The Methodology of Behavior Study
William I. Thomas
A W. I. Thomas source pagehttp://www.brocku.ca/MeadProject/Thomas/Thomas_1928_13.html
Originally published as:
William Isaac Thomas. "The Methodology of Behavior Study." Chapter 13 in The Child in America: Behavior Problems and Programs. New York: Alfred A. Knopf (1928): 553-576.:
THE ULTIMATE object of scientific study is prediction, for with prediction we can have control. This is best accomplished by the experimental scientist. The chemist, for example, can predict and control, within limits, because he has learned by experience that certain materials in certain situations always behave in the same way. He can prepare his situations, introduce his materials and get uniform reactions. He is able to measure influence because his materials are stable and he can control all the influences reaching them, or if they change and enter combinations he is able to measure the changes and record the combinations and again predict. The scientist is able to determine a limited number of laws — that under given conditions given results will invariably follow. He is not, however, able to give a complete causal explanation of any phenomenon. He cannot, for example, explain completely why a certain wild rose bloomed under a certain hedge at a certain moment. In order to do this it would be necessary to begin with the formation of the material world, determine every force and measure every influence in the universe in the order of their reciprocal action down to the present moment.
The complete determination of the causation of any act of human behavior would be a task not less impossible than this. The chemist deals with elements which are relatively simple, while the behaviorist deals with actions which are in turn based on incommensurable physiological conditions — an incredibly complicated integration of endocrines, enzymes, blood chemicals, chromosomes, various nervous systems, behaving as a whole. Moreover, the material of the chemist is static, does not change from time to time, while the material of the behaviorist (the human organism) is itself evolving. The individual is changing, under influences which cannot be measured. His response in situations changes with periods of physical, mental and emotional maturation and as result of experiences in an endless variety of preceding situations. The student of behavior can therefore not hope to establish even the limited number of laws possible in the case of the exact scientist. He may hope to be able to determine that in certain situations certain reactions will usually follow. He will be able to make inferences but probably unable to establish laws. This would imply, then, not a complete but an adequate causal explanation of behavior.
It is desirable, therefore, to set up, if possible, a methodological procedure in behavior studies which will fix some limits to the behavior universe, as the scientist fixes some limits to the material universe, and at the same time give data for an adequate prediction and control.
At the close of chapter XI we presented a picture of the "inner [physiological] environment" as drawn by Claude Bernard — the environment in which the organism lives — and compared it with the outer environment —the world of outer space in which the organism behaves. The physiological system may be regarded as representing what the organism wants. If we could read the organism completely in terms of its morphology and chemistry we could predict what it wants. In his epoch—making study of the integrative action of the nervous system Sherrington points out that we cannot understand the reflexes unless we appreciate what they mean for activity. " The reflex action cannot be really intelligible to the physiologist until he knows its aim." [1] The structure represents, then, implicit behavior; the overt behavior is the process of satisfying the wants.
Among all the intricacies of the physiological system there are two major features of far-reaching consequences for behavior. One of them relates to the basic appetites and contains the so-called hunger and sex drives, representing the conditions of organic continuity — nutrition and reproduction. The other relates to the presence in the organism of certain preformed tendencies to behave in specific action patterns, whereby the organism is more or less predestined by its internal structure to behave in given ways. These unlearned action tendencies are the so-called instincts. While we do not wish to emphasize the importance of the "internal environment" for behavior studies — we wish, in fact, to minimize it —it is methodologically important to appreciate the role of these drives and instincts in their relation to the socially more important field of learned behavior.
