Back to Control of Behavior

CSGnet Archive CSG2014
1

[From Fred Nickols (2014.12.11.1155 EST)]

I want to revisit this control of behavior thing. More specifically, I want to check my understanding of something.

If by “control someone else’s behavior” is meant simply that I can get someone to behave the way I want them to, the answer is yes. Putting a gun to their head is more often than not the quickest and most effective if not the best way.

If by “control someone else’s behavior” is meant that I can establish a reference signal for someone else’s behavior and then get them to behave in ways such that their behavior matches my reference signal, my answer is still yes. However, in this scenario I also have to get them to have the same reference signal for their behavior that I do. That might be achieved through communication and negotiation.

If by “control someone else’s behavior” is meant that I can get them to behave in ways that I want without apprising them of my reference signal then I suppose that is possible by fiddling around and creating disturbances for them that eventually results in them displaying the behavior I’m after. Whew! That is likely to take a while.

Anyway, do I have these straight?

Regards,

Fred Nickols, CPT

Distance Consulting LLC

Assistance at a Distance

The Knowledge Workers’ Tool Room

“Be sure you measure what you want.”

“Be sure you want what you measure.”

2

[Martin Taylor 2014.12.11.12.41]

So far, so good. But in my opinion, your next sentence goes astray.

No. They control their perception. They have no reference for their
behaviour, unless they are using some quite different control unit
to control a perception of their behaviour, which is certainly a
possibility. You can ask someone to lift their left arm, and they
may do it. That does require them to control a perception of their
behaviour, but except in sport training, it’s not especially common.
As the elastic band demo shows, it’s not usually necessary. In that
demo, E controls a perception of S’s behaviour BECAUSE S controls a
perception of the position of the knot. S does, of course, at low
levels, need to have reference signals that result in muscle
movements that keep the knot near its reference location, but they
take on those values not because S is controlling a perception of
the finger location, but because S is controlling a perception of
the knot location.
That’s the usual process, if you want someone to do something and
they seem to be willing. Just ask, and if it doesn’t conflict with
something else they are controlling, you will probably get what you
want, whether it be help in moving a couch, the salt passed, or a
listening audience for a lecture. But it’s not just your reference
value for their control of a perception of the locations of those
“objects”. The person you ask may never have even seen your couch,
so they have to create a perception of its location before they can
start to control that perception with your reference value for it.
Creating new perceptions to control is a whole 'nother thread, I
think.
Is it? Isn’t one of the skills of a combatant, whether it be in a
bridge game, a hockey game, or an all-out war, to disturb
perceptions the opponent controls in such a way that he does what
you want? As Kent suggested a while back, if you can guess one of
his objectives and you want him to achieve it by a particular path,
you make that path easier than any obvious alternative – the skill
of judo, to use the opponent’s power to your advantage. Think of Iago dropping a handkerchief for Othello to find. The enemy
doesn’t even have to know you were there.
You don’t even have to disturb any perception in the one whose
behaviour you want to control. You can make easy for them to see the
world in a particular way that will lead them to act as you want if
they are controlling a perception you have guessed right. How else
does ISIL gather recruits?
In good part but not completely, I think.
Martin

···

On 2014/12/11 11:58 AM, “Fred Nickols”
( via csgnet Mailing List) wrote:

fred@nickols.us

[From Fred Nickols (2014.12.11.1155 EST)]

      I want to revisit this control of behavior

thing. More specifically, I want to check my understanding of
something.

      If by “control someone else’s behavior” is

meant simply that I can get someone to behave the way I want
them to, the answer is yes. Putting a gun to their head is
more often than not the quickest and most effective if not the
best way.

      If by “control someone else’s behavior” is

meant that I can establish a reference signal for someone
else’s behavior and then get them to behave in ways such that
their behavior matches my reference signal, my answer is still
yes.

      However, in this scenario I also have to

get them to have the same reference signal for their behavior
that I do.

      That might be achieved through

communication and negotiation.

      If by “control someone else’s behavior” is

meant that I can get them to behave in ways that I want
without apprising them of my reference signal then I suppose
that is possible by fiddling around and creating disturbances
for them that eventually results in them displaying the
behavior I’m after. Whew! That is likely to take a while.

Anyway, do I have these straight?

3

[From Fred Nickols (2014.12.11.1155 EST)]

I want to revisit this control of behavior thing. More specifically, I want to check my understanding of something.

If by “control someone else’s behavior” is meant simply that I can get someone to behave the way I want them to, the answer is yes. Putting a gun to their head is more often than not the quickest and most effective if not the best way.

HB :

The problem occurs if somebody will not obey you and you’ll have to pull the trigger. It’s question whether you’ll do it or not. Is he controlling your behavior by saying “O.K. pull the trigger” ?

