A Natural Science of Behavior

Abstract

We are evolved organisms, and our selection in that evolution depended on what our ancestors were able to do. Behavior should not be viewed as a symptom of something else, such as mind or brain; it is worthy of study in its own right. Psychology these days is like a biology without natural selection. The argument here is that psychology as a science cannot survive other than as a science of behavior. The selection of behavior by its consequences is not universal but it is pervasive. This selection, one aspect of which is called reinforcement, is a central component of a science of behavior. Reinforcement is a phenomenon, not a theory. Yet even this most fundamental of behavioral processes is too often misconstrued, misrepresented and even disowned by some psychologists. Misuse of extinction and the myth of hidden costs of reward provide two examples. The selection of behavior by its consequences was as significant a development in the science of the 20th century as Darwin's account of evolution in terms of natural selection in the 19th. In addition to phylogenic and cultural selection, language necessarily involves a third variety, cultural selection. The selection of verbal behavior, as it is passed on among individuals, is an essential dimension of human behavior. Critiques of behavioral accounts of language have typically conflated questions about language structure with those about its functions. Treating language as verbal behavior brings it within the purview of a unified account of human action.