The Psychological Record, 1984,34,479-494

FUNDAMENTALS OF INTERBEHA VIORAL PSYCHOLOGY

NOEL W. SMITH
State University of New York at Plattsburg

Interbehavioral psychology differs in important ways from both be-

haviorism and mentalism and provides a neglected alternative to these
two psychologies, one that surmounts many of the problems that they
incur. It derives from observation of objects and events and their relation-
ships, these comprising an interbehavioral field. An analysis of the events
involved in such interactions as imagining, thinking, language, attending,
perceiving, voluntary and volitional conduct, and habit, all of which are
joint functions of field factors, are briefly treated here. Because inter-
behaviorism is field centered rather than organism centered it provides
important guidelines for research and theory as well as such applied
problems as psychotherapy and social responsibility.

Three Paradigms

Mentalism
It is commonplace in current psychology to assume that the brain or a mind
directs behavior; stores memory; and produces emotions, feelings, intelligence,
creativity, will, thought, and images. A further delineation of this theme is that
sensations or sense data are interpreted and information processed. Often this
view is invoked in terms of intervening variables or hypothetical constructs-
some proposed condition or process that comes between the stimulating world
and the responding organism. I Accordingly we do not respond to the world
directly but only to our nervous system or our minds. The consequence of this
position, not often recognized, is that we must then live in a double world (Kvale
& Grenness, 1967), a real world outside the skin and a representation of it inside.
One recent expression of this states, "It is not the tastes, smells, sights, sounds,
and the like that are stimuli. They are the responses" (Bartley, White, & Wight,
\983).
This paradigm may be represented by S.IV.R, where IV represents an

I MacCorquodale and Meehl (1948) proposed a distinction between intervening variables and
hypothetical constructs in which the former are "theoretically neutral" and acceptable while the latter
involve "surplus meaning" and are inadmissable. There are numerous difficulties with the distinction,
but suffice it to say that the two are equally mentalistic and are essentially interchangeable. Kantor
(1957) traces the idea of intervention back to its mentalistic origins with William James.

Reprint requests may be sent to Noel W. Smith, Department of Psychology, SUNY at Plattsburgh,
Plattsburgh, NY 1290 I.
480 SMITH

intervening variable such as mind, brain, will, drive, instinct, person, self,
consciousness, informational processing, intellect, and other powers. Debates
centering on some of these, such as intelligence and personality, have revolved
around the question of the extent to which behavior (R) is directed from internal
sources (IV) or external sources (S).
Behaviorism
A second paradigm achieved major recognition under John Watson's (1919)
radical behaviorism. (His original proclamation of behaviorism in 1913 was
methodological behaviorism; it merely circumvented the assumption of mind.)
It denied any intervening variable and turned to explanations in terms of Pavlovian
conditioning. It may be represented as StR. While it exorcised the unobservables
of the mentalistic paradigm it was a biomechanistic treatment that was quite
limited in its compass. Operant conditioning provided an important variation on
classical behaviorism and met with much success in its control and prediction
of behavior both in laboratory animals and with humans in applied settings.
Mentalists have often employed it as a technology while maintaining traditional
assumptions, and some from both camps have proffered such pairings as behavior
and mind, behavior and cognition, behavior and perception, and so on.
Interbehaviorism 2
It is seldom recognized that there is a third paradigm that psychology can
turn to as an alternative to the first two. This is interbehaviorism and may be
represented in its simplest form by S.tR. In the 1920s J. R. Kantor developed
this approach, one that began not with traditional constructs of minds or homun-
culean brains and not with restriction to simple conditioning, but with observation
of events and their interrelationships.
The active relationships of objects or events consist of interactions. They
may be divided into three broad types. (a) In inanimate events, such as those of
physics and chemistry, the interaction involves exchanges of energy (and/or
conversion to and from mass) and may be represented as E = E, where E refers
to energy. Billiard balls striking each other and transferring energy from one to
another is a familiar example. (b) In biological interactions no simple exchange
of energy takes place; rather, energy is released when appropriate cells are
stimulated. The phototropic response of a sunflower to the sun or the complex
action of the cardiac reflex center in humans are examples. This energy does
not come from the stimulus but from ingestion and metabolism of nutrients. It
may be represented as StR and is appropriate for the biomechanistic orientation
of behaviorism which has its roots in biology. (3) If we observe an organism as
it relates to its surroundings, we note a great variability in this interaction. An
organism may behave in any number of ways to a given stimulus object and
adapt to it in further ways on subsequent encounters. This form of interaction
is the S.tR of interbehaviorism.

