IS BEHAVIORISM BECOMING A PSEUDO-SCIENCE?: POWER VERSUS SCIENTIFIC RATIONALITY IN THE ECLIPSE OF TOKEN ECONOMIES BY BIOLOGICAL PSYCHIATRY IN THE TREATMENT OF SCHIZOPHRENIA

Behavior and Social Issues, Fall 2006 by Wakefield, Jerome C

Wong is not alone in equivocating on what, exactly, he is claiming. This kind of equivocation is common in the behavioral literature. For example, consider Wilder et al. (2001). The authors first state in the abstract that they are examining "variables responsible for the maintenance of bizarre vocalizations" (p. 65), despite the fact that the notion that the factors they use to change the behavior are the very factors that were maintaining the behavior prior to the study is wholly speculative; as noted, the fact that a behavior is sensitive to reinforcement is not support for the claim that the behavior was entirely or even partially brought about or maintained by reinforcement. Then they say, "Although traditional accounts of these behaviors posit that they are symptoms of an underlying disorder, behavior analysts view these behaviors as a class of operants that are influenced by environmental contingencies" (p. 65), thus setting up a false dichotomy; behaviors caused by a disorder may be influenced by contingencies. There is also an evasive fuzziness regarding what it is for a scientist to "view something as" a certain kind of thing versus showing that the evidence supports the claim that it is that sort of thing.

After noting earlier studies in which vocalizations were influenced with differential reinforcement, Wilder et al. (2001) state: "These results suggest that these vocalizations in some individuals with schizophrenia may be maintained by, or at least are sensitive to, social consequences such as attention and escape" (p. 65). The latter disjunction covers a vast territory; being responsible for maintaining a behavior under natural conditions prior to treatment is utterly different than being capable of influencing the behavior during treatment. The rhetorically swift move from "may be maintained by" to "or at least are sensitive to" is in fact a scientifically major move between a theoretically strong etiological or maintenance explanatory claim to a much weaker claim about being able to have an effect on a symptom. This sort of equivocation on what one is claiming obscures the structure of the argument and makes it easy to avoid paying the falsificationist piper.

At any rate, how does Wong's inferred behavioral etiological account handle the obvious facts of psychotic behavior, in particular the resistance to extinction and the resilience and maintenance of psychotic symptoms even when the environment and associated contingencies change dramatically (e.g., family-of-origin versus institutional commitment versus deinstitutionalized homelessness or community placement)? The answer he offers elsewhere, provided without a shred of independent evidence, is that the symptoms must be very very well learned ("overlearned") due to unknown reinforcers:

Bizarre responses, most notably psychotic speech, will at times resist contingency management procedures...or will spontaneously recover over time...or when training has ended.... These results have been interpreted as showing that clients' underlying belief systems have remained intact despite behavioral training. However, multiform and persistent bizarre verbalizations can be parsimoniously viewed as generalized responses with a long history of intermittent reinforcement. After being positively and negatively reinforced by different people in various situations over many years, bizarre verbalizations could be overlearned responses that resist contingencies administered in circumscribed therapy sessions over mere weeks or months. Furthermore, it is difficult to prevent other patients, lay persons, and medical professionals from continuing to reinforce these verbalizations in the usual manner. (1996, p. 326)