On Sat, 10 Jan 2015 05:53:12 -0800, Michael Britt wrote:
The Daily Show did an interesting piece on a program in Salt Lake City
Utah in which they are giving homes to the homeless in order to reduce
the homelessness problem. As you can imagine, the idea of giving
homes to the homeless raises the ire of many people ("You're not
incentivizing the homeless to make their lives better", to "hit bottom"
and then "raise themselves up by their own bootstraps", etc.). The
short video be good fodder for class discussion when it comes to
talking about either learning/behaviorism/motivation. I was, in
effect,
left wondering what Skinner would do.
http://youtu.be/jlZKeKQ8yX0
A few points:
(1) I see that Britt is asking the question based on the popular
Christian
question "What Would Jesus Do?" And, as Paul Brandon has pointed
out subsequently in this thread, the more appropriate question to ask
if "What Would Jesus Say" but that doesn't play as well with the "kids".
Personally, I eschew the use of the question "What would X say/do"
especially if it is not in some limiting context that contains a clear
presentation of what a particular asserts or maintains as a position,
in contrast to relying upon incomplete and often inaccurate knowledge
of a person. For example, one might ask "Given Skinner's description
of human nature in his 'Beyond Freedom and Dignity' (BFD), what argument
might one make about why giving housing to the homeless or, more
generally, guaranteeing housing to all members of a society?"
However, I would also ask the audience/students to read the following
review of Skinners BFD which has little to do with homelessness
but a lot to do with one possible explanation of Skinner's position --
and what factors he might or might not consider relevant -- in
explaining homelessness:
http://nazihomelessholocaust.blogspot.com/2012/06/beyond-freedom-and-dignity-bf-skinner.html
Given this interpretation, what might Fred say/do? But remember,
are you asking "Skinner the Humanist" or "Skinner the Grand
Conditioner".
(2) It is amazing how two people in the same discipline can look at the
same video and have such completely different reactions and
interpretations
of what was presented. I saw the video when it originally aired on the
"Daily Show" and my first reaction to Hasan Minhaj's line of questioning
was "Oh, he's playing the 'Blame the Victim' game and humor will come
from the failure of that explanation to account for the positive results
for the program -- Yeah, I thought that. ;-)
The point is that I took a social psychological/community psychological
view of the situation: social psychology in Minhaj's use of the
"fundamental
attribution error" (FAE) in explaining human nature and it's role in
homelessness and community psychology in interpreting how a novel
plan to eliminate homelessness (i.e., "Give them homes!") is better
than pushing the homeless off the street or out of public spaces.
It did not occur to me that Skinner might be relevant because, let's
face it,
the problem being highlighted in the "Daily Show" bit is not
homelessness
but people's explanations of why homelessness occurs. Minhaj's
FAE driven explanation based on ignorance about the nature of
homelessness
and which may potentially blind him to seeing why his interpretation is
wrong is what is funny in this situation. Homelessness is less of the
focus
than the incorrect views that people have of them.
Why, having an FAE driven explanation is almost as dumb as killing
people for the statements they make or cartoons they draw.
(3) Below I quote the "Case in Point 1.3" from the following textbook:
Moritsugu, J. G., Vera, E., Wong, F. Y., & Duffy, K. G. (2013).
Community
psychology. Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Higher Ed.
It highlights what a community psychology explanation of homelessness
would entail and how it may be superior to other explanations (i.e.,
FAE driven ones).
NOTE: A Google search of "Skinner" and "homeless" and "explanation"
provides almost no relevant hits. It appears that "Skinner did not have
much to say about homelessness". ;-)
-Mike Palij
New York University
[email protected]
P.S. Beth Shinn whose research is cited below was a long time member of
the NYU psychology faculty and I became aware of some of her research
during that time. Since 2008, she has been at Peabody college of
Vanderbilt University.