The Interbehavioral Field

Stimulus Function
Stimulus and response occur as a system, not as independent events. The
2For another treatment of the fundamentals of interbehaviorism including the postulate system
see the article by Lichtenstein (1983).
 INTERBEHA VIORAL PSYCHOLOGY 481

two exist in interdependence, for if there is a response it is a response to something

and if there is a stimulus there must be a response to it-an organism cannot be
stimulated without responding. The stimulus can be further analyzed as having
a physiochemical makeup, called the stimulus object, and functional properties
or meanings to the individual, called stimulus functions. The latter develop from
interactions between the organism and the stimulus object. A single stimulus
object such as a book may have such stimulus functions as a weight, a source
of information, a doorstop, fuel for a fire, a treasured relic. Many different
stimulus objects may have the same functional characteristics: Either a poster
or a travel description might stimulate someone to visit a tropical island. Recog-
nition of the different functional properties of the stimulus object provides a
means of understanding the changing interactions with the same object and for
an objective account of meaning. The lack of such recognition was a severe
limitation in Watson ian behaviorism (Bijou, 1971) and has led to reductionism
in Skinnerian behaviorism (Parrott, 1983). Such recognition allows psychology
to move beyond what Kvale and Grenness (1967) refer to as "the primacy of
the physical world" (p. 134) in connection with Skinner. The behavioristic model
of behavior as biological movement or mechanical action and the world as
abstract physical components is obviated. As for mentalism, "the necessity of
an 'inner man' to guide behavior falls away when behavior is conceived as man's
meaningful relatedness to the world" (Kvale & Grenness, 1967, p. 137).

Response Function
In correspondence with the stimulus object and the stimulus function, the
response is both a biological act and a functional act. The same biological act
of setting an object on fire may have the function of destroying the object,
providing warmth, or studying the flame. Or two different responses may have
the same function: A person may start a fire by striking steel and flint or by
striking a match. These functional characteristics of responses constitute meanings
just as do the functional characteristics of stimulus objects and likewise allow
for dealing with meanings as objective events rather than as intervening vari-
ables-meanings are not added to the interactions but are the interactions.
Stimulus functions and response functions indicate further the interdependence
of stimulus and response and are distinguishable only by emphasizing the stimulus
side or the response side of the interaction.

Interactional History
The occurrence of stimulus functions/response functions implies that the
interactional history of each individual is also an integral part of every interaction,
but this needs to be made explicit. That history for every individual is both
cultural and idiosyncratic. We bring to every interaction our cultural mode of
thinking, perceiving, judging, and so on, and our individual development that
is unique for each person within the larger cultural framework. Even on a
sweltering day all students wear clothes on a college campus as culture demands
but each student also behaves differently by dressing differently.

Setting
The interbehaviorist also observes that these interactions always take place
in some kind of context. These context conditions, called setting factors, are an
482 SMITH

intrinsic component of the interactional event. They are almost infinite in variety.
Examples are temperature, building enclosures, city streets, mountain wilderness,
and presence or absence of other people. They also include conditions of the
organism such as fatigue, being rested, ingestion of alcohol or other drugs,
illness, hunger, thirst, satiation, and so on.
Medium of Contact
Using an observational program, the interbehaviorist notes, as previously
indicated, that organisms interrelate or interact with objects and events. In the
case of sensing, the interaction involves a medium of contact. For seeing, the
medium is light; for hearing, contractions and rarefactions of air; for smell,
particles dispersed in air; for taste, a liquid solution; for pain, a tissue malcon-
dition. The mentalist paradigm takes the medium to be the stimulus. Accordingly,
we do not see a house, but only light waves. We do not hear a lawn mower's
motor, but only air vibrations. These sensations, the mentalist holds, are trans-
formed by a creative brain into houses, motors, and other objects. Hence, not
only has nature divided us into two parts-body and mind-but has favored us
with two worlds, a real physical one on the outside and a representation or
illusion of the real one on the inside.
Rather than making assumptions about mental or brain creations, the inter-
behaviorist holds to observations about objects, organisms, and media as they
interrelate. Perceiving or sensing is a joint action of organism and object by
means of a medium. Because sensing is not contained in the organism but in
the relationship no hypothetical conversion process is required. Here too, inter-
behaviorism departs radically from the mentalist paradigm (Smith, 1983b).

