Definitions of Behavior

Unedited posts from archives of CSG-L (see INTROCSG.NET):

Date: Sun, 14 May 1995 12:04:15 -0700

Subject: Behavior, Pop PCT

[From Rick Marken (950514.1200)]

I have had several nice phone conversations with Mark Abrams and I promisedhim I would post on a couple subjects so there they are:

I. Behavior:

PCT calls attention to the fact that the word "behavior" is ambiguous. Itis used to describe "actions", "controlled results" and "uncontrolled results".PCT shows that it is important to distinguish these three phenomena. "Actions"are organism-produced effects on a controlled result that bring that result toits reference state and protect it from disturbance;"controlled results" areresults of actions that are protected from disturbance; "uncontrolled results"are irrelevant side effects of action; they are any results of action that thecontrol systems is not itself controlling.

Examples:

Action Controlled result Uncontrolled result

Finger taps Typed w Clicks of keys

Eye positioning Foveal view of

well-turnedankle Rear-endingcar in front

Flip switch Light on Wake partner

II. What I think should be the essential components of any populartreatment of PCT.

1. The FACT that people are controllers. Popular treatments should alwaysexplain that people are controllers, not behavior generators.

2. The THEORY that controllers control perceptions. Popular treatmentsshould explain that controllers control perceptions, not "reality".

3. The FACT that controllers determine the states in which they want theirperceptions.

4. The FACT that it is difficult for controllers to avoid conflict but thatconflict avoidance is essential because conflict results in loss ofcontrol.

5. The ways for people to recognize when they are IN conflict and ways toget OUT of conflict --mainly by changing goals (references), changing perceptions, andreorganizing.

Best Rick

Date: Sun, 14 May 1995 21:37:00 -0600

Subject: Defining behavior

[From Bill Powers (950514.2000 MDT)]

Like Rick Marken, I got a call from Mark Abrams asking me to definebehavior.

OK. I agree with Rick's general discussion, so I'll try to go at it from afew slightly different angles. Off the top of my head ...

I: Point of view.

For each of us there are two basic kinds of behavior: the behavior of otherpeople, and our own behavior. They are completely different.

When we see other people behaving, we see their movements, the way theirhands and arms and legs and bodies move about and affect things in theenvironment. We hear the sounds they make and the expressions on their faces.We see how they are standing. We see how their hair is parted. We see, in otherwords, the impressions that their motor activities make on our ownperceptions.

When we see our own behavior, we see something quite different. Themovements of our arms, legs, bodies and so on, the expressions on our faces,are seldom of any concern to us. What matters to us is the effect that our ownactivities have on aspects of the world we perceive, that we are payingattention to, that we care about. Of this world, other people know practicallynothing. They can see our movements, but they can't see why we are making them.They can even see that our movements are having effects on the environment, butwhich of those effects matters to us they can only guess. They often guesswrong.

When, through artificial aids, we are shown how we look and what we do asothers see it, we are usually surprised, and often dismayed. In a video or aright-angledmirror we see someone's face, but it is far less familiar than the faces ofother people we know --the part in our hair is on the wrong side and the asymmetries of our faces arewrong, too. When we raise a hand, the wrong hand moves. When we laugh, the faceexhibits wrinkles and distortions that have no connection with how it feels tolaugh. When we see ourselves in profile, a total stranger appears. Hearing atape recording of our own voices for the first time is also unsettling; it isfull of unfamiliar overtones, mumbling and ungrammatical, interrupted byembarrassing mannerisms and hesitations.

But perhaps most surprising (especially in a video) is seeing ourselvesdoing all kinds of things that we didn't know we were doing. We pick things upand hold them, and put them down again. We scratch. We make faces. We clear ourthroats. We sigh, and twitch. We knock things to the floor, oblivious. When wehear ourselves speaking, we want to stop the recording because what we hearourselves saying is not what we meant, or it's so incoherent that we can'timagine anyone else having understood us. We interrupt other people, we seemunaware of what they are saying; we seem completely unaware of the effectswe're having.

When we see ourselves as others see us, it becomes obvious that what wethink of ourselves as doing is very likely to be different from what others seeus doing. And it becomes obvious that others can't see the essential (to us)aspect of what we're doing: what it is that we intend to happen in our ownperceptions, looking with our eyes and sensing with our other senses.

