been too complimentary:

1. Because f o l k psychology d o e s not encompass a systematic interpretation o f t h e notion o f t h e psychological, it is impervious t o t h e compositional problem.

2. F o l k psychology is not indigenously concerned with t h e possible uniqueness of the psychological dpmain and the possible contribution o f the discipline to the cross-classificational endeavor.

3. F o l k psychology functions a s a nonepistemologically oriented applied psychology that does not afford meaningful practical application. Regardless o f t h e fact that t h e typical experimental or applied psychologist prefers t o repress the existence o f f o l k psychology, it serves a s t h e implicit psychology o f Western culture and society [Stich, 1.983). Its omnipresence only seems to bother psychologists at times o f paradigmatic change: how d o e s the new paradigm square with f o l k psychology?

One o f t h e reasons

traditional, classical behaviorism was considered so revolutionary was that its precepts denied the very

218

Chapter 9

existence o f folk psychology and sought t h e elimination o f everyday mentalistic concepts from t h e discipline's vocabulary

[Watson, 19131.

The longevity or value o f folk psychology derives from one thing: it provides people with s o m e emotional succor.

Presumably, it helps people understand

themselves and others better.

It survives f o r practi-

cal, pragmatic reasons, not conceptual, intellectual ones (see Chapter 8). It is impossible t o perform a n objective psychological analysis o f folk psychology for three reasons: 1. The notion o f folk psychology strictly i s generic in nature. ists.

No standard version o f the notion e x -

It is a n amorphous and unfocused component o f

our folklore.

2. The discipline o f psychology cannot provide a perspective-free reference'point from which to evaluate the notion: systemic psychology comprises at least five t y p e s o f psychology--action, epistemological, depth, understanding, and dialectical--each o f which bears a differential relationship to folk psychology.

3. Questioning the value or s t a t u s o f folk psychology i s equivalent t o questioning "apple pie, motherhood, and God"--something

that is not held i n high

esteem by our culture. It should not be surprising that folk psychology only comprises a realistic analytical focus o f philosophy.

Much o f t h e content o f t h i s chapter is based

on how philosophers have reconstructed and interpreted the notion o f folk psychology (for instance, Davidson, 1963, 1971; P e t t i t , 1979; McGinn, 1979).

Although

virtually any epistemological or metaphysical effort can be construed a s a n applied philosophy

[see Chap-

t e r 111, folk psychology is inherently or strictly

Folk Psychobgy: Action and Belief

philosophical in nature.

279

The basic t h e m e pervading

t h e notion o f folk psychology i s reasonableness o r rationality (Pettit, 1978). characteristic o f faculty o f

homo

It i s a s if the fundamental

s a p i e n s is t h e possession o f a

pure rationality.

A discussion o f folk psychology is relevant f o r a n analysis o f the discipline's compositional problem because it i s t h e context in which t h e dual entities o f action and consciousness arise.

Recall from Chapter 3

that we have assigned psychological reality t o t h e not i o n s o f behavior and conscious experience via t h e i r postulated relationship t o t h e more abstract and elus i v e concepts o f action and consciousness.

In other

words, addressing t h e notions o f action and consciousness amounts to a n analysis o f folk psychology. Actually, we are not going t o f o c u s o n t h e notion o f consciousness per s e , but rather o n what s e r v e s a s

its primary surrogate in t h e confines o f folk psychology: belief ( S t i c h , 1983).

It soon will become evident

that neither o f these t e r m s c a n be defined and characterized without reFerence t o t h e other: action must stand in a certain relation t o belief, and belief must stand in a certain relation t o action.

T h e circular

relationship existing between action and belief d o e s not constitute a problem in folk psychology because it is only incidentally o r derivatively predictive.

The

forte o f f o l k psychology i s explanation, especially after-the-fact o r post hoc explanation that a f f o r d s a n intuitive understanding o f a n individual o r a n interpretation o f its behavior.

It i s in t h i s sense that

humanistic, phenomenological psychology

[Giorgi, 1970)

can be construed a s a formalization o f either t h e precepts o r goals o f Folk psychology.

From another per-

spective, f o l k psychology is t h e content psychology as-

280

Chapter 9

sociated with empathetic identification (see Chapter

4). F o l k psychology t r e a t s t h e individual organism a s

a s e l f in a moral agency framework, emphasizing rationality and responsibility

(see Chapter 5).

The in-

dividual organism is not a real-space, real-time entity serving a s t h e locus o f physical variables o r mechanistic processes; rather it is a repository o f a set o f self-generated

tities.

and self-contained mentalistic en-

In a sense, folk psychology focuses o n t h e

self within a self--the inner self that directs and is responsible f o r t h e externally resolvable self's activities.

Folk psychology is t h e psychology o f the

homunculus residing in t h e homo sapiens. In this chapter we ( 1 ) analyze t h e notions o f action and belief, ( 2 ) relate them t o behavior and the content o f conscious experience, and (3) address the relationship existing between folk psychology and academic, experimental psychology i n t e r m s o f a n analytical notion best characterized a s "autonomous behavioral description"

(see S t i c h , 1983).

ACTION Recall from Chapter 3 that t h e notion o f action is self-embedded.

This is a fancy way o f admitting

that a n instance o f action usually is easily recognized a s such in t h e context o f everyday life, but is impossible o f definition in t h e context o f t h i r d pers o n access t o behavior carried on in the objective framework focusing on a significant other.

T h i s is

due t o t h e fact that action i s not a physical property o f a n instance o f behavior.

Rather, behavior is a

means o f physically implementing o r realizing some action.

Behavior certainly is a physical event; however,

it is only an external indicant o f some underlying ac-


tion.

28 1

The existence o f action is only indirectly in-

ferable from behavior.

T h e specification o f an action

requires reference to t h e internal state o f its performer; action is a property o f t h e psychological world o f

an agent.

An internal state or psychologi-

cal world is not a natural constituent o f t h e psychological universe constructed by t h e strict objective orientation ( v i z . , Watson, 1925; Skinner, 1974). DEFINITION something.

An action is a doing or a doing o f

Specifically, it is a doing that reflects

an organism's

intention or a do ng that occurs for

some reason.

In behavioristic

erminology, an action

subsumes t h e notion o f purposive behavior [ T o l m a n ,

1932), behavior with consequences, or behavior that manipulates t h e environment (Skinner, 1953).

But

note that a behaviorist cannot specify the purpose, consequences, or manipulative effects o f an instance o f behavior

in third person access terms while t h e

physical act is being carried out.

T h e ultimate

ef-

fect o f a piece o f behavior can only be inferred or specified after it is completed. Folk psychology can give meaning to an event constituting an instance o f action prior to its physical implementation via behavior. extension o f an organism's one knows an agent's

An action merely is an

current state o f mind.

If

current mental s t a t e , t h e actions

it is likely t o perform a r e easily specifiable, i.e.,

i t s behavior is easily predictable and interpretable. Note that in folk psychology an action cannot be defined independently o f its source or purpose.

An ac-

tion occurs for some reason; knowledge o f t h e reason is necessary for defining a n action.

This means that

folk psychology does not formally differentiate between t h e two components o f the notion o f content o f

Chapter 9

282

observation (see Chapter 2 ) : ( 1 ) object of study and

( 2 ) locus of causation. Defining action a s doing informed by r e a s o n s has a critical consequence: specification of a n action is not independent of its explanation. explanation are co-occurring events.

Specification and Using a mixed

metaphor, action is behavior whose reason f o r occurrence from the agent's viewpoint i s known.

Because o f

folk psychology's emphasis o n rationality, t h e isolation o f a n action is tantamount t o t h e justification of t h e behavior subsumed by t h e action. be congruent with its performer's mind.

An action must

current s t a t e of

It simply is t h e most attractive or agreeable

course of activity given t h e organism's current mental state. The best that a behaviorist c a n do f o r t h e concept o f term.

action is to consider it a primitive, undefined It is beyond t h e bounds o f t h e formal psychologi-

cal universe permitted by behavioristic dicta.

Folk

psychology defines action and gives it immanent psychological reality, but in a way that violates acceptable scientific practice.

It is easy t o see why t h e common-

sense notion o f action is offensive to a descriptive behaviorist, s u c h a s Skinner (1954, 1977): a n action and a reason merely are redundant descriptions o f t h e same thing. SOME REPRESENTATIVE NONACTIONS

Not every piece o f

behavior exhibitable by a human being constitutes a n instance of action.

The exceptions are divisible into

two natural classes: ( 1 ) strictly physiological activity requiring n o preliminary mentation and ( 2 ) accident-

al o r unintentional acts.

Examples o f t h e former in-

clude digesting food, breathing, coughing, burping, and blushing.

Possible examples of t h e latter would be


generic in nature: e.g., o f water and dropping

283

intending t o pick up a glass

it o n t h e floor by mistake o r

shooting at a deer with a rifle but puncturing t h e tire o f a nearby c a r by accident.

These activities

are beyond the bounds o f folk psychology: they a r e nonrational acts.

Note that none o f these activities is

beyond t h e bounds o f a n objective psychology, such a s behaviorism

[Mackenzie, 1977), where conscious insti-

gation or intention is irrelevant. PROTOTYPICAL REASONS

The notion o f reason c a n be

unpacked from many different perspectives.

The one I

prefer c a n be attributed t o McGinn (1979).

T h e reason

o f which a given action is a product

is a rationally

structured combination o f desire and belief. is a n affective notion, specifying a goal.

a cognitive entity, specifying means.

Desire Belief is

The way philoso-

phers [e.g., McGinn, 1979) construe folk psychology d o e s not allow the conative concept o f intention t o serve a s a reason f o r action: it merely is a descript i v e characteristic o f a n a c t i o n , one involved in its operational identification.

Some philosophers, such a s

Pettit (19791, also include personality t r a i t s and mot i v e s , a s distinguished from desires, a s appropriate reasons f o r a n action. We

need not be concerned with t h e total r a n g e or

denotative individuation o f concepts that can s e r v e a s reasons in t h e folk psychology context.

T h e important

point is that a set o f r e a s o n s , t a k e n a s a c l a s s o f events, must afford emotional satisfaction o n t h e part of

the general public o r must meet some criterion o f

rationality f o r t h e analytic philosopher. EXPLANATION

Folk psychological explanation amounts

to rationalization and ultimately justiFication.

Under

the assumption that t h e human agent is rational, a n in-

284

Chapter 9

stance of action merely is t h e most reasonable means by which a current state o f mind is carried out.

Un-

derstanding a n action merely amounts t o establishing its appeal, attractiveness, o r appropriateness in t h e context o f a given desire and belief.

In folk psychol-

o g y , the why o f a n instance o f action revolves around its appropriateness, which in turn is resolved in terms o f t h e agent's

mental state.

The intuitive un-

derstanding demanded o f a n instance o f action merely involves specification o f t h e organism's

state of

An instance o f action is rationally resolvable

mind.

once it is interpretable in terms o f the performer's underlying desire structure and belief system. THE DESIRE-BELIEF-ACTION

TRIAD

Because o f t h e

nature o f the logical or semantic relationship among the notions of desire, belief, and action, knowledge o f t w o o f the t e r m s allows inference o f t h e third:

1. Given knowledge o f the organismls desire and belief, t h e appropriate o r rational action is specif iable.

2. Given knowledge of t h e organism's

desire and

action, t h e required belief is specifiable.

3. Given knowledge o f the organism's

belief and

action, t h e required desire is specifiable, These inference patterns have no real predictive usefulness; they merely highlight ( 1 ) t h e circular specification o f a n action and its etiology and (21 t h e rationality feature of folk psychological explanation. REASONS AS CAUSES

Most philosophers [ P e t t i t ,

1979; McGinn, 1973) who attempt t o reconstruct folk psychology regard reasons a s causes in t h e empirical, scientific sense of t h e term.

The rational reason why

an action occurs also functions a s t h e physical cause


of that action.

285

Locating an action in a specific de-

sire-belief-action triad constitutes a variant of causal explanation.

Treating reasons a s causes is

curious in a folk psychological context because it does not buy much--for three reasons: 1. Although beliefs and desires might be necessary conditions for action, collectively they are not sufficient conditions for action, a fact accepted by all interpreters of folk psychology.

2. Knowledge o f beliefs and desires does not allow prediction and control of action, merely afterthe-fact explanation or rationalization.

3. Causes in academic, experimental psychology usually are unpacked vertically: they are given f u r ther specification or interpretation via reduction. F o l k psychological reasons are only unpackable hori-

zontally: they are only amenable t o further clarificat i o n via reference to other reasons existing at t h e same level of analysis. Some reasons w i l l be presented shortly a s to why t h e explanatory apparatus of folk psychology is not compatible with t h e scientific framework. INFERENCING MECHANISMS o f reason and action are not

Granted that t h e notions independent o f each

other at a conceptual or definitional level, it is meaningful t o inquire ( 1 ) how actions are specified from knowledge of reasons and (2) how reasons a r e inferred from knowledge of action.

1 . Actions a r e generated from reasons via the assumption o f rationality.

It simply is assumed that

a person is rational and w i l l perform t h e action that

is reasonable, natural, or expectable in t h e context of a specific desire-belief complex.

For instance,

it is expectable that a person who is hungry

(desires

Chapter 9

food) and s p i e s a nearby restaurant (believes it is open f o r business) will enter the emporium t o purchase a meal.

2. Reasons are generated from actions via t h e assumption o f humanity.

It simply is assumed that an-

other person i s like oneself and i t s actions are performed f o r t h e same reasons.

For instance, it is ex-

pectable that a person purchasing a meal a t ' a restaurant is both hungry and h a s knowledge o f t h e usual function o f such a n emporium.

The assumption o f humanity

simply is another way o f expressing t h e assumption o f similarity that underlies t h e process o f empathetic identification discussed in Chapter 4. FOLK EXPLANATION VERSUS SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION Most critics o f f o l k psychology (e.g., S t i c h , 1983) concede that t h e rationalistic approach t o action cannot subsume scientific explanation: action viewed a s reasoned doing is not amenable t o scientific analysis. T h e necessity o f t h i s concession is obvious from the standpoint o f a n academic, experimental psychologist: action and its reasonable justifications do not constitute independent entities in t h e content o f observation.