Field
These foregoing interrelated components comprise a field or system. They
are, to recount, the stimulus object and its function, the response and its function,
the medium of contact, the setting, and the interactional history. The psycholog-
ical event is the field. These are all observable events that bring us to this
interbehavioral field construct. We did not start with a construct and impose it
on observation. Once we have an observation-based construct it can guide further
observation which can in tum modify the construct (Bentley, 1950).
Although the field includes physiochemical events involving E = E and
biological events of S.R it is irreducible to any of them. Nor can the field be
reduced to the entire organism, much less the organism's brain and certainly not
to some abstraction such as mind or consciousness. Consequently the inter-
behaviorist differs radically from the organocentrism of both mentalism and
behaviorism, for it is field centered or field oriented. In referring to Kantor,
Bentley (1935) wrote,

He studies organism and object just as he finds them in their joint appear-
ance in the "situation" and in their joint happening as "event," and without
survival of "mentalist" emphasis upon the organism, separately taken,
as the locus of "what happens". (p. 90)

What role then does the brain play? Or social conditions? Empirical studies
of the brain have never shown that it produces language or thought or that it
creates images or colors or that it directs locomotion or judgment. What they
 INTERBEHA VIORAL PSYCHOLOGY 483

have shown is that it is a necessary condition for these actions to occur. The
nervous system is a complex coordinating center whose health and proper func-
tioning is necessary in order for it to interact with other biological systems
involved in psychological acts. But those acts are not just products of one
biological system or of the entire organism. They consist of the entire field. In
such accomplishments as becoming an accountant or a newspaper editor, social
conditions such as a supportive family, varied learning experiences, basic social
skills, and some formal education are necessary. But these accomplishments also
require an organism with no major impairments of its vital systems. In addition,
the essentialness and interdependence of the interactional history as well as

Preceding
5C9ment

&havior ~ment

Figure J. The field of interacting factors comprising a psychological event.

organismic and social conditions are implicit in all accomplishments as are the
settings.
All the factors .play a necessary role, no one of which is sufficient or
independent. This is the field. The field is the psychological event (See Figure
I). As such it is a level of organization that is different from and irreducible to
any of its components. It has principles of its own. Just as biology deals with
an organization of events that involves but is different from inorganic events,
the psychological field includes both inorganic and organic organization as well
as social and cultural factors together with individual histories of interactions in
a new and relatively independent level of organization.
This level of organization that is psychology is an observable field of events
that must be distinguished from the mentalistic construct of emergentism that
holds that mind or consciousness is a new quality that arises from a certain level
of complexity. The new quality that occurs in the field is only the new organization
and the principles by which it functions, not a metaphysical agent or putative
brain powers.
484 SMITH

Origins of Actions

Development and Causation

Psychological development is very limited in the neonate due to the restricted
possibilities available from the limited biological development. As the biological
development advances it permits ever more complex interactions until the
psychological development outstrips biological advancement. Even when biolog-
ical decline sets in-this occurs in the early twenties-psychological development
continues to grow, though at a declining rate. This psychological growth continues
into old age even while the body is degenerating. This is not a mind growing
apart from its body but rather an interactional history that continues to advance
even while the biological component of the field is declining.
From birth onward the organism is an active agent in an active environment.
The environment does not start a passive organism acting nor does a passive or
chaotic environment become interpreted and structured by the organism. Barker
(1963, 1969) has observed that it is a common assumption in psychology that
the environment is chaotic and that the organism is a mysterious "black box that
appears to bring order out of chaos" (1969, p. 32). More recently the reference
is to "information processing" in which many small boxes shuttle "information"
about and transform it. The interbehaviorist has no traffic with any "black box"
or multi boxes containing transforming powers but does accord the biology of
the organism its full interdependent role in the field.
Interbehaviorism, then, does not need a motive, drive, or cause, or other
hypothetical force--or even the stimulus in the sense of an input or an evoker,
provoker, or eliciter-to get the organism started. It does not need emotion as
an energizer as some motivation theories propose. The interbehaviorist always
reverts back to observation, and it is a matter of observation that from the time
of birth onward (and to some extent even before) both organism and environment
are quite active. Out of the interactivity develop the knowledge, skills, habits,
feelings, and other activity patterns-whether overt or covert-that characterize
each individual. Beginning with simple biological acts such as reflexes and
random movements and having such biological equipment as sense organs and
the biological organization allowing for modifiability, the organism starts to
interact with its surroundings. Or, more accurately, the organism and its surround-
ings together begin their interaction. Stimulus objects gain stimulus functions
and responses become response functions. One can say that the world develops
its meanings for the organism or that the organism acquires meanings about the
world, for the two are in thoroughgoing interdependence.
It follows from this account of development and of the field that causation
involves all components and consists of the total field. One cannot say that the
stimulus or the setting or the brain is the cause of a psychological event. There
is no single factor that is sufficient to be the cause of such a complex set of
relationships. Some factors may be more important in one situation than another:
social setting in classroom behavior, biological factors in running a race, and
interactional history in enjoying a symphony. But in all of these the other field
factors are still interdependent and play an indispensable role: One's interactional
history enters into the classroom behavior as does one's health in being there;
a race must have meaning to the one who runs it, and the setting conditions of
cheering bystanders and air temperature may playa role; enjoyment of a symphony
 INTERBEHA VIORAL PSYCHOLOGY 485

