http://dx.doi.org/10.24016/2024.v10.381
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Affective Behavioral Disturbances: An Interbehavioral Analysis
Alteraciones
Afectivo-Conductuales: Un análisis interconductual
Claudio Carpio 1*,
Virginia Pacheco Chávez 1, Valeria Olvera Navas 1
1 Facultad de Estudios
Superiores Iztacala, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico city, Mexico.
* Correspondence: claudio.carpio@iztacala.unam.mx
Received: November 17, 2023 | Revised: March 19, 2024 |
Accepted: May 21, 2024 | Published Online: May 25, 2024
CITE IT AS:
Carpio,
C., Pacheco Chávez, V., & Olvera Navas, V. (2024). Affective Behavioral
Disturbances: An Interbehavioral Analysis. Interacciones,
10, e381. http://dx.doi.org/10.24016/2024.v10.381
ABSTRACT
Background: The progress of any science, such as
psychology, is achieved not only by accumulating empirical evidence but also by
refining the conceptual structures that give theoretical meaning to such
evidence. Objective: To analyze the concept of mental health and the
logical-conceptual structure that supports it, describing its limitations and
contradictions. Alternatively, based on the postulates of interbehavioral psychology,
the concept of affective behavioral changes is proposed, and a classification
of these changes is developed, based on the functional quality of the disturbed
behavior. Method: This research is a theoretical study. Conclusions: Dualistic
traditions in psychology have pathologized affective behavioral alterations as
if they were diseases (mental or brain). The interbehavioral postulation
outlined here is a conceptual alternative that can support theoretical and
methodological developments that improve the position and contribution of
psychology to theorizing and solving human problems in the field of health.
Keywords: Health, affective disturbances, behavior, analysis, psychology.
RESUMEN
Introducción: El progreso de
cualquier ciencia, como la Psicología, se logra no solo acumulando evidencia
empírica sino también refinando las estructuras conceptuales que dan significado
teórico a dicha evidencia. Objetivo: Analizar la noción de salud
mental y la estructura lógico-conceptual que la sustenta, describiendo sus
limitaciones y contradicciones. Alternativamente, a partir de los postulados de
la psicología interconductual, se propone el concepto de alteraciones afectivas
de la conducta y se desarrolla una clasificación de las mismas, basada en la
cualidad funcional de la conducta que se altera. Método: Esta investigación es un estudio teórico. Conclusiones: Las tradiciones dualistas en
psicología han patologizado las alteraciones afectivas del comportamiento como
si fueran enfermedades (mentales o cerebrales). La postulación interconductual
que aquí se esboza es una alternativa conceptual que puede apoyar desarrollos
teóricos y metodológicos que mejoren la posición y contribución de la
psicología a la teorización y solución de problemas humanos en el campo de la
salud.
Palabras claves: Salud, trastornos afectivos, comportamiento, análisis, psicología.
Most
psychologists likely accept as an unquestionable truth that psychology is responsible for
preserving mental health and treating its alterations. To doubt this could be
judged as utter folly or, in the extreme of disciplinary anger, as a
manifestation of insanity. However, since science progresses not only by
accumulating empirical evidence but also by refining the conceptual structures
that give theoretical meaning to such evidence (cf. Kantor, 1958, 1963, 1969;
Kuhn, 1962; Turbayne, 1962), this paper briefly examines some conceptual
assumptions on which an important part of the professional practice of
psychology in the clinical or health field has rested, especially those related
to the notion of mental health, the nature of the mental, and the idea of
altered affective states. Based on this examination, an interbehavioral point
of view is presented to support a different, objective, and naturalistic
approach, which can help improve the psychological contribution in the field of
health, with special emphasis on affective alterations of behavior.
MENTAL
HEALTH: DIMENSION OF A STATE OR FIELD OF PSYCHOLOGICAL ACTION?
The well-known experience of Clifford
Beers during his time in different psychiatric hospitals in the early twentieth
century (Beers, 1908/1980) was one of the first and most transcendent calls for
attention to the deplorable state of psychiatric treatment of the insane or
mentally ill and also represented the starting point for the social movement
of mental hygiene (Beers, 1980; Dain, 1980; Deutsch, 1937; Grob, 1994; Ridenour, 1961),
that the United States of America initially promoted the National Commission of Mental
Hygiene (created in 1909) and later the Committee of Mental Hygiene (founded
in 1919), whose work allowed to consolidate the World Federation of Mental Health (formalized
in 1948) as the most visible international organization
that claims and promotes more respectful treatment of the dignity and
human rights of persons held in psychiatric care facilities. A fact of interest
in this process is that the arguments used by these organizations to support
their claims were, and still are, ideological, political, and legal rather than
conceptual, technical, or scientific. In this regard, it is revealing the
indistinct use they usually make of the concepts of mental hygiene and mental health to refer
to their subject of interest in their basic documents and even in the
institutional name that identifies them.
