August 8, 2016

August 8, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Behavioral Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my tenth response to “Radical Behaviorism in Reconciliation with Phenomenology” by Willard Day (1969). Another defining criterion of radical behaviorism is “The focal awareness of the importance of environmental variables.” Sunday we spend the whole afternoon sitting next to Deer Creek. The creek is cold and clear and the rush of water was like music to our ears. I kissed my wife Bonnie when we arrived and we both felt loved by nature. We gently rocked back and forth in our hammock in the shade of the trees that were hanging over the water. 

On Monday I saw five patients who suffer from a variety of problems. At the end of the day I also saw two children, a boy of eight and a girl of six years old. Their parents are going through a divorce.  Especially the girl was very restless. I wasn’t able to get much leverage with them as they bounced back and forth through my office, but it was very interesting to see that they did whatever they felt they had control over. They dragged the pillows around and spread them on the floor. 

I let them crawl underneath the chair and they went into the cabinet under the table. The spaces could barely hold them, but this was where they chose to be. As they tried to be in the small cabinet they slammed the doors shut, I began to worry they might hurt their little fingers. 

They weren’t listening and were so wild that I felt uncomfortable. I didn’t want anything harmful to happen and prevent them from climbing into the cabinet. Although I managed to get them out, it wasn’t easy. I made them count to ten with a serious and funny face. They succeeded and I applauded them. I was exhausted when the session was over.

As these different environments of which only a few aspects have been described illustrate, my behavior was very different on Sunday than on Monday. While Sunday had been a day full of peace and rest in nature, Monday was a busy and stressful day full of mental health problems. 

My Monday had started by not finding my keys and by thinking that I had lost them, which luckily turned out not to be the case. It ended with the treatment of these anxious, needy, but lively children and trying to talk with their frustrated, conflicted and troubled parents. 

Indeed “a great deal of behavior is to some extent under environmental control.” Much of that control is not as conspicuous as we might want it to be. I was thinking of the influence of these arguing parents on these innocent children. It made me think how I grew up in a dysfunctional family in which there was often a lot of screaming and frustration. My behavior as a child had sometimes been exactly like these two children. 

I was like that boy, who tried to find safety by crawling underneath the chair and I was also like that little girl, who desperately tried to elicit my approval. It was alarming to see how this non-stop talking girl attracted so much of my attention with her restless behavior. The few moments of calm, which were clearly appreciated by the boy, but disturbed by the girl, didn’t give him the chance to get his bearings.

  

I concur with Day, who states “It is not so obvious that the grain of the environmental control of behavior is much finer than is commonly appreciated; the slightest difference in stimulating conditions (which the experimenter is often not prepared to appreciate) may lead to very gross differences in behavior.” The children asked to listen to their favorite music and were mesmerized by video I showed on my laptop.

When I spoke with them while the music was playing the girl became more responsive to me. As the experimenter, I was not immediately prepared to appreciate that difference in stimulus condition; I wanted them to pay attention to me rather than to the disturbing video clip.