Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Fri, 4 Sep 1992 02:17:00 GMT
From:         Hortideas Publishing <0004972767@MCIMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Control/Manipulation; Skinner in Bed

From Greg Williams (920903 - 3)

>Bill Powers (920903.1600)

>"Controlling a person" means controlling some variable associated with
>that person. This is possible without direct use of force only if the
>variable is an output variable.

Two questions:

1. Is controlling a person possible with THREAT of force (which might be
included in what you mean by "direct use of force")?

2. Suppose I yell "Fire!" when we're both in a theater. You (being prudent)
join the crowd heading for the exit. Were you, BOTH before and after I yelled,
ACTIVELY controlling for not getting burned (or some such)? If you weren't
before, but were after, then it could be said that I had altered WHICH
reference signal you were ACTIVELY trying to match, and perhaps that I had
controlled, without direct force (or threat of same), a non-output variable
(namely, which reference signal is currently being ACTIVELY matched)
associated with you.

I suspect that you will say that you were ACTIVELY controlling for not getting
burned both before and after I yelled, and that my yelling was a disturbance
which resulted in your acting in the manner (attempting to exit) necessary to
counter the disturbance. (Note, however, that it might be an interesting
conundrum if you claimed that, in another instance, somebody was controlling
for drinking a Coca-Cola BEFORE they ever knew about Coca-Cola! Also note
that we presumably are quite busy ACTIVELY controlling all of those potential
perceptions which might come in handy to control at any moment!) If so, then
the situation is a (successful) "manipulation" as I described it in the
Prolegomenon, assuming that I yelled so as to control for my perception, say,
of you leaving the theater.

My problem is with your downplaying the interactivity and, especially,
significance of manipulation. You say that the manipulee "ignores" the
manipulator. But this is simply not true in general, even though it might be
true sometimes. Complex interactions are the rule, not the exception, between
con men and marks, for example. There is a complex "dance" going on between
influencer and influencee so as to maintain the controlling relationship. In
many such "dances," control can even go BOTH ways.

Furthermore, your claim that manipulating is "just diddling" seems purely
ideological, in the sense that it ignores the potential effects of some
examples of manipulation (for ill OR good) on the manipulee. It seems to me
that you are going to extremes to defend an extra-PCT, imported notion of
extreme autonomy and anti-environmentalism. PCT itself says that one's actions
(output variables) are conjointly determined by the person's reference signals
AND disturbances. It does NOT say that either the reference signals or the
disturbances are to be construed as in some way more important or significant
in producing the actions. You are sounding like Skinner turned upsidedown --
he (wrongly, I think) overemphasized environmental determination, while you
are overemphasizing organismic determination. True, one's INANIMATE
environment doesn't control one's variables (of ANY sort), but one's ANIMATE
environment can control some of one's variables IN WAYS WHICH RESULT IN
IMPORTANT CONSEQUENCES TO THE CONTROLEE.

Don't you see that, much (but, I'll grant, not all) of the time, people want
to control others' ACTIONS, NOT others' DESIRES? That means that the slogan
"you can't be controlled without overwhelming physical force" is, in practice,
not such a Big Deal. We are being controlled and are controlling others on a
daily basis without direct physical force -- with, I claim, hugely significant
effects. To mention just one example: The physician who advises his patient
wrongly (we have a God's-eye-view here) because he doesn't think it will
matter much that he doesn't know what he is supposed to know about some
esoteric matter, and besides, he needs to see another patient NOW; the
physician is not employing overwhelming physical force -- he is manipulating
the patient (who doesn't even suspect that the doctor might be wrong), who
DIES. That's a trivial result? What's trivial is that "you can be controlled
by overwhelming physical force." Of course you can! But the notion that your
outputs can be controlled WITHOUT direct force is subtle, practically
important, not at all obvious with regard to its potentials and limitations,
and so deserving of exploration far beyond rubber-banding, in my opinion.

The pervasiveness of manipulation argues for a theoretical account, based on
PCT, which isn't biased by pre-judging the enormity of its effects so as to
support a "but (if you don't beat me up) you really can't hurt/help me -- only
I can do that" mentality.

-----

>Dennis Delprato (920903)

>Greg, I don't get the point of all the quotations from Fred Skinner
>on control.  You sum up: "In short, for Skinner, the results of one
>person's responses to his/her environmental stimuli (which CONTROL
>him/her) can be another person's CONTROLLING stimuli."  Do you
>mean he is a strange bedfellow for himself?  Seriously, what is
>the message I am missing?

The "strange" referred to some of Skinner's ideas (in particular, those on
"control") being so different from some PCT ideas as to be, I suspect,
mutually incomprehensible to parties on either side who aren't extraordinarily
broadminded. The "bedfellows" referred to some of Skinner's ideas (in
particular, those on "statistics") being similar to some PCT ideas.

>Skinner's thinking is more advanced than that of the typical
>psychologist, hopelessly behind that of others, and he is
>extremely careful in his selection of words and their organization.
>The effect of the latter is that it is virtually impossible to pin
>him down--he's slick.

Another point I was trying to make is that he wasn't dumb. (Or, to belabor a
point, inconsistent: once again, because he said that one's RESPONSES to
controlling stimuli can provide others' controlling stimuli. This ploy makes
Rick Marken's quest for a "paradox of Skinnerian 'control'" hopeless.

>Too bad Runkle cited not one (as I recall) Skinner-inspired paper on actuarial
>vs. single-subject research.  Don't know where Phil has been since 1938.

You mean Phil RUNKEL. I, in turn, don't know why it took so long for anybody
to follow up on Skinner's ideas. Guilt by association, perhaps?

Greg
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