Sex Addiction: ASSUMPTIONS OF THE BEHAVIORAL VIEW
Behaviorism is not only a model for the study of abnormal behavior like sex addiction, it is a world view. Its first assumption is environmentalism, which states that all organisms, including humans, are shaped by the environment. We learn about the future through the associations of the past. This is why, for example, our behavior is subject to rewards and punishments. If our employers paid us twice as much per hour for working one Saturday, we would be more likely to work on future Saturdays. If a child were denied the evening T.V. hour for not eating her vegetables, her plate would be cleaned more often than not in the future.
The second assumption of behaviorism is experimentalism, which states
that through an experiment, we can find out what aspect of the environment
caused our behavior and how we can change it. What causes us to work on
Saturdays? If the crucial element is withheld, the present characteristic will
disappear. If the crucial element is reinstated, the characteristic will reappear.
Remove double-time pay, and work on Saturday will stop. Reinstate
double-time pay, and work on Saturday will resume. This is the heart of the
experimental method. From the experimental method, we can determine
what causes people, in general, to forget, to be anxious, to fight, and we can
then apply these general laws to individual cases. This is in contrast to the
clinical method, which pervades the psychodynamic and humanistic
models. For these models, the individual case must first be understood, and
general laws then extrapolated.
The third assumption of behaviorism is optimism concerning change. If
an individual is a product of the environment and if those parts ofthe environment
that have molded him can be known by experimentation, he will
be changed when the environment is changed. It is more than coincidence
that behaviorism flourishes most in two countries-the United States and
Soviet Russia-where egalitarianism and the belief that people can be
changed by changing the environment also flourish. When applied to social
problems, behaviorism claims that crime is caused by poverty and other environmental
circumstances and that it can be overcome by spreading
wealth, that prejudice is caused by ignorance and can be overcome by learning,
that stupidity is caused by deprivation and can be overcome by environmental
enrichment, and so on.
These three assumptions of behaviorism apply directly to abnormal psychology.
First, abnormal as well as normal behavior is learned from past experiences.
Psychopathology consists of acquired habits that are maladaptive.
Second, we can find out by experiment what aspects of the environment
cause abnormal behavior. Third, if we change these aspects of the
environment, the individual will unlearn his old, maladaptive habits and
will learn new, adaptive habits. Herein lies behaviorism's method for the
cure of abnormality.
But specifically how do we learn and what is it we learn? For the behavioral
psychologist, two basic learning processes exist, and it is from these two
that all behaviors, both normal and abnormal, derive. We can learn what
goes with what through Pavlovian or classical conditioning. And we can
learn what to do to obtain what we want and rid ourselves of what we do not
want through instrumental or operant conditioning.
The second assumption of behaviorism is experimentalism, which states
that through an experiment, we can find out what aspect of the environment
caused our behavior and how we can change it. What causes us to work on
Saturdays? If the crucial element is withheld, the present characteristic will
disappear. If the crucial element is reinstated, the characteristic will reappear.
Remove double-time pay, and work on Saturday will stop. Reinstate
double-time pay, and work on Saturday will resume. This is the heart of the
experimental method. From the experimental method, we can determine
what causes people, in general, to forget, to be anxious, to fight, and we can
then apply these general laws to individual cases. This is in contrast to the
clinical method, which pervades the psychodynamic and humanistic
models. For these models, the individual case must first be understood, and
general laws then extrapolated.
The third assumption of behaviorism is optimism concerning change. If
an individual is a product of the environment and if those parts ofthe environment
that have molded him can be known by experimentation, he will
be changed when the environment is changed. It is more than coincidence
that behaviorism flourishes most in two countries-the United States and
Soviet Russia-where egalitarianism and the belief that people can be
changed by changing the environment also flourish. When applied to social
problems, behaviorism claims that crime is caused by poverty and other environmental
circumstances and that it can be overcome by spreading
wealth, that prejudice is caused by ignorance and can be overcome by learning,
that stupidity is caused by deprivation and can be overcome by environmental
enrichment, and so on.
These three assumptions of behaviorism apply directly to abnormal psychology.
First, abnormal as well as normal behavior is learned from past experiences.
Psychopathology consists of acquired habits that are maladaptive.
Second, we can find out by experiment what aspects of the environment
cause abnormal behavior. Third, if we change these aspects of the
environment, the individual will unlearn his old, maladaptive habits and
will learn new, adaptive habits. Herein lies behaviorism's method for the
cure of abnormality.
But specifically how do we learn and what is it we learn? For the behavioral
psychologist, two basic learning processes exist, and it is from these two
that all behaviors, both normal and abnormal, derive. We can learn what
goes with what through Pavlovian or classical conditioning. And we can
learn what to do to obtain what we want and rid ourselves of what we do not
want through instrumental or operant conditioning.