Post by Tamrin on May 15, 2012 19:19:25 GMT 10
Science and Human Behaviour by B.F. Skinner
Excerpt:
In addition to the ethical behavior discussed in Chapter XXI the individual acquires from the group an extensive repertoire of manners and customs. What a man eats and drinks and how he does so, what sorts of sexual behavior he engages in, how he builds a house or draws a picture or rows a boat, what subjects he talks about or remains silent about, what music he makes, what kinds of personal relationships he enters into and what kinds he avoids—all depend in part upon the practices of the group of which he is a member. The actual manners and customs of many groups have, of course, been extensively described by sociologists and anthropologists. Here we are concerned only with the kinds of processes which they exemplify.
Behavior comes to conform to the standards of a given community when certain responses are reinforced and others are allowed to go unreinforced or are punished. These consequences are often closely interwoven with those of the nonsocial environment. The way in which a man rows a boat, for example, depends in part upon certain mechanical contingencies; some movements are effective and others ineffective in propelling the boat. These contingencies depend upon the construction of the boat and oars—which are in turn the result of other practices observed by the boatmakers in the group. They also depend upon the type of water, which may be peculiar to a group for geographical reasons, so that the manner in which a boat is rowed in an inland lake district is different from that along the seacoast even when boat and oars are of the same type. The educational contingencies established by the group are still another source of difference. The individual is reinforced with approval when he adopts certain grips, postures, kinds of strokes, and so on, and punished with criticism when he adopts others. These variables are especially important in determining the "style" which eventually becomes characteristic of a group.
The contingencies to be observed in the social environment easily explain the behavior of the conforming individual. The problem is to explain the contingencies. Some of these are arranged for reasons which have no connection with the effect of customs or manners upon the group. The community functions as a reinforcing environment in which certain kinds of behavior are reinforced and others punished, but it is maintained as such through other return benefits. Verbal behavior is a good example. In a given community certain vocal responses are characteristically reinforced with food, water, and other services or objects. These responses become part of a child's repertoire as naturally as nonverbal responses reinforced by the same consequences. It does not greatly matter whether a child gets a drink by bending over a pool or by saying, "I want a drink of water." To explain why the water is forthcoming in the latter case, however, requires a rather elaborate analysis of the verbal environment. It is enough to note here that a verbal environment may maintain itself through its effects upon all participants, quite apart from its function in teaching the language to new members of the community. An adult in a new verbal environment may receive no explicit educational reinforcement but may nevertheless acquire an adequate vocabulary. Some nonverbal customs and manners can be explained in the same way. Moreover, when a custom is perpetuated by a governmental, religious, or educational agency, we may point to the usual return benefits.
But there remains the fact that the community as a whole often establishes conforming behavior through what are essentially educational techniques. Over and above the reciprocal reinforcements which sustain verbal behavior, for example, the community extends the classification of "right" and "wrong" to certain forms of that behavior and administers the generalized reinforcements of approval and disapproval accordingly. In many groups a mistake in grammar or pronunciation is followed by more aversive consequences than, say, minor instances of lying or stealing. The group also supports educational agencies which supply additional consequences working in the same direction. But why is such deviant behavior aversive? Why should the group call an ungrammatical response "wrong" if the response is not actually ambiguous? Why should it protest unconventional modes of dress or rebuke a member for unconventional table manners?
One classical answer is to show that a given form of deviant behavior must have been aversive for good reason under an earlier condition of the group. Foodstuffs are in general selected by contingencies which follow from their physical and chemical properties. Foods which are unpalatable, inedible, or poisonous come to be left alone. A child who starts to eat such a food receives powerful aversive stimulation from the group. "Good" and "bad" foods are eventually specified in ethical, religious, or governmental codes. When, now, through a change in climate or living conditions, or as the result of changing practices in the preparation and preservation of food, a "bad" food becomes safe, the classification may nevertheless survive. There is no longer any current return advantage to the group to explain why eating a particular food is classified as bad. The classification may be especially puzzling if the group has meanwhile invented an explanation for it.
