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Blog Continued
Continued from previous page
What Ever Happened to Conditioning? (5/1/11)
When I was an undergraduate in the late 50’s (so very, very long ago), I took an abnormal psychology course that
was taught by a strict Behaviorist. It was, in effect, an attempt to account for various mental problems in terms of classical
and operant conditioning. The course was an intense intellectual exercise but, ultimately, unsatisfying. On the other hand,
it was a fairly unique experience because shortly thereafter the first cognitive revolution began and courses of its kind
disappeared. You
don’t hear much these days about conditioning as the basic building block of behavior, but if you discount some of the
archaic behaviorist ideology and language, the bare-bones of classical and operant models make a lot of sense (Endnote). They
are important components of The Theory, in the form of cognitive contingent and non-contingent rules (Chapter 4 of The Book). I’m sure others
have done the same thing, but I first reformulated the two conditioning models as cognitive rules in an introductory text
that was published in 1973 (which sold well in small Japanese Christian women’s colleges and nowhere else). The idea
is that in classical conditioning, the subject learns to expect specific events to follow from other events; to the degree
that the expectation is reliable, it is a rule that can be used to guide subsequent behavior. This is a non-contingent rule,
also called a What-to-expect rule. Thus, in Pavlov’s experiments, the dogs learned to expect food when the experimenter
rang a bell. In most discussions of Pavlov’s work, salivation is identified as the learned response. But this isn’t
accurate. What the dogs learned was to expect food when the bell rang. Salivation is a dog’s natural reaction to anticipated
food so it didn’t have to be learned. In fact, the only role salivation played was as a way for Pavlov to tell that
the dog had come to expect food when it heard the bell.
It is interesting that Pavlov never used the Russian equivalent of the English word “conditioning.” He
used the Russian word for “conditional,” meaning that salivation was conditional upon the bell being rung—a
simple contingency with no mechanism implied. Moreover, the reliability with which salivation occurred when the bell was rung
depended upon food being reliably presented—another simple contingency with no mechanism implied. It was the Behaviorists,
who were looking for laws of behavior similar to the laws of physics, who changed “conditional, a contingency, into
“conditioning,” a mechanism, and reliability of food presentation, another contingency, into “reinforcement,”
another mechanism. Behaviorists pretty much agreed that some sort of linking of the stimulus (the bell) and the response (salivation)
occurred as a result of reinforcement (the food), but exactly what was the linkage entailed was hotly debated. More important,
they all agreed that this sequence of events constituted the law they needed to account for behavior acquisition. The Behaviorist
movement was an attempt to construct a science of behavior using this law as the fundamental building block. As
it turned out, what the Behaviorists wanted to do was impossible. The stumbling block was purposive behavior, which couldn’t
conveniently be accounted for using Pavlovian classical conditioning (although a good Behaviorist would never have use the
word “purposive”). B. F. Skinner came to the rescue by proposing a second law of behavioral acquisition, operant
conditioning. “Operant” meant that the subject, a rat or a dog or a person, acted (operated) upon some feature
of the stimulus environment in order to produce something, a reinforcement. In Behaviorist terms, the food-deprived rat in
the Skinner Box becomes conditioned to press the bar for food pellets. Which is to say, the stimuli provided by the box and
the bar come to elicit the bar pressing response because it is reinforced by the appearance of food. In The Theory’s
terms, this is a contingent rule, also called a What-to-do rule, and it also involves expectation. When it is in the Skinner
Box, the rat learns to expect food when it presses the bar.
This second law of conditioning gave the Behaviorist interpretation of behavior greater flexibility and, in fact, allowed
it to plausibly account for almost any simple behavior to which it was applied. Complex behavior was assumed to be the result
of complex chains of classical and operant conditioned behavior. The Behaviorist accounts of mental problems that were supplied
by the instructor in my long-ago abnormal psychology class consisted of conjectured chains of conditioned responses—where
the emphasis is on conjectured.
The problem with the Behaviorist experiment could not have been apparent to those involved in it. They took as their
model a reductionist view of the physical sciences, a model that, if it ever was accurate at all, certainly was inaccurate
by the time they adopted it. Although the concept of emergent systems hadn’t been invented yet, they in effect approached
behavior as a weak emergent system (see previous blog) the properties of which are directly traceable to its component’s
properties, in this case classical and operant conditioning. As a result, they attempted to impose reductionist, weak emergence,
research methods, models, and theories upon behavior, which is, in fact, a strong emergent system. And it didn’t work. I’ve always thought
that the work of Albert Bandura was the usher at Behaviorism’s funeral. He talked like a Behaviorist, but he used the
language of conditioning so loosely, and in ways that would have been foreign to both Pavlov and Skinner, that he essentially
gutted its meaning. The precise reasoning of the true believers gave way to nothing more than imprecise use of their terminology.
