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Selection by Consequences STOR B. F. Skinner Science, New Series, Vol. 213, No. 4507 (Jul. 31, 1981), 501-504. Stable URL: http://linIcsjstor.orgisici?sici4:036-8075%2819810731%293%3A213%3A4507%3C501%3ASBC%3E2.0.00%3B2-R Science is currently published by American Association for the Advancement of Science. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at hup://www.jstor.org/aboutherms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at hup://wwwjstor.org/journals/aaas.html. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact jstor-info@umich.edu. hup://www.jstor.org/ Wed Feb 18 09:45:11 2004 EFTA01130654  31 July 1981. Volume 213, Number 4507 SCIENCE the same, operant conditioning and natu- ral selection work together redundantly. For example, the behavior of a duckling in following its mother is apparently the product not only of natural selection (ducklings tend to move in the direction of large moving objects) but also of an Selection by Consequences evolved susceptibility to reinforcement by proximity to such an object, as Peter- II. F. Skinner son has shown (I). The common conse- quence is that the duckling stays near its mother. (Imprinting is a different pro- cess, close to respondent conditioning.) The history of human behavior, if we tioned well only under conditions fairly Since a species which quickly acquires may take it to begin with the origin of life similar to those under which it was se- behavior appropriate to a given environ- on Earth, is possibly exceeded in scope lected. Reproduction under a much wid- ment has less need for an innate reper• only by the history of the universe. Like er range of conditions became possible toire, operant conditioning could not astronomer and cosmologist, the histori- with the evolution of two processes only supplement the natural selection of an proceeds only by reconstructing what through which individual organisms ac- behavior, it could replace it. There were may have happened rather than by re- quired behavior appropriate to novel en- advantages favoring such a change. viewing recorded facts. The story pre- vironments. Through respondent (Pay- When members of a species eat a certain food simply because eating it has had survival value, the food does not need to Summary. Selection by consequences is a causal mode found only in living things, be, and presumably is not, a reinforcer. or In machines made by living things. It was first recognized in natural selection, but it Similarly, when sexual behavior is sim- also accounts for the shaping and maintenance of the behavior of the individual and ply a product of natural selection, sexual the evolution of cultures. In all three of these fields, it replaces explanations based on contact does not need to be, and presum- the causal modes of classical mechanics. The replacement is strongly resisted. ably is not, a reinforcer. But when, Natural selection has now made its case but similar delays in recognizing the role of through the evolution of special suscepti- selection in the other fields could deprive us of valuable help in solving the problems bilities, food and sexual contact become which confront us. reinforcing, new forms of behavior can be set up. New ways of gathering, pro- cessing, and ultimately cultivating foods sumably began, not with a big bang, but lovian) conditioning, responses prepared and new ways of behaving sexually or of with that extraordinary moment when a in advance by natural selection could behaving in ways which lead only even- molecule came into existence which had come under the control of new stimuli. tually to sexual reinforcement can be the power to reproduce itself. It was then Through operant conditioning, new re- shaped and maintained. The behavior so that selection by consequences made its sponses could be strengthened ("rein- conditioned is not necessarily adaptive; appearance as a causal mode. Reproduc- forced") by events which immediately foods are eaten which are not healthful. tion was itself a first consequence, and it followed them. and sexual behavior strengthened which led, through natural selection, to the is not related to procreation. evolution of cells, organs, and organisms Much of the behavior studied by ethol- which reproduced themselves under in- A Second Kind of Selection ogists—courtship. mating, care of the creasingly diverse conditions. young, intraspecific aggression, defense What we call behavior evolved as a set Operant conditioning is a second kind of territory, and so on—is social. It is of functions furthering the interchange of selection by consequences. It must within easy range of natural selection between organism and environment. In a have evolved in parallel with two other because other members of a species are fairly stable world it could be as much a products of the same contingencies of one of the most stable features of the part of the genetic endowment of a spe- natural selection—a susceptibility to re- environment of a species. Innate social cies as digestion, respiration, or any oth- inforcement by certain kinds of conse- repertoires are supplemented by imita- er biological function. The involvement quences and a supply of behavior less tion. By running when others run, for with the environment, however, im- specifically committed to eliciting or re- example, an animal responds to releasing posed limitations. The behavior func- leasing stimuli. (Most operants are se- stimuli to which it has not itself been lected from behavior which has little or exposed. A different kind of imitation, The author is a professor in the Department of no relation to such stimuli.) with a much wider range, results from Psychology and Social Relations. Harvard Universi• ty. Cambrodgc. Massachusetts 0213$. When the selecting consequences are the fact that contingencies of reinforce- SCIENCE. VOL. 213. 