However, philosophers are not scientists;

and they must proffer other reasons f o r t h i s concession.

Two o f them will be mentioned here.

1. The assumption o f rationality, interpreted either a s the foundation o f folk psychology o r a s a n inferencing mechanism, possesses a protected s t a t u s in common-sense psychology.

Because o f t h i s , n o exact

set o f mental state-behavioral

(or read actional) cor-

relations can possibly be developed.

If a person b e -

haves in a n unexpected way (given its mental s t a t e ] o r if a person's

reasons do not jibe with its a c t i o n s ,

t h e person merely is irrational or using a different


conception o f

rationality.

287

No prediction o f reason or

action i s ever empirically falsifiable.

The lack o f a n

expectable mental state-behavioral correlation i n a specific case is d u e t o failure t o appreciate a person's t r u e state of mind.

2. Folk psychology i s idiographic. a unique case.

Each person i s

Although desires and beliefs are char-

acteristic of every normal human being, t h e physical realization of these in any given case is unique.

In

other words, these entities cannot partake of t h e general covering laws characteristic of science.

F o l k psy-

chology merely affords after-the-fact rationalization and justification, not before-the-fact prediction. CONCEPTUAL SUMMARY: DOING AND BEHAVIOR

One of the

foci of academic, experimental psychology is doing; however, t h e discipline h a s no way of assigning psychological reality t o ,doing. defined term.

At best, it is a primitive, un-

The discipline can only f o c u s o n behav-

ior a s a n external indicant o r physical realization of doing. F o l k psychology focuses o n action.

An action pos-

s e s s e s inherent psychological meaning because it is defined a s doing informed by reasons derivative o f a n organism's state of mind. of

Unfortunately, t h i s conception

action is limited to t h e s e l f , moral agency context

and d o e s not differentiate between t h e components of t h e notion of a content o f observation.

What the ex-

perimental psychologist, especially t h e behaviorist, construes a s behavior has no reality in folk psychology independent of a n organism's state o f mind. BEL I EF A s previewed in t h e discussion of action, belief

is a component of t h e organism's state o f mind that serves t o both identify and explain instances o f action.

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288

It d o e s not exhaust consciousness, but constitutes t h e intellectual o r epistemological aspect o f awareness. It carries the burden o f t h e application o f t h e rationality or reasonableness principle t o t h e homo sapiens, In folk psychology, a n action is describable in terms o f a goal and a means.

The relevancy or appro-

priateness o f a goal is a function o f desire; t h e means by which t h e goal is accomplished is specified by a belief.

Because folk psychology views action a s t h e

product o f an efficacious, responsible self, t h e notion o f belief is analogous t o a stimulus or stimulus elic-

itor in traditional behavioristic psychology.

A belief

stands in relation t o action in folk psychology just a s a stimulus stands in relation t o a response in descriptive behaviorism: they are codefined and codetermined entities (see Hillner, 1984).

However, a stimulus and

a belief differ in a fundamental respect: a stimulus does not provide a n interpretive framework f o r what a n organism is doing; a belief does.

Specification o f a

stimulus event does not entail a description o f t h e response with which it is associated; description o f a n organism's belief, in combination with specification o f a desire, d o e s entail a description o f what a n or-

ganism is doing. OEFINITION

In folk psychology, a belief is a men-

tal event or state that possesses semantic content (see Stich, 1983).

The notion o f

valent to that o f meaning.

semantic content is equiA belief expresses meaning.

The meaning expressed by most beliefs involves reference to the external world: they express some empirical fact about the external world.

The set o f beliefs pos-

sessed by a n organism comprises its knowledge o f t h e external world.

Note that not every belief possessed


289

by a n individual need be t r u e , i.e., in accord with consensually defined reality.

It merely need be true

according t o t h e individual's own conception o f reality.

Thus, a set o f

ical aspects o f

beliefs comprises t h e epistemolog-

a n organism's private psychological

world. Virtually all the analytical problems associated with beliefs derive from their semantic contentual staT h i s can be illustrated via reference to ( 1 ) in-

tus.

dividuation, (21 third person identification, and ( 3 ) interaction among beliefs. INDIVIDUATION

Individuation is t h e process o f

identifying individual beliefs.

Functionally t h i s

amounts to determining whether two beliefs a r e t h e same or different.

Comparing the semantic content o f

two beliefs need not be a simple matter.

F o r instance,

are t h e following two beliefs the same or different?

1. The President o f t h e United States is Republican.

2. Ronald Reagan is Republican. They are t h e s a m e belief if t h e organism uses Ronald Reagan a s the implicit reference point f o r interpreting t h e subject o f t h e first sentence; they are not t h e same belief if t h e organism d o e s not realize Ronald Reagan is President or h a s some other President in mind.

Consider another example.

1 . John Jones s a y s , "I am going t o be the next President o f t h e United States."

2. Sam Smith says, "I am going to be t h e next President o f t h e United States." These are different beliefs if each

I is

referenced in

t e r m s o f t h e speaker with which it is associated; these are t h e same belief if

I is

interpreted a s a functional

equivalent f o r t h e general notion o f self.

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290

The problem o f individuation demonstrates that the semantic content o f a belief is not a n absolute property o f t h e belief.

The meaning o f a belief can-

not b e identified independently o f reference point.

some context or

More generally, belief individuation

presupposes t h e existence o f some componential theory o f meaning.

THIRO PERSON IDENTIFICATION

Third person identi-

fication o f a belief is t h e process o f determining whether a belief expressed by a significant other matches or corresponds t o one's own.

This problem is

a variant o f individuation and involves both comparis o n and evaluation o f every factor considered relevant f o r interpreting the two beliefs in isolation: environmental context, organism's personality, content o f other beliefs, and the like.

Third person identifica-

tion o f belief is equivalent to t h e process o f empathetic identification: t h e critical aspect o f t h e situation is the degree o f similarity existing between the t w o parties involved [see Chapter 4). The third person identification problem implicitly reinforces t h e arbitrary distinctions made between the so-called normal population and various special populations ( s e e Chapters 4 and 6).

People whose be-

liefs cannot be decoded via matching with one's own simply cannot be understood in a f o l k psychological context.

Their actions also are not resolvable accor-

ding to one's own implicit definition o f rationality. The descriptive apparatus o f folk psychology simply is not refined enough to deal with beliefs and actions o f people who a r e vastly different from oneself.

INTERACTION AMONG BELIEFS vidual piece o f knowledge.

A belief is a n indi-

Two or more beliefs c a n

be conjoined t o generate some resulting new belief.


291

Quite often, t h e resulting belief informs a specific action.

Interaction among beliefs only can occur by

virtue o f their respective semantic contents.

In

folk psychological terminology, t h i s amounts t o a n instance OF practical reasoning. Because t h e semantic content of a belief i s not a n absolute property of t h e belief and because t h e relationship of one belief t o another requires a s i m ilarity context, practical reasoning often r e s u l t s in inconsistent o r invalid conclusions: Insufficient individuation and misidentification lead to ill formed or misconceived beliefs.

Practical reasoning d o e s

not necessarily t u r n out t o be so practical after all. REPRESENTATION

Characterizing a belief a s a men-

tal event possessing semantic content does not specify how a belief is represented in a n organism.

The

representation of a belief involves t h e analytical categories used t o denote the existential form of a belief.

In other words, what is t h e metaphysical

status of a belief; o r what encodes t h e meaning encompassed by a belief?

Philosophers who reconstruct folk psychology can represent a belief a s any o f t h e following (Stich, 1983):

( 1 ) a proposition, ( 2 ) a propositional atti-

t u d e , (3) a sentence in t h e vernacular, o r (4) a n item in t h e language of thought.

Each of these representa-

t i o n s has advantages and disadvantages.

F o r instance,

representing a belief a s a sentence in t h e vernacular allows f o r the possibility that a belief possesses a syntactic structure besides a semantic content; however, it also leads t o ( 1 ) problems with respect t o t h e equivalence o f beliefs expressed in different natural languages and (2) t h e elimination of preverbal children From the population o f homo sapiens that c a n

Chapter 9

292

possess beliefs. The problem o f t h e representation of beliefs is a subset o f t h e problem of t h e representation o f mental events in general.

Recall that t h i s problem was dis-

cussed in Chapter 3 in t h e context o f considering t h e composition of conscious experience.

The Cartesian

substantive approach is indigenous to unreconstructed folk psychology; however, contemporary analytical philosophers prefer t o give belief a physical state or functional role specification (see Place, 1956; Fodor, 1981; Block, 1980). EXPLANATORY STATUS

The role o f belief in t h e de-

sire-belief-action triad was established during t h e prior discussion of the notion o f action.

If belief

is conceived a s possessing causal properties in t h i s context, it is a curious use of t h e term.

Conversely,

congruence among all three t e r m s o f t h e triad provides a rational explanation o f t h e action component.

The

nature o f the explanation i s such t h a t belief in conjunction with desire justifies the specific course of action taken.

Folk psychology is mute with respect t o

t h e specific physicalistic mechanisms by which beliefs inform action.

Even in contemporary experimental epis-

temological psychology t h e tie-up primarily is verbal in nature, with t h e belief system postulated a s somehow connected t o a motor action system [see Dennett, 1978).

Folk psychology simply t a k e s it for granted

that a specific course o f action is t h e reasonable or expectable outcome o f a specific desire-belief complex.

In t h i s context, t h e common-sense view can be characterized a s canonizing t h e obvious and following t h e path o f least resistance: t h e mutual divorcement of belief and action would be inconceivable. Recall that strict physiological activity and un-

Folk Psychobgy: Action and Belief

293

intentional a c t s do not constitute instances o f action. These occur in t h e absence o f belief.

Beliefs do not

inform digestion, breathing, and t h e like; beliefs do not inform motor accidents. CONTENT O F CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE

Recall that it

w a s suggested in Chapter 3 that t h e content o f cons c i o u s experience derives its psychological relevance a s a n epiphenomena1 f o c u s o f concern from its relationship t o consciousness.

Folk psychology d o e s not

formally distinguish between conscious experience, a s epiphenomena1 output, and consciousness, a s input; however, it is obvious that in a folk psychological context consciousness is a euphemism f o r the human being's status a s a n efficacious, self-determined agent capable o f executing intentional action.

One o f t h e

components o f t h e content o f our consciousness is t h e experience o f being self-aware.

In folk psychology,

t h e entities that could possibly inform actions are limited t o those o f which we are aware.

Beliefs, de-

s i r e s , intentions, goals, motives, and the like must exist in t h e sphere o f a n agent's conscious awareness. Beliefs inform t h e content o f both perceptual and emotional conscious experience, just a s they do action. The fact that we perceive what we believe, o r t h e fact that we perceive what we want or desire, means that a n implicit desire-belief-conscious experience triad also exists in folk psychology.

A case could be made for

the view that t h e notion o f conscious experience in folk psychology i s analogous t o that o f action.

Con-

scious content is experience informed by desire and belief.

Desire and belief both explain and help iden-

tify the content o f conscious experience. of

The content

current conscious experience is expectable in t h e

context o f

a given desire-belief complex.

Chapter 9

294

Many psychologists, a s well a s philosophers, even refer t o everyday epiphenomena1 perceptual f a c t s themselves a s beliefs [Gregory, 1974).

Emotional experi-

ences are rarely referred t o a s beliefs, probably because o f their null or inferior epistemological status. BEHAVIOR A N 0 CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE I N RELATION TO ACTION AND BELIEF

I n academic, experimental psychology, neither behavior nor the content o f conscious experience is conceptually 'or methodologically independent o f each other [see Chapter 3).

Conscious experience is exter-

nalized via behavior, and behavior has a n effect on t h e nature and quality o f conscious experience. In folk psychology, action and belief, t h e epistemological component o f consciousness, are ineluctable components o f a triad that specifies what a n organism is doing via reference to i t s state o f mind. Action and belief are circularly defined, metaphysical notions that bear a functional relationship t o each other under a rationality assumption. In academic, experimental psychology, both behavior and t h e content o f conscious experience are epiphenomena1 output.

In folk psychology, t h e input

s t a t u s o f belief and output status o f action are illusory.

Their mutual codefinition and cospecification

create a psychological universe in which either action

is t h e mere extension o f a n organism's state o f mind or consciousness is the reifier o f action, i.e., belief and action are o n a par with each other.

Neither

concept is solely o r wholly causative input o r epiphenomenal output: f o l k psychology d o e s not differentiate between t h e components o f t h e content o f observation.

As argued in Chapter 3, it is possible t o assign psychological reality t o behavior and conscious con-


295

te nts by relating them t o t h e folk psychological notions of action and belief, a s a consciousness surrogate.

The behaviorist's

concept o f behavior c a n be

conceived a s a n external indicant o f a c t i o n ; t h e content of conscious experience is a reflection o f c o n sciousness, especially i t s belief components. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FOLK A N D ACADEMIC, EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY: AUTONOMOUS BEHAVIORAL DESCRIPTION Neither f o l k psychology nor experimental psychology is a n absolute property o f t h e universe: they a r e both constructions of c o n s c i o u s intelligence [see Chapter 1).

Given folk psychology's origin and s t a t u s in

our culture, it need not possess any specific conceptual or intellectual function or be logically analyzable by any relevant set o f conceptual/intellectual categories.

Conversely, academic psychology's

pation in t h e over-all cross-classificational

particiendeavor

[see Chapter 1 ) presumes s o m e logical o r systematic

framework, such t h a t i t s descriptive and explanatory apparatus is subject t o meaningful assessment by any number o f analytical o r evaluative criteria. The participation o f any academic discipline in t h e over-all cross-classification process is conducted under t h e assumption that it h a s something unique t o contribute to t h e endeavor.

In general, t h e physical

sciences do not s u f f e r t h e compositional p r o b l e m ; and physics, chemistry, astronomy, and t h e like have displaced their f o l k counterparts.

