B.F.Skinner's Behaviourism: An Analysis (Rosemead psychology series) [Paperback]

Mark P. Cosgrove (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Zondervan (November 1982)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0310444918
• ISBN-13: 978-0310444916
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,165,675 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5.0 out of 5 stars The Skinny of Skinner, February 23, 2012

By 

Bradley P. Hayton - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: B.F.Skinner's Behaviourism: An Analysis (Rosemead psychology series) (Paperback)

Mark Cosgrove holds a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Purdue University and is Associate Professor of Psychology at Taylor University.

In his analysis of B. F. Skinner, Cosgrove goes right to the core and questions Skinner's presuppositions. He critiques Skinner first from a scientific standpoint, second from a philosophical standpoint, and last from a biblical standpoint. Cosgrove does not attempt to outline a biblical psychology or give detailed statements on the human personality. Although he finds some "clear parameters and definitive statements" from the Scriptures, he asserts that a complete biblical psychology cannot be constructed from biblical content (p. 106).

Cosgrove sees Skinner's major assumptions of naturalism, materialism, empiricism, determinism, and reductionism as challenges to human dignity, human freedom, objective value, competing philosophical views, and social change. After outlining Skinner's work, Cosgrove challenges him point by point, showing Skinner's scientific limitations.

Positivism both undermines itself since its basic proposition cannot be verified by sense experience, and limits itself from the study of the great themes of life, religion, value, purpose, and evil. Likewise, the Skinnerian behaviorist approach is unable to study many topics about human nature, such as motivation, creativity, subconscious, emotions, and prejudice, since by definition, these constructs do not exist for the behaviorist. Operational definitions not only cannot define themselves precisely enough to meet their own standards, but also lose something of the essence of human nature. There are also great limitations when generalizing research from simple human and animal behaviors to the more complex behaviors.

There is a vast amount of research that challenges Skinner's psychology and philosophy. Cosgrove presents Tolman's research on latent learning and cognitive maps, Kohler's findings on insight learning, Chomsky's work on language development, Lashley's principle of cortex mass action, Bandura's findings about observational learning, as well as Piaget's rationalistic stage theory of child development to challenge Skinner's thesis of radical behaviorism. The author goes on to attack the applicability of behaviorism by describing the limitations of its effectiveness with certain problems, ability to elicit people's cooperation, and generalizability to other situations not completely controlled by the therapist.

Cosgrove's critique of Skinner's philosophy is devastating. Skinner's view of responsibility seems "unrealistic and unrelated to daily life" (p. 76). He also cannot discern any set of values or ethics, except survival, to guide his behavioral social engineers. When Skinner's view of man is compared to the Christian view, it is found to be greatly at odds with the biblical themes of God's existence and the existence of the spiritual realm, the nature of man as the image of God and yet fallen, the freedom and responsibility that man has for his actions, and the nature of objective Christian ethics.

Although Cosgrove gets to the meat of the matter most of the time, his book does have some flaws. First, I believe that he often misrepresents Skinner. He paints Skinner as a gloomy determinist and then when Skinner speaks out for the responsibility of man to change his environment, he says that Skinner is inconsistent with his own statements. Consequently, it appears that Cosgrove does not fully understand Skinner. Nevertheless, it is also true that Skinner is a slippery fellow, not always consistent with his own presuppositions, as all of us many times are not.

Second, Cosgrove does not adequately critique many of the applications of Skinner's behaviorism. Much good philosophy and therapy has come from Skinnerian behaviorism. For example, Skinner has demonstrated that punishment is ineffective as a behavior change agent since the behavior that is decreased or extinguished by means of punishment quickly recurs as soon as the punishment is stopped or the agent of punishment is removed. This finding has positive applications in child-rearing techniques, as well as theological insight as to the ways God deals with his children.

Third, Cosgrove does an inadequate scriptural analysis of Skinner. For example, on the negative side, Skinnerian behaviorism carries with it the implication of worth and self-esteem based upon performance. Scripture affirms, however, that our worth and self-esteem are based upon who we are, in Christ or not in Christ, and then moves on to performance issues: doing as a consequence of being rather than vice-versa. On the positive side, Skinner's analysis on the determinism/freedom questions has great similarities with a theology of God's providential work in the determination of historical and personal events.

Despite these inadequacies, Cosgrove's book is well worth reading. He has the most complete and well-written critique to date of B. F. Skinner and the radical behaviorists. His presentation of the scientific argument against behaviorism is worth the price of the book.