We may also show indirect, but presumably none the less effective, current consequences. In his Theory of the Leisure Class, Thorstein Veblen demonstrated that customs or manners which seemed to have no commensurate consequences, and which were explained in terms of doubtful principles of beauty or taste, had an important effect upon other members of the group. According to Veblen we do not necessarily wear "dress" clothes or speak useless languages because the clothes are beautiful or the languages "cultured," but because we are then accepted by a group in which these achievements are a mark of membership and because we gain prestige in controlling those who are unable to behave in the same way. According to this theory, a modern American university builds Gothic buildings not because the available materials resemble those which were originally responsible for this style of architecture, or because the style is beautiful in itself, but because the university then commands a more extensive control by resembling medieval educational institutions. The practices of the group which perpetuate a "good" style of architecture are thus as easy to explain as those which perpetuate modes of construction which are "good" for mechanical reasons.
Perhaps the simplest explanation of the differential reinforcement of conforming behavior is the process of induction. The forces which shape ethical behavior to group standards are powerful. The group steps in to suppress lying, stealing, physical assault, and so on, because of immediate consequences to its members. Its behavior in so doing is eventually a function of certain characteristic features of the "good" and "bad" behavior of the controlled individual. Among these is lack of conformity to the general behavior of the group. There is thus a frequent association of aversive properties of behavior with the property of nonconformance to a standard. Nonconforming behavior is not always aversive, but aversive behavior is always nonconforming. If these properties are paired often enough, the property of nonconformance becomes aversive. "Right" and "wrong" eventually have the force of "conforming" and "nonconforming." Instances of behavior which are nonconforming but not otherwise aversive to the group are henceforth treated as if they were aversive.
No matter how we ultimately explain the action of the group in extending the ethical classification of "right" and "wrong" to manners and customs, we are on solid ground in observing the contingencies by virtue of which the behavior characteristic of a particular group is maintained. As each individual comes to conform to a standard pattern of conduct, he also comes to support that pattern by applying a similar classification to the behavior of others. Moreover, his own conforming behavior contributes to the standard with which the behavior of others is compared. Once a custom, manner, or style has arisen, therefore, the social system which observes it appears to be reasonably self-sustaining.
Behavior comes to conform to the standards of a given community when certain responses are reinforced and others are allowed to go unreinforced or are punished. These consequences are often closely interwoven with those of the nonsocial environment. The way in which a man rows a boat, for example, depends in part upon certain mechanical contingencies; some movements are effective and others ineffective in propelling the boat. These contingencies depend upon the construction of the boat and oars—which are in turn the result of other practices observed by the boatmakers in the group. They also depend upon the type of water, which may be peculiar to a group for geographical reasons, so that the manner in which a boat is rowed in an inland lake district is different from that along the seacoast even when boat and oars are of the same type. The educational contingencies established by the group are still another source of difference. The individual is reinforced with approval when he adopts certain grips, postures, kinds of strokes, and so on, and punished with criticism when he adopts others. These variables are especially important in determining the "style" which eventually becomes characteristic of a group.
The contingencies to be observed in the social environment easily explain the behavior of the conforming individual. The problem is to explain the contingencies. Some of these are arranged for reasons which have no connection with the effect of customs or manners upon the group. The community functions as a reinforcing environment in which certain kinds of behavior are reinforced and others punished, but it is maintained as such through other return benefits. Verbal behavior is a good example. In a given community certain vocal responses are characteristically reinforced with food, water, and other services or objects. These responses become part of a child's repertoire as naturally as nonverbal responses reinforced by the same consequences. It does not greatly matter whether a child gets a drink by bending over a pool or by saying, "I want a drink of water." To explain why the water is forthcoming in the latter case, however, requires a rather elaborate analysis of the verbal environment. It is enough to note here that a verbal environment may maintain itself through its effects upon all participants, quite apart from its function in teaching the language to new members of the community. An adult in a new verbal environment may receive no explicit educational reinforcement but may nevertheless acquire an adequate vocabulary. Some nonverbal customs and manners can be explained in the same way. Moreover, when a custom is perpetuated by a governmental, religious, or educational agency, we may point to the usual return benefits.
