Behaviorology
Flowers from the Ironwood tree.
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"Behaviorology" is a term coined by Los Horcones in 1974 to refer to the natural science of behavior. The study subject of behaviorology is the contingency (relationship between the behavior and environmental events).
"Behaviorology encompasses basic research, applied research and philosophy. Basic research includes (a) descriptive analysis of behavior (behaviography), (b) experimental analysis of behavior (experimental behaviorology), and (c) a theoretical or conceptual analysis of behavior (theoretical behaviorology). Applied research refers to behavior-analytic applications of the experimental analysis of behavior to the prevention and solution of social problems. As such, it includes (a) applied research in the form of experimental analysis oriented towards finding solutions to social problems and (b) behavioral technology, in the form of behavior-analytic procedures alone. The philosophy of behaviorology is that of behaviorism, which includes both, philosophical ( or metatheoretical) assumptions and the philosophical implications of data obtained by the experimental analysis of behavior and its applications." (Taken from the article "Behaviorology an Integrative Denomination " written by Comunidad Los Horcones and published in The Behavior Analyst 1986, 9, 227-228). See Bibliography.
Behaviorology a Science of Behavior concerned in Cultural Design and Change
Behaviorology considers public (overt) and private (covert) behavioral events as its study matter and emphasizes the need to study socio-cultural events.
Los Horcones coined the term "behaviorology" to refer to a science of behavior that is applied to the design of a new society and not to the remedial patchwork of problems produced by a not behaviorally planed society. Unfortunately, a remedial approach has been the dominant in psychology including much of behavior analysis. Psychologists, in general, instead of changing the cultural practices which produce the problems they are trying to solve, "adapt" people to inappropriate cultural practices.
Behaviorology is the application of the science of behavior to make a better world for all, not to adapt people to a world as it is now.
Behaviorology is psychology as a natural science of behavior.
To behaviorology, the term "behavior" include thinking and feeling not just motor responses. Human beings are not machines. We feel and think.
"How people feel is often as important as what they do."
(B.F. Skinner, 1989, p.3)
"...a small part of the universe is enclosed within a human skin. It would be foolish to deny the existence of that private world, but it is also foolish to assert that because it is private, it is of a different nature from the world outside. The difference is not in the stuff of which the private world is composed, but in its accessibility."
(B. F. Skinner 1971, p. 191)
Let us apply psychology to build a better world not to maintain this like it is now.
Let's apply behaviorology.
Last up-date: January, 2002
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