Remarks Regarding Charles Catania’s 1981 Discussion Article “The Flight From Experimental Analysis” (original) (raw)

European Journal of Behavior Analysis, 2012

Abstract

Charles Catania (1981) makes the valid point that excessive focus on the creation of mathematical models in behavior analysis can crowd out experimental analysis. This point can, perhaps, be elaborated by considering how the utility of quantitative formulations depends on how they are used. In the physical sciences, the laws of thermodynamics, the laws of motion, and the gas laws state simple relationships among 3–5 variables to which numbers can be assigned. The fact that such equations form the basis of modern technology may have inspired many of the mathematical modeling efforts in the behavioral sciences. But the type of modeling used in physics is not applicable in the behavioral sciences. Constructs like drive, habit strength, response strength, reflex reserve, reinforcement magnitude or probability, behavioral momentum, and so forth (e.g., Bush & Mosteller, 1955) do not behave and are not measurable the way temperature, force, mass, distance, or pressure are. Long before we r...

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