From such experiences, we can learn some things about behavior. We have toseparate the actions, the movements we make, from the effects that they aresupposed to have. A given action is just a movement, a change of posture orbodily configuration. When we act, our attention is not on the action itself,but on its effects, consequences, outcomes. We seldom notice the effects thatwere not those we intended, as long as the ones we intended are occurring. Weare usually unaware of what our body parts are actually doing, what efforts arereally involved. When we see ourselves from outside, we can't see any of thethings that matter from the inside.

II. Actions versus effects of actions.

Distinguishing actions from their effects is not made any easier bylanguage. We say "Close the door," not "exert a force on the door that willresult in its closing." We say "turn on the light" or "steer left" or "pick upyour socks" or "wait for me under the clock on the corner," as if these wereactions rather than consequences of _unnamed_ actions. This lends a rathermagical air to the way we talk about behavior. We name what is supposed tohappen as a result of physical activities, and talk as if somehow we could makethese results occur without any actual physical activities.

In ordinary discourse we can usually figure out what is meant when anaction is named in terms of its effects. We just imagine one of the actionsthat would produce such an effect. But in scientific discourse, this problembecomes a major impediment to understanding. What does it mean to say that arat "pressed a bar?" It means that the rat exerted efforts of some kind whichresulted in the bar moving downward. But it does not actually tell us what therat _did_. If behavior is supposedly caused by stimuli, those stimuli mustresult in the creation of muscle forces; there is no way they can act directlyto cause the bar to move. To describe a behavior as a "problem-solvingresponse" is to suggest that there is some physical action a person can takewhich has as its main property the solving of a problem.

III: An organized way to think about behavior.

When we want to be exact about describing behavior, we have to considerthree things. The central consideration is what it is that measures thebehavior. If we are describing a behavior called "closing a door," the centralconsideration is the door that is open, and then swings closed. We measure itby measuring the angle of the door. We are clearly talking about somethinghappening in the environment, not about what an organism is doing.

Next, we have to ask what brings this effect about. The closing of the dooris brought about by someone or something exerting a force on it. When a personcloses a door, therefore, the action produced by the person is not the closingof the door, but the application of a force to the door using arms and hands(or legs and feet, or heads or hips, or whatever the means happens to be). Thecause of the door's closing is the action taken by the person. We describe thataction not as "closing" but as "pushing" or "pulling." We can describe theaction (applying a horizontal force of a certain amount) independently of whatits effects are (closing a door, knocking a vase off a table, pulling a puppyalong on a leash). The action is the immediate physical effect of what thenervous system is doing via muscles. The effect is what happens in theenvironment as a result of the action.

And finally, we have to ask which of the many effects of any given actionis the one being perceived and compared with a reference condition. When thedoor is closed, its angle changes, the opening of the door is visually blocked,and the transmission of sound through the opening is much reduced. Also, ifthere is a mirror on the door, it becomes oriented so you can see yourself init, and if there is a cat following you, the cat is kept out. If the house iscold, closing the door will keep heat in while you take a shower. And closingthe door can be a message: do not disturb.

All of these effects of the action, both direct effects on the angle of thedoor and indirect effects on other variables, occur and can be seen by someoneelse. So the question then becomes, which of these effects is being perceivedby the person producing the action? To ask which is perceived is also to askwhich is intended.

Of course the fact that one effect of action is intended while a number ofothers is not does not prevent the other effects from occurring or beingperceived by others. This is why our own behavior looks so different to us thanit does to others. We know which effect is intended, and we adjust our actionsuntil the intended effect, as we perceive it, matches what we wanted toperceive. But in doing that, we unintentionally change the states of many othervariables. An onlooker does not necessarily know which of the variables thatchanged state was the one that was intended to change, and which other changesare only side-effects.So the onlooker may see us as keeping the cat out while what we were reallydoing was checking our hair in a mirror.

If we get in the habit of parsing behavior into the physical action, theeffects of that action on the environment, and the perceived effect that isintended, we will understand the behavior of other people much better. Moreimportant, we will realize that there is more than one way to understandanother person's behavior, and we will thereby avoid jumping to wrongconclusions. We will realize that when we see a person "doing" something, thatperson may actually be doing something entirely different. We will look morecarefully at what is going on, instead of, for example, overlooking the cameraand lights when we see a mugger attacking an old lady on the street.

Best, Bill P.