But there remains the fact that the community as a whole often establishes conforming behavior through what are essentially educational techniques. Over and above the reciprocal reinforcements which sustain verbal behavior, for example, the community extends the classification of "right" and "wrong" to certain forms of that behavior and administers the generalized reinforcements of approval and disapproval accordingly. In many groups a mistake in grammar or pronunciation is followed by more aversive consequences than, say, minor instances of lying or stealing. The group also supports educational agencies which supply additional consequences working in the same direction. But why is such deviant behavior aversive? Why should the group call an ungrammatical response "wrong" if the response is not actually ambiguous? Why should it protest unconventional modes of dress or rebuke a member for unconventional table manners?
One classical answer is to show that a given form of deviant behavior must have been aversive for good reason under an earlier condition of the group. Foodstuffs are in general selected by contingencies which follow from their physical and chemical properties. Foods which are unpalatable, inedible, or poisonous come to be left alone. A child who starts to eat such a food receives powerful aversive stimulation from the group. "Good" and "bad" foods are eventually specified in ethical, religious, or governmental codes. When, now, through a change in climate or living conditions, or as the result of changing practices in the preparation and preservation of food, a "bad" food becomes safe, the classification may nevertheless survive. There is no longer any current return advantage to the group to explain why eating a particular food is classified as bad. The classification may be especially puzzling if the group has meanwhile invented an explanation for it.
We may also show indirect, but presumably none the less effective, current consequences. In his Theory of the Leisure Class, Thorstein Veblen demonstrated that customs or manners which seemed to have no commensurate consequences, and which were explained in terms of doubtful principles of beauty or taste, had an important effect upon other members of the group. According to Veblen we do not necessarily wear "dress" clothes or speak useless languages because the clothes are beautiful or the languages "cultured," but because we are then accepted by a group in which these achievements are a mark of membership and because we gain prestige in controlling those who are unable to behave in the same way. According to this theory, a modern American university builds Gothic buildings not because the available materials resemble those which were originally responsible for this style of architecture, or because the style is beautiful in itself, but because the university then commands a more extensive control by resembling medieval educational institutions. The practices of the group which perpetuate a "good" style of architecture are thus as easy to explain as those which perpetuate modes of construction which are "good" for mechanical reasons.
Perhaps the simplest explanation of the differential reinforcement of conforming behavior is the process of induction. The forces which shape ethical behavior to group standards are powerful. The group steps in to suppress lying, stealing, physical assault, and so on, because of immediate consequences to its members. Its behavior in so doing is eventually a function of certain characteristic features of the "good" and "bad" behavior of the controlled individual. Among these is lack of conformity to the general behavior of the group. There is thus a frequent association of aversive properties of behavior with the property of nonconformance to a standard. Nonconforming behavior is not always aversive, but aversive behavior is always nonconforming. If these properties are paired often enough, the property of nonconformance becomes aversive. "Right" and "wrong" eventually have the force of "conforming" and "nonconforming." Instances of behavior which are nonconforming but not otherwise aversive to the group are henceforth treated as if they were aversive.
No matter how we ultimately explain the action of the group in extending the ethical classification of "right" and "wrong" to manners and customs, we are on solid ground in observing the contingencies by virtue of which the behavior characteristic of a particular group is maintained. As each individual comes to conform to a standard pattern of conduct, he also comes to support that pattern by applying a similar classification to the behavior of others. Moreover, his own conforming behavior contributes to the standard with which the behavior of others is compared. Once a custom, manner, or style has arisen, therefore, the social system which observes it appears to be reasonably self-sustaining.