Social s c i e n c e s in

general and experimental psychology in particular continue t o be beset by t h e compositional problem, and psychology has not displaced its f o l k counterpart.

In

fact, it has been continually argued throughout t h e book that psychology's two traditional epiphenomena1 foci o f interest--conscious experience and behavior--

Chapter 9

296

can only achieve psychological reality via reference to consciousness and action, folk psychology's perennial foci o f concern. It should be obvious from our discussion o f action and behavior that f o l k psychology and experimental psychology, particularly behaviorism, do not characterize a n event with t h e s a m e set o f descript i o n s or even necessarily with cantinuous s e t s o f descriptions.

Also t h e explanatory mode associated

with one set o f descriptions is not necessarily approriate f o r another set o f descriptions.

F o r all prac-

tical purposes, f o l k psychology and academic, experimental psychology constitute separate endeavors with differential descriptive and explanatory apparati. The reconstruction o f folk psychology in t e r m s o f a desire-belief-action

triad results i n a n analy-

tically, a s opposed to synthetically, true rationalistic psychology in which input and output events mutually interpenetrate, o r identify and explain, each other.

Because folk psychology conceives o f t h e homo

s a p i e n s a s a self in a moral agency context, virtually any phenomenon o f conceivable psychological relevance is resolvable by its descriptive and explanatory apparatus.

Failures t o resolve only can arise when t h e

apparatus has been used inappropriately, i.e., emotional identification and intuitive understanding have not been achieved.

In a s e n s e ,

f o l k psychological knowledge

nal and exhaustive.

is fi-

A desire, belief, or action has

no nonpsychological aspects.

People merely exhibit

acts and possess states o f mind.

Each one o f these

phenomena is resolved i n t e r m s o f t h e other, and they collectively constitute a closed system.

T h e self is

both t h e instigator and executor o f action.

The self

Folk psycho log^: Action and Belief

297

is t h e source of both goals (desires) and means (beliefs). Because experimental psychology is not construct e d in a conceptual or intellectual vacuum, it is subject t o external validation.

I t s descriptive and

explanatory apparatus is supposed t o generate phenomena that not only possess psychological relevance, but also represent reality t o a reasonable degree o f approximation.

Because all academic disciplines ana-

lyze t h e same essential natural events--but only from different perspectives--a componential.

given natural phenomenon is

It really is a hybrid entity possessing

values on analytic dimensions supplied by each participant in t h e over-all cross-classificational endeavor. F o r instance, t h e concept o f action, a s characterized by folk psychology, has technical psychological, physiological, physical, chemical, legal, historical, sociological, cultural, and t h e like aspects.

It i s in

t h i s context that t h e notion of autonomous behavioral description (see S t i c h , 1983) s e r v e s a s a convenient analytical tool. AUTONOMOUS BEHAVIORAL DESCRIPTION

The goal of

experimental psychology, in general, i s t h e construct i o n o f autonomous behavioral descriptions: psychological reality is constructed under t h e constraint o f autonomous behavioral description.

T h i s means the

discipline's descriptive apparatus really is prescriptive.

A behavioral description

of

a n event is auton-

omous if it remains invariant when any nonpsychological aspect or component o f t h e event, i.e.,

i t s phys-

iological, historical, cultural, or t h e like descript i o n , is changed.

If the behavioral aspect o f a n

event is defined and isolated appropriately, it is unaffected by a redescription o f any one of t h e other

Chapter 9

analytical dimensions applicable t o t h e event. Autonomous behavioral description usually is no problem in the context o f laboratory research where different classes o f behavior are explicitly constructed s o a s to prevent any possible interactive physiological, historical, cultural, o r t h e like effects. F o r instance, t h e notion o f a n operant in Skinnerian

(1938, 1953) psychology--bar press f o r a r a t , key peck for a pigeon, button push f o r a human--is bereft o f any significant nonpsychological components o r descriptions.

T h e only possible exception t o t h i s would

be physiology--regarding the intensity or topography o f t h e response--but

t h i s component i s easily absorbed

into t h e behavioral description via t h e notion o f a reinforcement criterion (see Hillner, 1979).

Skin-

nerian behavioral description is t o o pure o r autonomous f o r the humanist (e.g., Giorgi, 1970), who m i m ics t h e folk psychological practice o f conceptualizing action a s an extension o f a n agent's

state o f mind.

The attainment o f autonomous behavioral descript i o n s in the context o f t h e natural world, everyday life, o r a practical application situation i s another matter entirely.

It is in these confines t h a t t h e

folk notion o f action must b e transformed into a legitimate real-space and real-time event describable by technical psychological dimensions.

Instances o f ac-

tion are implicitly defined and isolated: remember an action must be a primitive term in behavioral psychology.

Then one or more behavioral response c l a s s e s

must be selected to represent the action.

These res-

ponse classes must be impervious t o any change ir

how

physiology, history, sociology, c h e m i s t r y , and t h e like would describe the event.

Associated with t h e

identification o f these response classes i s t h e estab-


lishment o f

299

one o r more physical dimensions o n which

a n instance o f

t h e response c l a s s can vary, if more

than pure digital measurement i s desired o r required (see Chapter 3).

As a n example of

t h e process o f constructing a n

autonomous behavioral description in t h e natural environment, consider t h e ubiquitous and f a c e valid action of

"going t o t h e movies."

The specific response class

o r classes used t o represent t h i s action would be contingent o n t h e reason f o r making t h e behavioral observation.

1. F o r a theatre manager or owner, t h i s action ordinarily only means "box office:" t h e attendance figure associated with a particular showing o f a movie.

2. F o r teenagers, going t o t h e movies is a combination recreational-social endeavor which c a n s e r v e a s an external indicant o f t h e i r popularity or degree o f acceptance among peers.

It is a hybrid entity invol-

ving psychological, cultural, economic, and even legal components.

The psychological description o f going to

the movies must b e orthogonal t o any cultural, economic, or legal description.

An autonomous behavioral

description would have t o be mute with respect t o ( 1 1 mode o f transportation t o t h e theatre, (2) whether waiting in a line is involved, (3) specific location of

chosen a r assigned s e a t , (4) purchase o f snack o r

treat items, (5) c o d e rating o f t h e feature, and (6) mode o f access (ticket or pass).

T o represent

t h e fact

that a teenager is attending a movie a s a psychological event, f o r most purposes it merely i s necessary to specify t h e physical movement/activity

involved in being

processed by t h e ticket taker or automatic turnstyle. 3. F o r a market researcher collecting data o n how

people spend their leisure t i m e , going to t h e movies i s

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300

not even formally defined.

It merely constitutes a

verbal report category in a survey.

In t h i s context,

going t o t h e movies still is a hybrid event, but one whose cultural, economic, and demographic a s p e c t s a r e o f more endemic concern t h a n its psychological des-

cription. EXTENSION O F DESCRIPTIVE AUTONOMY TO CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE

Behavior, a s derivative o f action, is only

one epiphenomena1 f o c u s o f experimental psychology. The content o f conscious experience s e r v e s a s a correlative object o f concern.

Although t h e d a y s o f

strict structuralism ( W u n d t , 1896; Titchener, 18981 ar e long gone, psychologists still f o c u s o n perceptual experience and emotional experience in a first person access context.

The content o f conscious experience

must be descriptively elaborated; however, t h e notion o f a n autonomous description of experience i s not o f

primary concern t o a contemporary psychologist.

Clas-

sical introspective psychology proved to be t o o much o f a sterile and dead end endeavor

(see Hillner, 1984).

Autonomous description o f conscious c o n t e n t only constitutes a realistic goal in t h e context o f phenomenology, regardless o f whether it is conceived a s a philosophical o r psychological endeavor ( s e e Bolton, 1979).

The purpose o f phenomenological description is

t o reduce experienced reality to essences uncontaminated by a n organism's presuppositions or s t a t u s a s a being-in-the-world.

In a s e n s e , phenomenology is t h e

attempt t o rid experienced reality o f its cultural and linguistic aspects.

A phenomenologist a s s u m e s that t h e isolation

of

pure, uncontaminated experience is propaedeutic to t h e construction o f legitimate natural science ( T h i n g s , 1977); however, it is very difficult t o accept t h e


30 I

phenomenological program a s anything other t h a n another equally arbitrary approach t o t h e construction o f psychological reality.

The ultimate purpose o f phenomen-

ological reconstruction h a s no counterpart in f o l k psychology and possesses virtually no instrumental, utilitarian value. CONCEPTUAL S U M M A R Y

At worst, common-sense psychol-

ogy is folklore; at b e s t , it is a predisciplinary, presystemic psychology in which t h e notions o f a c t i o n and consciousness a r e mutual extensions o f each other. Common-sensical notions possess privileged, o r isolated, epistemological s t a t u s and implicit acceptance by culture and society.

One o f t h e s y m p t o m s o f psychology's

perennial compositional problem i s i t s failure t o displace folk psychology.

In f a c t , t h e discipline's f o c u s

o n behavior and conscious experience is only

justifi-

able by treating them a s extensions o f t h e f o l k notions of

action and consciousness. Academic, experimental psychology r e p r e s e n t s t h e

discipline's attempt t o participate i n t h e over-all cross-classificational endeavor.

Experimental psychol-

ogy s e e k s autonomous descriptions o f i t s epiphenomena1 objects o f concern, particularly behavior, that a r e invariant across various linguistic, cultural, physiological, legal, and t h e like descriptive transformations.

How psychology r e l a t e s to other academic and

professional disciplines that participate in t h e crossclassificational process constitutes t h e f o c u s o f analysis o f t h e next chapter.


303

CHAPTER 10

PSYCHOLOGY'S RELATION TO OTHER DISCIPLINES

Virtually every academic o r professional discipline i s either indirectly or directly concerned with homo sapiens: we are physical, biological, chemical, social, spiritual, legal, political, economic, historical, a s well a s psychological, entities.

Because o f t h i s , psy

chology possesses more t h a n a symbolic relationship t o other academic or professional disciplines.

T h i s re-

lationship is highlighted by t w o facts:

1 . Psychology is t h e common meeting ground

of

ev-

ery discipline, in t h e sense that every discipline h a s a psychological aspect associated with it.

Not every

discipline has a chemical, legal, geological, astronomical, or t h e like aspect associated with it.

2. Psychology's participation in the over-all. classificational endeavor is made more complex o r problematical by t h e necessity o f carving out a unique psychological reality irreducible t o other realities imposed o n or by homo sapiens. Academic disciplines traditionally are divisible into t h r e e classes: ( 1 ) t h e hard natural, physical, or biological sciences, ( 2 1 t h e softer social or behavioral sciences, and (3) t h e humanities.

Although

psychology is usually classified a s a social science, at least f o r operational o r administrative purposes, t h e degrees o f

freedom accorded a psychologist o n t h e

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304

methodological, epiphenomenal, explanatory, and metaphysical levels yield brands of psychology that individually possess t h e attributes o f a humanity or one of

t h e sciences.

For instance, virtually any action

psychology using third person access has most or all o f t h e trappings of a science; the depth approach gen-

erates a literary psychology that is best conceived a s a humanity; understanding psychology can be classified a s either a humanity or a humanistic science. A s a consequence of this, the relationship o f psychol-

ogy t o the myriad other academic disciplines in large part is contingent on t h e particular brand of psychology used a s t h e reference point. Psychology's compositional problem, particular-

l y those aspects derivative o f t h e arbitrariness

of

its orientation, does afford the discipline t h e opportunity t o serve a s a bridge between t h e hard sciences and t h e humanities.

Third person access, objective

psychology provides continuity with t h e sciences; first person access, subjective psychology does likewise for the humanities.

Historically, natural sci-

ence serves a s t h e model f o r psychology conceived a s a social science; and psychology

informs t h e human-

ities when t h e discipline's subjective orientation is emphasized

[Bornstein, 19841.

The discipline's relation to other social sciences basically is a function of t h e irresolvability of its content of observation and t h e issue o f reductionism.

The differences between psychology and t h e

myriad other social sciences primarily relate t o units o f analysis, acceptable loci of causation, and postu-

lated level o f explanatory mechanisms.

Unlike its re-

lation to t h e hard sciences o r the humanities, psychology's stance with respect to t h e other social sci-

Psychology's Relation to Other Disciplines

305

ences in large part is arbitrary and idiosyncratically based: f o r instance, why are juvenile delinquency and criminal justice considered subspecialties o f sociolog y , while education and social learning primarily constitute psychological phenomena? The distinction between a n academic and professional discipline is arbitrary and merely conventional.

Such disciplines a s medicine, I.aw, journalism,

engineering, even the ministry constitute prototypical c a s e s o f professional endeavors.

Professional

disciplines are represented in academia, but possess a high practical application component and service function, such that they exist outside o f t h e tripartite academic classification scheme.

Psychology dif-

f e r s from t h e myriad professional disciplines primarily at t h e metaphysical level: f o r instance, t h e nature o f t h e human being.

In areas where psychology

and a professional discipline or subdiscipline overlap--viz., clinical psychology and psychiatry o r forensic psychology and law--usually it is t h e nonpsychological discipline that possesses t h e superior social s t a t u s and legal recognition o r standing. The great names associated with t h e germinal phase o f psychology were physicists o r philosophers and physiologists o r medical doctors, a s well a s psychologists: e.g.,

Helmholtz (1856-18661, Wundt

James (18901, and Freud (1939, 1949).

(18961,

The multidis-

ciplinary identification o f psychology's progenitors helped establish t h e intellectual legitimacy and

SOC-

ial acceptance o f the discipline; however, it did nothing t o locate psychology in t h e vast disciplinary, epistemological, academic and professional space. The purpose o f t h i s chapter is t o describe how psychology's

cross-classificational endeavors differ

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306

from those o f t h e natural sciences, humanities, other social sciences, and professional disciplines.

Our

f o c u s will be o n how psychology supplements o r complements these entities, rather than o n areas or problems o f

joint concern.

