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APA I11M0ni|or

THE LONGVIEW: Looking at the Life Span

Developmental psychology is no longer synonymous with the study of the child. As increasing longevity--and several longitudinal studies have shown that psychological growth continues beyond childhood, psychologists have begun to study human development in the later years. This perspective-- life span developmental psychology wa s the focus of the Massachusetts Psychological Association's May conference on the life cycle. B. F. Skinner opened the conference with a description of his autobiographywriting process. In outlining his motivation to undertake such a project, he cited the desire to counteract a negative public image. He exp~:essed puzzlement over t h e cause of hisportrayal as an inhumane "monster" when his life and work merely systematize what people have always done haphazardly~that is, control of human behavior. Deriding accounts of a daughter rendered schizophrenic by rearing in a "controlled environment," Skinner asserted that he .was "not content to leave an account of me.to others." A second reason behind the autobiography, he said, is his perspective as psychologist and behaviorist: "The self provides a good ease history from which to analyze human behavior from an operant point of view." He said, the operant perspective assumes that the individual is not an originator of anything, but merely a "locus in which things happen." Thus, a mother can take no credit for having a baby and a poet can take no credit for his poem. They are merely the loci where these processes occur. "The moment of Creation is the moment of random mutations and their selection." The purpose of his autobiography, he explained, is to trace all those environmental and genetic forces that come together to produce novel behavior, for example, one's life. He said that it is this behaviorist position that he hopes his autobiography will demonstrate. Third, Skinner said he believes thathis views about "human nature" can best be exemplified by describing the person he himself knows best. Skinner said that he immediately had t o face the issue of developing criteria for~ selecting those facts that should be included. Personal notebooks and journals . kept through much of his life, mother's scrapbooks, old letters and the local newspaper from his childhood town served as sources. Because, in his view, what is important is what really happened and not just what he remembers, he said he considered including only verifiable recollections. Another basis for inclusion was an emphasis on what he did instead of how he felt. Skinner ,asserted that he had tried to exclude statements of emotional reaction because he assumed that certain facts, directly stated, would automatically elicit feeling from the reader. He criticized a concern with feelings as a by-product of contemporary psychoanalysis that "drawg attention away from other importan.t things such as what people are doing." When asked by a listener about his feelings during all these life events--and particularly while enduring criticism--he insisted that "if I tried to tell you precisely what I was feeling at any one of those times in my past life, it wouldn't be very useful." He also discussed his difficulty with making decisions about whether to include gossip o r experiments which he never published but which anticipate d work for which others eventually received the credit. George Geothals, also from Harvard, corroborated the information value of biography and autobiography, and he discussed alternatives to stage theories of human development. Following a review of the linear developmental perspective formulated by Freud, Erikson, Piaget ~ind Kohlberg, Goethals described the impact on stage theory of an increasing emphasis on development beyond childhood. What in the past appeared to be an orderly progression from one set of competencies, defenses and conflicts to another, is now viewed as a series of progressions and regressions that may last as long as ten years at a time. Thus, a sine curve rather than a straight line, becomes the appropriate metaphor for human development, h_e stated. Summarizing recent research and theory, Goethals suggested that adult development may be characterized by several processes: Fluctuations in ego strength as reflected in an individual's hierarchy of defenses at any one time; changes in emphasis on effect and competency; success in living an independent life, separate from the family; and alternating periods of stability and transition. To graspthe complexity of development through adulthood and old age, he suggested that psychologists must employ the "methodology of biography instead of the methodology 'of the average ease." And he mentioned some cases in point. Erikson's psychobiographical contribution and Kurt Lewin's field theory both suggest this point of view. In addition, Harry Stack Sullivan showed that the everchanging interpersonal nature of personality rendered early trauma reversible in later life. Goethals said that because stage theories of human development do not take such environmental contingencies into account, they are an insufficient framework for study of the human condition. And he argued that linear theories of human growth would.be enhanced by incorporation of Robert White's notion that "critical incidents can deflect the course of our lives." Boston University psychologist Frances Grossman chaired a panel describing the preliminary results of ongoing research on "Adaptation to Pregnancy and Parenthood" among 100 married couples. Pregnancy was viewed as a "developmental crisis" which precipitates and requires psychological change. A maior research goal was description of the course and process of "normal" pregnancy in order to better understand the transitions and psychopathology that can occur. Four systems were considered relevant to predicting adaptation: the woman's psychological functioning, including her relationship with her own mother; the women's physiology; the sociocultural milieu of both husband and wife; and the state of the marriage. Lois Eichler of MIT reported correlational relationships between the experience of the mother in the first trimester and aspects of the delivery and postpartum coping. Most related to postpartum adaptation was the mothers', own psychological health and the happiness of their marriages early in pregnancy. The "well-adapted" and "happily married" mothers experienced fewer physiological symptoms in the first three months of pregnancy and less depression and anxiety two months post-partum. A positive identification with their own mothers was found to be related to adaptation to labor and delivery but unrelated to adaptation two months post-partum. Eichler concluded that those women at high risk during pregnancy were typically characterized bY poor psychological functioning, poor marriage, and low SES during early pregnancy, and high premenstrual tension prior to it. - Margery Anzalone of Riverside Psychological Associates studied the hus-

