Personal agency in feminist theory: Evicting the illusive dweller

Abstract

The growing impact of feminist scholarship, activism, and politics would benefit substantially from input by radical behaviorists. The feminist community, broadly defined, and radical behaviorists share interesting commonalities that suggest a potentially fruitful alliance. There are, however, points of divergence that must be addressed; most prominently, the construct of personal agency. A behavioral reconstruction of personal agency is offered to deal with the invisible contingencies leading to gender-asymmetric interpretive repertoires. The benefits of a mutually informing fusion are discussed.Key words: feminist theory, gender, person-situation dualism, agency, invisible contingencies, interpretive repertoires, verbal communitiesIn her book Mismeasure of Woman, Carol Tavris (1992) documents the often-cited work of Samuel Cartwright, a noted American physician who in the early 1 800s studied and described a mental illness that was prevalent among slaves. He named this condition Drapetomania. The interesting thing about this condition was that it was diagnosed by a single symptom, namely, the uncontrollable tendency to run away from slavery (pp. 176-177). Could we write fiction to be this interesting? Alas, Cartwright pathologized the reasonable response of the slave, and in so doing, left the institution of slavery unexamined. Tavris goes on to show, as others have, how psychological science has historically followed a similar approach in its construction of woman and gender.The feminist critique of science came to my attention several years ago as I began to explore disciplinary frontiers in order to develop a new elective This article is a revised version of an invited address presented at the 23rd annual meeting of the Association for Behavior Analysis, Chicago, May 1997.I thank Guillermo V. Ruiz for inspiration and Judi Addelston for her insightful suggestions on an earlier version of this manuscript.Please address correspondence and reprint requests to Maria R. Ruiz, Department of Psychology, Rollins College, 1000 Holt Ave -2760, Winter Park, Florida 32789-4499 (E-mail:MRuiz@rollins.edu). course for our undergraduate psychology curriculum. As a behavior analyst teaching undergraduates in a liberal arts institution, I realized that some of my most engaging intellectual conversations were with feminist colleagues from disciplines other than psychology. I decided to focus on the existing feminist psychological literature and eventually developed a course I entitled "Women: Psychology's Challenge."As I explored the feminist psychological literature, particularly its critique of traditional psychological science, I realized two things. First, and I felt very enthusiastic about this point, the feminist critique of traditional psychological science was, in some ways, remarkably consistent with the radical behaviorist critique.The second point was distressing yet ironically familiar. Radical behaviorism, the philosophy of science articulated by Skinner and the conceptual framework for behavior analysis, was amon...

B. F. Skinner e Simone de Beauvoir: “a mulher” à luz do modelo de seleção pelas consequências

“…Embora alguns trabalhos já tivessem se empenhado na discussão de afinidades entre análise do comportamento e feminismo (Ruiz, 1995(Ruiz, , 1998(Ruiz, , 2003(Ruiz, , 2009, ou mesmo tangenciado outras questões relacionadas à mulher (McSweeney, Donahoe, & Swindell, 2000;McSweeney & Parks, 2002;McSweeney & Swindell, 1998;Myers, 1993), eles não aludiram ao modelo de seleção pelas consequências e às dimensões do ser humano balizadas por esse modelo. Nesse sentido, este trabalho tencionou mostrar outras possibilidades de interlocução entre a filosofia comportamentalista radical e o feminismo, sugerindo que tal interface propiciaria benefí-cios recíprocos.…”

“…Um dos poucos trabalhos que têm se proposto a discutir as relações entre análise do comportamento e feminismo é o de Maria Ruiz (1995Ruiz ( , 1998Ruiz ( , 2003Ruiz ( , 2009. Segundo a autora, o impacto das teorias feministas nas disciplinas científicas criou um contexto propício para que fosse discutido como a condição feminina tem sido tratada pelas teorias psicológicas tradicionais, evidenciando suas limitações.…”

“…No caso deste trabalho, a discussão com o feminismo será pautada pelo modelo de seleção por consequências -um ponto pouco discutido em propostas de aproximação entre análise do comportamento e feminismo (cf. Ruiz, 1995Ruiz, , 1998Ruiz, , 2003Ruiz, , 2009.…”

Editorial: Retrospections, Prospections and New Paths for Behavioral Science

“…Dr. Ruiz was known as a scholar of philosophy and ethics (Ruiz, 2015), and her writings have appeared in these pages over the years (Ruiz, 1998(Ruiz, , 2013Ruiz & Roche, 2007). She is remembered as an inspiring professor who ignited her students' interest in behavioral science and launched them into basic research and applied careers.…”

In Memoriam: Maria del Rosario Ruiz (1950 – 2017)

“…Behavior analysis, she argued, offered an understanding of human behavior that moved away from the personalization and pathologization of behavior patterns that feminists had also argued had clear determinants in oppressive sociopolitical contingencies, institutions, and systems. Several years later, in an article published in The Behavior Analyst (Ruiz, 1998), Maria identified personal agency as the "illusive dweller," a construct that plagues feminist theory and limits effective action. In her view, behavior analysts had much to offer feminist scholars and activists in our understanding of agency as action in context rather than a quality of the individual.…”