To reduce t h e presentation t o

manageable proportions, only selected o r prototypical content areas from t h e various academic and professional disciplines will b e analyzed. NATURAL SCIENCES Recall from Chapter 1 that academic, experimental psychology originated a s t h e three-way synthesis of sensory psychophysics, experimental physiology, and mental philosophy.

The classical school o f structur-

alism (Wundt, 1896; Titchener, 1898) essentially was a n epistemological psychology that treated mental events a s empirical phenomena.

Eventually t h e disci-

pline assumed a n action f o c u s with emphasis o n overt behavior, implicitly in t h e context o f functionalism (Angell, 1904; Carr, 1925) and explicitly in t h e context o f classical behaviorism [Watson, 1913, 1925). Oisregarding philosophy for t h e present--because it is the discipline From which every intellectual pursuit derived--academic psychology can be regarded a s a direct descendant o f physics and biology Hillner, 19841.

(see

This means that third person access,

objective psychology merely expands o n physics and biology: psychological reality is imposed o n a n already extant physical and biological reality.

The

input into and t h e output o f a living organism are real-space and real-time entities, describable in terms of physics.

categories and distinctions indigenous t o Conscious experience is t h e output o f var-

ious biologically based sensory and neuronal processe s ; behavior is t h e product o f various biologically

Psychology’sRelation to Other Disciplines

307

based neuronal and effector processes. PHYSICS

Physics is t h e prototypical or central

cross-classificational endeavor: it is t h e arbiter o f what t h e twentieth century individual regards a s existent o r real.

The discipline defines t h e objects and

events constituting t h e physical universe; it f o c u s e s o n t h e properties o f matter; it analyzes the various f o r m s o r manifestations o f energy; it gives meaning to t h e notions o f time and s p a c e ; it embodies the naturalistic universe subsuming physical law. Physics s e r v e s a s t h e conceptual and methodological model for experimental psychology

(Marks, 1984).

At a conceptual level, psychology is conducted in t h e materialistic, mechanistic, elementaristic, analysis by synthesis tradition.

At a methodological level,

such precepts a s operationism, positivism, mathematical quantification and expression, logical deduction, and procedural control pervade psychology. Third person access, objective psychology cannot be constructed independently o f categories and distinctions indigenous t o physics.

In strict descriptive

behaviorism (Watson, 1925; Skinner, 19741, in which overt stimulus and response events are assumed t o exhaust psychological reality, t h e psychological universe is continuous with, or a component o f , the physical universe. ter Z ) ,

In t h e quasi-objective orientation (see Chapmore latitude is allowed with respect t o t h e

loci o f causation; however, even postulated emergent internal events are physical entities. Both physics and third person access, objective psychology seek a description o f reality independent o f or devoid o f human consciousness and f o c u s o n material activity.

The critical difference between physics and

traditional experimental psychology relates to the en-

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308

tity exhibiting material activity.

Physics exclusive-

1.y f o c u s e s on t h e activity o f inanimate objects o r s y s t e m s ; psychology f o c u s e s o n t h e activity o f animate beings o r living organisms.

Material activity o f t h i s

genre is called behavior. Behavior is both a psychological and physical e n tity.

It derives its psychological reality via its

connection or relationship t o the concept o f action (see Chapters 3 and 9).

It possesses its real-space,

real-time reality via its indigenous s t a t u s in physics. It is necessary to r e f e r to a distinction original t o Mach (18861, t h e great nineteenth century physicist

[and implicit psychologist), t o relate

psychology’s f o c u s o n conscious experience t o physics. F o r Mach, the sense data o f physics and psychology are t h e s a m e existential events.

These events are a mat-

t e r o f physics when they are conceived a s a property They are a matter o f psychol-

o f t h e external world.

ogy when they are conceived a s a property o f t h e experiencing organism.

F o r instance, t h e physical basis

o f color--wavelength--is

a n object o f study o f physics;

the effect o f wavelength o n a n organism--color a s a sensation--is a n epiphenomena1 f o c u s o f psychology. The only difference between these two meanings o f c o l or is the reference point used: abstract physical property versus felt psychological property. Both physics and experimental psychology share a vested interest in t h e assumption o f determinism

(see

Chapter 4); however, s o m e indeterminism--interpreted a s probabilism--must occur at some level o f analysis in both disciplines.

Because psychological phenomena

are more complex than physical phenomena, unpredictability lies closer to t h e data level in psychology


than in physics.

309

Although t h e degree o f unpredicta-

bility associated with a specific physical or behavioral phenomenon is a function o f various f a c t o r s , including how t h e event is defined and measured, physicists seem able t o tolerate and accept indeterminism more t h a n their counterparts in psychology do. Marks (1984) argues that t h e presystemic, physicalistic, associationistic psychology o f mental or cognitive events derivative o f British empiricism (Locke, 1690; Berkeley, 1 7 1 0 ; Hume, 1748) really was a branch o f physics: the laws o f associative compounding were strictly mechanical in nature. g u e s that Descartes'

He also ar-

(1650, 1662) treatment o f overt

behavior a s reflexive activity essentially w a s mechanical or physicalistic, although most contemporary commentators prefer t o emphasize its physiological connotations.

In t h i s context, it c a n b e appreciated

why behaviorism is oftentimes referred t o a s t h e triumphal realization o f the physicalistic tradition in psychology (Boring, 1964): traditional experimental psychology merely amounts t o physics, o r the precepts underlying physics, applied t o human or organismic activity.

A physicalistic

interpretation o f natural

events, regardless o f their source (inanimate o r animate), denies the possibility o f animism (Hillner, 1985).

Animism left t h e arena o f human affairs long

after it disappeared from a strictly inanimate context. First person access, subjective psychologists-a s exemplified by the contemporary humanistic approach ( v i z . , Rogers, 1961; Giorgi, 1970)--argue that traditional experimental psychology, in general, and behaviorism, in particular, are not sufficiently different from physics.

They advocate a phenomenology

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310

that at best merely is propaedeutic to t h e creation o f a physicalistically based empirical psychology

[see Chapter 9).

BIOLOGY

Physics begets biochemistry; biochem-

istry begets physiology; physiology begets psychology ( M a r k s , 1984).

This chain o f events is possible be-

cause t h e immediate physical o r material composition o f a n epiphenomenon deemed psychological

physiological.

in nature is

The immediate existential reality lev-

el o f a living organism is a s a bundle o f physiological processes and states.

As is t h e case with physics,

biology is both historically and logically prior t o psychology: psychological reality is imposed o n a physiological reality.

Organismic behavior is physio-

logical activity that is given psychological representation.

An organism's conscious experience also is

physiological activity t h a t is assigned psychological significance in t h e context o f any number o f contemporary nondualistic approaches (see Chapter 3).

Both

traditional and contemporary physiological psychologists prefer t o physicalize the notion o f locus o f causation at t h e biological level. While t h e relationship between physics and psychology primarily is structural in nature, that between physiology and psychology primarily is dynamic in nature.

A l l three denotative properties

o f a psy-

chological event introduced in Chapter 7 require devolution to the physiological level o f specification. Physiology is a necessary aspect o f t h e domain over which psychological phenomena are conceived and defined.

In other words, using the function-analytical

explanatory approach a s a metaphor here (see Chapter

41, the blueprint or wiring diagram f o r a psychological event must be constructed in t e r m s o f physiologi-


cal structures and processes.

31 1

Physiology s p e c i f i e s

how both behavior and conscious experience are physically realized. Although psychological phenomena are composable o r materially realizable by physiological events, it d o e s not follow that they a r e necessarily reducible t o physiological events.

Therein lies t h e critical dif-

ference between psychology and physiology: a piece o f behavior is more than mere physiological a c t i v i t y ; the content o f conscious experience is more t h a n a neural process o r state.

The natural phenomena o f interest t o

the physiologist are strictly defined in t e r m s o f bodily structures and processes; t h e causative f a c t o r s that are manipulated and controlled are chemical, electrical, and hormonal events t h a t are indigenous propert i e s o f a closed physiological system. o f a psychological

The imposition

universe o n a physiological universe

requires t h e use o f a n external reference point or system.

I n a sense, psychological reality and physiologi-

cal reality constitute parallel systems.

No psycholo-

gist o r physiologist currently is able t o explain how or why purely physiological activity ultimately emerges a s intentional behavior o r feelings o f self-consciousness (see Uttal, 1984).

T h e psychophysiological

iden-

tity o r correspondence t h e s i s really is a convenient semantic description o r a pragmatic metaphysical assumpt i o n that merely guides and justifies psychologists in their cross-classificational efforts: it does not r e duce psychology t o biology. In experimental psychology, at a functional level, a n organism's biology s e r v e s a s one o f t h e real-space, real-time factors that shape and constrain behavior and experience.

The external, physical environment is an-

other such factor.

The interplay between internal,

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312

p h y s i o l o g i c a l e v e n t s and e x t e r n a l ,

environmental events

as a m a t t e r o f p s y c h o l o g i c a l e t i o l o g y , ture-nurture

issue,

i.e.,

r u n n i n g t h r o u g h t h e h i s t o r y of academic, t a l psychology

t h e na-

i s one o f t h e c l a s s i c themes

(see R o b i n s o n ,

experimen-

1979).

HUMANITIES The h u m a n i t i e s m i n i m a l l y i n c l u d e a r t , theatre,

religion,

philosophy,

literature,

and l i n g u i s t i c s .

c a l l t h a t c e r t a i n brands o f psychology, d e p t h and u n d e r s t a n d i n g a p p r o a c h e s ,

Re-

such a s t h e

r e a l l y h a v e more

i n common w i t h a h u m a n i s t i c d i s c i p l i n e t h a n w i t h a p r o t o t y p i c a l s o c i a l science o r n a t u r a l science. i s very d i f f i c u l t

t o s p e c i f y a common t h r e a d r u n n i n g

through these v a r i o u s humanistic p u r s u i t s ; for

It

e x p o s i t i o n a l purposes,

however,

l e t us assume f o u r t h i n g s :

1. No h u m a n i t y i s i n t e r e s t e d i n a n i m a l s o r a n i mal b e h a v , i o r , a l a t h e v a r i o u s a c t i o n p s y c h o l o g i e s .

2 . Focus on t h e human b e i n g t y p i c a l l y , b u t n o t exclusively, access;

o c c u r s i n t h e framework

and t h e i n d i v i d u a l p e r s o n ,

a b s t r a c t process,

o f f i r s t person

r a t h e r t h a n some

serves as t h e o b j e c t o f concern o r

analysis.

3.

A humanistic d i s c i p l i n e p r i m a r i l y i s an i n -

terpretive,

a s opposed t o d e s c r i p t i v e ,

endeavor t h a t

makes s t a t e m e n t s a b o u t l i f e and r e a l i t y . words,

I n other

a h u m a n i t y r e s o l v e s t h e n a t u r e and s t a t u s o f

t h e human b e i n g i n a more c o m p r e h e n s i v e f r a m e w o r k t h a n t r a d i t i o n a l experimental 4.

p s y c h o l o g y does.

H u m a n i s t s a r e n o t wedded t o any s p e c i f i c v i e w

o f human n a t u r e :

t h e y a r e j u s t as l i k e l y t o s u b s c r i b e

t o t h e m e c h a n i s t i c a p p r o a c h a s t o t h e m o r a l agency view

(see S c r i v e n , ART,

19641.

LITERATURE, THEATRE

Collectively,

t h e s e hu-

m a n i s t i c p u r s u i t s ( a l o n g w i t h m u s i c and d a n c e ] c o n s t i -

Psychobgy 's Relation to Other Disciplines

313

tute t h e creative and performing arts: they serve a s means o f self-expression.

Artists, novelists, drama-

tists, and t h e like use their creations a s vehicles for helping people to resolve the ambiguities, vagaries, and contradictions o f life. Psychology and one o f these humanistic pursuits basically differ in terms o f form o f expression, not content.

Creative or performing artists have much

more freedom in defining and characterizing t h e human organism.

They are not constrained by standard s y m -

bolization or logical criteria.

A n artistic creation

is supposed t o uniquely and exhaustively capture t h e inner essence o f some facet o f existence.

Empathetic

identification (see Chapter 4) serves a s t h e normal route t o the intuitive understanding or appreciation of

such creations. The tenets o f humanistic, existential, phenomen-

ological psychology

(e.g., Giorgi, 1970) and depth

psychology (e.g., Freud, 1939, 1949) are much more readily expressible via a novel or play t h a n by a d r y , formal psychological tract because o f their nonexperimental orientation. "literary"

These systems are quite literally

psychologies that prefer t o "paint" u s and

our condition in terms o f our rich emotional complexitY. The nature and purpose o f t h e creative and performing arts make them rife for depth psychological analysis and interpretation, and Freudian psychoanalysis historically has served a s t h e primary conceptual bridge between psychology and these humanistic disciplines.

For t h e hard core experimental psychologist,

especially a behaviorist, any psychological truth captured by a painting, novel, or play has no more status t h a n folk psychology

(see Chapter 9).

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314

RELIGION

Religion i s one mode o f assigning mean-

ing t o life, t h e universe, o r existence. o f t h e human organism

The nature

is resolved transcendentally:

we a r e a spiritual creature, with a relationship to a divine being t h a t has implications f o r virtually every facet o f o u r existence.

For many people, relig-

ion either functionally operates a s a psychology or is allowed t o intrude on psychological truth.

Converse-

ly, f o r a dedicated Skinnerian, psychology either functionally operates a s a religion o r is allowed t o intrude o n theology.

The relationship between psy-

chology and religion is exceedingly complex and multif a c e t e d , and either endeavor can s e r v e a s a model f o r t h e other [Baillie, 1956). Although Western psychology essentially is a nontheological enterprise and religion is not a n exclusive or crucial component of t h e psychological universe, any system o f psychology c a n incorporate religion in its dynamics.

Cognitive, epistemological

psychology interfaces with religion at the level of belief (see S t i c h , 1983). Skinner's

An action system, such a s

( 1 9 7 4 ) radical behaviorism, can incorporate

religion a s a source o f reinforcement or e v e n punishment.