31 JULY 1901 0036-807541/0731-0501501.06O Copyright 0 1981 AAAS 501 EFTA01130655 ment which induce one organism to be- A culture evolves when practices origi- were not selected by the prevailing con- have in a given way will often affect nating in this way contribute to the suc- tingencies. Similar questions may be another organism when it behaves in the cess of the practicing group in solving its asked at levels ii and iii. Why do people same way. An imitative repertoire which problems. It is the effect on the group, continue to do things in the same way for brings the imitator under the control of not the reinforcing consequences for in- many years, and why do groups of peo- new contingencies is therefore acquired. dividual members, which is responsible ple continue to observe old practices for The human species presumably be- for the evolution of the culture. centuries? The answers are presumably came much more social when its vocal In summary, then, human behavior is the same: either new variations (new musculature came under operant con- the joint product of (i) the contingencies forms of behavior or new practices) have trol. Cries of alarm, mating calls, aggres- of survival responsible for the natural not appeared or those which have ap- sive threats, and other kinds of vocal selection of the species and (ii) the con- peared have not been selected by the behavior can be modified through oper- tingencies of reinforcement responsible prevailing contingencies (of reinforce- ant conditioning, but apparently only for the repertoires acquired by its mem- ment or of the survival of the group). At with respect to the occasions upon which bers, including (iii) the special contingen- all three levels a sudden, possibly exten- they occur or their rate of occurrence cies maintained by an evolved social sive, change is explained as due to new (2). The ability of the human species to environment. (Ultimately, of course, it is variations selected by prevailing contin- acquire new forms through selection by all a matter of natural selection, since gencies or to new contingencies. Compe- consequences presumably resulted from operant conditioning is an evolved pro- tition with other species, persons, or the evolution of a special innervation of cess, of which cultural practices are spe- cultures may or may not be involved. the vocal musculature, together with a cial applications.) Structural constraints may also play a supply of vocal behavior not strongly part at all three levels. under the control of stimuli or releas- Another issue is the definition or iden- ers—the babbling of children from which Similarities and Difference tity of a species, person, or culture. verbal operants are selected. No new Traits in a species and practices in a susceptibility to reinforcement was Each of the three levels of variation culture are transmitted from generation needed because the consequences of and selection has its own discipline—the to generation, but reinforced behavior is verbal behavior are distinguished only first, biology: the second, psychology: "transmitted" only in the sense of re- by the fact that they are mediated by and the third, anthropology. Only the maining part of the repertoire of the other people (3). second, operant conditioning, occurs at individual. Where species and cultures The development of environmental a speed at which it can be observed from are defined by restrictions imposed upon control over the vocal musculature moment to moment. Biologists and transmission—by genes and chromo- greatly extended the help one person anthropologists study the processes somes and, say, geographical isolation, receives from others. By behaving ver- through which variations arise and are respectively—a problem of definition (or bally people cooperate more successful- selected, but they merely reconstruct the identity) arises at level ii only when ly in common ventures. By taking ad- evolution of a species or culture. Oper- different contingencies of reinforcement vice, heeding warnings, following in- ant conditioning is selection in progress. create different repertoires, as selves or structions. and observing rules, they It resembles a hundred million years of persons. profit from what others have already natural selection or a thousand years of learned. Ethical practices are strength- the evolution of a culture compressed ened by codifying them in laws, and into a very short period of time. Traditional Explanatory Schemes special techniques of ethical and intellec- The immediacy of operant condition- tual self-management are devised and ing has certain practical advantages. For As a causal mode, selection by conse- taught. Self-knowledge or awareness example, when a currently adaptive fea- quences was discovered very late in the emerges when one person asks another ture is presumably too complex to have history of science—indeed, less than a such a question as "What are you going occurred in its present form as a single century and a half ago—and it is still not to do?" or "Why did you do that?" The variation, it is usually explained as the fully recognized or