requires adequate hearing and may be enhanced by watching the orchestra and
by good acoustics. But regardless of how major or minor any given factor in
any situation all factors are interdependent and collectively constitute the cause.
Kantor (1950) points out that

cause is, after all, only a type of correlation .... causal elements consist
of objects, their combinations and relations in particular systems. All
things existing as parts of features of a certain pattern of happenings may
be said to participate as factors in that particular causal field. In some
causal events there are few factors, in others many. In case there are
many we find great variations in the proportion of those factors that
appear more prominent than the remainder. (pp. 156, 158)

As McKearney (1977) puts it, it is counterproductive to search for the cause.

Queries about the cause or the basis of a behavior may be no more

meaningful than asking about the reason for a complex phenomenon like
an economic depression . . . . Since behavior is a complex product of
many interacting factors, it is erroneous to attribute primary causal status
to anyone of these acting in isolation. (pp. 111-112)

Some Types of Action

Imagining
In the hands of the mentalist imagining becomes a product of a mind or
the brain: Images are manufactured by the organism or some agency of it. To
the interbehaviorist images are continuous with other psychological events and
can be properly understood only by observing these concrete events.
On the response side we may observe the vestigial remnants of the responses
that occurred to original stimulus objects. In the case of imaginal tasting of food,
salivation and the taste buds are active. With proper instrumentation we could
probably detect some phases of a number of vestigial reactions. A few classical
studies did just this for such imagined activities as lifting a weight, running a
race, and others (e.g., Humphrey, 1948; Jacobson, 1932, 1938; Max, 1937).
Given the integrity of the organism we would expect the entire organism to be
involved in imagining even when only a few phases of its activities are measured
or detected.
But body responses are only one component of the imagining event. The
image is not contained in or produced by the body. On the stimulating side we
find that the organism is interacting not with the original stimulus object but
with something that substitutes for it. The person who sees a travel poster for
skiing in the Tyrolean Alps imagines bounding down the snowy slopes amid
mountain grandeur and perhaps enjoying the evening recreation in a resort town.
Another person imagines the flavor of a favorite food when passing a restaurant
that serves it-enhanced by the setting conditions of being hungry. Neither
mountains nor the food are actually present as stimulus objects, but the substitute
stimulus is quite effective. Imagining, then, is a field of interacting factors
including a substitute stimulus object and vestigial responses along with setting
and interactional history.
An analysis of imagining also allows us to see that it is continuous with
486 SMITH

overt types of activities. Consider the tennis player who is standing beside a
tennis court and quietly imagining his/her strategy in meeting a difficulty serve .of a
particular opponent in a coming match. At first there might be little that a casual
observer could detect. But as the player continues to imagine the action, that
player begins to make partial movements that constitute that action. Becoming
more engrossed the player finally engages in the full play, running to meet the
ball and swinging an arm sans racket for the return. Here we can see that there
is a complete continuity from fully covert to fully overt. At no point can one
say that a mind is operating and at another point a body. The only differences
are in degree of covertness/overtness. The opponent, the ball, and the racket are
all substitute stimulus objects and the interaction is the same in principle regardless
of the point on the continuum.
Substitute stimulation is also response produced. In the case of reverie each
imaged scene is a response that serves as a stimulus for the next. Substitute
stimulation is the essential principle in mnemonic devices where associations
are made to a memorized list or to some other contrivance. It makes possible
metaphors, literature, art, symbolization, inferences, writing, dreaming, and an
endless variety of activities in which the original stimulus is not present. The
occurrence of substitute stimulation that we can identify in so many psychological
field events leaves no room for such an unfortunate construct as "mind over
matter" as an explanation for the same events.

Thinking
Thinking occurs in several forms. These include judging, evaluating, criticiz-
ing, planning, interpreting, deciding, predicting, and estimating (Kantor & Smith,
1975). These are often interdependent with imagining, as in the case of the tennis
player who is imagining meeting an opponent's serve and at the same time is
planning strategy for that future encounter. This preliminary action is a frequent
characteristic of thinking, but is not present in all forms of it. In evaluating and
criticizing we provide a type of measurement according to some standard. Inter-
preting and explaining involve interrelating one event with another. Other forms
of thinking could be similarly described and distinguished from one another, but
the essential components are the frequent employment of substitute stimulation,
varying degrees of overtness/covertness in handling things, and adaptation or
adjustment to more or less intricate matters.

