Behavior's Big Bang Theory

First, I'd like to say my alliteration skills are still spot on. Second, this has nothing to do with the popular TV show, The Big Bang Theory. Sorry to disappoint (secretly I hope I tricked you, and you'll decide to stay anyways).

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.

Behavior: It's What You Do!

As far as undergraduate majors go, psychology is typically one of the more popular ones. This occurs for a variety of reasons, but I suspect the relatively easy course material plays the dominant role. Psychology has the sophisticated appearance of a science without all that pesky scientific rigor and prerequisite chemistry and biology work (not actually true). The theories and concepts put forth by people like Descartes and Freud sound very scientific and appear to explain why people act as they do. Unfortunately, Freud's theories suffer from the problem of being completely un-testable, which just doesn't fly with those who practice the scientific method. Additionally, his data came primarily from case studies, which are great for identifying problems and events that need explaining, but cannot be used as compelling empirical evidence. Despite this, pop psychology is immensely, um, popular because it uses cool words like transference and cognition and describes events we can relate to. But those are problems for another day. Instead, I am going to introduce behavior and how I was trained to view psychology from a behavioral perspective.

Behavior can be defined in several ways. So far, the most useful definition comes from a functional standpoint: A behavior is an action that solves an adaptive problem. An adaptive problem is a fancy term for some event that affects your fitness (reproductive success). For instance, say you are out for a nice evening stroll through the park. It is a pleasant night, and although you are annoyed that Tom didn't fax his request for additional copy paper before leaving for the day, you are ultimately in a good mood. As you pass by the rock formation shaped in the uncanny likeness of John Belushi, you encounter a very aggressive-looking lion. The presence of the lion (called the context, more on that later) presents you with an adaptive problem: Your fitness will decrease substantially if the lion is allowed to solve his adaptive problem (to my knowledge, there are no cases of successful reproduction when one partner is deceased. The internet may suggest otherwise). In any case, your response to the lion is a behavior. It might consist of fighting the lion, running away from the lion, bargaining with your choice of higher power, or attempting to persuade the lion that you are not a suitable source of food (what you end up doing depends on your behavioral and evolutionary history, but again, more on this later). What matters is that you were presented with a problem that would affect your fitness, and you responded in a manner to address that problem. Even mundane activities such as driving to work, checking your mail, and watching TV can be called adaptive problems, because they affect your ability to acquire/distribute resources or attract a mate. Behavior is everywhere, and you are doing it all the time.

(As a clarification, behavior is specifically what you do, never what you are not doing. Avoiding your homework is not a behavior because it fails the so called "dead-man test." If a dead person can do it, it isn't behavior) (Malott & Suarez, 2004)

There is also a special type of behavior that describes the transfer of information (essentially cues) between individuals. We, unimaginatively perhaps, call this type of behavior verbal behavior. Your speech and non-verbal communication is considered behavior because again, it solves adaptive problems (and involves a verbal episode, which is the exchange of discriminative stimuli). You might say, "Honey, please pass the salt" or "Did I tell you about the time I was attacked by a lion?" to initiate the verbal episode. The other person will respond, either continuing or concluding the episode. Verbal behavior also includes nonverbal actions like facial expressions, body language, sign language, and even ordinary signs, like those you might see on the road or warning you to wear a hard hat. Remember, if you do it, it is behavior (pending passing the dead man test).

Behavioral psychologists are usually less interested in the behavior itself, and more interested in the adaptive problems it may solve. Often times it is unclear what adaptive function a behavior serves, as in schizophrenia or depression. Sometimes the adaptive function is diminished over time or disappears entirely, but the behavior continues anyways, such as using eating utensils or consuming high-caloric foods. Luckily, the very principles that lead behavior astray can also help fix it.

Behaviorism is not a complicated subject. Many of the concepts and principles are intuitive and similar to concepts in other sciences (especially with respect to evolutionary theory). The core philosophy of behaviorism though, drastically contrasts the popular, dualistic notions of psychology, and it can be profoundly difficult to unlearn those notions. I promise however, that once you start seeing the world through behavior-colored lenses, it becomes much easier to identify problems and institute actions to fix them. After all, behavior is what you do. What could be simpler than that?


My information comes from my behavioral psych professor and these two books (both available on Amazon). If you're looking for much more detail on behaviorism and behavior, give these a read:
1. Principles of Behavior by Richard Malott and Elizabeth Suarez.
2. Understanding Behaviorism: Behavior, Culture, and Evolution by William Baum.