understood, especial- invention of the alphabet spread these product of a sequence of simpler varia- ly at levels ii and iii. The facts for which advantages over great distances and pe- tions, each with its own survival value. It it is responsible have been forced into riods of time. They have long been said is standard practice in evolutionary the- the causal pattern of classical mechan- to give the human species its unique ory to look for such sequences, and ics, and many of the explanatory position, although it is possible that what anthropologists and historians have re- schemes elaborated in the process must is unique is simply the extension of oper- constructed the stages through which now be discarded. Some of them have ant control to the vocal musculature. moral and ethical codes, art, music, liter- great prestige and are strongly defended ature, science, technology, and so on, at all three levels. Here are four exam- have presumably evolved. A complex ples: A Third Kind of Selection operant, however, can actually be A prior act of creation. (i) Natural "shaped through successive approxima- selection replaces a very special creator Verbal behavior greatly increased the tion" by arranging a graded series of and is still challenged because it does so. importance of a third kind of selection by contingencies of reinforcement (4). (ii) Operant conditioning provides a simi- consequences, the evolution of social A current question at level i has paral- larly controversial account of the ("vol- environments or cultures. The process lels at levels ii and iii. If natural selection untary") behavior traditionally attribut- presumably begins at the level of the is a valid principle, why do many species ed to a creative mind. (iii) The evolution individual. A better way of making a remain unchanged for thousands or even of a social environment replaces the sup- tool, growing food, or teaching a child is millions of years? Presumably the an- posed origin of a culture as a social reinforced by its consequence—the tool, swer is either that no variations have contract or of social practices as com- the food, or a useful helper, respectively. occurred or that those which occurred mandments. 502 SCIENCE. VOL. 213 EFTA01130656  Purpose or intention. Only past conse- What is good for a culture is whatever organized, but no principle of organiza- quences figure in selection. (i) A particu- promotes its ultimate survival, such as tion explains their being so. Both the lar species does not have eyes in order holding a group together or transmitting organization and the effects attributed to that its members may see better; it has its practices. These are not, of course, it can be traced to the respective contin- them because certain members, under- traditional definitions; they do not recog- gencies of selection. going variation, were able to see better nize a world of value distinct from a Another example is growth. Develop- and hence were more likely to transmit world of fact and, for other reasons to be mentalism is structuralism with time or the variation. (ii) The consequences of noted shortly, they are challenged. age added as an independent variable. (i) operant behavior are not what the behav- There was evidence before Darwin that ior is now for; they are merely similar to species had "developed." (ii) Cognitive the consequences which have shaped Alternatives to Selection psychologists have argued that concepts and maintained it. (iii) People do not develop in the child in certain fixed or- observe particular practices in order that An example of the attempt to assimi- ders, and Freud said the same for the the group will be more likely to survive; late selection by consequences to the psychosexual functions. (iii) Some an- they observe them because groups which causality of classical mechanics is the thropologists have contended that cul- induced their members to do so survived term "selection pressure," which ap- tures must evolve through a prescribed and transmitted them. pears to convert selection into something series of stages, and Marx said as much Certain essences. (i) A molecule that forces a change. A more serious in his insistence upon historical deter- which could reproduce itself and evolve example is the metaphor of storage. Con- minism. But at all three levels the into cell, organ, and organism was alive tingencies of selection necessarily lie in changes can be explained by the "devel- as soon as it came into existence without the past; they are not acting when their opment" of contingencies of selection. the help of a vital principle called life. (ii) effect is observed. To provide a current New contingencies of natural selection Operant behavior is shaped and brought cause it has therefore been assumed that come within range as a species evolves; under the control of the environment they are stored (usually as "informa- new contingencies of reinforcement be- without the intervention of a principle of tion") and later retrieved. Thus, (i) genes gin to operate as behavior becomes more mind. (To suppose that thought appeared and chromosomes are said to "contain complex; and new contingencies of sur- as a variation, like a morphological trait the information" needed by the fertilized vival are dealt with by increasingly effec- in genetic theory, is to invoke an unnec- egg in order to grow into a mature orga- tive cultures. essarily large saltum.) (iii) Social envi- nism. But a cell does not consult a store ronments generate self-knowledge of