INTERBEHAVIORAL FIELD PSYCHOLOGY*
Noel W. Smith
It should not be hard to find agreement that humans--and non-human animals as well--respond to objects and events around them. We might also agree that to respond to objects visually we must have light and to respond auditorily we must have sound. Perhaps most people have also noticed that how we respond to something depends on the situation in which it occurs. For example, a smile in a joyous circumstance would be perceived as happy, but the same smile in a tragic setting would seem evil or sadistic. It might be less obvious, but once it is pointed out we would probably agree that we respond to objects not so much on the basis of their physics or chemistry but on what they mean to us. A book is not just paper and ink but something that functions to provide us with reading material. It might also function as a paper weight, a door stop, or material for starting a fire. Just as any given object may have more than one function, so too, any response to an object may have more than one function. We may read the book to gain information or read for entertainment, but it is the same response of reading. Finally, we are all aware of the fact that we have a historical development and that as we encounter new things and situations these encounters influence our subsequent actions.
These are the ingredients of psychological behavior or interbehaviors. They comprise the interbehavioral field. Notice that all of them are observable and can be identified by anyone. Interbehavioral psychology insists that not only must we start with observables--unlike so much of psychology that starts with brain powers, information processing, memory storage, drives, minds, and other unobservables--we must also interpret our investigative findings in terms of these same observables.
Stimulus Functions
With a little more elaboration, the components of a psychological event sketched above will provide the fundamental program of interbehavioral psychology. The object that we respond to is called a stimulus object and the meaning or function that it has in any given situation is the stimulus function. The claim that we interact with stimulus functions eliminates the need to assume some unknown mental process that interprets the physical stimulus and gives it meaning. There are several types of stimulus functions, but an especially important one is the substitute stimulus function. If I look at my watch and decide it is time to go to my classroom, it is not the classroom that is stimulating me but the watch that substitutes for it. All "reminders" are stimulus substitutes. Similarly, the mouse trap that is sprung but holds no mouse becomes the substitute stimulus for inventing a better trap.
Interbehaviorism holds that all inventions, formulae, metaphors, poetry, fiction and non-fiction writing, remembering, inferences, financial transactions, myth, religion, theories, and scientific development involve mostly substitute rather than direct stimulus functions. A conversation, too, utilizes substitute stimulation in that the thing or situation that the speaker refers to and that the listener hears about is often not present.
Response Functions
The response to the stimulus consists of body activity, but the functional character of that response is the response function. We may go from A to B by walking or by riding a bicycle. They are different responses but have exactly the same response function of getting from A to B. We can also walk from A to B to get from one point to the other or we can walk from A to B for the exercise. In that case the response is the same but the function is different. As a further example, consider the following dialogue:
"Do you have any popcorn left?"
"Yes."
"Did you eat all of the popcorn?"
"Yes."
The "yes" is the same response but a different response function in the two instances. When a response and its response function occur it is a response to something, a stimulus object and its stimulus function. And when we are stimulated by an object we are responding. Neither can occur independently. Therefore, they are interdependent. This immediately replaces the notion of dependent-independent variables, the assumption that the response is dependent upon the stimulus and the stimulus stands independent of the organism. To show this interaction or mutual relationship between stimulus and response, interbehaviorism uses a double headed arrow: R<-->S (see Fig. 1). Because of this interdependence, whether we say that a book stimulates us to read it or that we respond to it as something to read depends entirely on which side of the interaction we wish to emphasize.
Setting Factors
The smile that seemed so different in the two settings is an example of a setting factor. Similiarly, the plant that we regard as pleasant beside the stream but a nuisance in our garden is another example. Setting factors can be either part of the organism or external to the organism. (a) Examples of organismic setting factors: When we have a cold we respond to things differently than when we feel well. If we go to a grocery store before a meal we buy more than if we go after a meal. Similarly, a person who is ordinarily mild-mannered might be ready for a fight when drunk. (b) Examples of setting factors external to the organism: Usually we interact differently with an instructor in the classroom than in his or her office or in a bar. Settings also operate with non-humans: a dog that barks at people from its home area, its territory, usually will not do so when walking down a sidewalk or street that is not its territory. The varieties of non-organismic settings are almost infinite.
Media of Contact
According to the interbehaviorist, every object that we see, hear, smell, taste, etc. occurs by means of a medium. Sound waves are necessary for hearing and a light for seeing. Interbehavioral psychology insists that we must not confuse media with stimulus functions. If we do confuse them, we might conclude that we don't see a flower but only light waves; we don't hear a siren but only sound waves. Those psychologies that assume that a medium is the stimulus have to invent some mechanism to convert the vibrations back to an appearance of the object. That mechanism is a hypothetical brain or mind power that then produces an appearance of the object "out there". The interbehaviorist holds that we don't see or hear waves and then "mentally" interpret. Rather, we see or hear objects--not waves of energy--that have meanings in accordance with our past histories and present settings. "To lose sight of the genuine distinction between media and stimuli spells disaster for the whole psychological system" (Kantor, 1924, p. 55).
Interactional History and Personality
Finally, our history of interactions is of utmost importance. From the time of our birth until the time of our death we continue to develop our interactional history and this influences everything we do. It is, of course, interdependent with stimulus functions and response functions: We develop these functions from our history with objects and conditions; and even the effect of settings is influenced by our history with them. Functionality is even more important in psychology than it is in biology, for "organisms do not simply react to objects on the basis of their physiochemical properties but also on the basis of their functions developed in previous interbehavior" (Kantor, 1978, p. 145).
