From Tom Bourbon [940614.1658]
Reply to some of the topics addessed by Jeff Vancouver: 13 June 1994
I am pleased that my introduction got such a response. Being ignored would
have been the ultimate insult.
There was never any danger of your being ignored here! Judging from the
replies to your initial questions and remarks, your self-introduction
seemed to be welcomed by everyone.
I did not feel unduly rebuffed, but, of
course, I will respond back. My response centers around themes, not
necessarily individuals. Specifically, I consider the following issues: self-
regulation, modeling, some theorists in my field, and some minor issues:
Self-regulation:
Forgive my ignorance, but I think Tom Bourbon and Bill Powers think that the
difference between self-regulation models and PCT is that PCT is about
controlling perceptions and self-regulation is about controlling behavior.
Yes, I do think that is a big difference (not the only one) between
self-regulation models and PCT.
This is no doubt because the promoters of many self-regulation models _say_
they are about regulating behavior.
Yes, that is one of the reasons I think their ideas are different from ours:
they say as much.
However, if the model incorporates a test
of the difference between a perceived state and a desired state, the result of
which drives behavior, then the model is describing the control of
perceptions.
Not if a "modeler" says her or his model is about how people control their
own behavior. If that is what a modeler says, then the odds are immense
that sooner or later in the paper he or she will make serious mistakes when
they say more about control. I do not allow myself to divorce an author's
_diagram_ of a control system from what he or she _says_ about the model.
I have learned that I must look beyond the often accurate depiction of a PCT
model at the beginning of a paper on self-regulation, to see what
the author(s) say inthe middle of the paper and at the end. In a remarkable
number of cases, a promising beginning collapses into a recounting of
traditional control-of-behavior theories, with a bit of control theory
terminology grafted on. (I do not say this is true of _all_ cases, and I
reiterate my eagerness to see any examples to the contrary that you might
provide.)
If the modeler says the model describes how individuals control
behavior, they either don't realize their error or they are trying to reach a
certain audience.
Then in the first case, they do not understand the control of perception
and they are not talking about it; in the second, they are giving their
audience an incorrect interpretation of the control of perception that will
be difficult or impossible to correct, later on.
But the model still describes the control of perceptions.
I am not as generous as you on this count. In my perhaps prejudiced book,
if a modeler doesn't _talk_ about behavior as the control of perception
(whether the "modeler" does that as a strategy, or out of ignorance), then
the modeler's model isn't about behavior as the control of perception.
D. Ford's Living Systems Framework is that type of model. I am still trying
to get a handle on the consequences of the error for those models. So, to
answer Marken's (940606.1800) post, yes there are others that describe the CSG
loop.
Do they call it the "CSG loop" -- the PCT loop? Do they say that behavior
is the purposive control of perception and that the behaviors that control
perception are themselves unintended and uncontrolled? Or are those things
you (and I) _would like to see them say?_
Modelling:
A major theme in the responses to my introduction was the role of modelling as
a test of PCT and the other models I mentioned (indirectly through
proponents - e.g., Locke, Bandura). . . .But the previous argument is mostly on an intellectually level. The reality
of rejection letters and lack of collaborative spirit from the powers-that-be
is painful, dispiriting, and financially and occupationally challenging. I
apologize for raising any of those feelings.
Noo need to apologize! It just happens that, whenever someone says PCT
modelers are out of line to reject psychology, PST modelers are _very_ likely
to reply that the rejection seems to run theother way.
I have numerous colleagues with
less than kind rejection letters based on the same reasons that many of you
alluded to. On the other hand, I know others who have had little trouble on
that score. Of course, their work is probably not completely in line with the
"core." Most notably, they do not require a working model as a requirement
for their work (there is also an emerging appreciation for which journals are
"friendly" and which are not).
Fine. Not everyone _does_ modeling; but do the people to whom you refer
know about the modleing that _is_ done? Do they try to incorporate it into
their writing, perhaps as empirical verification of theoretical points they
try to develop in their writing? Are they careful to see that what they say
in their theorizing is consistent with what has been learned form the
modleing?