information in order to learn how to ("consciousness") and self-management change; it changes because of features Selection Neglected ("reason") without help from a group which are the product of a history of mind or Zeitgeist. variation and selection, a product which The causal force attributed to struc- To say this is not to reduce life, mind, is not well represented by the metaphor ture as a surrogate of selection causes and Zeitgeist to physics; it is simply to of storage. (ii) People are said to store trouble when a feature at one level is said recognize the expendability of essences. information about contingencies of rein- to explain a similar feature at another, The facts are as they have always been. forcement and retrieve it for use on later the historical priority of natural selection To say that selection by consequences is orossions. But they do not consult usually giving it a special place. Sociobi- a causal mode found only in living things copies of earlier contingencies to discov- ology offers many examples. Behavior is only to say that selection (or the er how to behave; they behave in given described as the defense of territory may "replication with error" which made it ways because they have been changed be due to (i) contingencies of survival in possible) defines "living." (A computer by those contingencies. The contingen- the evolution of a species, possibly in- can be programmed to model natural cies can perhaps be inferred from the volving food supplies or breeding prac- selection, operant conditioning, or the changes they have worked, but they are tices; (ii) contingencies of reinforcement evolution of a culture but only when no longer in existence. (iii) A possibly for the individual, possibly involving a constructed and programmed by a living legitimate use of "storage" in the evolu- share of the reinforcers available in the thing.) The physical basis of natural se- tion of cultures may be responsible for territory; or (iii) contingencies main- lection is now fairly clear; the corre- these mistakes. Parts of the social envi- tained by the cultural practices of a sponding basis of operant conditioning, ronment maintained and transmitted by a group, promoting behavior which con- and hence of the evolution of cultures, group are quite literally stored in docu- tributes to the survival of the group. has yet to be discovered. ments. artifacts, and other products of Similarly, altruistic behavior (i) may Certain definitions of good and value. that behavior. evolve through, say, kin selection; (ii) (i) What is good for the species is what- Other causal forces serving in lieu of may be shaped and maintained by con- ever promotes the survival of its mem- selection have been sought in the struc- tingencies of reinforcement arranged by ben until offspring have been born and, ture of a species, person, or culture. those for whom the behavior works an possibly, cared for. Good features are Organization is an example. (i) Until advantage; or (iii) may be generated by said to have survival value. Among them recently, most biologists argued that or- cultures which, for example, induce indi- are susceptibilities to reinforcement by ganization distinguished living from non- viduals to suffer or die as heroes or many of the things we say taste good, living things. (ii) According to Gestalt martyrs. The contingencies of selection feel good, and so on. (ii) The behavior of psychologists and others, both percep- at the three levels are quite different, and a person is good if it is effective under tions and acts occur in certain inevitable the structural similarity does not attest to prevailing contingencies of reinforce- ways because of their organization. (iii) a common generative principle. ment. We value such behavior and, in- Many anthropologists and linguists ap- When a causal force is assigned to deed. reinforce it by saying "Good!" peal to the organization of cultural and structure, selection tends to be neglect- Behavior toward others is good if it is linguistic practices. It is true that all ed. Many issues which arise in morals good for the others in these senses. (iii) species, persons, and cultures are highly and ethics can be resolved by specifying 31 JULY 1981 503 EFTA01130657 the level of selection. What is good for none of these ways do we escape from growth. The conviction that contingen- the individual or culture may have bad selection by consequences. In the first cies are stored as information is only one consequences for the species, as when place, we can work only through varia- of the reasons why the appeal to cogni- sexual reinforcement leads to overpop- tion and selection. At level i we can tive functions is not helpful. The three ulation or the reinforcing amenities of change genes and chromosomes or con- personae of psychoanalytic theory are in civilization to the exhaustion of re- tingencies of survival, as in selective many respects close to our three levels sources; what is good for the species or breeding. At level ii we can introduce of selection; but the id does not ade- culture may be bad for the individual, as new forms of behavior—for example, by quately represent the enormous contri- when practices designed to control pro- showing or telling people what to do with bution of the natural history of the spe- creation or preserve resources restrict respect to relevant contingencies—or cies; the superego, even with the help of individual freedom; and so on. There is construct and maintain new selective the