The operant as a class of responses

Abstract

Lee, V. L. The operant as a class of responses. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 1981.22, 215-221.This paper considers some recent objections to the concept of the operant. These objections were, first, that "action" is more fundamental than "operant" and, second, that the term 'operant' depends for its application on the knowledge of behavior implicit in common language. The present paper outlines the concept of the operant as a class of responses. In doing so, it considers the distinctions between responses and response classes (operants) and between descriptive operants and functional operants. These distinctions suggest that "action" is not m-re fundamental than "operant" and that although descriptive operants originate in common knowledge, functional operants never do. The paper concludes that the concept of the operant is basic to behavior theory, and must be retained.

Operants and contingencies of reinforcement: A comment

“…However, the definition of a functional operant is always an empirical question, which can be answered only after simultaneous monitoring of several responses under conditions of non-reinforcement and reinforcement of one response, hypothesized to belong to that class. Thus, our conclusion on this point parallels the argument by Lee (1981), who contributed a rejoinder to the Rein & Svartdal (1979) paper. Lee (1981) distinguishes between the operation-and effect-aspects of reinforcement by the terms descriptive and functional operants (cf.…”

BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY: A REVIEW OF LANA'S ASSUMPTIONS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY1

“…Lana rightly points out that behavior analysis is not about mechanistic causes (Todd & Morris, 1983), but later he seems to contradict this: "Cause as a metaphor can be applied only to events that can be objectively perceived, because events in a cause and effect sequence require that each be identified as a discrete entity" (Lana, 1991, p. 30). What this misses is Skinner's (1935; see also Lee, 1981) proposal to view an operant as a class of responses. By this alone, the behavior-analytic view is neither a mechanistic nor a causal one in Lana's sense, because event instances can be "objectively perceived" but the class of responses in a contingency cannot.…”

“…What this misses is Skinner's (1935; see also Lee, 1981) proposal to view an operant as a class of responses. By this alone, the behavior-analytic view is neither a mechanistic nor a causal one in Lana's sense, because event instances can be "objectively perceived" but the class of responses in a contingency cannot.…”

More on the operant as a class of responses

“…Common knowledge of actions just turns up in the kinds of behavior that experimental psychologists set out to study. Whether we call these entities 'named acts' (Watson 1919, p. 12), 'behavior categories' (Guthrie, 1959), 'behavior acts' (Tolman, 1932, p. 7), or 'descriptive response classes/operants'(e.g., Catania, 1973;Lee, 1981) makes no difference conceptually. All these terms refer to the same kind of entity.…”

“…That was the conception of the operant they criticized, not the conception of an operant as a class of responses. My argument (Lee, 1981) started from the idea that operants are response classes, and nothing more. These two starting-points do differ; acknowledging this difference was essential.…”