Noel W. Smith

The Ancient Background to Greek Psychology and Some Implications for Today

An examination of the belief system and psychological concepts of primitives and peoples of ancient civilizations together with the influences of the latter on the Greeks shows the continuity in naturalistic modes of thought that led to the development of Greek scientific psychology. This continuity was then broken by deteriorating social conditions which led to supernaturalistic concepts in the following periods. The psychologies of today that have incorporated dualism and reverted to animism are rooted in this post-Greek supernaturalism. The approach of the Greeks and their predecessors may offer some insights toward overcoming these contemporary conceptual impediments.

Events and Constructs.

Psychology has largely ignored the distinction between constructs and events and what comprises a scientific construct, yet this distinction is basic to some of the major divisions of thought within the discipline. Several kinds of constructs are identified and compared with events, and improper use of constructs is noted of which the mind construct is a prime example. After indicating some problems with a failure to maintain the distinction between constructs and events and to establish constructs based on events, a list of criteria for scientific employment of constructs is proposed as a means of clarifying and advancing work in psychology. An example of a construct-based and of an event-based approach provides a contrast in scientific orientation with the implication that only by using the latter can psychology remedy its fragmentation and make advancements as a science.

Field Theory in Science: Its Role as a Necessary and Sufficient Condition in Psychology

Whereas physics has evolved through three conceptual stages, the third being that of field theory, psychology has remained largely at the second stage, that of mechanistic or statistical correlation, and it has retained even some elements of the first stage, that of substance-property. However, some accomplishments in psychology utilize a field conception. Two of these, the interbehavioral field and the subjectivity field, are closely interconnected and show parallels with modern physics. They replace single causation and self-causation, analogical explanation, biological reductionism, and psychophysical dualism with the field as a necessary and sufficient condition for a psychological event. Q methodology for subjectivity adds an objective method of studying self-reference that the interbehavioral field lacks.

Fundamentals of Interbehavioral Psychology

Interbehavioral psychology differs in important ways from both behaviorism and mentalism and provides a neglected alternative to these two psychologies, one that surmounts many of the problems that they incur. It derives from observation of objects and events and their relationships, these comprising an interbehavioral field. An analysis of the events involved in such interactions as imagining, thinking, language, attending, perceiving, voluntary and volitional conduct, and habit, all of which are joint functions of field factors, are briefly treated here. Because interbehaviorism is field centered rather than organism centered it provides important guidelines for research and theory as well as such applied problems as psychotherapy and social responsibility.

GSR Measures of Cigarette Smokers’ Temporal Approach and Avoidance Gradients

Several tests have been made of spatial approach and avoidance gradients but none of temporal. To test the latter, 22 cigarette smokers were all subjected to 3 treatments and measured continuously by GSR. Ss watched a clock while anticipating having a cigarette lit for the approach condition, and while anticipating the lighting of the filter of a reversed cigarette for the avoidance condition., and merely watched the clock for control treatment. At the close of the interval the frequency of Ss with skin conductance above their base level for both experimental treatments was significant (p<.001) but not significant (p<.70) for the control as would be expected from the first two assumptions of Miller’s conflict theory. Contrary to the third assumption, the approach condition was steeper than the avoidance.

On the Origin of Conflict Types

The designation of 3 conflict types by Kurt Lewin and the elaboration and modification of these by his successors is described. Earlier contributors, Smith & Guthrie and J. R. Kantor, are discussed; the latter’s previously unrecognized specification of the 4 types in current usage is detailed. Accounts of conflict behavior by Aristotle and Socrates are also noted.

Heredity And Environment Revisited

Arguments and research studies about relative contributions of heredity and environment to behavior are fruitless, for such arguments involve assumptions about abstract powers. An alternative would be to turn to an observable field of interacting events in which the components may be investigated and interpreted in a manner that is consistent with the events observed and their interdependent role in the field.

An Analysis Of Commonplace Behaviors: Volitional Acts

A brief account of an interbehavioral field approach is presented. This is then used to analyze several examples of commonplace behavior that ordinarily are ignored by psychology. These can be seen as what have been traditionally called willing or, better, volitional acts. It is argued that the presentation offers an approach by which these can be studied without recourse to traditional metaphysical constructs. It is suggested that further attention to these behaviors would bring psychology closer to its potentialities.