The Causes of Behavior

For Skinner, the causes of behavior lie in humans’ genetic endowment and

the environment in which they live. The specific ways in which the environment

causes behavior can be seen in the experimentally derived principles

noted previously.

Skinner’s approach differs sharply from most psychological theories that

put the causes of behavior inside the person. Skinner believed that these internal

causes were either not scientific explanations but actually behaviors

themselves in need of explanation or were explanations taken from disciplines

other than psychology.

Skinner regarded the “mind” as an unscientific explanation because of its

status as an inference from the behavior that it was supposed to explain.

While psychological theory has, since the 1970’s, redefined the “mind” in

two broad ways, Skinner noted that the redefining did not solve the problems

posed by the requirements of science. On one hand, mental processes

have become cognitive processes, a metaphor based on computer operations.

Humans are said to “process” information by “encoding, decoding,

storing, and retrieving” information. However, all these hypothesized activities

remain inferences from the behavior that they are said to explain. There

is no independent observation of these hypothetical activities.

On the other hand, the mind has been translated to mean the brain,

which can be studied scientifically. Thus, the physiology of the brain is

thought to explain behavior. Neither Skinner nor other radical behaviorists

deny the role of the brain in a complete understanding of behavior. However,

psychology and brain physiology look for the causes of behavior at different

levels of observation. Psychology is viewed as a separate discipline

with its own methods of scientific investigation leading to the discovery of

distinct psychological explanations for behavior. In addition, research results

suggest that rather than brain physiology explaining behavior, changes

in the brain and changes in behavior appear to result from changes in the

environment. Changes in behavior are correlated with changes in the brain,

but changes at both levels appear to be the result of the environment.

Thoughts and feelings are also considered to be causes of behavior. One

thinks about talking with a friend and then goes to the telephone and dials

the friend’s number. These two people talk together on the telephone regularly

because they feel affection for each other. The “thinking” or “feeling”

referred to as causes for the actions involved in dialing the telephone and

talking with each other are themselves viewed as responses in need of explanation.

What gave rise to thinking in early development, and what now

makes thoughts of this particular friend so strong? How have feelings of affection

become associated with this friend? From the radical behaviorist perspective,

both the thoughts and the feeling are explained by the principles

of operant or classical conditioning.