You are not controlling his behavior with your gun. He is. You are disturbing his perceptual control on some important level what makes him behave as you think he has to behaves. But he has always a choice whether he’ll do it or not. But he is controlling some of his important perceptions inside organism, where you caused “error”. Whatever someone can do to other are just disturbances to perceptual control. Whatever happens then is “Control of perception of individual”.

FN :

If by “control someone else’s behavior” is meant that I can establish a reference signal for someone else’s behavior and then get them to behave in ways such that their behavior matches my reference signal, my answer is still yes.

HB :

No. The problem is how you “get him to behave” as you want. The problem is the same as before. There is no “control of behavior”. It’s just “Control of perception” on many levels of hierarchy.

However, in this scenario I also have to get them to have the same reference signal for their behavior that I do. That might be achieved through communication and negotiation.

HB :

I think that’s always the option. But you both set your own references. It’s your separate decision.

FN :

If by “control someone else’s behavior” is meant that I can get them to behave in ways that I want without apprising them of my reference signal then I suppose that is possible by fiddling around and creating disturbances for them that eventually results in them displaying the behavior I’m after. Whew! That is likely to take a while.

Anyway, do I have these straight?

HB :

There is no way you can “control someone else behavior”. You have to show mechanism that can do that in human nerv net and outputs which will work as you want them to. You can’t see in his “head” what someone is realy controlling when you observe his behavior. Muscles are not the only output that controls the homeostasis in organism. So you have to see all control mechanism in the organism to tell exactly what somebody “controls”. But that is impossible. You will never know what people really think and what they really control. But you can imagine.

Give some examples as that one with the gun. Or you try it with other person how it works. You will see how persons will control your threat.

If everything is so easy to mark as “control of behavior”, why do you need PCT as “Control of perception” ?

KM :

Many sociologists have seemed content to rely on the common-sense psychological observation that people produce actions in order to reach goals.1 In other words, social behavior is goal directed, and, when proceeding rationally, behavior results from the control of human actions. The model presented here makes one small but highly consequential change in this line of thinking.

Perceptual control theory holds that human behavior consists of controlling perceptions, not actions. In other words, people’s actions are merely a by-product of their attempts to stabilize their perceptions in conformity with their own desires and preferences.

Nobody can control someone else behavior (actions). That’s the main premise of PCT. If you turn it into “control of behavior”, what is left to be PCT ?

Best,

Boris

Regards,

Fred Nickols, CPT

Distance Consulting LLC

Assistance at a Distance

The Knowledge Workers’ Tool Room

“Be sure you measure what you want.”

“Be sure you want what you measure.”

···

From: “Fred Nickols” (fred@nickols.us via csgnet Mailing List) [mailto:csgnet@lists.illinois.edu]
Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2014 5:59 PM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: Back to Control of Behavior

4

so, regarding control of behavior…why hasn’t anybody mentioned pavlov’s dogs?
also, what about social hierarchies, such as slave-master relations.

also, if by ‘control of behavior’ you mean to say that one is causing a LCS to start or stop controlling a particular perception, you’d be on the right track. but what Rick refers to as control of behavior relates to controlling the uncontrolled aspects of a persons behavior, which is quite a huge intellectual error for to make in the context of PCT. consider that the subject S can control for the position of knot as being “over dot” while simultaneously controlling for the position of finger as being “not where E intends”. of course, S would do so by varying the method used to control the position of knot. for instance, by using two fingers applying force at different regions on the band instead of just one. in other words, if S doesn’t care about the position of his finger as much as he/she cares about the position of the knot, then it will create the illusion that E is controlling S’s behavior. but E is merely controlling an uncontrolled aspect of S’s perception.

best,

Phil

···
5

[Martin Taylor 2014.12.11.23.10]

Is it worth pointing out once again that what anyone controls is

PERCEPTION, not a rock or someone’s behaviour?

No, I suppose not, not on the list devoted to discussions of the

theory of Perceptual Control.

It's all very well for an analyst to talk about why S does what S

does in the elastic band demo, but it’s quite irrelevant to the fact
that if E’s perception of what S does matches E’s reference for what
S does, E has controlled E’s perception of S’s behaviour remarkably
well. It’s entirely irrelevant that S could have chosen to do
something else, if S did not so choose. If S chooses to do something
else, E’s control of E’s perception of S’s behaviour will be pretty
bad.

I don't see why there's such a problem about agreeing with Powers

that behaviour is the control of perception.

Martin
···

pyeranos@ucla.edu

6

did I say something incorrect, Martin?