And, while doing this, Bandura and others like him prepared the way for the first cognitive revolution—based upon the
computer as a metaphor for mental processes—by releasing psychology from the stranglehold of Behaviorism.
Notwithstanding its excesses, the Behaviorist experiment was valuable. It taught us to think about mental processes
without the baggage of mind and free will and all the other entanglements inherited from religion and mentalism. It taught
us to think like scientists and how to do rigorous research, albeit of a very restricted, over-controlled nature. But we mustn’t
overlook the other thing it taught us, the ubiquity of what was called conditioning and now must be called rule learning.
Although they are not the fundamental building blocks of behavior, contingent and non-contingent rules, together with normative
rules, are fundamental to forecasting and to planning, both of which are central to narrative thought and narrative-based
action. Endnote
Aversive conditioning is central to some treatments for drug and alcohol addiction, and it works for lots of people. It works
by making the bad effects, the hangover or “crash,” occur immediately upon ingestion of alcohol or insertion of
the needle rather than hours or days later. This form of treatment is based on studies with rats, so all that research on
conditioning wasn’t wasted. The same mechanism accounts for cancer patients becoming averse to particular foods that
they ate shortly before becoming ill from treatment. Aversive conditioning appears to be very basic survival mechanism for
all animals, including us. We come to dislike something we ingest just before becoming ill (although it can happen for things
other than food too). It appears to be an evolved mechanism to teach us to avoid things that make us sick. Enter
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The Narrative Urge (updated 8/28/11)
The Theory of Narrative Thought posits that narratives are the vehicle for structuring our experience so we can understand
what has happened in the past, what is happening now, and what will happen in the future. Insofar as a narrative is “good,”
we tend to believe that it is true. A “good” narrative is both coherent and plausible. Coherent means that events
(effects) in the narrative are accounted for by other events (causes) and plausible means that the actions of both animate
and inanimate actors in the narrative are consistent with the actions of those or similar actors in other narratives. In short,
we assume causality and stability.
Because narratives are the primary, perhaps the only, way we have to understand our experience, it is not surprising
that we are motivated to construct them when none exist and, having done so, we are motivated to improve them so they we can
believe and rely upon them. The motivation to construct and improve narratives is called the narrative urge. The narrative urge results
from our need to understand and control our psychological and physical environment-- what’s going on in our bodies and
minds and what’s going on in the world around us. The degree to which we elaborate and verify a narrative depends upon
how important (values) it is to understand and control the sphere the narrative is about. If you don’t much care about
politics, for example, your narrative about it will be less elaborate and you will make less effort to improve it than for
narratives about something you care about.
Understanding the narrative urge is important because it casts light on so much of what humans do, both individually
and culturally. Individually, each of us constructs chronicular narratives to account for our ongoing daily experience. We
share these stories with friends and family (or, in these electronic times, with total strangers), editing in light of their
criticisms and contributions. The tendency is to revisit and hone narratives in light of new insights and further information.
This is particularly true for Big Issues such as how childhood experiences influence who we are now, the meaning of life,
why bad things happen to good people, what constitutes the well-lived life, what makes people tick, why some people make good
decisions and others don’t, and so on. The two Big Issues that seem to be addressed by everyone, or at least by every
culture, as far back as records exist, are about the place of humans, and the individual, in the larger world and about the
place of the larger world, and the individual, in the greater, cosmic, scheme of things. Over millennia some of the private
narratives created to address these two Big Issues have become public narratives that have been extended and developed into
the elaborate explanatory and procedural paradigms we call science and religion. The paradigms advanced
to address Big Issues are seldom unique. Indeed, because there are multiple narratives for each issue, it perhaps is best
to think of categories and sub-categories of narratives about each issue. In the public sphere, the multiplicity of narratives
in a category is contested in the marketplace of ideas. Any talk show on TV or radio is an example of such a marketplace,
as are scientific journals, polemic books, and all the other methods of presenting competing narratives and arguments for
their adoption. From
the individual’s perspective, most of the narratives we use early in our lives are acquired from our parents, community,
and education. When experience leads us to question the adequacy of these pre-packaged narratives, if it ever does, we must
select an alternative from the category or sub-category—or, construct a wholly new one of our own. Constructing a new
narrative is hard work and a little frightening because it puts us out of step with those around us. People like John Calvin,
Martin Luther, or Martin Luther King threatened more people than inspired, although their narratives prevailed in the long
run. Most of us take an easier path, simply adopting a narrative recommended by a trusted source or, in much the same vein,
adopting the narrative that fits most easily with our narratives in related areas. We like to think we’re clever and
original, that our beliefs are based on hard evidence, but it isn’t so. Indeed, aside from their One Big Thing, Calvin,
Luther and King adopted their other narratives just the way the rest of us do. Science is the one place
where evidence usually determines which of a number of competing narratives is accepted by scientists who work in that area.
