Posted by alexandra_k on August 28, 2005, at 19:00:56
In reply to Re: Reinforcement of behavior, posted by henrietta on August 28, 2005, at 18:46:02
> Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that behaviorist approaches such as those under discussion here assume that the behavior in question is voluntary...
actually... the opposite is actually the case.
welcome to the law of effect:if an organism emmits a behaviour and that type of behaviour is reinforced then the organism is more likely to emmit that same type of behaviour in the future.
if an organism emmits a behaviour and that type of behaviour is punished then the organism is less likely to emmit that same type of behaviour in the future.and it is considered to be irrelevant what that organism believes, desires, wants, thinks, hopes, imagines, is aware of etc etc.
except...
that following 'rules in the head' f*cks things up a bit...
(sometimes people aren't sensitive to the reinforcement contingencies as they should be - they seem to be reinforcing / punishing themselves)and there is a problem with respect to defining 'kinds' of behaviours in a way which isn't circular... they typically say that a type of behaviour can be defined functionally with respect to what the function of a token instance is and if different tokens have the same function then they count as instances of the same type...
a problem is that all behaviour would seem to have the same function: attainment of a reinforcer.so... i guess whosoever works out the schedule of reinforcement determines the 'kinds' of behaviours that there are as well...
i dunno...
its hard to find people willing to talk about behaviourist theory...
poster:alexandra_k
thread:547344
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20050828/msgs/547807.html