Toward a functional analysis of “scientific” verbal behavior: A preliminary essay.

Science is the most complex of human processes. Skinner (1945) presented the hope of establishing a functional analysis of scientific practice. He suggested this practice could begin by using the principles of behavior to explore the behavior of the scientist in the use of key terms. In 1956, Skinner turned this process on his own behavior and began exploring the factors that lead to his scientific choices. Skinner (1974) described science as the behavior of scientists. While this is the case, it hardly begins to scratch the surface of how scientists come to know the world around them. Since Skinner's description of his research program few have undertaken the cause of an experimental analysis of the scientific process. ********** Since science is a very effective way of knowing, experimentally studying this process can produce greater outcomes in the future. The process could begin with observations of scientists, much the same way that manager behavior in the natural environment was observed (e.g., Luthans, Hodgetts, & Rosenkrantz, 1988). This behavior could be used to inform basic instruction on producing scientists. Not all of science leads to solutions. Indeed many good researchers have spent years pursuing research agendas that have failed to demonstrate outcomes. This process of escalation or resistance to extinction may last for many years. For example, in spite of mounting evidence of the failure of the over justification hypothesis to lead to greater prediction and control of performance decrements after the removal of a reward (i.e. Cameron & Pierce, 1995; Eisenberg & Cameron, 1996), those who held such a view have continued to advocate their position even stronger. Science can be seen as a process of rule discovery (Cerutti, 1989; Skinner, 1956) or the process of tacting "autoclitic frames" (Skinner, 1957). A definition of autoclitic frames is as follows: ... Something less than full-fledged relational autoclitic behavior is involved when partially conditioned autoclitic 'frames' combine with responses appropriate to specific situations. Having responded to many pairs of objects with behavior such as the hat and the shoe and the gun and the hat, the speaker may make the response the boy and the bicycle on a novel occasion. If he has acquired a series of responses such as the boy's gun, the boy's shoe, and the boy's hat, we may suppose that the partial frame the boy's is available for recombination with other responses. The first time the boy acquires a bicycle, the speaker can compose a new unit the boy's bicycle. This is not simply the emission of two responses separately acquired. The process resembles the multiple causation of Chapter 9. The relational aspects of the situation strengthen a frame, and specific features of the situation strengthen the responses fitted into it." (p. 336) It could be argued that autoclitic frames hold "rules" together. Under ideal conditions of rule discovery occurs because it leads to effective nonverbal action. Exploration of such conditions may lead to improvements in the scientific process. For example, the rule "Under conditions of x at y temperature, then z will occur" over time becomes a tact (under stimulus control of the environment, see Baum, 1995 for rule tacting). However, under nonideal conditions what appears to be a tacted rule may actually be an intraverbal (under control of collateral social contingencies and under stimulus control of the social conditions, see Guerin, 1992). For example, many of us in the early 1980's were pleased to find that "psychotherapy benefits people of all ages as reliably as schooling educates them, medicine cures them, or business turns a profit." (Smith, Glass & Miller, 1980, p. 183). This conclusion was supposedly reached after a careful meta-analysis was done of years of psychotherapy research. Indeed the citation is found in most introductory counseling and clinical psychology texts. …