Freudian depth psychology [ M u n r o e , 1955) ac-

tually re-interprets religion in t e r m s o f i t s psychodynamics.

Humanistic psychology (Maslow, 1970) can

f o c u s o n religion a s a t y p e o f goal o r value.

Oialec-

tical psychology (Riegel, 1978, 1 9 7 9 ) can conceptualize religion a s a factor in long t e r m , structural, developmental change. The basic difference between psychology and religion with respect to t h e i r relationship t o t h e human organism is one o f urgency.

In t h e psychological

approach, psychological reality i s only one aspect o f

Psychology’s Relation to Other Disciplines

315

our existence; in the religious approach, religious rea ity exhausts reality o r incorporates every other rea ity.

In t h e context o f comodel s t a t u s , psycho-

logical malfunctioning i s a mere inconvenience leading t o some cognitive or emotional distress with no spiritual consequences, while a spiritual breakdown o r a loss o f faith car; lead t o dire psychological consequences, a s well a s eternal damnation. Religion technically is a social institution; i t s academic disciplinary counterpart i s theology. Both religion and theology have changed t o absorb t h e pervasive influence o f psychology o n twentieth century American culture [Beit-Hallahmi, 1984). Witness the emergence o f pastoral psychology and pastoral counseling, t h e psychologization o f religious belief, the secularization o f religious commitment a s a matter o f private psychological experience, and t h e liberalization o f theology a s a naturalistic process.

In gen-

eral, t h e goals and values o f humanistic psychology and t h e contemporary church a r e indistinguishable: self-realization, peace o f mind, happiness, and t h e like.

Any distinction between t h e concept o f psycho-

logical adjustment and t h e notion o f personal salvation merely is semantic i n nature. PHILOSOPHY

Philosophical psychology exists [for

instance, Taylor, 1964); psychologically oriented philosophy exists [for instance, contemporary functionalism: s e e Fodor, 1981).

Psychology, a s is t h e

case with most academic disciplines, c a n be construed a s a n applied philosophy:

various philosophical be-

liefs and positions determine whether psychology in general o r a particular t y p e o f psychology i s a viable intellectual endeavor.

Because psychology must oper-

a t e within t h e context o f certain philosophical con-

Chapter I0

316

straints, there is no fundamental difference between psychology and philosophy with regard t o their respective views o f human nature and the human condition. The basic difference between psychology and philosophy resides at the evaluational level.

Philosophi-

cal views o f human nature stand on their o w n and are justified solely in t e r m s o f rational o r logical arguments.

Psychological views o f human nature a r e indi-

rectly testable via the evaluation techniques associated with a given system.

F o r instance, the behavior-

ist's view subsumes some experimentally testable consequences; the humanist's view is a matter o f intuitive understanding; the depth psychologist's view achieves validity via internal consistency. The contentual relationships between philosophy and psychology are so extensive and intricate that they require separate, independent treatment.

The

next chapter focuses on psychology a s applied philosoPhY * Although linguistics customarily is

LINGUISTICS

classified as a humanity, its stance with respect t o psychology possesses all t h e trappings o f a social science.

The relationship between psychology and lin-

guistics is anomalous if viewed from t h e perspective of

a humanistic discipline.

of

language or the language function [see Chapters 1

Psychology and linguistics interface at t h e level

and 2 1 .

The language function is one o f the necessary

conditions for the construction o f psychological reality and serves a s a f o c u s o f interest in every type of

psychology.

Language constitutes t h e s o l e f o c u s o f

linguistics. The nature o f

the relationship existing between

psychology and linguistics at any particular point in

Psychology'sRelation to Other Disciplines

317

t i m e is under t h e control o f t h e linguistics establishment and its current view o f language (JohnsonLaird, 1984).

The proper approach t o t h e study o f

language always is determined by linguistic dicta and considerations, not by t h e musings o f

psychologists.

Until t h e mid 1950s, American structural linguist i c s primarily was conducted a s a n empirical endeavor under t h e influence o f Bloomfield

(1926). T h i s con-

ception o f linguistics paralleled t h e dominance o f American experimental psychology by Watsonian, and later Skinnerian, descriptive behaviorism. T h e linguistic revolution occasioned by t h e ascendance o f Chomsky's

(1968) transformational genera-

tive grammar approach in t h e 1960s was matched in psychology by t h e rebirth o f cognitive psychology and t h e creation o f a new subdiscipline skirting the boundaries o f both psychology and linguistics: psycholinguistics.

Linguistic competence became t h e f o r t e o f

linguistics; linguistic performance became t h e f o c u s o f psychology.

The conduction o f linguistics itself

became a rational endeavor, relying o n t h e techniques of

formal logic and t h e theory o f computation. Chomsky's

(1968) conception o f language no longer

is monolithically accepted by t h e linguistics establishment: linguistic analysis now revolves around a number o f mini models, and semantics [meaning) and pragmatics (social aspects o f s p e e c h ) have equal stat u s with grammar and syntax (Johnson-Laird, 1984). However, the basic thrust o f the revolution created by Chomsky s h o w s no sign o f waning: linguistics is still viewed a s a n essentially rational, analytical endeavor. SOCIAL SCIENCES The social sciences minimally include anthropol-

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318

o g y , economics, political science, sociology, and history.

(Note: History also i s classified a s a humanity

in many academic institutions.]

These disciplines f o -

c u s o n the human organism and its condition--usually, but not exclusively, from a third person perspective. Assuming the validity o f t h e notion o f a n ordered hierarchy o f

sciences, psychology possesses a reducing

relationship t o each o f t h e s e disciplines: they all make frequent use o f psychological interpretation and mechanisms.

T h e basic difference between psychology

and t h e other social sciences is subject matter, or more technically, the content o f observation.

These

disciplines primarily f o c u s o n behavior, but behavior a s resolved in a specialized context.

Economic, soc-

iological, and political behavior are defined and identified by reference t o various systems t h a t in themselves are not usually regarded a s reducible to psychology: t h e economic system, culture and society, and governmental and political structures.

History,

in part, involves a cross-cutting o f all these disciplines, specifically the change in economic, s o c i a l , and political s y s t e m s over time. to a hybrid o f

Anthropology amounts

psychology and sociology: t h e r e are no

such entities a s indigenous anthropological s y s t e m s o r structures. ANTHROPOLOGY

Superficially, anthropology seems

t o be a sociology o f primitive peoples o r a mass depth psychology o f cultural habits, traditions, and artifacts.

In actuality, it is a n attempt t o achieve a n

intuitive understanding o f homo sapiens at a cultural level; it seeks a resolution o f t h e human being a s a cultural creature or in i t s contextual, cultural milieu [Geertz, 19731. Anthropology focuses o n culture, because its ba-


319

s i c task is t o bridge t h e gap that exists between the individual organism and t h e society t o which it belongs.

Culture i s the analytical entity that embodies

t h e symbolic habits and beliefs o f a society which give i t s individual members meaning.

The fundamental

problem o f anthropology is t o account for t h e rnaintenance and continuity of a culture, i.e., t h e acquisition and transmittal o f a culture by its members.

In

t h i s context, anthropologists make use o f two concepts o f endemic psychological concern: personality and cog-

nition [Price-Williams, 1984). Anthropology's focus o n personality and cognition strictly resides at the level o f content, not process.

Personality is a matter o f structural traits,

not dynamics; cognition i s a matter o f epistemological classification systems or conventions, not information processing mechanisms.

Anthropology t r e a t s t h e sub-

stance o f an individual's personality and cognitions a s mediators o f culture. The discipline has no standard content o f observation o r units o f analysis.

It attempts to infer t h e

content o f a n individual's experience or psychological world from t h e institutional practices and products characteristic o f its culture: t h u s t h e focus o n art, myth, ritual, and religion--the external s i g n s o f culture and t h e prototypical objects o f interest o f depth psychology.

Overt language and t h e shared meanings it

presupposes are accorded special metaphysical and epis ternological status: t h u s t h e close relation between anthropology and traditional. structural linguistics conducted in the Bloomfield (1926) tradition. Anthropology studies people in situ: field work and participant observation.

The central theme char-

acteristic o f anthropology is context.

The closest a n

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anthropologist would get t o strictly psychological methodology would be t h e use o f a projective test (e.g., Rorschach, 1942) t o infer t h e substance o f a n organism's personality or t h e content o f its cognitive belief structure. There is no absolute difference between anthropology and psychology or sociology.

Anthropology i s un-

derstanding psychology extended to t h e cultural level. The focus is not o n the individual's private psychological world per se, but rather t h e cultural reality of which it partakes.

Anthropology i s sociology unabstrac-

ted from the cultural milieu subsumed by a society. The discipline focuses o n t h e descriptive or given happenings, doings, beliefs, artifacts, and the like o f a people.

These are regarded a s sufficient f o r explain-

ing t h e existence and status/role o f t h e human organism a s a form o f life.

iens a s

Anthropology simply views homo sap-

a cultural entity: any psychological mechanism

or sociological process must be subsidiary t o that conception. ECONOMICS

Ostensibly economics bears t h e same re-

lation to psychology that linguistics does: f o c u s o n only one aspect o f

homo

to the psychologist.

sapiens that also is o f concern

What language is to linguistics,

consumer choice behavior is to the discipline o f economics; however, the discipline by and large i s unaware o f t h e fact that its data represent the behavior, ex-

pectations, and thought processes o f people.

Economics

embodies a logic o f choice; but it is the choice o f some abstract, statistical entity bearing no real relation t o a being possessing a n immanent psycho1,ogical reality [see Maital and Maital, 1984). Economic theory is based o n t h e presumption o f a rational person, one who maximizes or optimizes utili-


321

ties (Katona, 1953; von Neumann and Morgenstern, 1947). Classical utility theory possesses a protected metaphysical status in economics.

Error, random behavior,

individual differences do not vitiate t h e economist's conception o f homo sapiens a s a n ideal maximizer.

They

merely indicate that on occasion a n individual organ-

i s m is irrational. In t h e context o f psychology, the classic utility theory approach is slowly being replaced by a new paradigm o f choice under the impetus o f Kahneman and Tversky (1979), in which an individual's everyday choices-whether economic or not--are regarded a s inherently psychological in nature and determined by standard psychological processes and variables.

No widely ac-

cepted terminology is yet available by which t o characterize this new approach; however, it involves a critical distinction between risk-seeking and riskaverse choices (also see Kahneman, Slovic, and Tversky, 1981 1%. Since the late 1930s, the discipline o f economics has consisted o f two broad content areas: economics and ( 2 ) macroeconomics.

( 1 ) micro-

The former focuses

on t h e behavior and decisions o f individual economic entities: t h e consumer, a household or family u n i t , business establishments, even the government.

The lat-

ter analyzes t h e natiohal economy or t h e state o f the economic system a s a whole: e.g., inflation, unemployment, gross national product, and t h e like.

Ideally,

microeconomic laws serve a s the conceptual foundation o f macroeconomic

laws, in the sense that t h e latter

should be derivable from t h e former; however, microeconomics and macroeconomics typically are carried out as two independent endeavors. The micro versus macro distinction in economics is

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322

reminiscent o f the idiographic versus nomothetic dichotomy in experimental psychology (see Watson, 19671. The idiographic approach focuses o n t h e behavior o f individual organisms; t h e nomothetic approach focuses o n t h e behavior o f a group o f organisms or s o m e standard organism a s statistically defined.

The vast ma-

jority o f empirical laws in psychology are nomothetic, and most o f t h e high level psychological theorizing and modeling is conducted at the nomothetic level. Psychology f a c e s the same difficulties economics does in deriving t h e nomothetic from t h e idiographic. Economic doctrine is much more evaluative than psychological doctrine ( s e e Chapter 6) and is much more susceptible t o political influences.

T h e evalu-

ative nature o f most psychological distinctions is i m plicit and not generally known to t h e public at large. Conversely, acceptable economic tenets and policy are a matter o f

continual public debate and are intimately

related t o both political philosophy and t h e pragmatics o f

everyday politics.

The President o f t h e Uni-

ted States simply does not advocate specific psychological principles or establish psychological policies. Such is not t h e case in t h e realm o f economics. Structurally there is very little difference between economics and a highly formal, experimental system o r subsystem o f psychology: both emphasize modeling, quantification, prediction, control, third person access, and t h e real-space, real-time aspects o f human events.

Yet economics somehow is vastly different.

Perhaps it is t h e fact that economic activity is a given in our society and culture.

The notion o f a n

economic reality is accepted at f a c e value.

An econ-

omist would have no difficulty specifying t h e unique aspects o f a n economic event: the discipline o f ecan-


323

omics suffers no real compositional problem. POLITICAL SCIENCE

Political science is similar

t o economics in that it addresses a n immanently presented entity: government and politics.

Although the

subject matter o f political science is given, it i s s o variegated--much

a s in t h e case o f geography--that

government and politics merely are generic notions. The governmental and political system o f each country f o r all practical purposes i s unique. In comparison with academic, experimental psychology, political science is a n applied endeavor.

It is

impossible f o r political scientists to bring their phenomena o f interest into t h e laboratory.

Political

science is just a s contextual a s anthropology. more significantly, the discipline's

Even

foci o f attention

exist because people are assumed t o possess certain rights (i.e., democracy) or not possess certain rights (i.e., dictatorship].

In effect, governmental and pol-

itical phenomena arise because o f certain philosophical o r moral choices with respect t o t h e nature and status of

t h e human being. T h e discipline f o c u s e s o n both t h e properties o f

governmental and political structures, i.e., s y s t e m s analysis, and t h e behavior and preferences o f individuals participating in the governmental and political process, i.e., traditional psychological analysis (Elms, 13841.

In t h e context o f t h e former f o c u s ,

political science is just a s formal and idealized a s economics; in the context o f the latter focus, political science is just a s pluralistic a s psychology.

Pre-

diction o f voter behavior is just a s pragmatic and atheoretical a s psychometric prediction in psychology; depth psychological analyses are made o f historically significant political figures; political motivation is

324

Chapter 10

studied from t h e first person access, subjective orientation; the composition and dynamics o f legislative bodies are studied from t h e third person access, objective orientation. Although it would be unfair t o say that t h e discipline is nonscientific, it does not possess t h e characteristics o f a prototypical social science.