In the following description of the gastric contractions of the newborn we see the mechanism of the hunger drive:
We have now made observations on a number of new-born infants, and on two pups, born 8-10 days before term, with results showing that the empty stomach at birth and in the prematurely born exhibits the typical periods of tonus and hunger contractions of the adult, the only difference between infant and adult being the greater frequency and relatively greater vigor of these periods in the young. In the case of the two pups, and in some of the infants, the observations were made before their first nursing. It is thus clear that in the normal mammal the gastric hunger mechanism is completed, physiologically, and is probably active some time before birth.[2]
Psychological interest has recently centered on the relation of the unlearned to the learned factors in behavior. In the scale of evolution below man unlearned behavior is the prevalent form of activity. Insectsmay be hatched, traverse their life cycle of predestined activities, feed, reproduce and expire within the duration of an hour. In his brilliant work, Wheeler[3] has exemplified the complicated unlearned activities of ant societies, and Herrick [4] has shown how several great action systems (insects, birds, mammals, man) approach different termini of structure and activity. Each reaches the limit of efficiency and perfection set by its morphological type and becomes static.
In contrast, man is distinguished in the organic scale by the feebleness of his unlearned action tendencies. He is obliged to learn almost everything and consequently is characterized by a learned habit system developed through his experiences.
Watson was the first to experiment with new-born children, taking them when they were an hour or more old, with a view to determining the presence of unlearned behavior tendencies. He was able to find only three instinctive reactions:
Fear: What stimulus apart from all training will call out fear responses; what are these responses, and how early may they be called out? The principal situations which call out fear responses seem to be as follows: (1) To suddenly remove from the infant all means of support, as when one drops it from the hands to be caught by an assistant … (2) by loud sounds… The responses are a sudden catching of the breath, clutching randomly with the hands (the grasping reflex invariably appearing when the child is dropped), sudden closing of the eye-lids, puckering of the lips, then crying; in older children possibly flight and hiding (not yet observed by us as " original reactions"). In regard to the age at which fear responses first appear, we can state with some sureness that the above mentioned group of reactions appears at birth.
Rage: In a similar way the question arises as to what is the original situation which brings out the activities seen in rage. Observation seems to show that the hampering of the infant's movements is the factor which apart from all training brings out the movements characterized as rage. If the face or head is held, crying results, quickly followed by screaming. The body stiffens and fairly well-co�rdinated slashing or striking movements of the hands and arms result; the feet and legs are drawn up and down; the breath is held until the child's face is flushed. In older children the slashing movements of the arms and legs are better coordinated, and appear as kicking, slapping, pushing, etc. These reactions continue until the irritating situation is relieved, and sometimes do not cease then. Almost any child from birth can be thrown into a rage if its arms are held tightly to its sides; sometimes even if the elbow joint is clasped tightly between the fingers the response appears.
Love: The original situation which calls out the observable love responses seems to be the stroking or manipulation of some erogenous zone, tickling, shaking, gentle rocking, patting and turning upon the stomach across the attendant's knee. The response varies. If the infant is crying, crying ceases, a smile may appear, attempts at gurgling, cooing, and finally, in slightly older children, the extension of the arms, which we should class as the forerunner of the embrace of adults [5]
If we now give our attention to two of these behavior factors, the physiologically based hunger and the psychologically based love, we see that each has eventually far-reaching behavior implications. We may assume that hunger will eventually lead to pursuit of game, manual skill, mechanical inventions, foresight, economy, property, conflicts, war, the state, etc. Similarly the instinct of love, expressing itself first in response between mother and child, will later function as the sex drive and have a long train of social consequences—courtship, marriage, family—with profound influence on behavior.