Language
A widespread assumption about language is that it consists of words or
even smaller linguistic units such as phonemes and allophones which are built
up into complex combinations through "associative linkage" (Jenkins, 1974, p.
786). This assembling, according to a second assumption, is accomplished by
the computer brain. A third assumption is that these units are symbols for ideas
in a mind. A fourth is that the units symbolizing ideas are transmitted from one
mind to another by a process in which the ideas are coded into sound waves by
the left hemisphere of the transmitter-speaker's brain and decoded by the left
hemisphere of the receiver-listener's brain.
The interbehaviorist's approach to language is quite different and quite
direct. It starts with the observation that when people speak they are referring
to the thing spoken about and to the person spoken to. Speaking is a bistimulational
 INTERBEHA VIORAL PSYCHOLOGY 487

interaction: The speaker interacts simultaneously with two stimulus objects, the
listener and the thing or situation spoken about. Similarly, the listener is interact-
ing simultaneously with the speaker and the thing spoken about. Speaking is
telling someone about something. Listening is hearing about something from
someone. Language is not symbolization but a referential act that requires no
assembler or interpreter. Language is not symbolization because words have no
fixed relation to objects, because interjections cannot be symbols, because one
cannot be transmitting symbols when speaking to oneself, and because language
may merely substitute for another type of behavior (Kantor, 1929, 1936, 1977).
Language mayor may not involve gestures or sounds. Speaking to oneself may
involve neither.
Gestures, intonation, affect, and conditions such as excitement or sadness,
setting factors, amount of prior understanding speaker and listener have of the
subject and their familiarity with each other, their attitudes toward the subject
and each other, and numerous other matters all are part of living language
interactions. Static written symbols of language on which analyses are often
based lack this fluidity and complexity. Any particular utterance can have greatly
differing meanings depending on any of these circumstances. The use of language
is far more complex than words, sentences, or even languages. It is a referential
act (and sometimes one that mediates the carrying out of some action) in a
complex field of events where meaning occurs as part of the context of many
factors. Sometimes the arching of an eyebrow speaks volumes, the content of
those volumes depending on the context. At other times an excited interchange
of clipped phrases, interjections, and vigorous gestures is comprehensible only
to the participants. Kantor has stated the matter succinctly: "whatever the indi-
vidual does in performing his referential activity constitutes the sum and substance
of the language act" (1936, p. 142). As for the role of words and other abstracted
units,
It is doubtless possible to analyze specific speech behavior into convenient
units. The resulting units cannot, however, be regarded as that out of
which connected discourse is synthesized. All classifications and compari-
sons must in the final analysis go back to the actual behavior of particular
individuals. (p. 164)

Further, any analytic units "must not transform living and ever-changing linguis-
tic responses into fixed structures built up from static materials" (p. 164). Jenkin's
(1974) work on recall of verbal materials illustrates well how inextricably lan-
guage is bound up in its context:
Some words and phrases can be shown to acquire their exact meaning
in that event from their relations to more far-flung aspects of the context:
a gesture, a reference, a topic previously spoken of, an event known to
both the speaker and the hearer to be in the future, presumed common
knowledge, and so on. (p. 787)

Attention and Perception

Attention. The mentalists have ascribed attending to informational process-
ing (Egeth & Bevan, 1973) or to processes that give effectiveness to a stimulus
(Berlyne, 1974). Perhaps the most celebrated approach is that of Broadbent
(1955) who has proposed a brain filter that selects one stimulus over another
488 SMITH