This competition is broadly recognized as an integral part of science and is considered a good thing because there are rules
about what constitutes admissible evidence for resolving the competition, or at least for giving more credence to one answer
than to another. This is in contrast to religion, which also offers multiple paradigms, but in which competition has never
been regarded as a good thing. This is because the admissible evidence, faith and personal testimony, can be offered in equal
measure by all religions, so there is no way to resolve the competition among competing religious narratives. Competition
between science and religion is equally irresolvable because the evidence offered by one is not admissible for the other. Of
course, science and religion are only two Big Issue narratives—or, more correctly, two categories of narratives. The
important point of all of this is that the two reigning narratives of our time, science and religion, both result from the
narrative urge, as do nationalism, political ideologies, economic philosophies, and so on. For all that they differ, they
have common roots in the human need to feel in control. The basis of control is understanding and our mechanism for understanding
is narrative. Even when the evidence for their veridicality is absent, or suspect, we find our narratives preferable to the
void they are designed to fill.
Two Narratives: The Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street (11/17/11) The
media have been quick to compare the Occupy Wall Street movement to the early days of the Tea Party. They are said to be similar
because they each are rooted in that outrage about current political and economic conditions in America. They are said to
be different because they attribute these conditions to different causes and they prescribe different remedies. These comparisons
may be true, but they don’t contribute much to our understanding of the import of the two movements nor of their lasting
impacts. The purpose of this essay is to look at the two movements and their implications in terms of their underlying narratives. The Tea Party Movement I
can’t pretend that I agree with the Tea Party so my analysis of their narrative may be rather inaccurate. But the point
is less my ability to accurately capture their narrative than the fact that they have one and what it implies for them as
a movement.
In times of economic trouble, people in general feel unease and seek to understand what led to the current state of
affairs, presuming that identification of causes will reveal remedies. The Tea Party narrative seems to me to be based on
the axiom that “the government isn’t the solution, it is the problem.” The narrative flows from this is
simple, although the implications are complex: Beginning with FDR and the Democrats during the Great Depression, government
has expanded until it intrudes in nearly all aspects of our lives. The major reason for this growth is the imposition by Liberals
of an ever increasing list of regulations and entitlements. These regulations and entitlements threaten liberty, stifle individual
initiative, and discourage job creation by businesses. As government expands to handle the expanding list of regulations and
entitlements, it requires expanding revenues, so it imposes more taxes—which further stiffle initiative and discourage
job creation. When tax increases are resisted, it resorts to uninhibited borrowing, leading to a ballooning national debt
that will be passed on to our children and our children’s children.
This basic narrative line has different variations for different Tea Partiers, the most common of which is a conflation
of the political narrative and a fundamentalist Christian narrative. This leads to what outsiders consider as contradictions;
for example, the condemnation of government interference in citizens’ private lives coupled with demands for abortion
to be outlawed. But these are not contradictions to Tea Partiers because they define abortion as murder and murder allows—requires—the
government to interfere. Similar reasoning supports opposition to government interference and opposition to gay marriage,
sex education in the schools, and so on—God disapproves of homosexuality and pre-marital sex, so government interference
is justified.
Because the Tea Party narrative is generally coherent and plausible, it is compelling. And, because it is primarily
about opposition to big government, a remedy is both familiar and readily available—political activism and redress through
the ballot box. And this is precisely the route the Tea Party took; their grass roots organizing, coupled with national malaise,
led to a Republican majority in the House of Representatives at the midterm elections. Moreover, because of its demonstrated
political clout, the Tea Party exerted considerable sway over incumbents who were not indebted to it for their seats, thus
ensuring that the Republican agenda has largely followed the Tea Party’s line.
This is not to imply that the Tea Party has gone from public demonstrations of outrage to established political party.
