Contextualism versus Mechanism in Behavior Theory

Behavior analysis considers itself to be a science. Not only a science, but a hard science, a natural science. A science that isn’t soft (weak or underdeveloped like so many of its counterpart disciplines in the study of human behavior, for example, psychoanalysis or humanistic psychology.) But as a science, it cannot avoid bringing in philosophical assumptions. And while behavior analysis has aimed to be as empirical as possible, to strip down all the theory and get rid of the metaphysics, and DO REAL SCIENCE, the very act of investigating the world presupposes particular philosophical views. These views are considered pre-analytic, and they are not subject to empirical tests. Behavior analysis has strived to be theoretically minimal, but so much of the literature in the field has been on conceptual and philosophical issues.

The book entitled World Hypotheses: A Study in Evidence, was written by philosopher Stephen C. Pepper in 1942. This work has been highly influential in the philosophical discourse in behavior analysis. Pepper’s thesis is that world hypotheses, which are world views or conceptual systems, are the fundamental frameworks that guide human inquiry. He was criticizing a logical positivist view that basically we could get data without theory or interpretation. Pepper argued that essentially that theory and interpretation are unavoidable. And he went on to posit that there are different root metaphors that make up our world views. He first dismisses two types of world views as inadequate, mysticism and animism. He then brings forward four world hypotheses that are relatively adequate: formism, organicism, mechanism, and contextualism. So I’m going to talk about the latter two.

The first philosophy is mechanism. Mechanism is the philosophical worldview that the universe is essentially a machine. There are a zillion moving parts, but if we investigate the universe with the scientific method, with enough time and intellectual energy we will come to rationally understand everything in the world. All we have to do is analyze all of the parts and how they fit with each other, and with the whole. Mechanism is the mainstream philosophy of classical science. Think Newton, think physics, think the clockwork universe. What mechanism also insists upon, is that the way things work is consistent across different times and places. There is room for difference, but one is looking for what is general, universal, fundamental, for understanding how things in the world work.

In contrast, we have contextualism. Here it all about the unique nature of the situation. The context includes all of those particular influences that make something idiosyncratic. If one really wants to understand what is going on, the cliché is unavoidable: the devil is in the details. Contextualism as a philosophical perspective, insists on the details. Think of an anthropologist, out in the field, studying a small tribe. That anthropologist is going to really aim to understand all of the specifics about that particular tribe in order to know how it works. So contexutalism emphasizes difference and it proposes that we have to take things on a case-by-case basis to get it right. Now that we’ve seen what these views are, let’s consider what they would look like in practice.

How does someone who is a mechanist view or investigate the world? Imagine that Mr. Mechanist moves from the country to the city. He wants to know how the city works. What does he do? Well he reads about urban design. He studies civil engineering. He looks at how the roads and buildings are setup. He travels to nearby cities and takes into account their structure. He’s trying to make sense of what a city is and how it works. Now imagine that Mr. Mechanist goes to work at his new private practice and he sees a child who clearly shows signs of autism. What does he do? He looks through his DSM. He Google searches etiology of autism. He reads the relevant theoretical literature. He wants to know what autism is and how it works. And he decides to apply classical behavior therapy techniques to the problem.

Now imagine that Ms. Contextualist moves to the city. How will she understand her new world? Well, she starts talking. To everyone. She starts hanging out at all the spots. She’s not crammed up in the library. She’s not travelling to other cities. She’s desperate for the knowledge of the locals. She wants to be a local. She wants to really get it and be an insider. She wants to know this city. Now imagine her going to work at the mental health clinic. A child is there who show clear signs of autism. What does Ms. Contextualist do? Well, she finds out as much as she can about that child. She wants to know her social and medical history. She wants to know all about her parents and her family. She wants to know about her behavior in day-to-day living, in the home and at school. She wants to really understand everything about this child. And imagine that there are these overlapping, concentric circles of contextual variables. She wants to understand those so that she can intervene at just the right areas in altering behavior.

These two approaches have been considered dichotomous. Mutually exclusive worldviews. In much of behavior analysis, they are seen as different orienting metaphors, not necessarily wanting to eliminate each other, but certainly butting heads. Essentially, they are seen like this. As different perspectives across the divide. They aren’t going to talk to one another. And they aren’t going to work together. In their extreme forms, they basically view one another like this: The mechanist is seen as simplistic, barren, lacking insight, missing the important details, and most of all, dehumanizing. The contextualist is seen as vague, unscientific, misty, ill-defined. But I want to propose the following model.

A model in which the divide breaks down, and these two stances are openly communicating and interacting. Consider that one can investigate the parts of a machine and how they function, and then still aim to understand how that whole machine fits into its environment, and hence its broader context. Mechanism as a conceptual framework can be a functional one, it does not necessarily equate to structuralism. If we aim to be monistic, physicalistic scientists, then we are simply wedded to the idea that universe is understandable in concrete, deterministic ways. It seems like proposing these views as irreconcilable metaphors belies this basic aim. They really represent a synergy. An understanding along a continuum that can be consistent with a systematic, empirical science of behavior. It’s a pluralism we can embrace without sacrificing our scientific principles.

We can understand both the general mechanisms and the contextual variables that influence how things work. Whatever other stances that behavior analysis takes, it does not require doing away with our mechanistic ways. Learning about the general features of things is a classical strength of science. It leads to broad applications. Think of classical behavioral principles. They say how things work, across time, space, situation, and even organism. And we all know how immensely powerful they are. The sheer complexity of the world though, absolutely requires contextualist thinking. We simply must know what specific variables are at hand in any given case in order to understand something. Stubborn, universal principles move around in complex, changing environments. This is the world.

So we have Mr. Mechanist and Ms. Contextualist. They actually met yesterday and they ended up going out last night. They had some really good conversation. They discussed their work with children diagnosed with autism and they came to discover that they had a lot in common. Although their approaches were different and they focused on different aspects of things, they oftentimes ended up using some of the same functional strategies and tools to get the job done. So it seems like they have a lot to offer one another. Might turn into something.