Politi-

cal ideology i s philosophy a n d , accordingly, really a humanity.

The procedures and constraints o f t h e gov-

ernmental and political system are dictated by forces and considerations external t o t h e over-all system itMany political scientists themselves (for in-

self.

stance, see Elms, 1984) concede that t h e critical aspects o f the governmental and political process are not externally resolvable, public events amenable to third person access.

The data base o f political sci-

ence is the most constricted o f all the social sciences: e.g., analysis o f t h e Presidency must be idiographic; survey o r public opinion research requires t h e good will and co-operation o f respondents; t h e judiciary by custom and law is a privileged sanctuary. Probably t h e best analogy for political science

is anthropology.

Government and politics constitute

a culture unto itself, with its o w n ritual, habits, and artifacts.

Government and politics must meld the

n e e d s . a n d aspirations o f t h e individual with t h o s e o f t h e larger society.

Political science must analyze

t h e socialization process underlying t h e development of

citizens with a political consciousness, i.e., the

cognition (belief structures) and personality ( p e r sonal characteristics) t h a t make u s political creatures, SOCIOLOGY

The relationship between psychology

and sociology i s very complex, with social psychology


325

bridging the gap between t h e two disciplines.

It is

very difficult to distinguish between a social psychologist and a sociologist i n any definitive way (see Chapter 31.

Most o f

t h e distinctions between psy-

chology and sociology are arbitrary and idiosyncratic. Psychologists implicitly deal with individuals o r individual organisms and construct a psychological universe o r reality.

Sociologists implicitly deal

with society or a n aggregate of individuals and construct a social universe o r reality.

But, except f o r

t h e purest case o f a n understanding, phenomenological psychology, f o c u s o n t h e individual requires reference to social conditions o r social. reality.

Likewise,

society or some social group is a n aggregate o f individuals; and social epiphenomena in part are caused by or are a function o f processes reified at t h e individual organism level. Because sociologists must construct a n emergent social reality, irreducible t o psychological processes and mechanisms, t h e discipline suffers a n analogous compositional problem at corresponding levels o f analysis: methodological, epiphenomenal, explanatory, and metaphysical.

Sociology has its o w n problems with res-

pect to content o f observation, orientation, objects o f analysis, theoretical

interpretation, the nature o f

homo sapiens, and the like.

Sociologists are even

more aware o f t h e value-laden status o f social science facts t h a n psychologists are (see Back, 1984). The data that sociologists collect, and they can be t h e s a m e data that a psychologist would c o l l e c t , are given a vastly different interpretation: they are social indicators.

For instance, two members of a

dyad ( t h e smallest possible social group] c a n generate data in some situation.

The sociologist's treatment

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326

o f t h i s data must reflect the fact that they are a

property o f t h e dyad per se. According t o Back (1984), psychology and sociology are distinctive with respect t o ( 1 ) historical origin and ( 2 ) methodology. 1. Experimental psychology derives from t h e biological tradition with its focus o n a n individual organism: Wundt (1873-1874) merely focused on t h e experiential output associated with t h e biologically based sensory and perceptual processes.

This f o c u s o n t h e

individual organism has been maintained throughout the further evolution o f the discipline: e.g., action psychology, depth psychology, and t h e like.

Sociology

derives from a concern f o r social problems o r social welfare.

The initial impetus t o sociology w a s t h e dis-

integration o f feudal society and t h e dislocations o f t h e industrial revolution.

The implicit goal o f soci-

ology always has been social betterment o r reformist utopias.

Betterment and utopias imply values.

In

sociology, it is impossible t o separate the descriptive from the evaluative

(see Chapter 6): it is i m -

possible to divorce the "what should be

isf1from the "what

."

As a corollary o f t h e above, t h e foci o f attention o f sociology are given: the problems o f society change over t i m e , and t h e discipline's contentual o b jects o f interest change over time.

The discipline's

concerns are inherently applied from a psychological perspective; however, t h e distinction between pure and applied does not exist in sociology. applied sociologists.

There a r e no

T h e sociologist simply deals

with naturally occurring phenomena in the real world. The American Sociological Association possesses no real divisional structure a s t h e American Psychologi-


327

cal Association does.

2. Experimental psychology essentially is laboratory psychology, with a n emphasis o n prediction and physical control: its methodology affords inferences o f causation.

Sociology essentially is a naturalis-

t i c , purely observational, descriptive endeavor: any manipulation i s statistical, symbolic, and after-thefact.

Somewhat anti-intuitively, although sociolo-

gists are motivated by t h e goal o f reformist societal reconstruction, they decry active physical intervention during t h e process o f accumulating data. Sociology always has had problems with denying t h e existence o f the individual a s a pragmatic or convenient unit o f analysis and a s a repository o f causa l , efficacious processes. appears t o be antihumanist.

Much sociological doctrine Social change, upheaval,

revolution, and t h e like constitute t h e only reality. Individual consciousness is submerged in a sea o f social action.

T h e extreme c a s e o f t h i s is Marxist soc-

iology ( L e v y , 1979).

Conversely, psychology has no

problem with a social reality above and beyond a purely psychological reality.

It is immaterial t o psychol-

ogy whether social reality i s reducible to psychology o r emergent: psychological reality remains either way. T h e fact o f t h e matter i s that psychology and s o c -

iology do study t h e same phenomena--at perspective o f vernacular labeling.

least from t h e

Interpretive per-

spectives and explanatory mechanisms o r strategies do differ.

But psychological and sociological perspec-

t i v e s and mechanisms are mutually defined in t e r m s o f each other.

Unlike psychology's relation t o t h e other

social sciences, t h e distinction between psychology and sociology revolves around t h e issue o f whether homo sapiens basically is a biological o r social crea-

328

ture.

Chapter 10

The only realistic resolution o f t h i s issue is

that we are both [ s e e Chapters 3 and 5). HISTORY past events.

History involves the reconstruction o f Whether t h i s reconstruction is accurate

or valid is beyond empirical test, if only f o r t h e reason that t h e notion o f an absolute, transcendental reality is not an empirical one.

A s a technical en-

deavor, history is descriptive or analytical discourse. Its status a s a humanity or social science is indeterminate because it deals with unique--or at least nonrecurrent--events, t h e relationship among which are not amenable t o physical or statistical control.

The

discipline's unit o f analysis is amorphous: t h e act o f Van Gogh cutting o f f his ear is a historical event a s well a s t h e entire sweep o f t h e evolution o f Western culture and society.

It is very doubtful that t h e

notion o f a historical reality exists outside o f the culture o f the professional historian.

About t h e only

absolute characteristic o f history is the fact that any historical treatise unlabeled with respect t o focus invariably is political history, a s opposed t o economic, social, or intellectual history. Although every academic discipline dealing with homo sapiens f a c e s problems o f orientation and perspective, these seem t o be particularly acute in historiography, where a distinction must be made between the first and third person view both in a current and past context [Berkhofer, 1969).

History is not t h e mere

chronicling o f physical events occurring in a temporal sequence.

History cannot be written independently o f

some interpretive scheme, a s evidenced by t h e continual "reconstruction"

o f previously

composed reconstruc-

t i o n s o f history. The discipline o f psychology basically is ahis-


329

t o r i c a l , except in certain applied contexts, s u c h a s therapy.

Psychology, with t h e possible exception o f

depth and dialectical psychology, d o e s not seek t h e same kind o f truth a s history.

The psychologist's

view o f t h e human organism is only one aspect o f a historian's

view.

The discipline's use o f t h e prin-

ciple o f continuity--whether it is physically realized in developmental psychology (growth statistics), Freudian depth psychology (psychosexual s t a g e s ) , o r Skinnerian radical behaviorism

(reinforcement history]

--merely serves a s one mode o f explanation.

An

S-E

causal law technically i s historical in nature when the

precedes t h e

in t i m e ; however, t h i s i s a f a r

cry from what t h e historian means by history. The professional historian composes descriptive o r analytical narrative.

One type o f narrative fo-

cuses o n the life o f a n individual personage and is called biography.

In a biographical context, there is

no basic distinction between historical reconstruction and t h e approach taken by understanding o r depth psychology.

The last two decades have seen a n appreci-

able increase in the construction of psychohistories, t h e analysis o f famous historical figures from a latter-day depth psychology perspective (see Runyan, 198Z). In general, when a historian is producing a treatise that d o e s not possess a n explicit psychological f o c u s o r theme, folk psychology in t h e context of the first person view implicitly is used.

The character's

or agent's mental state is reconstructed and related t o preceding and succeeding events.

A basic asymmetry exists between psychology and history: the academic, experimental systems c a n serve a s objects o f historical analysis; but history cannot

330

Chapter 10

serve a s a n object o f analysis f o r experimental psychology. PROFESSIONAL DISCIPLINES Any professional discipline performs s o m e kind o f service function f o r us.

Consequently, it must t a k e a

stance with respect t o t h e nature o f homo sapiens, even if it is only implicit.

The discipline o f psychology

itself is a professional endeavor in t h e context o f i t s applied aspects: e.g., clinical, counseling, educational psychology, and t h e like.

Both the metaphysical as-

sumptions underlying academic, experimental psychology and t h e service functions o f applied psychology c a n conflict with those o f a professional discipline.

We

shall illustrate t h i s in t h e context o f law and medicine, which a r e very powerful social institutions in addition t o being contentual epistemological entities.

LAW

The purpose o f law, a s a social institution,

is two-fold: ( 1 ) t o affirm t h e ethical absolutes o f society and ( 2 ) t o reduce t h e number o f criminal a c t s committed against society (see Sachar, 1963).

The

first purpose entails moral condemnation and punishment o f those who violate the ethical absolutes.

The sec-

ond purpose involves t h e judicial penalty system o f deterrence and correction.

Note that these t w o pur-

poses are not necessarily compatible: The application o f retributive

justice c a n interfere with meaningful

rehabilitation efforts. The function o f law in society requires t h e legal establishment t o take a moral agency approach t o homo sapiens (see Chapter 5).

Specifically, it must be as-

sumed that we possess f r e e will--our behavior is not determined--so that we c a n be held responsible f o r our acts.

Since we freely commit good or bad deeds, we

freely can be praised and rewarded or condemned and

Psychology'sRelation to Other Disciplines

punished.

33 1

T h e law only a l l o w s f o u r c l a s s e s o f excep-

t i o n s t o t h e doctrine o f full criminal responsibility [Sachat-, 1963): ( 1 ) self-defense, ( 2 ) duress, (3) juvenile s t a t u s , and ( 4 ) insanity.

Note t h a t in t h e

last c a s e it still is assumed that t h e deed is freely committed and not determined by s o m e underlying pathology.

Insane perpetrators a r e exempted from criminal

responsibility only because they a r e incapable o f moral judgment and do not know t h e difference between right and wrong. T h e approach t o t h e nature o f homo s a p i e n s t a k e n by a c a d e m i c , experimental psychology i n general and behaviorism in particular is diametrically opposed t o t h e legal one.

I n t h e human a s mechanism a p p r o a c h ,

our behavior is assumed determined a t s o m e level o f resolvability (see Chapter 5). ponsible f o r our actions. demn a n offender.

We cannot b e held res-

It i s nonsensical t o con-

T h e offense per se or t h e environ-

mental context in which it occurs is c o n d e m n e d , but only i n t h e s e n s e that t h e y are singled out a s t h i n g s that must change t o prevent repetition o f t h e criminal deed.

I n a behavioristic c o n t e x t , responsibility is

a social notion o r a property o f t h e over-all environmental-behavioral system (see S k i n n e r , 1971). T h e view o f humanity associated with understanding psychology i n general and humanism in particular i s s i m i l a r t o t h e legal view; h o w e v e r , t h e humanist's s t r e s s o n self-awareness, self-fulfillment, development o f a n authentic s e l f , and t h e like is not g e r mane t o t h e legal context ( K e e n , 1 9 7 5 ; Maslow, 1970). T h e law's interest i n a person strictly is instrumental in nature.

If a judge orders a convicted crimin-

a l t o undergo s o m e form o f therapy o r s o m e enlightened rehabilitation program, it is only because t h e law re-

Chapter 10

332

quires it. The legal system is beginning t o become more responsive t o behavioral science considerations, a s evidenced by the relatively recent growth o f forensic psychology (McNamara and Barclay, 19821.

A forensic psy-

chologist essentially is a clinician who h a s special training with respect to t h e legal applications o f testing, diagnostic evaluation, judgments o f competenc y , and such. A crime is a behavioral act.

The legal code

really is a classification scheme f o r certain kinds o f behaviors.

The fact that the basic distinctions

o f o r in law evolved long before psychology became

institutionalized means that a n implicit common-sense psychology, i.e., folk psychology, has been reified by the legal establishment.

The law is not immutable.

A s a n instrument o f s o c i e t y , it d o e s Change t o accom-

modate cultural, economic, and technological progress. But it will t a k e more t h a n forensic psychology t o e f fect a more equitable input o f content psychology inThe law possesses its own criterion o f

to t h e law.

truth and acceptable evidence: t h e law determines and specifies who is t o be considered a n expert in matters of

behavior.

Currently, t h e legal establishment is

much more powerful and entrenched than the psychological establishment; and a psychologist o r psychiatrist

is allowed t o operate in a legal context only at t h e discretion o f t h e law. MEDICINE

Medicine i s similar to law in t h e sense

that it is a powerful social institution with distinct functions.

Psychology is in the same position with

respect t o t h e medical profession a s it is with respect t o the legal establishment: The medical profession decides what and how many o f the psychologist's

Psychology's Relation ro Other Disciplines

333

activities are relevant t o t h e practice o f medicine. Medicine also is similar to psychology in t h e sense that it constitutes a helping profession, and t h e greatest degree o f overlap between medicine and psychology is in t h e area of 1975).

psychiatry (Reisman,

The medical profession is not committed t o

any particular view o f human nature over and above its dealings with the organism a s a biological creature whose various physiological s y s t e m s a r e subject t o malfunctioning

(Zilboorg, 1967).