···

On Thursday, December 11, 2014, Martin Taylor csgnet@lists.illinois.edu wrote:

[Martin Taylor 2014.12.11.23.10]

  On 2014/12/11 7:19 PM, PHILIP JERAIR > > YERANOSIAN (pyeranos@ucla.edu via csgnet Mailing List) wrote:

Is it worth pointing out once again that what anyone controls is

PERCEPTION, not a rock or someone’s behaviour?

No, I suppose not, not on the list devoted to discussions of the

theory of Perceptual Control.

It's all very well for an analyst to talk about why S does what S

does in the elastic band demo, but it’s quite irrelevant to the fact
that if E’s perception of what S does matches E’s reference for what
S does, E has controlled E’s perception of S’s behaviour remarkably
well. It’s entirely irrelevant that S could have chosen to do
something else, if S did not so choose. If S chooses to do something
else, E’s control of E’s perception of S’s behaviour will be pretty
bad.

I don't see why there's such a problem about agreeing with Powers

that behaviour is the control of perception.

Martin

  so, regarding control of behavior...why hasn't anybody mentioned

pavlov’s dogs?
also, what about social hierarchies, such as slave-master
relations.

    also, if by 'control of behavior' you mean to say that one

is causing a LCS to start or stop controlling a particular
perception, you’d be on the right track. but what Rick refers to
as control of behavior relates to controlling the uncontrolled
aspects of a persons behavior, which is quite a huge
intellectual error for to make in the context of PCT. consider
that the subject S can control for the position of knot as being
“over dot” while simultaneously controlling for the position of
finger as being “not where E intends”. of course, S would do so
by varying the method used to control the position of knot. for
instance, by using two fingers applying force at different
regions on the band instead of just one. in other words, if S
doesn’t care about the position of his finger as much as he/she
cares about the position of the knot, then it will create the
illusion that E is controlling S’s behavior. but E is
merely controlling an uncontrolled aspect of S’s perception.

best,

Phil

7

[Martin Taylor 2014.12.12.12.48]

Let's see...

This isn’t incorrect, since it is a question, to which the answer
probably is that old-timers remember when the PCT analysis of
conditioning was thoroughly worked out and tested by experiments, so
haven’t bothered to mention it in this context (I don’t see its
relevance in context, myself). Powers 1971 paper and others also
reprinted in LCS I treat the topic, though not specifically with
Pavolv’s dogs. That’s number 1. Does “one” have a perception that a LCS is
controlling a particular perception, and does one have a means of
influencing that perception? Usually the answer to both those
questions is “No”. If either answer is “No”, then this is wrong.
There are exceptions, I suppose, but I can’t think of one off-hand.
However, though I can’t speak for anyone else, I doubt that many of
the people writing about it on CSGnet mean “that one is causing a
LCS to start or stop controlling a particular perception”, and I am
quite sure that if anyone did mean that, they would not be on the
right track.
Number 2. I don’t see it as an intellectual error at all. Rick is
talking about controlling some aspect of a person’s behaviour, which
is a perception in the mind of E. If E’s perception continues to
match (or nearly match) its reference value as that reference value
changes, E is controlling that aspect of S’s behaviour. The
mechanism, and whether S is also controlling that aspect, is totally
irrelevant. The controlling system knows nothing about it other than
the perceptual value that results.
Number 3. Sure, but all that would mean is that E’s control is not
very good.
Number 4. No illusion. E is controlling E’s perception of S’s
behaviour, well if S decides to follow instructions, poorly if not.
An external observer might be subject to the standard “behavioural
illusion” when S does follow instructions. The illusion in this case
would be that S is just an S-R process in which R (the finger
position) is hard-wired to the stimulus (E’s movements). That’s the
observer’s problem, not an issue about E’s controlling.
Number 2 repeated. Not so. E is controlling a perception of an
element of S’s behaviour. How S produces that behaviour is entirely
irrelevant.
Suppose S were to control well for mirroring E’s finger movements
and did not control at all for the position of the knot. Would an
external observer, or E, know the difference? The external
appearance would be the same, but would not E then be controlling a
controlled aspect of S’s perception?
Martin

···

On 2014/12/12 10:58 AM, PHILIP JERAIR
YERANOSIAN ( via csgnet Mailing List) wrote:

pyeranos@ucla.edu

did I say something incorrect, Martin?

