A Functional Analysis of Psychological Terms Redux

A Non-mediational Approach to Emotions and Feelings

The present analysis proposes a non-mediational approach to the study of affective phenomena. It starts off with the common recognition that "emotion" is not a technical term. Even so, researchers often treat it as if it were, confusing ordinary language with technical language. This leads to two problems: first, a referentialist bias, according to which we assume emotions to be something unapparent that one must infer and describe; and second, the nominalist fallacy, according to which we assume that emotions have causal effects on actions by the fact of naming them. I review some proposals to solve the problem, among which are some behavioral alternatives. Although these alternatives overcome many of the problems mentioned, they do not completely avoid them. I conclude that a strict non-mediational approach is possible and necessary. It supports the analytical separation of ordinary and technical language. Technical language abstracts relevant properties of ordinary language that become relevant parameters to model certain emotions, as they are referred to in ordinary language. I present some possible parameters and examples for consideration and conclude that the non-mediational approach is a plausible alternative that can stimulate research programs to find natural regularities in affective phenomena.

The Language of Science

Science is what scientists do and, especially, what they say about what they do. Science is a way of talking about the world that enables the listener to behave more effectively in that world. Understanding science, then, is a matter of understanding the language of science. Scientific verbal practices are codified and recorded so that they can affect the behavior of all scientists, including those without access to the original controlling variables. What we know about the world is simply the way we have learned to talk about the world. We know best what is most useful about the world, in the sense that what we know enables us to behave effectively in the world. Scientists are unique in that they, more so than non-scientists, have the experience of behaving as effectively as possible-they can predict and control. This is what makes all the difference, in the sense that it makes science different from other ways of knowing about the world. Science is not simply one way of knowing about the world, it is arguably the most effective way of knowing about it. Scientific talk leads to effective action.

Reprint of "Mathematics as verbal behavior"

"Behavior which is effective only through the mediation of other persons has so many distinguishing dynamic and topographical properties that a special treatment is justified and indeed demanded" (Skinner, 1957, p. 2). Skinner's demand for a special treatment of verbal behavior can be extended within that field to domains such as music, poetry, drama, and the topic of this paper: mathematics. For centuries, mathematics has been of special concern to philosophers who have continually argued to the present day about what some deem its "special nature." Two interrelated principal questions have been: (1) Are the subjects of mathematical interest pre-existing in some transcendental realm and thus are "discovered" as one might discover a new planet; and (2) Why is mathematics so effective in the practices of science and engineering even though originally such mathematics was "pure" with applications neither contemplated or even desired? I argue that considering the actual practice of mathematics in its history and in the context of acquired verbal behavior one can address at least some of its apparent mysteries. To this end, I discuss some of the structural and functional features of mathematics including verbal operants, rule-and contingency-modulated behavior, relational frames, the shaping of abstraction, and the development of intuition. How is it possible to understand Nature by properly talking about it? Essentially, it is because nature taught us how to talk.

An Analysis of Feedback from a Behavior Analytic Perspective

The present paper presents a systematic analysis from a behavior analytic perspective of procedures termed feedback. Although feedback procedures are widely reported in the discipline of psychology, including in the field of behavior analysis, feedback is neither consistently defined nor analyzed. Feedback is frequently treated as a principle of behavior; however, its effects are rarely analyzed in terms of well-established principles of learning and behavior analysis. On the assumption that effectiveness of feedback procedures would be enhanced when their use is informed by these principles, we sought to provide a conceptually systematic account of feedback effects in terms of operant conditioning principles. In the first comprehensive review of this type, we compare feedback procedures with those of well-defined operant procedures. We also compare the functional relations that have been observed between parameters of consequence delivery and behavior under both feedback and operant procedures. The similarities observed in the preceding analyses suggest that processes revealed in operant conditioning procedures are sufficient to explain the phenomena observed in studies on feedback.

Mathematics as verbal behavior

"Behavior which is effective only through the mediation of other persons has so many distinguishing dynamic and topographical properties that a special treatment is justified and indeed demanded" (Skinner, 1957, p. 2). Skinner's demand for a special treatment of verbal behavior can be extended within that field to domains such as music, poetry, drama, and the topic of this paper: mathematics. For centuries, mathematics has been of special concern to philosophers who have continually argued to the present day about what some deem its "special nature." Two interrelated principal questions have been: (1) Are the subjects of mathematical interest pre-existing in some transcendental realm and thus are "discovered" as one might discover a new planet; and (2) Why is mathematics so effective in the practices of science and engineering even though originally such mathematics was "pure" with applications neither contemplated or even desired? I argue that considering the actual practice of mathematics in its history and in the context of acquired verbal behavior one can address at least some of its apparent mysteries. To this end, I discuss some of the structural and functional features of mathematics including verbal operants, rule-and contingency-modulated behavior, relational frames, the shaping of abstraction, and the development of intuition. How is it possible to understand Nature by properly talking about it? Essentially, it is because nature taught us how to talk.