A followup to Rick's comments.
Skinner once described the following situation. (I am blanking on the source.) He had made an off-the-cuff joke which produced a strong reaction in his audience. He describes going back to his office and trying to remember the words and intonation he used so he could reproduce the effect at some future occasion.
You can see similar effects if you look at early and late career routines by comics such as George Carlin and Bob Newhart.
Ken ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Kenneth M. Steele, Ph. D. [email protected] Professor Department of Psychology http://www.psych.appstate.edu Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA ------------------------------------------------------------------------ On 1/17/2014 11:17 AM, [email protected] wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: Mike Palij [mailto:[email protected]] A behavioral account might be relevant to certain situations but are unlikely in others (e.g., how would a behaviorist explain satire?). -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] ------------------------------------------ I think, without discussing Skinner's specific take on it, a behaviorist would study language, humor and satire in terms of the overt behavior produced and the consequence it has. Using the framework of operant conditioning, a behavior (either a bodily action or a verbalization) is produced in a particular situation and it has a consequence. That consequence may act to reinforce the behavior marked by an increase in the behavior in the future in similar circumstances or to punish the behavior marked by a decrease in that behavior in the future in those circumstances. Of course, many behaviors also occur without consequence in certain situations and such behaviors are also less likely to occur in the future. This operant explanation of verbal behavior is easily seen in the behavior of infants and young children in which case many verbalizations are obviously shaped by their consequences to occur again or (if they are unsuccessful) not to recur. It becomes more complicated as we get older but I have occasionally asked my students to see their daily verbal behavior through a behavioral lens. It isn't something you can keep up for long without becoming very self-conscious about every word you say but what I suggest is that they examine their utterances and the utterances of others throughout the day from a behavioral framework. What consequence maintains these verbalizations? It is easy in cases like "please pass the salt" but it becomes almost painfully self-revelatory when you get to what you say to friends. The use of humor also often has predictable consequences, given particular environmental situations, which will clearly have an effect on the use of humor in these situations in the future. Analyzing the use of humor in this way can be especially dispiriting but is sometimes quite revealing (although, in some cases, ignorance is bliss). If you want to avoid painful self-realizations, you may also want to refrain from thinking too deeply about what reinforces posts to TIPS. Rick Dr. Rick Froman, Chair Division of Humanities and Social Sciences Professor of Psychology Box 3519 John Brown University 2000 W. University Siloam Springs, AR 72761 [email protected] (479) 524-7295 http://bit.ly/DrFroman
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