We have from Watson's list two other unlearned behavior reactions, anger and fear. He does not name curiosity, but it will appear later with further maturation of the organism, and lead to adventure, exploration, scientific interest, etc. There will also appear a train of other behavior traits which have been called instincts: Gregariousness (the herd instinct), acquisitiveness, instinct for self-preservation, instinct for workmanship, the artistic instinct, instinct for dominance ("will to power"), instinct of rivalry, etc. It would be possible to multiply this list almost indefinitely with the aid of a dictionary (pity, compunction, gratitude, religion, etc.) — a galaxy of psychological entities interacting by some sort of magic. These are probably all learned "attitudes", not instincts, but they are based on organic conditions, body chemistry and maturation of structure. These or the unlearned reactions may not be present today and present tomorrow, when the organism is riper, and they may appear only as a reaction to specific stimuli. Morgan, for example, describes the behavior of a moor-hen chick which had been swimming and practicing for some weeks but had never dived. On the appearance of a rough-haired pup it dived for the first time in its life.[6] Complicating the situation we have the endocrines, the enzymes, blood chemistry, mentioned above, providing a class of endogenous chemical-electrical stimuli. Thurstone [7] has even elaborated the point that, properly speaking, all stimuli are located within the organism itself, that the hunger contraction, for example, not the food, is the stimulus. Finally, we have the question of consciousness, whether it exists, when it appears, whether it is a special endowment or a linking-up of various reflexes, etc.
The traditional interpretations of behavior have worked from this approach and with these data. Focusing on " instincts," " consciousness," " original nature," they attempted to explain why the organism behaves in given ways in view of its internal nature and structure, and the attempt has led to a great deal of controversy and much confusion. On the contrary, we find that all the programs which we outlined in the preceding chapter are behavioristic. They ignore largely questions of the organic causation of behavior, the " why " of behavior reactions, and limit themselves to the observation, measurement and comparison of behavior manifestations —how the individual behaves in specific situations. This is precisely what the scientist does. He has learned to limit his problems to conditions which he can measure. He does not inquire why his materials behave in given ways but how they behave in given situations.
We are not anxious to discourage behavior studies from the standpoint of the mechanisms of the organism. On the contrary, it is very useful to have the data provided by Carlson on hunger and Watson on the "instincts" etc. In interpretation it is necessary to work with hypotheses, which are heuristic devices employed in the search for meaning — to be abandoned if the data do not provide a sufficient number of corroborations. The hypotheses should be as many as possible and for this purpose the data of the " inner environment," the unlearned and learned "attitudes", "norms", "values", "goals", etc., are useful. Sherrington's work on the nervous system, for example, will hardly be without value to the behaviorist, since the total situation contains the physiological and neurological. (In social studies, as in disputations, the inclination is great toward the "all or none" principle of interpretation.) But if we take a social situation involving the physiologically based hunger, and the psychologically based love of Watson's statement, a situation where a child is placed at birth in his mother's arms, and trace the reactions of both for a period of time, we shall find that measurable interpretations can be made in terms of the behavior expressions but not in terms of the behavior mechanisms.
To exemplify this we take some data from a study of new-born children made in Vienna. Working in the hospitals Hetzer and Tudor-Hart [8] divided 126 children into 9 groups of 14 each, the first group containing children 3 days old and under, and the last group containing those 4 to 5 months old, and experimenting with sound-stimuli, they observed the rate at which the child learns to separate out and give attention to the human voice among other sounds. All the children noticed all the sounds (striking a porcelain plate with a spoon, rattling a piece of paper, and the human voice) sometimes, but the reaction of the new-born to noise; in the first weeks was far more positive than the reaction to the voice, even to loud conversation: 92% of frequency to "ear-splitting" noises and 25% to the excited voice. But in the the week the proportion was about the same, and in the fourth week the reaction was more frequent to the voice. Here we begin to see the behavior of the child humanized by the prominence and function of mother or nurse in the situation. A process of conditioning has been going on — the human voice and feeding simultaneously. The voice has gained a significance over other sounds in the feeding complex, but at first the person speaking or the loudness or softness of the tone makes no difference. The voice has been associated with feeding, and angry tones have not yet been associated with punishment. The first specific reaction to the voice is a puckering of the lips, which appears in the third week. This is a pre-social reaction because it is not associated with any definite person, merely with a voice, any voice — a voice among other noises. The speaking person does not exist for the child. The voice stimulates the saliva reflex and if feeding does not follow the child will cry.