The evolution of behaviorism.

TLDR: For example, this article argued that the theory of behavior based on conditioning processes can be reconciled with the new data, but only by revising certain tacit be- haviorist assumptions about the parameters of the con- ditioning processes, particularly instrumental or oper- ant conditioning.

Abstract: New data on conditioning processes favor an eclecticism between the traditional nativist and environmentalist extremes in the analysis of be- havior. It is suggested that the theory of behavior based on conditioning processes can be reconciled with the new data, but only by revising certain tacit be- haviorist assumptions about the parameters of the con- ditioning processes, particularly instrumental or oper- ant conditioning. Operant conditioning specifies how stimuli, responses, reinforcers, and drive states are woven into relationships that change and sustain an organism's behavior. The new data undermine tradi- tional assumptions about each of those elements rather than about the form of their interrelationship. Be- cause some of the assumptions fall under the heading of motivation, it is concluded that behaviorism is at last reflecting motivation's subtleties, after several decades of failing to do so. Thus refined, behaviorism appears to merge with the main lines of ethology as a more complete science of behavior than either one alone has been. Whether or not it has a future, the brand of be- haviorism known as Skinnerian theory has a past worth understanding. "Skinnerianism" is, to be sure, vague as psychological theory. Nevertheless, it stands for a movement dedicated to the study of behavior as behavior, to environmental ist)! as op- posed to nativism, and to the primacy of the law of effect in guiding the behavior of higher organisms, especially human beings. It is a movement whose controversiality has grown along with its influence. Breland and Breland's 1961 paper "The Misbe- havior of Organisms" marked an early point in the rising tide of anti-Skinnerj anism within American psychology. The Brelands were students of Skin- ner's who went into the commercial animal train- ing business. After more than a decade of training pigs, chickens, raccoons, and other animals for show business, they reported their fading enthusi- asm for the Skinnerian theory—a reflection of their troubles with the Skinnerian method. Fif- teen years later, the tide of criticism is still rising. Articles and books whose titles are variations on the theme of Biological Boundaries of Learning (Seligman & Hager, 1972) ought by now to be a separate entry in the index to the Psychological Abstracts. These works, and many others, seem to be finding holes in the fabric of Skinnerianism . Yet these last IS years also mark a rising tide of pro-Skinneria nism. By any measure of public recognition, Skinnerian psychology has flourished, crowding out of the American public eye other varieties of behaviorism. Behavior modification (which actually has Hullian and Pavlovian ante- cedents no less than Skinnerian) threatens to over- whelm a sizeable portion of traditional psycho- therapy; educators are increasingly willing to plan contingency management in classrooms; "skinner box," in lower case letters, is an entry in Webster's Third New International Dictionary. And my