It has never been sufficiently unified to form a third party and it has no clearly defined leadership—although many
claim to speak for it. Rather, its narrative is clear enough, and widely enough shared in Conservative circles, that a rigid
party leadership structure isn’t necessary for it to exert its influence. The narrative identifies the problems (big
government, taxes, over-regulation and too-generous entitlements as well as various issues that might be thought of as moral—abortion,
the death penalty, gay marriage, etc.) and the now-captured legislative process is the vehicle for their solution. Moreover,
prevention of future problems dictates that government be wrenched from the destructive influence of Liberals, primarily through
defeat of President Obama and election of majorities in both the House and Senate.
The Occupy Wall Street movement also has a narrative, although it is more fragmented than the Tea Party’s. It
is rooted in the same discontent that motivated the Tea Party, the bad economy. But, in contrast to the Tea Party, it attributes
the causes of economic problems to Big Business rather than Big Government. It laments the diminishment of the middle class
(and rather more incidentally, the poor) for which job loss, foreclosures, and shrinking incomes stand in stark contrast to
the soaring economic power of the wealthy. It decries the excessive bonuses paid executives, whether they succeed or fail,
particularly in firms that were bailed out using tax money.
In contrast to the Tea Party, the Occupiers’ narrative is neither coherent nor entirely plausible. There are
too many different kinds of grievances, no specific villain, and no obvious remedy. Grievances range from student indebtedness
to inequitable distribution of wealth to environmental issues, which doesn’t lend itself to a single narrative, largely
because there isn’t a single cause or identifiable set of causes leading the diversity of lamented effects. In short,
there isn’t a single overriding narrative—the outrage lying at the core of the movement is too diffusely directed
to allow one to emerge or even be imposed.
And, in contrast to the Tea Party, the Occupiers’ narrative, even if it were a single narrative, has no obvious
mechanism for bringing about desirable remedies. Because the Tea Party saw the government as the villain and government redress
is provided for by elections, its course was obvious. Because the Occupiers see so many different villains, each of which
may require a different mechanism for redress, it isn’t clear what course of action it should take. The role of government
in righting these wrongs is implied but never clearly specified.
The debate of the moment is about what will follow from the Occupy Wall Street sit-ins in parks throughout the country.
Detractors say that nothing will happen in the long run, that this thing will peter out as winter winds begin to blow. I think
this probably is correct if the expectation is that the Wall Street movement will follow the same course as the Tea Party
and become a focused political force. On the other hand, there is a good chance that the Wall Street movement already has
had a significant impact because it has brought attention to what, without their outrage, would simply be dry facts—the
greater monopoly of wealth by only a few people, extravagant bonuses, and all the rest. Indeed, if Democrats listen to the
Occupiers and address their concerns using the legislative process, the movement will have succeeded. That is, the lack of
narrative and the absence of a plan of action may make the Wall Street movement disappear, but if what they are saying, however
unclearly, influences the Democratic Party’s narrative, then the movement will not have been futile. Finally, I
recently discovered the work of Gene Sharp, a political scientist who has spent over 40 years studying nonviolent resistance
and civil disobedience. He often cited as the father of the Arab Spring uprisings, although it isn’t clear to me that
his work instigated the uprisings so much as it helps us understand them and supplies warnings to revolutionaries about what
not to do if they don’t want to fail. His premise is that political power derives from the governed; it is not intrinsic
to those who are in power. In short, government relies entirely on the willingness of the governed to be governed. This is
true even if the governed think they are unwilling, as long as they comply with the demands of their governors. (The governors
often try to give themselves legitimacy through alliance with religion (the divine right of kings, for example), or an ideology,
or tradition, but doing so requires that the governed affirm that the alliance is itself legitimate.) Once the governed stop
complying, however, the governors’ power is weakened. A people who refuse to be governed cannot be governed. If violence
is used by governors against nonviolent resistance or civil disobedience, the governors loses credibility in they eyes of
their own citizens as well as in the eyes of other governments—particularly democracies. By the same token, if civil
disobedience turns to violence, the government gains credibility if it uses violence to crush it. Hence, the message to transformative
movements is to avoid violence and resist being governed. As I write this, local governments are dispatching police to force
Occupiers out of the parks, prevoking violence as they do so. This is a harrowing time; if violence becomes widespread the
movement will lose its credibility and the use of violence against it will appear justified. It undoubtedly will weaken or
eliminate its influence on public discourse about the problems it is protesting and Democratic politicians will distance themselves
from it and from the issues it seeks to have addressed by those politicians.
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