Behavior Modification and Operant Psychology: An Anthropological

Operant behaviorism is, in today's United States, a major branch of academic and of applied psychology. Yet I shall argue that its cross-cultural application (by Anglos, whether to minority enclaves or overseas) is fallacious. Incidental to or excluded from this discussion are its application to (1) subhuman animals, where I gladly concede its efficacy; (2) humans handicapped in or related to the brain/the emotions: and (3) Anglos (Yankees), because such programs tend to be designed by the same (Anglo) ethnicity. The human unsuitability of behaviorism has been noted at least since the pre-World War I criticisms of early behaviorist John Watson. Such objections have, however, been leveled from philosophical or humanistic bases (e. g., Chomsky 1959). The behaviorist paradigm has received scant attention from the discipline most concerned with that essence of humanity, culture—namely, cultural anthropology. Hence, as a member of that discipline who has been encountering increasingly more of behavioristic craft, I believe the time is over-ripe to indicate some problems both in its theory and in its application. BEHAVIORISTIC PRESENTISM Behaviorism is the deemphasis of decision-making and of remote effects; it is "the doctrine that the data of psychology consist exclusively of the observable evidences of organismic activity esp. whe