A CHAT WITH SKINNER

By studying human development throughout the life cycle, psychologists may be able to elucidate Erikson's thesis that growth and change continue into adulthood. Currently, however, descriptions of life span development are sorely lack'ir/g'and there is little data to describe the psychological changes of adult life. Biography and autobiography may fill some gap. And, the question arises: Does the desire to write an autobiography, to give an account of oneself, represent on its own a particular stage.in the life cycle? For himself, 13. F. Skinner answers maybe. In an interview following his talk a t the May Massachusetts Psychological Association meeting, Skinner acknowledged, that this was the appropriate time for him to-write an account of his own life. As he saw it, this was not a matter of defense against critics, but of describing his life as it happened. Explaining that one of his most important contributions was "what I put in my books," Skinner cited the role of feelings in such a project. "Because many people have gotten used to the kind of writing that pours out emotions, my autobiography seems to have something missing. A person who assumes that as a behaviorist, I don't have emotions, or that I rule them out, will then assume that there are no emotions in my life. But this is not the case." According to Skinner, emotions are clues to understanding what happened when facts are not available~-as in psychotherapy, for instance. "When you have the facts, you don't need to know about the feelings. Feelings are associated with reinforcers--among other things--states of the body that feel good or bad. There are no psychic feelings. What you feel is merely a by-product of what you do. Why should anyone want to read a detailed description of what your body feels like?" Skinner attributed the origins of the narcissistic over-emphasis on feelings in contemporary culture to Freudian psychology. "Freud was in the position of helping people without knowing very much about them, without being able to recapture the early environment which he .knew was important. He could learn some faots about early life from free association and .could infer some of it from dreams and feelings. It is not that feelings are unimportant. The main thing to realize is that what you are feeling is your own body." Skinner acknowledged that his poor public image may ,be due to such a perspective: To ,asking people to change "deepseated ways of seeing themselves," to emphasize what we do instead of what we feel. "People are perfectly happy to let you account for their bad behavior in other ways (i.e., attribute it to the environment), but they don't want you to account for their good behavior in this way." He described himself as thick skinned and said that he didn't "mind too much" when publicly ignored or criticized because at that time, "I was being reinforced by my rats and pigeons rather than by people." The developmental point of view typically describes growth as the outcome of psychological processes within the individual. Skinner disagreed with this approach. "Psychological growth is not a naturally occurring process that emerges from the individual." Instead of viewing psychic phenomena as the essence of development, Skinner asserted that it was variation in the environment that precipitated modifications in behavior during the lifespan. As the environment varies, the individual adjusts appropriately. Life crises can be viewed as occurring when the environment has changed but left the individual behind--with a repertoire of behaviors inadequate to obtain reinforcement in the new situation. Stages in human development are thus a reflection of alterations in "contingencies of reinforcement throughout life." According to Skinner, the stage theories of Freud, Erikson, Piaget and Kohlberg, are really describing changes "in the ways people treat each other"--changes i n behavior. A goal of his autobiography, then, is to describe "how my environment changed and how these changes affected me."