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

Behavior and Philosophy, 2003 by Ribes-Inesta, Emilio

The classification and definition of behavior into two classes, respondent and operant, was based on a particular operational criterion: the detection by the observer of a stimulus eliciting a response. The identification and classification of behavior was not explicitly based upon criteria assuming specific properties and functions derived from observation or experimentation. Concepts classifying behavior were based on the observational limitations of the experimenter. If a correlation of a stimulus eliciting a response could be identified, then that behavior was considered to be elicited (or respondent). If no eliciting correlation could be observed (although it was assumed always to occur), then the behavior was emitted and a correlation could be imposed with a stimulus following the behavior. The correlation between a response and a subsequent stimulus could be identified and defined as an operant.

Skinner (1938) justified this strategy by saying that "so defined a reflex is not, of course, a theory. It is a fact. It is an analytical unit, which makes an investigation of behavior possible. . . .Many traditional difficulties are avoided by holding the definition at an operational level" (pp. 9-10). However, a classification of behavior, conceived as the formulation of a scientific domain (Shapere, 1974), should state some properties and functions of the behavior being classified. The events defined by Skinner, contrary to his statement, were not "facts" understood as given empirical referents. Skinner defined the empirical limitations of the observer in trying to identify the environmental or other variables functionally related to behavior and the possibility of explicitly manipulating their occurrence. In classifying a given part of behavior as a respondent or an operant, nothing was said about the properties of the behavior being identified. Rather, the labeling of a part of behavior in any of the two ways actually consisted in the description and application of the observational criteria established the researcher. From my viewpoint, a classification of behavior properties built in terms of the operant-respondent distinction resulted in nothing more than a classification of the observer's limitations and procedures.

The distinction between contingency-shaped and rule-governed behavior was also based upon the observer's possibilities to identify or not a previous reinforcing stimulus as responsible for the occurrence of a new behavior. Skinner (1966, 1969), in his analysis of problem solving, established a difference between behaviors that are followed directly by consequences and behaviors that are evoked by contingency-related antecedent stimuli:

The response which satisfies a complex set of contingencies, and thus solves a problem, may come about as the result of direct shaping by the contingencies (possibly with the help of deliberate or accidental programming) or it may be evoked by contingency-related stimuli constructed either by the problem solver himself or by others. The difference between rule-following and contingency-shaped behavior is obvious when instances arc pretty clearly one or the other. (1966, p. 241)