and sends it to an analyzer. The question of whether we can attend to something

before we have perceived it also arises in the mentalistic context.
To the interbehaviorist there is no doubt that an object cannot be perceived
until it has been attended to. Attending is the beginning phase of an interaction
involving the actualization of one stimulus object and its function rather than
another. It is a necessary precurrent portion of the action pattern of an interactional
field. It is either preparatory or anticipatory of what follows and as such is an
auxilary act. One can also say that when we attend to a new stimulus object or
condition we discontinue an interaction with a previous stimulus object and begin
with another. We can say that either attending is shifting from one object to
another or that it is shifting from one response to another, for a new response
function requires a new stimulus object and its function. As an auxiliary event,
attending is subtle and fleeting~specially when it involves objects of thinking
or feeling or other covert interactions.
Objects that make for the actualization of one stimulus object or another
may be observed both on the stimulus side and on the organism side of the
interaction. On the stimulus side, objects that are large, moving, bright, repeated,
intense, or conspicuous or salient in some way often command attention. These
are some of the factors manipulated by advertisers to increase the likelihood that
we will attend to their message. On the organism side, we can list either special
ongoing interests or immediate interests: In the former case a computer user will
notice computer displays or ads; in the latter case the one who is expecting the
arrival of a visitor will attend to every outdoor sound. Personality characteristics
also playa role: The compassionate person will attend to subtle signs of discontent
or sadness on the part of another person. Personal circumstances such as hunger,
ill health, or excitement-which can also be considered setting factors-influence
attending. In many circumstances several of these conditions of both the stimulus
object and the organism will be simultaneously involved.
Perception. The mentalist believes that a two-fold process takes place that
starts with sensing and concludes with perceiving. Sensing is conceived of as
the action of the sense organs and perceiving as the mind's or brain's interpretation
of what the sense organs receive, these organs being called "receptors." (There
is much inconsistency in assumptions and usages of such terms as sensation,
percept, sense datum, and perception.) The stimulus object is a "cue" requiring
interpretation. The cue itself cannot be seen or heard but is known only by the
light or sound coming from it. Thus, light waves coming from a cue are received
by receptors and then interpreted by some unknown process to provide a "rep-
resentation" of the object.
The interbehavioral analysis of the events in simple discrimination was
presented in a preceding section. It is important to note that perceptual interaction
does not usually end with this identification but leads to some further act. Thus,
attending and perceiving are precurrent to some further action that consummates
that particular action field. One who attends to a particular person in a crowd
and perceives that it is a friend may call out that person's name or engage the
friend in some manner. These latter acts complete the behavior segment, the
action pattern comprising a field in an interval of time. One can often choose
among various possible consummatory acts: Rather than engaging the friend one
can avoid the friend if that person is perceived as being slightly drunk or as
causing undesired delays. Perception "thus involves not only the sheer identifi-
 INTERBEHA VIORAL PSYCHOLOGY 489

cation of things, but also the appreciation of their uses and values and whether
or not they fit into the scheme of one's immediate circumstances" (Kantor &
Smith, 1975, p. 175). This, of course, is inseparable from the stimulus function/re-
sponse function and interactional history. No distinction exists between sensing
and perceiving (these verb forms point more directly to an action than the noun
forms, sensation and perception, the nouns implying thingness or static qualities).
Some utility might accrue to using "sensing" to refer to simple discrimination
or identification and "perception" for more complex action patterns. Even so,
the two are continuous.

Voluntary and Volitional Interactions

The choices that often occur in perceiving lead to voluntary conduct. They
may be between two or more courses of action or between acting and refraining
from acting. The choice "is guided or influenced by the consequences" (Kantor,
1926, p. 313). In voluntary action language is often an important component
and may be decisive, but of particular prominence is "the operation of large
portions of the behavior equipment of the person" (p. 317). In their development
as part of the interactional history, meanings provide numerous precurrent actions
that enter into the final act. Settings also operate. For example, a student may
consider raising a question of an instructor but is inhibited by the class setting.
Choosing varies in complexity from the simple matter of selecting a brand of
soup from a grocery store shelf to that of deciding among possible careers.
Choices also may involve compromises or replacement of one possibility with
an entirely new one. Substitute stimulation plays a major role and, because
consequences do not occur until the action is complete, the consequences must
be reacted to covertly. When one ponders the consequences that might occur
with one choice or another, the absent object might be written materials, the
person's own responses (response-produced stimulation including images), state-
ments by others, or other matters.
The old metaphysical conflict between willpower or freedom on the one
hand and determinism on the other does not arise in the interbehavioral analysis.
Causation, as indicated previously, is comprised of all field factors. Once we
take account of the interactional history, the perceiving of the choices available
to the person, that person's pondering of the consequences, and the setting in
which the choosing occurs, we have described the correlated factors that comprise
the choosing event. The interactional field of choosing constitutes causality. It
is a functional relationship, not a separate force. This obviates any abstract
additional cause such as determinism or freedom of will. They have no concrete
referent. Any concrete factor that has been overlooked (perhaps culture or biolog-
ical impairment) would be another correlated component of the field, either
facilitating or delimiting the choosing but not operating as an independent cause.
A type of interaction that Kantor calls volitional is distinguishable from
voluntary interactions. The latter involve problem situations in which there may
be a precurrent decision and a reasoning act but always a choice of outcomes.
The choice and the pondering are completely absent in a volitional interaction.
In it some auxiliary action must be completed before the central act can be
consummated (Kantor, 1924; Kantor & Smith, 1975; Smith & Shaw, 1979).
When a person is stimulated to write a letter, auxiliary interactions of obtaining
writing utensil and paper are necessary before the central act of writing can
490 SMITH