CAS E I N P O I N T 1. 3
Social Psychology, Community Psychology, and Homelessness
You have learned in this chapter that community psychologists
have issued a call for collaboration with other disciplines both
within and outside of psychology. In response to that, we agree
that community psychologists and social psychologists have
much to learn from each other ( Serrano-Garcia, Lopez,
& Rivera-Medena, 1987 ). In some countries, community psychology
evolved from social psychological roots. This was the case in
New Zealand and Australia ( Fisher, Gridley, Thomas, &Bishop, 2008 ).
Social psychologists study social phenomena as they
affect an individual. They may have the answer
as to why the media, the public, and other psychologists
blame a person's homelessness on the person. Social
psychologists have developed an explanation using attribution
theory, which explains how people infer causes of or
make attributions about others' behaviors ( Kelly, 1973 ).
Research on attribution has demonstrated that people are
likely to place explanatory emphasis on the characteristics
of the individual or use trait explanations for another's
shortcomings ( Jones & Nisbett, 1971 ).That is, when
explaining the behavior of others - especially others'
problems - people are less likely to attend to the
situation and more likely to blame the person for what is
happening.
Does this theory apply to homelessness?
Can this theory explain why the media and the public
often blame the victim, the homeless person, for his
or her problem? Victim blaming ( Ryan, 1971 ) is a
phrase that describes the tendency to attribute the
cause of an individual's problems to that individual
rather than to the situation the person is in. In other
words, the victim is blamed for what happened to him
or her. Social psychologists believe that blaming the
victim is a means of self-defense (e.g., if a bad thing
can happen to her by chance, then it can happen to me;
on the other hand, if the person was to blame for
what happened, then it won't happen to me because
I am not that way). In the case of the homeless, did
their personalities create their homeless situations?
Did something in their environment contribute to it? The
average person who blames the victim would blame
homeless people for contributing to their homelessness.
Shinn, a prominent community psychologist, reviewed
research on homelessness and conducted a monumental
and well-designed study on the issue (Shinn & Gillespie,
1993). She concluded that person-centered explanations
of homelessness, although popular, are not as valid as
situational and structural explanations of homelessness.
Specifically, Shinn suggested that the researched explanations
for homelessness are twofold - that is, personcentered
and environmental. She reviewed the literature on each
and concluded that person-centered or deficit explanations
for homelessness were less appropriate than environmental
or situational explanations.
Shinn found studies suggesting that structural problems
offer some of the most plausible explanations of homelessness.
For example, Rossi (1989) found that between 1969 and 1987,
the number of single adults (some with children) with incomes
under $4,000 a year increased from 3.1 to 7.2 million. Similarly,
Leonard, Dolbeare, and Lazere (1989) found that for the 5.4 million
low-income renters, there were only 2.1 million units of affordable
housing, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and
Urban Development standards. Poverty and lack of affordable
housing seem to be far better explanations for today's phenomenon
of homelessness than personcentered explanations. Solarz and
Bogat (1990) would add to these environmental explanations
of homelessness the lack of social support by friends and family
of the homeless.
What is important about Shinn's review is not so much that it
illustrates that the public and the media may indeed suffer from
fundamental attribution error - the tendency to blame the person
and not the situation - but rather that Shinn offers these data so
community psychologists can act on them. Public policy makers
need to understand that situations and structural problems produce
homelessness. Psychologists and community leaders need to be
convinced that temporary solutions, such as soup kitchens, are
merely bandages on the gaping wound of the homeless. Furthermore,
shelter managers and others have to understand that moving the
homeless from one shelter to another does little for them. Families
and children, not just the stereotypical old alcoholic men, are part
of today's homeless (Rossi, 1990). Being in different shelters and
therefore different school systems has negative effects on children's
academic performance and self-esteem ( Rafferty & Shinn, 1991 );
homeless children lose their childhoods to homelessness ( Landers,
1989 ).
Something must be done about the permanent housing situation in
this country. On this point, both community and social psychologists
would agree.
*****************************************************
Remember the old saying: "If you give a failed banker money to
save his bank, he will only be able to operate it until he does
something stupid/greedy and causes it to fail again. However,
if you guarantee that any bank failure will be covered, you
will never have to worry about bank failures again!" ;-)
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