S o m e general

practitioners currently are becoming aware o f their patients a s psychological beings and are beginning to advocate the practice o f holistic medicine (see Engel, 1962; S z a s z and Hollender, 1956).

Psychiatry histori-

cally emphasized biologically based therapeutic intervention: f o r instance, electroshock therapy and chemotherapy (Kalinowski and H o c h , 1952; Kalinowski and Hippius, 1969).

It also absorbed Freudian depth psy-

chology (Munroe, 1955), such that in t h e United States at least most psychoanalysts also are psychiatrists. The basic differences between psychology and psychiatry merely are a matter o f degree, not k i n d , and are institutional o r professional in nature: they involve f'turf7fidentification and refinement.

Therapy

historically originated in t h e medical context; only later did it also become a facet o f t h e psychological universe and t h e primary component o f clinical and counseling psychology.

Psychology h a s a richer tra-

dition o f basic psychological theorizing from which t o draw; psychiatry is committed t o t h e so-called medical model (Eandura, 1967).

A psychologist

i s better

equipped t o deal with abnormalities o f psychogenic origin; a psychiatrist is better equipped t o deal with abnormalities o f somatogenic origin.

A psychologist

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Chapter 10

t e n d s to place t h e human being in a social o r interactionist context; a psychiatrist primarily relates behavior to underlying biology.

I n many current ap-

plied contexts, a team o f psychiatrists and psychologists work o n t h e same problem, with a psychiatrist legally in charge. CONCEPTUAL S U M M A R Y In general, psychology extends t h e natural scie n c e s , informs t h e humanities, reduces the social sciences, and competes with other professional disciplines.

Psychology's s t a t u s in t h e over-all cross-

classificational endeavor can be briefly summarized, a s follows. Third person access, objective psychology i s subsidiary t o physics and biology, in t h e sense that psychological reality is imposed on both physical and physiological reality: physics provides distinctions and concepts without which psychology would be imposs i b l e ; biology provides t h e hardware allowing t h e physical realization o f conscious experience and behavior.

First person access, subjective psychology

informs the creative and performing arts: literature, t h e a t r e , music, dance, a r t , and t h e like.

Psychology,

in general, possesses comodel status with religion and also amounts t o a n applied philosophy.

Psychology is

distinctly subsidiary to linguistics with respect t o which discipline has the final say about t h e nature of language.

Economics and political science subsume

behavioral universes that are components of t h e domain of psychology; however, only political scientists allow themselves t o be informed by psychology t o any realistic degree.

Psychologists and sociologists are

engaged in constructing parallel, but mutually interpenetrating, realities.

Anthropology amounts t o a hy-


335

brid o f psychology and sociology, in which culture mediates between t h e individual and society.

Psychol-

ogy basically is ahistoric in orientation and bears a n asymmetric relationship t o that discipline.

The

applied subdisciplines o f psychology collectively overlap with virtually every professional discipline, such a s medicine and law, and possess distinct subsidiary status.


337

CHAPTER 11

PSYCHOLOGY AS A P P L I E D PHILOSOPHY

The construction o f a psychological reality involves philosophical decisions, especially metaphysical ones, at virtually every level o f analysis: methodological, epiphenomenal, explanatory, and t h e metaphysical level itself.

In the course o f analyzing t h e disci-

pline's compositional problem, w e have: 1. implicitly considered t h e classic and contemporary approaches t o t h e mind-body issue in t h e context o f discussing the composition o f a mental event ;

2, proffered the notion that every system o f Western psychology t o s o m e degree i s committed t o empiricism a s t h e appropriate route t o psychological truth;

3. treated t h e metaphysical principle o f determinism a s a corollary o f scientific explanation;

4. applied various philosophical criteria t o assorted approaches t o explanation; 5. argued that a so-called psychological fact

possesses both epistemological and evaluative, moral, or ethical components;

6. specified mental philosophy a s one o f t h e progenitors o f academic, experimental psychology;

7. briefly alluded t o t h e philosophical underpinnings o f t h e major t y p e s o f psychology;

338

Chapter I 1

8. explicitly discussed the t w o primary philosophical resolutions o f t h e nature o f homo sapiens: moral agency and mechanism. In t h i s chapter we a r e going t o analyze some o f t h e consequences o f taking a n empirical approach to psychological truth, specifically with respect t o the metaphysical o r existence status o f various components o f t h e psychological universe.

In t h e empirical ap-

proach t o epistemology, s e n s e impressions o r sense data constitute the source o f knowledge (see Chapter

2).

Within t h e over-all empirical tradition, philos-

o p h e r s make different assumptions a s to what legitimately can be inferred from sense data with respect to what really exists.

I n other words, different meta

physical conceptions about t h e nature o f reality are possible within t h e general framework o f empiricism with differential consequences f o r t h e nature o f psychological reality.

The classic philosophical ap-

proaches t o t h e nature o f reality a r e derived and then related t o ( 1 ) the various t y p e s o f psychology and ( 2 ) the fundamental proposition o f t h e book: psychology i s t h e study o f conscious intelligence by conscious intelligence. APPROACHES TO T H E NATURE O F REALITY Metaphysics subsumes t w o philosophical issues: (1) what is t r u e about existence o r real about t h e universe a s opposed t o what is mere appearance, i.e., what is the ultimate substance o r substances composing reality; and ( 2 ) what is the relationship between appearance and reality, i.e., how are sense impressions related to reality?

We are going t o focus o n the sec-

ond question explicitly and only consider t h e first question derivatively. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN APPEARANCE A N D REALITY

Ap-

Psychology as Applied Philosophy

339

pearance depends o n or is related t o sense impressions and t h e conditions under which sense impressions occur. The world, or t h e universe, a s revealed by our seven sensory modalities (vision, audition, gustation, and t h e like) is appearance. appearance. sions.

Reality is what s t a n d s behind

Reality is what causes t h e sense impres-

Appearance is given o r the input.

Reality is

a derivative concept: it is inferred or the output. Reality is a hypostatization, induced from given sense data. The traditional approaches to t h e relationship between appearance and reality derive from t h e assumpt i o n s one makes about the degree t o which one or

has to

reality.

can

infer

infer from given appearance t o a n underlying It is possible t o distinguish among four such

approaches: ( 1 ) idealism, ( 2 ) phenomenalism, (31 critical o r pragmatic realism, and (4) physical o r radical realism [see Simkins, 1969).

The labeling of

these ap-

proaches i s somewhat misleading: t h e third approach amounts to a conceptual extension o f t h e s e c o n d , while the last one is not related t o the third. IDEALISM

In t h i s approach, it is assumed

that n o valid inferences at all can be made about the nature o f a n underlying reality from t h e givens o f appearance.

A l l that can ever be known is t h e literal

content o f the sense impressions themselves. these operate a s reality f o r us.

In effect,

Because sense impres-

sions exhaust reality and traditionally are assumed t o be mental in nature, mind constitutes the only possible substance; and reality is exclusively composed o f ideas. No inference can b e made about t h e existence o f a physical world o f matter transcending mind and ideas. PHENOMENALISM

In t h i s approach, it i s as-

sumed that valid inferences c a n be made about t h e na-

Chapter 11

340

ture o f an underlying reality from t h e givens o f appearance--but

only when one currently is consciously

experiencing something.

F o r instance, assume I cur-

rently experience sense impressions labeled "tree."

I legitimately can infer that the tree is really there or exists: it is the source o f m y current conscious experience.

However, a s soon a s I t u r n m y back and no

longer experience sense impressions labeled "tree," t h e inference no longer can be made that t h e tree is still there or exists.

I n phenomenalism, reality does

not exist independent o f t h e content o f one's current sense impressions; reality is strictly contingent on the content o f current awareness. This approach gives rise t o t h e classic generic conundrum o f whether t h e crash o f a tree in a forest makes a noise if no human, or some remote sensing device, is presenr. t o perceive t h e sound.

T h e perceptive

reader w i l l realize that t h i s conundrum is a variant o f one o f

t h e fundamental assumptions made about reality

in Chapter 1: The physical universe itself d o e s not exist unless o r until it is reified by some entity's consciousness. CRITICAL OR PRAGMATIC REALISM

In t h i s ap-

proach, it is assumed that valid inferences can be made about t h e nature o f an underlying reality from the givens o f appearance--but

at any time, independent-

l y o f t h e content o f one's current sensory experience. F o r instance, assume I experienced sense impressions labeled "tree"

yesterday, but now am experiencing sense

impressions labeled "Sophia Loren."

I legitimately c a n

infer that t h e tree still is there or exists, although

I no longer directly experience it.

Reality does exist

independent o f t h e conten% o f o n e ' s current sense i m pressions, but not independent o f t h e totality o f one's

341


past experience or t h e content o f one's ory system.

long term mem-

In critical o r pragmatic realism, reality

is contingent o n the content o f t h e totality o f past experience o r memory. PHYSICAL OR RADICAL REALISM

In t h i s approach,

it i s not necessary t o make inferences at all about the nature o f underlying reality from t h e givens o f appearance.

It is assumed that reality o r t h e real

world exists independently o f experience o r appearance.

Even if no form o f life or no sense impressions

existed, there would still be a real world o r world o f reality.

In physical o r radical realism, reality is

a n absolute concept, not contingent upon anything. The conundrum associated with t h i s approach should be obvious: if sense impressions do not serve a s the inferential source o f reality, a s dictated by empiricism, then what does? CONCEPTUAL S U M M A R Y

The status o f reality in

t h e f o u r approaches can be summarized a s follows: 1. Idealism admits o f no reality beyond t h e content o f sense impressions themselves. 2. Phenomenalism posits a reality contingent on

the content o f current conscious experience.

3. Critical or pragmatic realism generates a reality contingent on the content o f present and past conscious experience.

4. Physical or radical realism yields a n absolute reality, one that transcends sense experience. FUNDAMENTAL SUBSTANCES

Two possible fundamental

substances exist: ( 1 ) mind and ( 2 ) matter (Churchland, 19841.

In dualism, both substances are presumed to

exist.

In monism, either substance, but not both, is

assumed t o exist.

Monism o f the mental variety is

called idealism; monism o f t h e physical variety is

Chapter 11

342

called materialism.

T h u s , there a r e three generic ap-

proaches t o t h e nature o f t h e fundamental substances: ( 1 ) dualism, ( 2 ) idealism, and (31 materialism.

Using

dualism a s the reference point, it can be appreciated that (11 idealism reduces matter t o mind and (21 materialism reduces mind t o matter. Do not g e t confused about t h e t w o uses o f t h e

term "idealism."

Idealism is both a n epistemological

approach and a metaphysical approach.

As t h e former,

it is a position with respect t o what c a n b e known [only ideas o r mental events); a s the latter, it is a position with respect t o what exists [only mind). Only one o f t h e approaches to t h e relationship between appearance and reality is committed t o a fixed position with respect t o t h e question o f fundamental substance(s):

idealism must assume a monism o f t h e men-

tal variety.

Although t h e inferred reality underlying

sense impressions usually is described in physical o r material language, phenomenalism and t h e t w o varieties of

realism do not logically imply dualism o r either

variety o f monism.

However, phenomenalists tend t o be

idealists; critical or pragmatic realists tend t o be materialists; and physical o r radical realists tend t o be dualists (Simkins, 1969). METAPHYSICS A N D TYPES OF PSYCHOLOGY The nature o f t h e psychological universe varies according t o t h e type o f psychology that s e r v e s a s t h e reference point: f o l k , action, epistemological o r cognitive, understanding, depth, o r dialectical.

Each

type o f psychology is associated with a characteristic resolution o f t h e dual metaphysical issues o f ( 1 ) relationship between appearance and reality and ( 2 ) fundamental substance(s). FOLK

Folk psychology (Stich, 19831 is common-

Psychologv as Applied Philosophy

343

s e n s e , cultural, o r presystemic psychology.

As anal-

yzed by contemporary philosophers (see Chapter 9 1 , it treats t h e triadic relationship o f desire, belief, and action a s a n indissoluble whole. is part o f

The psychology that

our folklore is dualistic in orientation

and implicitly assumes a transcendental reality o f t h e physical or radical realist variety. T h e folk view o f reality entails both a material

or external world, independent o f the self a s perceiver, and a n internal, mental world characteristic o f each person.

The physical, material world subsumes

t h e activity o f inanimate objects and deterministic causal laws, and serves a s t h e object o f interest f o r physics.

The internal, mental world is characterized

by conscious experience and consciousness, including t h e feelings o f self-awareness and f r e e will.

Perhaps

t h e fundamental metaphysical tenet o f folk psychology

is that mentation is efficacious in t h e Cartesian interactionist sense o f t h e term [see Chapter 3).

If

folk psychology were t o have a n official object o f analysis, it would be the mind per se o r t h e mind a s the cause o r source o f action. It will be convenient t o use t h e folk psychological conjunction o f dualism and physical o r radical r e alism a s a comparative reference point f o r evaluating the metaphysical stance o f t h e five t y p e s of

disciplin-

ary psychology. ACTION

Action psychology either implicitly or

explicitly focuses o n overt behavior.

The f o c u s i s

implicit in functionalism, classical learning macrotheory, and t h e contemporary mathematical learning model approach; it is explicit in t h e Watsonian and Skinnerian brands o f descriptive behaviorism.

Action

psychology that explicitly focuses o n behavior is ma-

Chapter 11

344

terialistic in orientation and assumes a contingent reality characteristic o f t h e critical o r pragmatic realist: it subsumes a psychological universe that is indistinguishable from t h e physical universe envisioned by t h e hard physical sciences.

In comparison

with folk psychology, mind is reduced t o matter; and transcendental reality devolves to a contingent one. CLASSICAL WATSONIAN BEHAVIORISM t h e behaviorist's

As part o f

revolt against any psychological

system concerned with consciousness in either t h e content or function s e n s e , material monism became the only acceptable resolution o f t h e mind-body problem (see Chapter 3).

