************** FROM CHUCK TUCKER 930317 ******************
Dear Dag and Christine,
Moments ago I was at the end of a very long post about your video
and I hit a key and disconnected my computer from the mainframe
(the first time I have done it accidently) and I could
not retrieve it so I am writing it over again on a file that
I will not lose unless I hit the wrong key in WS.
First, I want to thank you for the video. I had read Bill's
comments about it before I received it but after viewing it I re-
read them and found them to be excellent. As you noted they
should be in the archives with the demos since they are very good
instructions (the best that I have seen Bill give for these
demos) and I plan to use them and would suggest that you do the
same. I have a few suggestions for the video that I hope you
will take not as criticism but in the spirit of improving upon
your presentation.
I don't see this video as one which can be used as a
demonstration but it is, for me, a good record of what you do
when you give a presentation of PCT. If you wanted to develop it
into a "demonstration video" I would suggest that you pay very
close attention to Ed's video that was done with PBS. It seems
to me that that video was actually designed to be a demonstration
and produced with that as its purpose (Ed also tried to make
videos of Bill's presentation but he did not have the equipment
and other production facilities to do what PBS did). I do
use Bill's video in my classes and they are useful. One of the
major changes that you would have to do to make you video into a
demonstration is to change the camera angle. But much more has
to done as you probably know.
I would suggest that you attempt to eliminate at least three
behaviors from your presentation: "I believe in my heart," "It is
the nature of the beast," and the word 'feedback' as used in the
statement that you made "Thanks for the feedback." The first two
statements I believe are habitual for you but for me they mainly
say "I firmly believe what I am telling you." It is fine to be
confident and you should be but the repetition of it may make
others believe that you are not sure of your self. The use of
the word 'feedback' in the above statement you should recognize
as a common but an inappropriate use when discussing PCT -
feedback should be reserved for the actions one takes toward self
not between people - no one gives you feedback.
I would also suggest that you reduce your criticism of S-R
approaches and linear causality. I say this because I have found
with my students that they begin to wonder if I am protesting to
much and I also find myself talking about ideas which I claim are
worthless and less about ideas that I claim are worthwhile. I
don't think we want to remind others of those ideas that they
believe in while we are trying to get them to create a
disturbance of those very ideas so they can begin to reorganize
themselves to adopt a new and different and an odd (to them)
approach. This is mainly tactics but I think that it makes sense
in terms of the model.
One of the most difficult ideas to get others to grasp about PCT
is the statement that I put on the net several weeks ago as sort
of a snide remark to Bill and Martin - you can't tell what a
person is doing by paying attention to what she is doing. Bill
in his 930312.0930 post states it again " . . . why observing
actions doesn't tell you either what the person wants or what the
person is perceiving. It doesn't tell you what the person is
DOING - what those actions are accomplishing that the person
wants to perceive as being accomplished." It becomes very
confusing when you (any of us state) "it is action that is
important not behavior" or you separate 'action' from
'consequences ' in your diagram. I have read statements on the
net which point out that people who pay attention to behavior
with never find out anything important about what people do. ALL
OF THESE STATEMENTS MAKE SENSE IF YOU ALREADY KNOW ABOUT PCT BUT
(AS BILL NOTED) THEY ARE "TESTS" TO OTHERS. It becomes
especially confusing when you (as we all do who do demos) spend a
great deal of effort getting the person to move around and make
traces of their hand movements on a piece of paper. You point
out what the person is doing by noting to the audience what she
does when you pull quickly on the rubber band. THEN you say "you
can't tell what she is doing by paying attention to what she is
doing." Well, that statement is accurate ONLY in a technical
sense and ONLY within PCT.
Actions are those activities (behaviors, movements) which can be
used to find out what the person is controlling for when you
apply the test of performing acts to see if they are disturbances
while there are many other movements performed by the person (the
movement of Cathy's skirt) which are not relevant to controlling
a reference signal BUT we can't ignore ALL behavior (which would
mean not observe anything that a person does) and still have some
way of testing what he/she is controlling for within the act. In
fact, we are very precise about what we observe and carefully
perform several "tests" (note the Coin Game) to see what the
person does to correct for disturbances. This has to be made
clear or people will come away from your presentations like they
come away from my classes - very confused.
There is a problem with the word 'consequence' that I think that
Bill has noted in some of his statements on Skinner. If you use
the word 'consequence' to mean all behaviors then that is not
proper within PCT but if it is use as "outcome" or "desired
consequence" or as "wanted consequence" I believe it is
appropriate in PCT. I am wondering whether it would not be
simpler to note that this is probably what Skinner meant by the
word 'consequence' most of the time that he used it so that much
of this data could be appropriated rather than constantly being
conflict with his view - just wondering.
Finally, I want to bring to your attention a book that Rick
mentioned on the net sometime ago and dismissed as not relevant
to PCT - I think that there is something useful about this book
and I would like to see if you agree. The book is Donald H.
Ford. 1987. <<Humans as Self-Constructing Living Systems.>> New
Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum. BF 38 .F66 It is a review of many
literatures with a model which is very similar to PCT (surely
quite compatable and not contrary in major ways). I note part
of what Ford states in his final chapter about organizations. "If
employess are viewed are self-governing components of a large
living system, rather than as mechanical components of a machine,
then the challenge is to create work situations in which (a) the
employee's personal goals and the organizations goal's are linked
in mutually beneficial ways, and (b) employees evaluate what they
do as imoportant to both their personal goals and those of the
organization, and believe their efforts are valued by their
supervisors. In this way, people's self-organization and self-
construction can be accomplished in significant part through
directing their efforts toward facilitating the success of the
larger organiztion. ... Moreover, as living systems, each
employee has some potential for constructing new ideas about how
to improve organizational fuctioning, and finds interest and
satisfaction in life through making progress towards personally
constructed or chosen goals. .... (660)." Doesn't this sound
like what you might be interested in promoting when you tell
people how PCT will be useful for organizations? It seems to me
that this is the case. I suggest that you look at this book
since it might be helpful for your work.
Hope what I have said is useful to you and if you find that I do
not understand either what you are doing or saying please correct
me before I go one in life with such misimpressions.
Best Regards,
Chuck