ego ideal, does not adequately repre- nothing inconsistent or contradictory contingencies. At level iii we can intro- sent the contribution of the social envi- about these uses of "good" or "bad." or duce new cultural practices or, rarely, ronment to language, self-knowledge, about other value judgments, so long as arrange special contingencies of surviv- and intellectual and ethical self-manage- the level of selection is specified. al—for example, to preserve a traditional ment; and the ego is a poor likeness of practice. But having done these things, the personal repertoire acquired under we must wait for selection to occur. the practical contingencies of daily life. An Initiating Agent (There is a special reason why these The field known as the experimental limitations are significant. It is often said analysis of behavior has extensively ex- The role of selection by consequences that the human species is now able to plored selection by consequences, but its has been particularly resisted because control its own genetics, its own behav- conception of human behavior is resist- there is no place for the initiating agent ior. and its own destiny, but it does not ed, and many of its practical applica- suggested by classical mechanics. We do so in the sense in which the term tions rejected. precisely because it has try to identify such an agent when we say control is used in classical mechanics. It no place for a person as an initiating (i) that a species adapts to an environ- does not for the very reason that living agent. The behavioral sciences at level iii ment, rather than that the environment things are not machines: selection by show similar shortcomings. Anthropolo- selects the adaptive traits; (ii) that an consequences makes the difference.) In gy is heavily structural, and political individual adjusts to a situation, rather the second place, we must consider the scientists and economists usually treat than that the situation shapes and main- possibility that our behavior in interven- the individual as a free initiating agent. tains adjusted behavior; and (iii) that a ing is itself a product of selection. We Philosophy and letters offer no promising group of people solve a problem raised tend to regard ourselves as initiating leads. by certain circumstances, rather than agents only because we know or remem- A proper recognition of the selective that the circumstances select the cultural ber so little about our genetic and envi- action of the environment means a practices which yield a solution. ronmental histories. change in our conception of the origin of The question of an initiating agent is Although we can now predict many of behavior which is possibly as extensive raised in its most acute form by our own the contingencies of selection to which as that of the origin of species. So long as place in this history. Darwin and Spen- the human species will probably be ex- we cling to the view that a person is an cer thought that selection would neces- posed at all three levels and can specify initiating doer, actor, or causer of behav- sarily lead to perfection, but species, behavior that will satisfy many of them, ior. we shall probably continue to ne- people, and cultures all perish when they we have failed to establish cultural prac- glect the conditions which must be cannot cope with rapid change, and our tices under which much of that behavior changed if we are to solve our problems species now appears to be threatened. is selected and maintained. It is possible (5). Must we wait for selection to solve the that our effort to preserve the role of the problems of overpopulation, exhaustion individual as an originator is at fault, and References and Notes of resources, pollution of the environ- that a wider recognition of the role of I. N. Peterson. Science 132. 1395 (1960). 2. The imitative vocal behavior of certain birds ment, and a nuclear holocaust, or can we selection by consequences will make an may he an exception. but if it has selective take explicit steps to make our future important difference. consequences comparable with those of cries of alarm or mating calls. they are obscure. The more secure? In the latter case, must The present scene is not encouraging. vocal behavior of the parrot is shaped, at best. by a trivial consequence. involving the resent• we not in some sense transcend selec- Psychology is the discipline of choice at bbnce between sounds produced and sounds tion? level ii, but few psychologists pay much heard. 3. B. F. Skinner. Verbal Behavior (Appleton. New We could be said to intervene in the attention to selection. The existentialists York. 19571. process of selection when as geneticists among them are explicitly concerned 4. Patterns of innate behavior too complex to have arisen as single variations may have been we change the characteristics of a spe- with the here and now, rather than the by geologic changes due to plate lemon- cies or create new species. or when as past and future. Structuralists and devel- ictaref. Skinner. Acta Neurobiol. Erp. 35, 409 (15,75); reprinted in Reflections on BehaViOliST governors, employers, or teachers we opmentalists tend to neglect selective and Society (Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, contingencies in their search for causal NJ., 19781). change the behavior of persons, or when 5. , Beyond Freedom and Dignity (Knopf. we design new cultural practices; but in principles such as organization or New York, 197[1. 501 SCIENCE, VOL. 213 EFTA01130658