From 1924 to 1996 and into the Future: Operation Analytic Behaviorism

Abstract

Operation analytic behaviorism provides the framework for a taxonomy of behavior based on the investigative methods followed (the operations carried out) in research. Such a taxonomy enables those fuller descriptions that yield explanation and some degree of "prediction" and "control." Based on the functional definition of the environmental events that couple with events in the individual's activity, operation-analysis identifies experimental operations that parallel and are congruent with behaviors as they occur outside the experimental context. The major classes of operations described include measurement operations, probe operations, paradigmatic operations, and categoric operations. The last include setting operations and other operations (e.g., subject selection) related to the already identified variables that define the interactive field within which any behavior occurs. Recategorization of psychological/behavioral findings within this taxonomy replaces the rubrics ("emotion," "cognition," "thinking,""memory") and shows the identity of processes that have been unnecessarily distinguished from one another. Operation-analysis forms require that both the design and report of an experiment give a full and clear account of each procedure followed (including many often overlooked), enabling the replication of the experiment and the demonstration of the relationship of each procedure to the problem studied and to its theoretical context.