Herein lies one of my concerns with the
solipsism among the netters. Marken (940606) says "PCT is tested by comparing
the performance of working models to actual behavior. In order to compare
alternative theories to PCT we often have to translate verbal descriptions
into working models." This requirement confounds the test of a theory with
the theory.
Say what? I realy don't follow you here. How else are we to test whether
the core causal assumptions in another theory (as best we can understand
those assumptions, which are often left unanalyzed by advocates of the other
theories) can really behave as their advocates claim they can?
Marken is applying his criteria for a theory on the other's
theory.
Of course he is. And so is Bil Powers. And so am I. If someone tells us
theory X explains behavior Y, but does not tell us how or why that should
be so, and especially if the someone in question does not demonstrate that
the assertion is warranted, then are we merely to say, "OK. Whatever you
say os right. Sorry to have asked for evidence that your theory does what
you say it does?" And if the person goes further to say that PCT cannot do
any of the things we say it does, are we to acquiesce, saying "Of course.
We were wrong to apply our criteria to your theory. Go right ahead and
apply your criteria to ours -- reject us by notghing more than assertion,
rather than by a demonstration that PCT does not work." I'm sorry. Jeff,
but that is not my undrstanding of how science us done -- or at least how it
_ought to be done_. That's one of the (many) things that I like about doing
PCT science -- I am _required_ to show that _every_ claim I make can be
backed up in demonstration -- in modeling and simulation. No endless
flights of puffery and bald-faced assertion allowed.
I do not condemn the criteria, merely the blind application. If
empirical data is always required, Einstein's GTR would never have lasted the
20 (?) years before it could be tested.
You lost me here. Shouldn't we expect people at least to show why they
think the lineal cause-effect model lurking inside their theory does work,
after all? Or shouldn't we expect them to tell us why control of behavior,
rather than control of perception, is the best way to explain behavior? If
they don't pass muster on basic questions like those two, there is no need
for those of us trying to understand and model perceptual control to look at
the rest of the other theory, no matter how sophisticated and inspiring it
might seem on other counts.
Now I realize that these mini-theories are not GTR. Indeed, many are very
problematic. But I try to separate the chafe from the wheat. Carver &
Scheier's self-awareness construct was clearly wanting, but they exposed many
to control mechanisms that had not known them before.
Yes. And some of those so introduced have progressed beyond the Carver and
Scheier stage. But most have not. Are the many in the latter class any
better off for the experience, so far as their understanding of perceptual
control? Is PCT any better off for the presence of people in that latter
group on the review panels of journals?
. . . No doubt there are errors in the views
perpetuated by the non-PCT models, but it is a step.
Some steps along some paths are demonstrably wrong -- at least they are if
the parties accept demonstrations as evidence.
Further, theories like
Carver & Scheier's deal with many social processes which PCT does not deal
with as throughly. Identifying the discrepancies between these models and
PCT, and developing empirical tests the results of which both parties can take
as evidence one way or another is, I believe, a reasonable next step. And let
me be perfectly clear, I think sometimes they have a point and PCT needs to
incorporate it.
But up to now the efforts at "bridging" these gaps have run in one
direction. Bill Powers told you if his experience when he tried, many times
over many years, to "reach out" to people who allegedly already occupy the
much prized "higher ground" of higher-level processes. With very few
exceptions, they ignored him. That, or, like Bandura, they unleashed a
special kind of wrath upon him in print. I have had similar experiences,
on a much smaller scale, with people like Carver and Lord, who are often
cited as examples of theorists who "really understand PCT," no matter what
they actually say in print.
The problem with Marken's approach is that they don't buy/understand the data
you use. Most don't understand modeling and/or don't trust its results. The
rigorous requirements, central to your understanding of science, are seen as
too rigorous for a science in it's infancy.
What "science," in which "infancy?" Certainly not psychology, the
experimental study of which is as old as science itself, in the West. The
old dodge that "psychology is too new as a science to have any real laws or
theories" won't wash.
And which problem with "Marken's approach?" Have you noticed any others
on this net who espouse similar criteria and a similar approach? ;-))
Now that I have my "E. coli style" models or adaptive control working
again, I'll say a few things about the section of your post on
reorganization and reference signals, but I'll do that tomorrow.
Later,
Tom