occur. In a more complex situation, a person who is stimulated to walk from

home to the work place a few city blocks away must interact with a large number
of objects and situations before reaching the destination at which the central
interaction is consummated. That act was initiated by a substitute stimulus,
inasmuch as the work place was not present to the person, and may also have
involved choosing among driving, walking, or taking a bus. These choices
necessarily also involved perceiving. Thus, several types of action are often
intricately interrelated.
Volitional interactions are among the most commonplace of all activities
and yet they are almost entirely neglected by other psychologies. It is a tribute
to interbehaviorism to note that it has so readily provided a detailed analysis of
this neglected but vital area of psychological behavior.
Habit and the Meaning of Awareness
Habitual acts are almost the opposite of volitional and voluntary acts. In
volitional acts the individual perceives both the consummatory act and the aux-
iliary acts that must be completed before the consummatory act can occur, as
for example, in the necessity of walking around a table in order to reach a chair.
In voluntary acts the individual perceives more than one possible final act, such
as sitting at the side of the table in a chair that is uncomfortable looking or in
a chair at the end of the table where papers and books are piled and thus crowded
but which could be moved (volitional act). In these situations the consummatory
act is not closely bound to the precurrent ones. The individual perceives the
situation and the choices and anticipates possible modifications. With habits, by
contrast, the precurrent act is closely integrated with the consummatory act.
There is little affective or cognitive interaction-what may be called awareness
or consciousness, although feelings and thoughts as well as motor acts can also
be habitual. A great many of the behavior patterns typical of a given individual
that we call personality are made up of habits. The close integration of stimulus
and response along with the precurrent action patterns that comprise much of
our behavior equipment not only mark our personalities but also provide for
efficiency in action. They make it possible to do more than one thing at a time.
Such terms as unconscious or subconscious have been used in conjunction
with acts involving limited cognitive behavior or awareness as occurs in habits
and have often implied something quite mysterious. The interbehavioral analysis
makes clear the concreteness of these events and the relationship of their con-
stituent factors as well as their complexity (see Kantor, 1924, for a more detailed
account).
Some Implications of Interbehaviorism
Research
Kantor has pointed out that all research is interbehavioral, for all that
researchers can do is to interbehave with other interbehaviors. Much psycholog-
ical research, however, departs from an interbehavioral interpretation because it
starts with constructs rather than events. Not only can interbehaviorism lend
itself to better interpretation of research results but also to an improvement in
the factors that are addressed. For example, the recognition of setting factors
can replace recourse to hypothetical drives (Gewirtz, 1972). The few who have
studied settings show its importance in the interbehavioral field. (e.g., Barker,
 INTERBEHA VIORAL PSYCHOLOGY 491

1963, 1965, 1969; Gewirtz, 1967, 1969a, 1969b; Ray, 1983; Rennert, 1975).
The interbehavioral field supports the trend which is occurring in some quarters
of turning from study of single variables to that of interactions of multivariables
(e.g., Bevan, 1968; Cronbach, 1975; McKearney, 1976; McKearney & Barrett,
1975). Interbehaviorism has an explicit and detailed set of postulates (Kantor,
1959; Kantor & Smith, 1975) that can be used to encourage the analysis and
comparison of orientations whose assumptions are not explicit and thereby avoid
the un salutary situation described by Jenkins (1974) who found that "common
sets of unexamined beliefs and attitudes . . . both directed and limited our re-
search and theory in many ways" (p. 785).
The recognition of behavior as a field event directs the researcher to examine
factors that might otherwise be overlooked and to observe their interdependence.
It also directs the researcher to actual events that may be more fruitfully pursued
than traditional abstractions and analogies. The researcher who seeks events will
not populate the head with little boxes and connecting lines. A cardinal rule of
interbehaviorism is that all interpretation must be consistent with observation.
In fact the interbehaviorial paradigm itself derives from this. By contrast, the
implicit rule that guides much research in psychology is to start with assumptive
con'structs: Behavior is caused by or regulated by traits, motives, information
processing, or consciousness. These constructs about the organism are then
imposed on whatever data are collected. As Jenkins (1974) puts it, "I believed
that explanation ultimately rested on a description of the machinery that produced
the behavior" (p. 786)-a belief that has been pervasive in American experimental
psychology.
With interbehaviorism empirical studies are directed toward observable
events involving interrelationships, and interpretive constructs are kept in accord
with observations. The laws, explanations, and other constructs that result from
these studies can be refined and corrected with continuing study. Prediction and
control can be improved and their limitations better known because of the in-
creased number of factors and their interactions that are includeu.

