The Role of Theory in Behavior Analysis: A Response to Unfinished Business, Travis Thompson’s Review of Staddon's New Behaviorism (2nd edition)

Abstract

Travis Thompson’s lengthy review of Staddon’s The New Behaviorism requires several corrections and extensions. This response discusses Staddon’s analysis of Herrnstein’s matching law and concludes that Thompson misinterprets a gentle critique as a paean. The response goes on to defend the utility of models and “internal states” (i.e., postulated processes that are not directly measurable) as “formal representation[s] of the data reduced to a minimal number of terms,” a position similar to one of B. F. Skinner’s statements. The response ends with a defense of Skinner’s empirical brilliance, but a critique of his sweeping societal prescriptions.