Applied Behavior Analysis: Niche Therapy Par Excellance

Wong (2006), and Wyatt and Midkiff (2006) focus on the social and economic factors that have promoted biological psychiatry and marginalized behaviorism in the contemporary treatment of problems in living and “mental illness.” I suggest an additional, perhaps even more central, reason is that biological psychiatry promises to increase autonomy while behaviorism is seen to constain freedom. If, as I also suggest, the human belief in agency and desire for autonomy are products of evolution, then biological psychiatry, unlike behaviorism, is agreeable with an important facet of human nature. From this perspective, several strategies that might enhance the social acceptance of behaviorism are briefly offered. The articles by Wong (2006), and Wyatt and Midkiff (2006) in this issue of Behavior and Social Issues address the same basic cultural phenomenon and arrive at the equivalent core conclusion: behaviorism has lost the mental health war for society’s mind and pocketbook. These authors put forth a brave front, as they try to rally the bedraggled behavioral troops. Wong argues that the political and economic drivers that propel the biomedical model’s hegemony in the treatment of psychosis are “based neither on logical arguments, empirical evidence, nor other elements of good science, so they should not deter behavior analysts or other researchers from continuing to explore alternative means of understanding and treating these disorders” (p. 170). He offers many suggestions where behavior analysts can potentially influence the system and effect constructive change. Wyatt and Midkiff contend that the interests of the psychiatric profession and the pharmaceutical industry converge in the promotion and dominance of a biological causation model of mental illness. They call “for a paradigm shift, away from extreme biological causation and toward an environmental causation model” (p. 147). Yet Wyatt and Midkiff are not sanguine that such a shift will occur in light of the enormous power that the psychiatric and the pharmaceutical groups wield. I share their pessimism, but perhaps on a different basis. Wong, Wyatt and Midkiff document the powerful ideological, economic, and political factors that have rendered empirical data irrelevant in the treatment of severely dysfunctional behavior, as exemplified by the stunning invisibility of Paul and Lentz’ (1977) landmark research on an institutional token economy program. Yet, beyond the seemingly obvious reality that behaviorism has lost the mind and the pocketbook of society lurks an additional cultural factor: Behaviorism has also lost society’s heart, or 1 Address correspondence to Richard F. Rakos, Department of Psychology, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH 44115; e-mail: [email protected]. APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS: NICHE THERAPY 186 perhaps more accurately, it never had it. Its failure to harmonize with society on an emotional level neutralizes its impressive intellectual and fiscal attractions. Ironically, behaviorism—an approach that explicitly values outcome and empiricism—is nevertheless marginalized by a blatantly pragmatic, scientifically-oriented society. The reason for behaviorism’s limited social presence may reside in an aspect of what is often called human nature. Recently, I suggested that the human belief in free will is an evolutionary psychological adaptation. That is, over the course of human history, those persons who believed they possessed an internal agency that permitted free choice were more effective in influencing their environment and in exerting self-restraint and, ultimately, more successful in producing offspring 2 (Rakos, 2004). This conceptualization further suggests that an internal “sense of autonomy” functions as a powerful primary reinforcer for humans (Rakos, 2005). Unfortunately, these innate human characteristics render overt behavioral control—the hallmark of applied behavior analysis—fundamentally distasteful to most people, both in the philosophy it embodies and in the operations it entails. In contrast, the offerings of psychiatry and pharmaceuticals possess far more general appeal because they support rather than attack the unlearned human desire for autonomy. The medical approach conveys to unhappy and dyfunctional persons that a biological problem—perhaps even a disease—is responsible for inhibiting the expression of free will, and that medication can restore or even expand agency. In effect, responsibility for behavior is redirected to a disease that can be treated through the low-effort response of medication ingestion that then increases the amount one experiences the “sense of autonomy” primary reinforcer. From this perspective, the various cultural factors that Wong, Wyatt and Midkiff identify bolster what is likely to be a natural human preference, confronting us with an even more daunting task: Can we capture the heart as well as the mind and pocketbook of society? The heart may prove to be the most difficult of the three to capture, if the resolute belief in free will is indeed an evolutionary adaptation. If natural and sexual selection have instilled in humans an inherent sense of agency that cannot be shaken by logic or evidence, then control of behavior that undermines or challenges the sense of autonomy will be experienced as unpalatable or even aversive. And it is overt, discernable behavior control—the kind favored by behaviorists (cf., Skinner, 1971)—that will most strongly impede a sense of autonomy, and in essence, diminish the amount of an important primary reinforcer that one can acquire. In fact, the constriction of autonomy may very well have been a main contributing factor to the impermanence of the experimental communities inspired by Skinner’s (1948) novel, Walden Two (Kuhlmann, 2005; Rakos, 2006). The ardent behaviorists who established these communities, and the behaviorallyinclined persons they recruited or attracted to the experiments, by and large wanted to be Frazier. Other observations also support the hypothesis that behaviorism itself, through its challenge to free will and autonomy, contributes importantly to its limited social 2 I theorize that the belief in free will functions as a motivating operation (Laraway, Snycerski, Michael, & Poling, 2003).