When I spoke about behavior last time, my discussion was mostly limited to defining what it is and how we look at it. To recap, a behavior is anything you do to solve an adaptive problem, and we categorize it functionally rather than structurally. For example, opening a jar of pickles solves the adaptive problem of getting food, but we don't care exactly how you opened it. You could have twisted the lid off like the majority of individuals (let's be honest, the majority of individuals actually gave it to someone else to open), but you also could have hit the jar with a sledgehammer or treated it to some explosives a la Mythbusters. Each of these techniques would have opened the jar, but some work better than others. The twisting method is quick, easy to do, and requires minimal energy. Blowing up the jar is more pleasing to the senses, but it requires access to explosives and time to set them up, generates new adaptive problems (flying shrapnel, angry neighbors, destroyed kitchen, etc), and probably obliterates the pickles in the process. So, the next two logical questions to ask are, "Where does behavior come from?" and "How do we find the right one for the job?"
Now, when we ask for the origins of behavior, we are really asking, "What causes behavior?" There are several answers to this depending on your frame of reference. Physiologically, behavior arises as an emergent property (epiphenomenon if you will) from the behavior of multiple neurons (and their effector organs) working together. I would be more specific if I could, be we actually have not yet identified most behaviors to particular networks of neurons. If you filled a backpack with headphones, the resulting tangled mess would give you a good analogy for the complexity of the brain. Untangling the mess is the job of neuroscientists, neuropsychologists, and basically anyone whose title starts with neuro. Behaviorists such as myself stick to the macroscopic world (but we still find the microscopic interesting), dividing our causes into two categories: proximate and ultimate. A proximate cause is the immediate antecedent to the behavior. For the behavior of answering the phone, the proximate cause is the phone ringing. The ultimate cause is more difficult to explain, but suffice it to say, determines why you behave due to a history of reinforcement. For example, you have to drive from Point A to Point B. You take route #1, but it's rush hour and it takes a long time to get there. After doing this several times, you take route #2. It is still rush hour, but you get from A to B much faster. Now the weekend comes. You take route #1 and get to point B in about the same amount of time as route #2, even though it's the same time of day. Gradually, your response is shaped to taking route #2 during rush hour and route #1 during weekends. The route you take (response) due to rush hour + time of day (cues) is a result of a history of reinforcement. If someone asked you why you took route #2 during rush hour, your response summarizes the ultimate cause (It is faster than route #1). So, the proximate cause explains why you behaved in one way as opposed to another, and the ultimate cause explains how you developed that way of behaving.
The mistake most people make when talking about behavior is dismissing the ultimate cause. When a guy in line at the coffee store yells at the person serving his coffee, you may be tempted to say, "He yelled at the worker because he is a jerk." That explains everything right? Jerks yell at people; it makes sense. Unfortunately, by doing that, you fell into B.F. Skinner's 3rd circle of Hell. Your reasoning is actually circular reasoning; he yelled at the worker because he is a jerk, and the guy is a jerk because he yelled at the worker. The ultimate cause is much less visible, having occurred in the past and over a period time, so it is very easy to miss. Additionally, the ultimate cause may be a product of evolution, further obscuring it. Widespread obesity can be attributed to physiologic mechanisms that evolved to prevent starvation (epitomized in meme form as, "Eat all the things!").
At this point, I've provided a partial explanation for the origin of behavior. Tune in next time for the epic finale.
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