| Abstract: We argue that behavior analysis is a field theory. We begin by defining field and theory and then proceed from Skinner. In 1931, he defined behavior as a correlation of classes of Rs and Ss, not causal S?R relations. He also expanded his unit of analysis to R = f(S,A), where A stood for “third variables,” among them, conditioning (behavioral history) and drive (motivational operations). This was a unit of functionally related constituents, but not yet a field of all the necessary ones. In 1936, he discovered the operant and made the three-term contingency his unit of analysis, but again not a field. It did not include context (e.g., third variables) and awaited other constituents: behavior’s form and function, the form’s composition (physical), the media of contact (e.g., visual), and biology (e.g., evolution, physiology). Actually, Skinner did include them, but controlled for (or assumed) them. With all the necessary constituents, behavior analysis became a field theory. If this were explicit internally, other constituents might be controlled (e.g., contingencies) and different relations discovered (e.g., contextual) and, externally, Skinner’s science would not be so badly misunderstood (e.g., for omitting what it controlled), nor would its philosophy (e.g., as elementaristic, instead of holistic). |
| Target Audience: For the intermediate instruction level, the audience should be Board Certified Behavior Analysts. More specifically, they should have taken and passed courses on the conceptual foundations of behavior analysis (e.g., radical behaviorism) and the experimental analysis of behavior (or behavioral principles) and be conversant in B. F. Skinner's conceptual and empirical contributions to behavior analysis. |