Theory
Much of the foregoing is inseparable from implications for theory construc-
tion. In addition, recognition of the interbehavioral field would avoid simplistic
explanations such as that of behavior having a cause or a basis. It would also
avoid mechanism, mentalism, and reductionism as well as analogizing from
other sciences, whether computer models, signal detection, holograms, or other
technological devices. A psychological event would be treated as distinctive in
its own right, not relegated to some more "basic" science. The full range of
human activities such as knowing, choosing, learning, imagining, feeling, hop-
ing, and learning could receive full attention. They would be treated as fields
of concrete interactions that are amenable to observation and study, not a hypothet-
ical or intervening variable to which are attributed the occurrence of these events.
The practice of addressing constructs rather than events has led to such
theoretical questions as (a) whether behavior is caused by internal or external
events or some combination; (b) where the biological base of psychology may
reside and the nature of it; (c) to what extent such constructs as intelligence and
personality are determined by heredity and to what extent by environment; (d)
492 SMITH

how neurons provide subjective thoughts, store memories, and engage in thinking;
(e) whether we have freedom of will or are determined; (1) how percepts relate
to the real world; and others (Smith, 1983a). When we address events rather
than constructs these puzzles fall away. Theory and research then go hand in
hand to provide advancement in understanding of psychological events.

Psychotherapy
Whether one turns to behavior modification, reality therapy, psychoanalysis,
client -centered therapy, humanistic therapy, gestalt therapy, or others, the implicit
assumption is that the individual can be changed in some way to behave in a
more satisfying manner. These organocentric procedures overlook the field nature
of the psychological event. It is organocentrism that also gives rise to the medical
model with its use of drugs, frontal lobotomies, and electroconvulsive shock as
means of treating behavior disorders. One of the few therapeutic orientations
that attempts to deal with the situation as well as with the individual is community
psychology. The interbehavioral paradigm suggests that the most effective
therapies would be ones that work with home, community, and work situation
as well as with the individual. A person who obtains new insights (stimulus
functions/response functions) and new overt behaviors, but who encounters the
same situations which were involved in the development of his or her problems
in the first place, may not as often enjoy any long lasting benefits as when the
situation is also improved.

Social and Legal Responsibility

Where does responsibility lie for an individual's actions. If a person becomes
a drunkard, is it that person's fault or is it the fault of a disadvantaged community
and a broken home? Is the student who is successful in gaining academic honors
deserving of congratulations or should we congratulate the parents who provided
inspiration, early learning opportunities, and financial support; the good schools
that nurtured the student's scholastic interests; and a tax system and a community
that supported the schools? And who is to blame for the criminal: the individual
criminal or society? If we "get tough" with criminals will this deter crime? Or
do we need to address the society?
From the vantage point of an interbehavioral field, responsibility is clearly
a joint relationship. Even with an individual who overcomes adversity to obtain
success, some special circumstances can usually be found that contributed, such
as an inspiring friend or teacher. Or, when someone from favored circumstances
commits a crime, the various influences upon the person from childhood onward
may include some that were insidious. Voluntary action depends on perceptions
of consequences, setting factors, and interactional history. Society and the indi-
vidual are jointly responsible for all activities whether evil or beneficent. If we
wish to reduce crime, we must change both society and the individual or, perhaps
more accurately, change them together. If we wish to foster socially desirable
achievements, we must nurture the individual's milieu as well as the individual.
This conclusion may not be unique to interbehaviorism but that paradigm makes
the principle particularly clear and guards against the common practice of stressing
one side or the other of the interaction rather than the interaction itself with its
contributing components. This principle would go a long way in getting psychol-
 INTERBEHA VIORAL PSYCHOLOGY 493

ogy off to a more fruitful start with all of the questions it deals with, both
theoretical and applied.

Conclusion

Because interbehavioral psychology is event oriented, it confines itself to

functional descriptions. It does not impose the internal constructs of mentalism
or the external ones of behaviorism. One may justifiably consider it a naturalistic
and an objective psychology. The field system that emerges from this functional
description eliminates the theoretical impasses of other approaches and at the
same time is better able to handle the rich complexities of human interactions.
With its integrated field and its complete set of postulates interbehavioral psychol-
ogy is the only approach that provides a coherent formal system to all psycholog-
ical events. It has the potential to sweep away the pernicious metaphysical legacy
that pervades much of psychology and to provide a unifying program to psychol-
ogy's diversity and fractionation. These potentials have barely been touched,
but the system is ready for use.

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