Review

Article Review

Calkin examines private and public events as behaviors. In the science of human behavior, inner and outer behavior share much in common. There is no functional difference that has been discovered. These behaviors function in the same way. Inner behaviors have several categories which are thoughts, feelings, and urges. Attitude is also part of the categories which is defined as the blend of outer and inner behaviors. Thought is an idea, feeling is a thought which has physiological components while urges are more of a respondent behavior. It is the compulsion to do something. Feelings are obvious that they become a part of external behaviors. Obtaining information about inner behavior is important. This information can be obtained from statements about private events which are consistent.

The author denotes that there is no difference between inner and outer behaviors when they are statistically analyzed. Researchers focus their studies on the functional relationship between behavior and the environment and vice versa. This helps them measure the concurrence between inner and outer behaviors. Research on these behaviors should be based on behaviors that are progressive and not assumptions that are made out of external behaviors only.

Research shows that a preceding event of outer behavior can be used to change an inner behavior. This makes it possible to pair both inner and outer behaviors. Through pairing, we can arrive at a better understanding of inner behaviors. The author has come up with two laws that help us to discover truths about inner and outer behaviors. For example, the urge to do a behavior and the behavior accelerate or decelerate independently. These laws state that positive thoughts accelerate and decelerate independently from the negative ones while positive feelings accelerate and decelerate independently from negative ones.

Hayes (2009) wrote about the public-private dichotomy and argues that it is based on incorrect assumptions. He argues that even as those activities are complicated, as an interplay of responding and stimulating taking place in the same area of interaction as public activities, they are also available to the external observers. The nature of their observation is described and provides implications for behavioural analysis as a scientific system. The sciences are investigative enterprises organized to determine the nature of particular things, and by their purpose, in this respect, they exhibit a combination of characteristics not found in human enterprises of other kinds. On the other hand, the non-scientific enterprises lack one or more characteristics for example humanity or the new element.

They divided the events into public and private classes, and according to which private class events are characterized, is examined. A conclusion that the public-private dichotomy proposed by Skinner is based on contradictory areas and misconceptions about practicality are made. A proposal on the private class event formulation is raised and it is argued that private facts are not private or biological but are public psychological facts. An address is also made on the factual problem of observations. Events of extreme fineness can be observed as long as the required observational methods are used. Some thoughts about this article was how is verbal behaviour acquired? This is concerning private activities rather than speculating about the nature of such events as psychological events in their own right. How can private activities be talked about aside from the activities being addressed?

The author talks about how emotions and emotional behavior are used to understand the social benefits of aggression. What people feel is a private event or emotion that is described as an eminent happening. Emotions tell something about environmental requirements by reflecting a particular type of happening. Emotions are only accessible to the individual experiencing them and they are private events. However, emotions do not necessarily remain private.

Layng (2009) maintains that aggression is often associated with fear and anger. Aggressive behavior is seen to be an attempt to distance from the stimuli causing the emotion of aggression. The social nature and outcomes of aggressive behavior suggest that more aggressive episodes are outcomes of aggression that make analysis and treatment uncertain. For the effective intervention of aggressive behaviors, there is a need to distinguish the emotions which describe the contingencies involved in aggressiveness.

Layng states that aggressive acts such as those directed to properties, fights that do not have a real attempt to cause harm to another indicate that maintaining the aggressive behavior may be a social benefit. The elimination of aggressive episodes in people is important in order to maintain a secure living environment for the community as well as the progress of the aggressive person. Understanding emotions and the role they play in human behavior becomes a challenge due to transitions from emotions to emotional behavior. To get a better understanding of how to suppress aggressive behaviors, describing the behavioral processes that are responsible for aggression should be done for example understanding what evokes this feeling.

The author has identified several interventions that are aimed at controlling aggressive behaviors. These included coming up with strategies that provide a change in the evocative condition and creating programs that teach individuals how to control the environment through the use of verbal behavior instead of an aggressive one.

During today’s class discussion we talked about the articles, a better understanding of the SCC charts, which some of us are still confused about because it is not something that we use daily. Part of the activities I enjoyed participating in was positive thoughts for one minute, I reached about 8 things and I could not thing of anything anymore instead I started to talk about how people see me or what people thought about me. During today’s class we also talked about our upcoming project and creating a behavior we can start to track. I decided to track how many times in from 6am – 1pm 5 days a week on the amount of fatigue I get, while also increasing my water intake by consuming 5 bottles daily which will eventually decrease my fatigue.

Reference

Calkin, A. B. (2009). An examination of inner (private) and outer (public) behaviors. European Journal of Behavior Analysis, 10(1), 61-75.

Hayes, L. J., & Fryling, M. J. (2009). Overcoming the pseudo-problem of private events in

the analysis of behavior. Behavior and Philosophy, 37, 39–57. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41472421

Layng, T. V. J. (2006). Emotions and emotional behavior: A constructional approach to understanding some social benefits of aggression. Brazilian Journal of Behavior Analysis, 2(2), 155-170.