Watson (1913, 1925, 1930) vacillated

between t h e strict materialism and more liberal mental epiphenomenalism interpretations in his writings.

Men-

tal epiphenomenalism is a variant o f material monism in which it is assumed that mental events merely are the nonefficacious byproducts o f possessing a body (Churchland, 1984).

Each variant o f material monism

is associated with a different kind o f behaviorism. Strict material monism generates so-called metaphysical or dogmatic behaviorism: ist.

mind simply d o e s not ex-

Mental epiphenomenalism generates so-called

methodological

or empirical behaviorism: mind is a de-

rivative, nonefficacious entity irrelevant f o r explaining behavioral

occurrence.

The content o f Watson's

contingent reality is limited t o physicalistic stimulus and response events. SKINNERIAN RADICAL BEHAVIORISM

Although Skin-

ner (19741 is definitively materialistic in orientation, he personally dislikes classification a s any kind o f traditional behaviorist at the philosophical level. The notion o f radical means that he is willing t o treat mental events as empirical objects o f interest; how-


345

ever, they merely are epiphenomena1 in nature.

Con-

scious experience merely i s another form o f behavior: what is experienced a s t h e content o f conscious experience merely i s t h e substance o f tacting responses under t h e control o f societal reinforcement contingencies.

Skinner's contingent reality strictly is phys-

icalistic; however, it is one that extends beneath t h e skin.

F o r Skinner, t h e notions o f stimulus and

response are functional, relational t e r m s that c a n be applied t o virtually any phenomena deemed psychological in nature. EPISTEMOLOGICAL

Epistemological psychology is

implicit in t h e philosophical progenitors o f academic, experimental psychology: Cartesian, British empirical, and Kantian philosophy.

Three o f t h e four classical

schools o f psychology--structuralism, functionalism, and Gestalt psychology--were epistemological in orientation.

Contemporary epistemological s y s t e m s in-

clude cognitive behaviorism, o r t h e information processing approach, and genetic-epistemological psychology.

Given t h e longevity o f interest in cognition,

it should not be surprising that t h e metaphysical stance o f epistemological psychology r u n s the gamut with respect t o specific philosophical approaches. PHILOSOPHICAL PROGENITORS

The epistemologi-

cal psychology implicit in Cartesian philosophy is dualistic and presumes a transcendental reality ( O e s cartes, 1650, 1662).

This metaphysical stance is i m -

plicit in folk psychology and is t h e standard philosophical doctrine against which academic, experimental psychology eventually rebelled.

The British em-

piricists, except f o r Thomas Hobbes (1650, 16511, advocated a n idealist approach t o reality and a mental monism view o f fundamental substance,

Bishop Berkel-

346

Chapter 11

ey (1710) reified the universe o f ideas by making them a component o f God's

consciousness; David Hume

(1748) denied any ideas other than those pertaining t o t h e self, a view k n o w n a s solipsism (Flanagan,

1984).

Kant ( 1 7 8 1 ) initiated t h e classic distinction

between t h e noumenal and phenomenal worlds.

Because

Kant assumed that we cannot induce t h e nature o f t h e noumenal world from t h e phenomenal world, he must be classified a s a n idealist.

Kant's

epistemology i s

not a pure empiricism: s e n s e impressions are a product both o f t h e nournenal world and innate, apriori, cognitive categories in t h e mind.

According t o Weth-

erick (19791,t h e idealism o f British empiricism and Kantian philosophy is compatible with t h e conduction o f physical science: it i s irrelevant whether t h e reg-

ularities or laws studied by physical science are a property merely o f sense impressions o r some underlying contingent or transcendental reality.

Ideal-

i s m cannot support a n experimental cognitive psychology: cognitive mechanisms or information processing r u l e s do not appear a s part o f sense impressions themselves. CLASSICAL SCHOOLS

Recall that t h e classical

schools o f epistemological psychology tended t o focus o n mental events a s a n end in itself, i.e., t h e structure o r dynamics o f the m i n d , and not only allowed but also promulgated first person access t o cognition. Classical epistemological psychology, in general, was dualistic in orientation and adhered t o a transcendental view o f reality. STRUCTURALISM

Structural psychologists,

such a s Wundt (18961 and Titchener ( 1 8 9 8 1 , focused o n the content o f conscious experience and presumed that a n underlying physical o r physiological state corres-


ponded t o each conscious mental state.

347

T h i s trans-

lates into a psychophysical parallelism at t h e metaphysical level. iant o f

Psychophysical parallelism i s a var-

dualism, in which it is assumed that t h e men-

t a l and physical do not interact, but merely exist o r present themselves in a condition o f pre-established harmony.

Mental phenomena (conscious experience) and

physical phenomena [physiological o r neural processes) constitute parallel, but covarying, s y s t e m s (Churchland, 19841. FUNCTIONALISM

Functionalist psychology

[Angell, 1904, 1907; Carr, 1 9 2 5 ) focused o n how t h e dynamics o f consciousness guided t h e individual organism's adaptation t o t h e environment.

It c a n be con-

ceived a s a formalization o f common-sense psychology. Although t h e views o f individual functionalists varied t o some degree, t h e approach a s a whole can be characterized a s being Cartesian dualistic in orientation and admitting t h e existence o f a transcendental reality. GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY

Gestalt psychology

[Wertheimer, 1912; Koffka, 1922; Kb'hler, 1920) focused o n t h e structure and dynamics o f t h e phenomenal, especially perceptual, field and resolved overt behavior in t h e context o f a behavioral environment.

It i s

very difficult t o categorize the Gestalt approach at a metaphysical level.

Some psychologists

( f o r in-

stance, Lundin, 1979) argue that t h e system advocated a modified psychophysical parallelism.

Other psychol-

ogists [viz., Marx and Hillix, 1979) argue that t h e system advocated a strict double aspectism interpretation.

Double aspectism amounts t o a functional mon-

ism in which mind and matter merely constitute linguistic attributes o r categories.

Mental and physical

Chapter I I

348

are not absolute properties o f t h e universe, but merely semantic labels that a r e applied t o a phenomenon contingent on t h e psychologist's current purposes o r perspective ( B u n g e , 1980). CONTEMPORARY SYSTEMS

Recall that t h e con-

temporary approaches t o epistemological psychology tend to focus o n mental events a s t h e antecedents o f behavior and primarily employ a third person access to cognition.

Contemporary epistemological psychology is

materialistic in orientation and fosters a contingent reality subsumed by t h e critical o r pragmatic realist approach. COGNITIVE BEHAVIORISM

Contemporary cog-

nitively oriented behaviorists associated with t h e information processing approach [e.g., Anderson, 1980) are modified material monists.

They investigate men-

tal processes, but these are regarded a s physical events, emergent in nature and irreducible t o more basic physiological o r conditioning processes.

Cogni-

tive behaviorists study t h e mind, but mind is simply a linguistic euphemism f o r emergent physical cognitive processes.

Either central state identity theory o r

some variant o f causal. r o l e functionalism (not t o be confused with t h e classical school o f the same name) can be used t o philosophically justify t h i s view o f mental events [see Chapter 3). GENETIC-EPISTEMOLOGICAL

Piaget's

(1953, 1954) developmental-cognitive system, which emphasizes various logically based capacities that unfold in a sequential stage-dependent manner, is best conceived a s a material monistic one in which mentation basically is a biological or physical process. UNDERSTANDING

The Verstehen tradition i s best

exemplified in America by humanistic, existential,


phenomenological psychology Rogers, 1961).

349

(Maslow, 1970; K e e n , 1975;

The humanistic aspect connotes a special

status f o r t h e human being, one that usually is specified in t e r m s o f possession o f self-consciousness.

The

existential component emphasizes o u r essential rootlessness and state o f freedom, especially with respect t o a choice o f purpose o f life.

The phenomenological

facet leads t o a n acceptance o f experienced reality a s given.

T h i s kind o f psychology generates a privatis-

tic, subjective psychological reality contingent o n individualistic consciousness o r state o f mind: n o transcendental psychological universe exists. Understanding psychology essentially is neutral with respect t o t h e two metaphysical issues; however, it is conducive to a monistic orientation o f t h e mental variety and a phenomenal o r idealistic view o f

reality.

The essential psychological reality o f t h e understanding approach is experiential, epiphenomenal, mentalistic, immediate, given, and self-contained.

It is t h e

antithesis o f t h e materialism and critical or pragmatic realism characteristic o f behaviorally oriented experimental psychology. DEPTH

Although many different versions o f depth

psychology e x i s t , Freudian psychoanalysis constitutes t h e prototypical case.

Freud (1939, 1949) postulated

a n elaborate mental apparatus that directly affects overt behavior, in which context unconscious determina n t s are stressed over conscious determinants.

The

current dominant interpretation is that Freud's system is not dualistic (see F l a n a g a n , 1984).

Rather, Freud's

psychic determinism is resolved in a modified material monistic orientation in which mental events a r e conceived a s nonreductive physical or physiological entities.

Freud's

metaphysical stance with respect to the

Chapter 11

350

relationship between sense impressions and reality is best interpreted a s a critical o r pragmatic realism. Thus, the Freudian psychological universe and t h e descriptive behaviorist psychological universe possess similar metaphysical properties; however, t h e former is internal or located within t h e s k i n , while t h e lat-

t e r is external or located outside the skin. DIALECTICAL

The dialectical philosophical tradi-

tion cross-cuts t h e idealism-materialism dichotomy. Hegelian (18071 philosophy subsumed a dialectical idealism; Marxist (1867) philosophy subsumed a dialectical materialism.

The latter has had a profound e f -

fect on Russian psychology: consciousness is physicalistic or social in nature; it is a reflective property o f matter.

Free will is a n illusion; the individual is

submerged in a never-ending dialectical progression. The material world transcends individualistic consciousness: Marxism subsumes a physical o r radical realism. The dominant American derivative o f Russian dialectical psychology is Riegel's

(1978, 1979) system.

Although dialectical in orientation, Riegel is neither a n idealist nor a materialist.

He is a double aspec-

tionist, in which consciousness (mind) and behavior [matter) are interpenetrating, dialectically determined phenomena, t h e distinction between which is solely semantic in nature.

Riegel is a physical o r radical

realist with respect t o t h e status o f reality. METAPHYSICAL STATUS OF CONSCIOUS INTELLIGENCE Recall that we have characterized psychology a s the study o f conscious intelligence by conscious intelligence.

Under the assumption that conscious intelli-

gence is a fundamental property o f homo sapiens, psychology i s a discipline in which t h e human being f o cusefi o n itself.

No psychologist directly s t u d i e s con-

Psychology as Applied Philosophy scious intelligence.

351

The traditional epiphenomena1

foci o f interest are a s p e c t s o f

conscious experience

o r consciousness and overt behavior o r action.

The

notion o f conscious intelligence must be invoked in order t o give experience and behavior psychological s t a t u s o r meaning.

The social science discipline that

i s psychology is concerned with materially composable o r functionally definable phenomena that ( 1 ) are generated by a n entity possessing a nervous system and

( 2 ) involve o r are relatable t o conscious intelligence (see Chapter 7).

Conscious intelligence is a metaphysical notion; however, it would be ridiculous t o assign it a set o f absolute properties--primarily phor.

because it is a meta-

It is a way o f representing t h e fact t h a t t h e

human organism is a self-aware, efficacious, reactive, creative, self-maintaining, self-reifying, and symbol o r knowledge generating form o f life.

It i s conven-

ient t o assume that conscious intelligence is a physicalistic, materialistic entity that is ultimately physiologically o r biochemically based.

It is t h e

real-time and real-space entity that creates o u r conception o f reality and existence.

Taking a critical

o r pragmatic realist approach t o reality, conscious intelligence is t h e key aspect o f t h e process t h a t converts sense impressions into underlying reality. It might seem that t h e concept o f conscious intelligence is analogous t o Kant's

( 1 7 8 1 ) notion o f a n in-

nate, apriori category; however, it is more basic than a Kantian organizational precept.

It is what c o n -

structs t h e organizational principles underlying the induction o f t h e nature o f reality and existence in t h e first place. T o demonstrate t h e metaphorical status o f c o n -

352

Chapter 11

scious intelligence, we c a n allude t o Wetherick's (1979) conception o f psychology.

Wetherick subscribes

t o physical or radical realism--in his phraseology, transcendental realism: t h e physical world exists independent o f t h e self.

I n t h i s context, Wetherick as-

sumes that the fundamental property o f the human organ-

i s m is its capacity t o create literally a n infinite number o f different models o f reality.

The human being

possesses a structure that creates other subsidiary structures for resolving reality and existence.

This

underlying structure is conscious intelligence.

The

fundamental characteristic o f the human organism is i t s "act o f imaginative modeling."

Psychology must study

all t h e extant derivative models we have created with the ultimate goal o f inducing the nature o f intelligence.

conscious

In t h e laboratory, t h e human subject

merely exhibits phenomena that conform t o t h e experimental psychologist's model o f

homo

sapiens.

In other

words, traditional experimental psychology presumes that t h e human being is a repository o f fixed capacities, while in fact it i s capable o f a n infinite array o f capacities.

CONCEPTUAL S U M M A R Y Folk psychology and t h e classical epistemol'ogical systems entail a dualistic and transcendental psychological universe.

Most f o r m s o f disciplinary psychol-

ogy reduce one o f the fundamental substances to t h e other, or convert them t o linguistic entities, and transform transcendental reality t o a contingent one. Presystemic epistemological psychology and understanding psychology take the idealist route and confine reality to appearance o r t o t h e objects o f current conscious awareness.

Action psychology, contemporary cog-

nitive psychology, depth psychology, and Russian dia-


353

lectical psychology opt f o r materialism and generally equate reality with t h e content o f past and present conscious experience.

Resolving t h e discipline’s com-

positional problem via a n appeal t o coriscious intelligence r e t a i n s its materialistic stance, but makes its adherence t o critical o r pragmatic realism a necessary byproduct o f t h e act o f imaginative modeling.


355

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Transactions on Rough Sets V

Transactions On Rough Sets I

Transactions on Computational Systems Biology

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