Developmental psychology.pdf

196 Learning and Information Processing
Figure 7.18
Reciprocal Conditioning. The cats'
behavior influenced the monk, just as
the monk's behavior influenced the
cats'.
1 ^^ ~^
cats appear
S,
monk coughs
Monk's Behavior
Cats' Behavior
Extensions of Conditioning Principles
In closing, we should make one final observation concerning the monk and the monastery
cats. Through the principles of conditioning, the monk controlled the cats and
thereby ate in peace. But according to operant conditioning, the cats, in turn, also
controlled him.
'Because I would do almost
anything to avoid hurting my
father's feelings, I taught myself at
an early age to laugh, or at least
smile, at his poor jokes. Each time I
laughed, however, I was increasing
the likelihood of his telling another
joke.
Conditioning as Reciprocal Operant conditioning often involves mutual
reinforcement. The response of one member supports the response of the other. This
situation is called reciprocal conditioning, for each person's behavior is a reinforcing
stimulus for another individual. The monk kept the cats running, but they kept him
coughing.
If we analyze this situation according to the components of operant conditioning,
the discriminative stimulus for the monk was the approach of the cats; his
response was to cough; and his reinforcement was that the cats ran away, leaving him
to eat his meal in peace. For the hungry cats, creeping toward a midday snack, the
discriminative stimulus was the monk's cough; their response was to run away; and
their reinforcement was to be removed from an anxiety-producing situation (Figure
7.18).
In operant conditioning an individual operates on his or her environment, and
the environment, which includes the living organisms in it, operates on the individual
as well. The parent controls the child, but as any parent knows, the child also controls
the parent.* A government creates and amends laws to control the people, but it does
so according to how well the people respond to them. There are exceptions to this rule—
including prisoners, the very elderly, and emotionally disturbed persons, who sometimes
have no control over their caretakers—but according to Skinner and his followers,
it applies in a broad way to most interpersonal relationships.
Conditioning and Thinking The monk, one must admit, also thought up this whole
scheme for training the animals in the first place. How do we understand this behavior
in terms of conditioning?
As a rule, psychologists interested in conditioning are not concerned with
thinking. They study overt responses instead, focusing on the monk's finding the sack,
catching the cats, and so forth. No psychologist can study everything, and those concerned
with conditioning prefer to limit themselves in this way, utilizing the concepts
of reinforcement, shaping, and chaining when referring to complex behavior. If the
monk had employed this same scheme earlier, or even parts of it, its reappearance in
this instance certainly would be explained on the basis of the reinforcement principle.
One radical approach to conditioning earlier in the history of psychology described
thinking as subvocal speech. Thinking, just like any other human activity, was
assumed to be based in some bodily reactions. The problem was that these reactions
could not be observed directly, and therefore thinking was considered beyond the realm
of appropriate scientific inquiry (Watson, 1925).
Today there is within the conditioning approach greater recognition of internal
or mental processes. Our thoughts are sometimes regarded as responses and the
imagined outcomes are considered reinforcement. Each new thought, or response, is
thus a reinforcement for the preceding one and a cue for the next one. The monk produced
internal chains in this fashion until he discovered the solution. Then he put the
solution into practice in an overt manner.