  On Thursday, December 11, 2014, Martin Taylor <csgnet@lists.illinois.edu      >

wrote:

      [Martin Taylor

2014.12.11.23.10]

        On 2014/12/11 7:19 PM, PHILIP JERAIR

YERANOSIAN (pyeranos@ucla.edu via csgnet Mailing
List) wrote:

      Is it worth pointing out once again that what anyone controls

is PERCEPTION, not a rock or someone’s behaviour?

        so, regarding control of behavior...why hasn't anybody

mentioned pavlov’s dogs?

          also, what about social hierarchies, such as

slave-master relations.

          also, if by 'control of behavior' you mean to say that

one is causing a LCS to start or stop controlling a
particular perception, you’d be on the right track.

          but what Rick refers to as control of behavior relates

to controlling the uncontrolled aspects of a persons
behavior, which is quite a huge intellectual error for to
make in the context of PCT.

          consider that the subject S can control for the

position of knot as being “over dot” while simultaneously
controlling for the position of finger as being “not where
E intends”.

          of course, S would do so by varying the method used to

control the position of knot. for instance, by using two
fingers applying force at different regions on the band
instead of just one. in other words, if S doesn’t care
about the position of his finger as much as he/she cares
about the position of the knot, then it will create the
illusion that E is controlling S’s behavior.

          but E is merely controlling an uncontrolled aspect of

S’s perception.

8

perfect

9

[From Rick Marken (2014.12.12.1300)]

···

Fred Nickols (2014.12.11.1155 EST)

Â

FN: I want to revisit this control of behavior thing. More specifically, I want to check my understanding of something.

RM: OK, I think we really have to get this thing understood before we can go on to understand cooperation, which involves control of behavior.

Â

 FN: If by “control someone else’s behaviorâ€? is meant simply that I can get someone to behave the way I want them to, the answer is yes.Â

RM: Right. I think the main problem in this discussion is confusing theory and fact. Control of behavior is a fact. When you train your dog to sit down on command you are controlling the behavior of your dog. When you ask someone to pass the salt and they pass it you have controlled their behavior.Â

RM: Control of the behavior of a living system (like a dog or human) is not as reliable as controlling the behavior of a non-living system (like a car). But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Sometimes when you say “sit” the dog doesn’t sit, even though it had consistently sat on command many times before. Sometimes when you turn the key to start the car nothing happens, even though the car had consistently started when the key was turned many times before. In neither case does this failure of control mean that the behavior that didn’t occur (the dog sitting or the car starting)Â could not be controlled.Â

RM: PCT is a theory that explains control, including control of the behavior of living systems. So it explain what you are doing when you command the dog to sit and when you turn the key to start the car. It also explains the difference between controlling the behavior of a living control system (like the dog) and a non-living one (the car).Â

RM: The problem with this discussion of control of behavior is that aome people have been using PCT in a most unusual way: to explain away rather than explain the phenomenon (fact) of control of behavior. Â

FN: If by “control someone else’s behaviorâ€? is meant that I can establish a reference signal for someone else’s behavior and then get them to behave in ways such that their behavior matches my reference signal, my answer is still yes.Â

RM: Now you are mixing theory and fact. Reference signals are a theoretical concept that explains what you, the controller, are doing when you control someone else’s behavior. You are, in theory, setting a reference for the behavior you want to see and acting so as to make your perception of the behavior match the reference. That’s the theory and, yes, I believe that theory is correct: that is what you are doing when you (in fact) control behavior.Â

FN: However, in this scenario I also have to get them to have the same reference signal for their behavior that I do. That might be achieved through communication and negotiation.

RM: This is also a theoretical explanation of how control of behavior works and it is actually incorrect;the theory does not say that you have to get the controllee to have the same reference signal for their behavior as you do. All you have to do is be able to do something that disturbs a variable controlled by the controllee (you don’t even have to know what that variable is) and that is protected from your disturbance by variations in the behavioral variable, q.o, that you want to control: because q.o = r-(1/k.e)*d (in theory).

Â

FN: If by “control someone else’s behaviorâ€? is meant that I can get them to behave in ways that I want without apprising them of my reference signal then I suppose that is possible by fiddling around and creating disturbances for them that eventually results in them displaying the behavior I’m after.Â

RM: That is nearly exactly correct, but again it mixes factual and theoretical concepts. The statement would be exactly correct if you replaced the theoretical term “my reference signal” with “what I want them to do”. Then you are talking about fact only.

FN: Anyway, do I have these straight?

RM: Yes. As I said, I think you’re only problem is conflating fact and theory a bit. There is no question that we can control behavior; we do it all the time. Control of behavior is a fact. We just have to be careful not to confuse what we can clearly do (the fact that we can control behavior) with what is going on theoretically (in controller and controllee) when we do it.Â

BestÂ

Rick

Â

Â

Regards,

Â

Fred Nickols, CPT

Distance Consulting LLC

Assistance at a Distance

The Knowledge Workers’ Tool Room

“Be sure you measure what you want.�

“Be sure you want what you measure.�

Â

Â

–
Richard S. Marken, Ph.D.
Author of  Doing Research on Purpose.Â
Now available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble

In nature there’s no blemish but the mind

None can be called deformed but the unkind.

               Shakespeare, Twelfth Night