Up to this point the descriptions have been of what the system identifies as component events of the field. But our responses are not isolated. Every action influences every other action, and these successions of mutual influences develop into organized ways of performing that form a unity. That unity is personality, the stable and enduring organization of responses of each individual. Kantor has also called this unity behavior equipment to indicate the complex system of behaviors that individuals develop that equip them to meet the equally complex situations that they encounter.
Field or Behavior Segment
Each such behavior segment is specific and unique. Interbehaviorists call this the specificity principle. Pronko (1988) notes about specificity that "If you want to know the planets of the sun in any thorough fashion, you will have to focus on them individually, for each is unique" (p. 208). One cannot give a single explanation of why some students spend their time in bars rather than maximizing their academic opportunities or why some abused children grow up to abuse their own children and some become good parents. Each instance, the interbehaviorists insist, involve a unique complex of field factors, although similarities may permit grouping and generalization. Generalizations are made up of descriptions and interpretations; and these, too, are "born of specificities" (Kantor, 1978, p. 153). The consequences of specificity include (a) pointing us to observable events of the field, (b) replacing vagaries and abstractions with concrete events, and (c) directing us to interdependent relationships (Pronko, 1988). Stephenson (1953) observes that specificity is "the principle by which the scientist keeps his feet firmly planted on reality. Without it he loses himself playing a scientific game according to rules" (p. 341) rather than according to observation
Kantor has written the interbehavioral field as PE = C(k, sf, rf, hi, st, md), where PE is the Psychological Event, C is the interdependence of the factors in the field, k = specificity of each behavior field, sf = stimulus function, rf = response function, hi = interactional history and md = medium of contact. At first glance, the complex interdependence of field factors may seem to be too much to deal with; but interdependence is more realistic than simple causation by single events, and we might as well get on with dealing with the complexity realistically. Further, it is possible to study some of the components in relative isolation, but they must always be put back into the field and their interdependence noted: "any factor dissected out for research purposes must always be handled with direct reference to the entire unit from which it was taken" (Kantor, 1959, p. 19). This is much like the biologist's procedure. The biologist may extract a component of the organism--structural or functional--for study but then must examine it in its relationship with other components. As the review of research below will show, some investigators have successfully studied concurrent multiple factors.
The failure to consider the various field factors is what leads to the invention of unscientific constructs. For example, Gewirtz (1967) had proposed a drive to account for his experimental results with children; but upon learning about setting factors he was able to turn from the unseen drives to observable events of the setting. Similarly, the interbehaviorist notes, brain processing, mind, consciousness, and other hypothetical powers are invoked from the culture or from analogies with other sciences (information processing, for example) when concrete specifics of the field are overlooked.
Note that interbehaviorists specify the functional details of the action rather than resorting to a general explanatory abstraction. In this case and in all others they propose no internal causes such as mind, information processor, or drives. Nor do they propose an external cause of environmental conditions, for they assume no internal-external dichotomy. Nor is there any place in the integrated field for such abstractions to fit, and none of them are necessary or even useful in the system. When the specific functional relationships of field factors have been described, that completes the scientific account just as it does with any other event in nature. This description of the components of a natural event in strictly observational terms is the way in which a scientific psychology must proceed.
Summary and Conclusion
An interbehavioral field consists of seven interrelated components: a responding organism and its response function, a stimulus object and its stimulus function, setting factors, interactional history, and media of contact. Any given object might become a stimulus object but its functional characteristics can vary widely. A ruler as a stimulus object can be something with which to measure, to draw a straight line, to tap time to music, to flip away an insect, etc., depending on our interactional history with it and the setting conditions in which we interact with it. It is these functional characteristic of stimulus objects that provides meanings of things that are relatively independent of the physical makeup of the stimulus object. Corresponding to the stimulus function is the response function. A single response can have any number of different functions. The response of holding up one's arm could be to relieve a cramped position at a keyboard or to raise a question in a class. Similarly, two different responses could have the same response function, such as raising one's hand or calling out "question". The organism's continuing history of interactions makes for both continuity and change as does similar or different settings in which the interactions take place. In the case of perceiving we must add the medium of contact, such as light or sound, that is also important in the interaction. The psychological event is comprised of the interaction of these interdependent events and is irreducible to any of them. Consequently, the brain is recognized as a necessary coordinating organ for the organism, and a particular species' biological organization enters into the field to set limits or provide possibilities for what that organism can do. But neither the brain nor the whole organism determines the event. Nor does the environment. In fact there is no determiner as such at all but rather ongoing interactions or interrelationships developing historically. To put it another way, organisms are inseparable from their context and their history. In sum, a psychological field involves the interaction of a specific response function of a specific organism with a specific stimulus function with a specific interactional history in a specific setting.
REFERENCES
Gewirtz, Jacob L. (1967). Deprivation and satiation of social stimuli as determinants of their reinforcing efficacy. In Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology, Vol. 1, ed. by John P. Hill. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota.
Kantor, J. R. (1924). Principles of Psychology, Vol. 1. Knopf.
Kantor, J. R. (1959). Interbehavioral Psychology: A Sample of Scientific Science Construction. Bloomington, IN: Principia.
Kantor, J. R. (1978). The principle of specificity in psychology and science in general. Méxicana de Análisis de la Conducta, 4, 117-132.
Pronko, N. H. (1988). From AI to Zeitgeist: A Philosophical Guide for the Skeptical Psychologist Greenwood.
Stephenson, William (1953). The Study of Behavior: Q-Technique and Its Methodology. University of Chicgo Press.
*Based on two sources by the author: (a) presentation at a workshop "J. R. Kantor's Interbehavioral Psychology: Beyond Mechanism and Mentalism", Cheiron Society, Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana, June 27-30, 1996 and (b) a book in preparation: Current Systems in Psychology: Theory, Research, and Applications. Chicago: Nelson-Hall.