WHAT IS DEFINED IN OPERATIONAL DEFINITIONS? THE CASE OF OPERANT PSYCHOLOGY

Behavior and Philosophy, 2003 by Ribes-Inesta, Emilio

ABSTRACT: With S.S. Stevens, operationism became an important influence in psychology. In this paper I discuss the differences between Bridgman's and Stevens' proposals on operationism and the role that operational definitions play in scientific theory. I discuss how Stevens' notions of the basic act of discrimination and of the relation procedure-outcome influenced B.F. Skinner's criteria under which the main conceptual distinctions in operant psychology were formulated. The operational origin of the dichotomies between respondent and operant behavior, contingency-shaped and rule-governed behavior, private and public events, and verbal and nonverbal behavior are examined.

Key words: operational analysis, operational definitions, private-public events, operant-respondent behavior, contingency-shaped and rule-governed behavior

Since S.S. Stevens' emphasis on operational definitions in 1935, psychologists have incorporated this type of definition as an attempt to increase the objectivity of their theoretical and experimental efforts. Although operationalism as such is not explicitly acknowledged in present theoretical practice in psychology, Stevens' version of it still has an implicit, pervading influence. The customary practice of identifying processes with procedures or with the analogy of machine and models workings is not unrelated to operationism. In this paper I will examine the role of operational definitions in theorizing in psychology and the influence that operationism had on B.F. Skinner and the development of what is called today operant psychology.

First I examine Bridgman's and Stevens' proposals regarding operationism. Second, I discuss the way in which operationism influenced the construction of operant theory and its limitations, especially in regard to the identification of the empirical domain to be studied.

Operationism as Proposed by Bridgman and Stevens

In 1927 Bridgman published The Logic of Modern Physics. In this book he proposed the operational analysis (not the definition) of concepts in order to adapt the concepts of physics to the innovations resulting from Einstein's theory of special relativity. In 1935 S.S. Stevens published The Operational Definition of Psychological Concepts, promoting the incorporation of Bridgman's operational analysis as a general methodology of science, in which psychology would have a prominent role. However, solid arguments distinguish between the proposals by Bridgman and Stevens and identify the actual influence exerted by S.S. Stevens upon B.F. Skinner and the way operant theory was developed.

Houts (1994) has summarized the relevance and context of Bridgman's operational analysis thus:

First, it should not be forgotten that Bridgman developed operational analysis as his means to cope with the specific context of the conceptual revolutions brought about in physics at the turn of the century and into the first quarter century of modern physics. The major shift of thinking that Bridgman perceived and attempted to illustrate by repeated examples of analysis was a shift from taking concepts to refer to properties of objects to taking concepts to refer to activities of the physicist. In this sense, concepts such as length and velocity were achievements of humans acting on the world rather than signifiers of properties of the world. Concepts were therefore never fixed, but were instead subject to constant change as a function of new experimental and measurement procedures that humans devised to interact with the physical world. Second, human language use was itself subject to operational analysis, and the meaning of words was to be found, not in terms of the objects to which the words pointed, but instead to the conditions that occasioned the production of a particular word. Words could be shown without meaning when it could be shown that the only occasion for their use was to modify other words in an endless chain that failed to contact some concrete practical activity of the scientist. Third, Bridgman rejected the idea that the domains of logic and mathematics held some a priori truth criteria apart from their practical utility as rules for guiding action with respect to physical operations. Finally, each of these basic tenets of operational analysis were on Bridgman's view themselves reflexively subject to revision and change through further operational analysis. In other words, operational analysis was itself a relativistic enterprise constrained by the limits of human activity in relationship to the physical world, (pp. 111-112)

Bridgman (1927/1953) considered that Einstein's special relativity theory had profoundly changed the logic under which the concepts of physics were formulated. According to Bridgman, what Einstein did was change the criteria on which concepts were based by showing that the meaning of a concept was relative to the physical operations of the observer in determining its values and conditions of occurrence. According to Bridgman, terms such as "simultaneity" or "length" had different meanings depending upon the theoretical context under which observations were made. Bridgman concluded that Einstein highlighted that "the true meaning of a term is to be found by observing what a man does with it, not by what he says about it" (p. 37).