[FORWARDED BY: Dennis Delprato (950905)]
···
From: SMTP%"BEHAV-AN@VM1.NoDak.EDU" 5-SEP-1995 10:28:09.88
To: PSY_DELPRATO
Subj: Will and Will Power: Ready, Willing, and Able
Date: Tue, 5 Sep 1995 10:21:43 -0400
Reply-To: Behavior Analysis <BEHAV-AN@VM1.NoDak.EDU>
Sender: Behavior Analysis <BEHAV-AN@VM1.NoDak.EDU>
From: William S Verplanck <WVERPLAN@utkvx.utk.edu>
Subject: Will and Will Power: Ready, Willing, and Able
Comments: To: BEHAV-AN%NDSUVM1.BITNET@UTKVM1.UTK.EDU
To: Multiple recipients of list BEHAV-AN <BEHAV-AN@VM1.NoDak.EDU>
Labor Day has come and gone. Time for a little thought, and an exercise
in the reflexive ("self") control of behaving--"willing" something.
Time to do a little thinking about the term "will" and how we gain
'control' over our own behaviors. The very word "will" gives the game
away. In the English language, "will" appears as an auxiliary, refer-
ring to future events, things that haven't happened. It relates to
predictions of either or both what we will do and what _will_ be the
outcome of what we do.
We have many ways of talking about our own not-yet-occurring behaviors
and their outcomes, and about what others have not yet done. We say
of ourselves, "I am going to," "I will," "I plan to," "I expect to,"
"My purpose is," "My goal is," and so on and on and on. (Are these
"autoclitic?" If they are, do they cease being "autoclitic" if stated
in the second or third person?)
Sometimes, these predictions of future events are only of the behaviors
to be engaged in, and sometimes only of outcomes (reinforcers,
goals/purposes), the consequences that will occur dependently on
carrying out some unspecified behavior. In other IndoEuropean
languages, we find parallel constructions in both the conjugations of
verbs and in auxiliaries associated with the future tense. Sometimes
we explicitly plan, state instructions to ourselves to be followed
that will produce a specific outcome. Sometimes we leave it to others
and ask AAA to send a Trip-Tik that will get us, say, from Knoxville,
TN, to Brookings, SD. We take Karate lessons. We take the courses
required to get that MBA which is supposed to produce the Mercedes that
we will put in the garage of the house we plan to buy.
Some would have it that the planned outcome in such predictions is the
'cause' of the behaviors that are carried out in producing that outcome.
"Purposiveness" is one term applied to such doctrine. Sometimes, we
watch other people engaged in some activity and we don't know what
they're doing. We can't even identify a behavior until it has been
completed. When the deed is done, we may say such things as, "He went
to McDonald's rather than Wendy's to check out that blonde behind the
counter."
In all cases, there has been a plan, a plan that sometimes states the
specific behaviors and does not mention an outcome. Sometimes the plan
states the outcome and does not mention the specific behaviors to be
carried out in reaching that outcome. And sometimes it states both.
We talk about "will power" when the individual's plan to produce an
outcome is difficult to carry out, one that we couldn't do ourselves
(another prediction). We use words like 'want' and 'desire'. The
behavior of both the individual making and carrying out a plan and of
other individuals observing the individual carrying out a plan require
analytic observation.
We plan an experiment. We plan to go to the movies. Architects and
architectual engineers plan buildings. The entrepreneur plans a profit.
In all cases, the plan is the product of antecedent events, and the
ongoing statement and restatement of the plan as the individual
"carries it out" provide the stimuli that progressively 'control' the
ensuing behaviors. What is important here is the verbal behavior,
including written behavior, drawings, boasts, hopes, and even those
AAA Trip-Tiks. Words like anticipation, expectance, and foresight get
used.
Here, the contributions of Gilbert Ryle, in his _Concept_of_Mind_, laid
the foundations for (with the permission of Ullin Place) what should be
termed "experimental metaphysics." This area seems first to have been
identified by Quine as psychophysics, the discipline that relates the
stimuli to which we respond to the _physical_ characteristics and
measures of the world we live in and which is most clearly identified
with such names as Troland and especially S.S. Stevens, who identified
himself as "Professor of Psychophysics"--_not_ of Psychology.
Experimental metaphysics includes both psychophysics and the remarkably
clear (and too frequently misleading) role of language and of
misapprehensions of the relationships of words to words and words
to events in the "real" world--the world in which we lead our daily
lives--that so confuses our thinking. "Will" and "will power," like
"consciousness" and "cause," are words to be interrogated, not merely
questioned.
_Dumb_and_dumber:_
Let me now suggest that you carry out an experiment on 'self-control,'
the control of future events in your own behavior by planning. It's
simple-minded, relating to the acquisition of a new behavior of
'control' of a body part, that is, of the ability to predict that a
part of your body will move in such and such a manner, which, prior
to carrying out this procedure, you could not predict would occur.
This demonstration assumes, first, that the appropriate skeletal
apparatus is present in your body, and that you, to the best of your
knowledge, cannot or have not yet ever spread the toes of your right
foot apart as you can the fingers of your hands. Note that first
qualification: The musculature of some peoples' mouths and tongues
is relatively incomplete--'try' as they might, they cannot curl their
tongue (a response helpful in swallowing more than one pill at a time).
Others can; a single gene makes the difference.
But back to toes. Take off your shoes and socks and look at your toes.
Tell yourself that you're going to wiggle the toes of your right foot
and spread them apart. You're predicting that each toe will move
laterally, as far as mechanically possible from its neighbors. As you
watch them and as you observe both the motion and position of each toe,
wiggle your toes. You're pairing visual stimuli with movements of the
toes ("kinesthetic stimuli," "movement-produced stimuli"). You'll find
yourself shaping your own behavior; the reinforcer is confirmation, the
progressive approximation of the positions of your toes to the planned
outcome. On one occasion, bingo, you 'see' your toes spread wide apart;
you 'feel' your toes spread fully apart simultaneously (that is, within
that fabulous approximately tenth of a second that defines the misnamed
"moment of consciousness"). You now have full confirmation of your
prediction that you would spread your toes apart. Once you've got that
confirmation, you will observe that you have no difficulty in spreading
your toes a second time. You "willed it", that is, you predicted it,
and it happened. You wanted to do it, and you did. Now to the left
foot. (Here, the writer failed. However they wiggled, two of the toes
of his left foot were never observed to move apart, staying close
together as the others splayed out.)
Perhaps you can already spread your toes. In this case, you can carry
out the same basic procedure of predicting and moving in bringing your
facial expressions into a greater degree of control. This you can do
by looking into a mirror and making "funny faces" at yourself; it is no
accident that so many twelve-year-olds spend a certain amount of time
solitarily in front of a mirror making faces at themselves. They're
acquiring control of facial expressions. Do not doubt that Jim Carey,
although he may also be gifted with exceptional facial musculature, has
spent a good deal of time in front of the mirror.
Nor will you now be surprised to observe the skill with which armless
victims of thalidomide succeed in carrying out so great and vast a
variety of behaviors using only their legs, feet, and toes.
"Will-power" is a term for no more or less than the prediction of one's
own behaviors and the confirmation of those predictions by effectively
carrying them out.
William S. Verplanck "For twenty years past I have mistrusted
4605 Chickasaw Rd. 'consciousness' as an entity.... It seems
Knoxville, TN 37919 to me that the hour is ripe for it to be
openly and universally discarded."
(Wm. James, 1904, pp. 477-478)
FROM FORWARDER, Dennis Delprato:
The above was posted to a behavior analyst list by an unconventional
behaviorist. Perhaps I know enough about PCT to detect the possibility
of showing how Verplanck's comments are closer to PCT than to orthodox
selectionist operant theory. I may be sufficiently uninformed about
PCT to nurture this hope, but given the tools of hierarchical PCSs,
reformulation of what the physical behavior is doing, ... who knows?
psy_delprato@emuvax.emich.edu