At the end of the 1940s, the demands of pro-mental hygiene (or health)
organizations were strengthened thanks to the
interest of some governments to address the growing cases of mental problems
(e.g., severe anxiety, addictions, insomnia, suicide attempts, irritability,
anguish, panic attacks, etc.) in ex-combatants of the Second World War, which
had high economic, political, and social impact. This may explain why, since
its creation in April 1948, the World Health Organization (WHO) has included a
section on mental health that
would be dedicated exclusively to the attention of this problem (cf. Bertolote,
2008; Lopera, 2015), giving it such importance that it even appears as a
central element of its declaration of principles, which states that
“Health is a state of complete physical, mental [emphasis
added], and
social well-being, and not only the absence of disease or infirmity” (WHO,
2020, p. 1).
In this definition of health, it is
evident that the mental constitutes a constituent
aspect of health that must be treated with the same rigor as its
other aspects, the physical and the social; however, many notice in it the
explicit recognition of a special type of health, the mental. To tackle this
incorrect interpretation, Bertolote (2008) points out that:
“It
should be noted that mental, in the definition of health of the WHO (as well as
physical and social), refers to
dimensions of a state and not to a specific domain or discipline [emphasis added]. Consequently, according to this concept, it is incongruous
to speak of physical health, mental health, or social health. If we wanted to
specify a particular dimension, it would be more appropriate to use the term
well-being and not health (e.g., mental well-being or social well-being). This
negligent use of the word health seems to have begun when mental hygiene
(social movement or domain of activity) was replaced by mental health
(originally intended as a state and then transformed into a domain or field of
activity). (p. 114)
To this, it should be added that the
definition of health proposed by the WHO refers to it in the singular and with
a capital letter, which also prevents it from being interpreted as a “holistic”
additive result of mental health plus social health plus biological health.
Consequently, if it is incorrect to speak of mental health as a field of
phenomena in itself, then it is also incorrect to grant legitimacy to the
so-called professions and institutions of mental health as
if it delimited a professional field of action (psychological or psychiatric)
and not an aspect or dimension of that state called health. However, an
incorrect and self-serving interpretation of the WHO definition of health by
medical associations, mainly psychiatric, and some organizations for the
human rights of psychiatric patients insists that “mental” refers to a type,
and not an aspect, of health, to justify their (i.e., their labor market) as
ad-hoc specialists (cf. Szasz, 1976, 1978, 2019), sheltered
in the cartesian dualistic philosophical and psychological traditions that have
conferred on the mental the onto-epistemic status of private, internal, and
unobservable events (cf. Kantor, 1966; Tomasini, 1988, 1995, 1996, 2008, 2016; Ryle,
1949; Wittgenstein, 1953; Kantor, 1966; Tomasini, 1988, 1995, 1996, 2008,
2016).
The
dualistic characterization of the mental
Among the most important difficulties that
psychology faces in collaborating satisfactorily with other disciplines
(biological and social) in the solution, prevention, or attenuation of health
problems is the unquestioned adoption
of the status that the dualistic tradition has given to the mental as a
thing that can only be known through its behavioral “manifestations” or
“expressions” and through the verbal report of the people who “experience it
privately”. (e.g., Descartes, 1980; Locke, 1976; Wundt, 2019, etc.). This characterization rests on the Cartesian theory of
mind (cf. Descartes, 1980), called by Ryle (1949) the “myth of the ghost in the
machine” or “official theory of mind”, which postulates the existence of two
coexisting substances in the human being: an extensive substance that is
characterized by occupying a place in space (the body) and a non-extensive
substance (ergo not occupying a place in space) that inhabits it and is
characterized by thinking (the soul).
The psychological theories that have
assumed the core of the official theory of mind have omitted to consider even
the most obvious and serious contradictions and paradoxes in their formulation,
among them that: a) if it is affirmed that the soul does not occupy a place in
space then it is not possible to preach of it any location and, therefore
it cannot be said to be within the body or to be contained by it; b) since
it is not corporeal or occupies any place in space, neither can it be
postulated that the soul interacts from within with the body that supposedly contains it, that
is, it cannot be proposed that the soul is capable of moving it, activate,
animate or boost it; c) by not recognizing spatial extension to the soul, the
official theory of mind is unable to refer to its hypothetical operation (i.e.,
thinking or cognition) in the same terms and temporal-spatial coordinates that
are used to refer to the occurrence of all known natural events, and; d) Since
the claim that the soul is within the body is untenable, it logically follows
that the action of the body could express, manifest or reveal the action of the
soul, which in turn would cancel out any possibility of knowing or identifying
when and how the soul acts (i.e., thought, cognition, will, etc.).
Despite the above, based on the dualistic assumptions
and assuming a nominalist conception of language, according to which words are
names or labels that designate and identify the things of the world they refer
to (cf. Tomasini, 1988, 1995, 1996; Wittgenstein, 1953; ), dualistic psychological traditions assume that
expressions involving terms such as thinking, perceiving, attending,
remembering, imagining, reasoning, and others of this type are references,
denotations, or descriptions of different events that occur in temporal-spatial
coordinates different from those of the situations in which such terms are used
(cf. Ryle, 1949). Thus, for example, if a person were to tell another (whom he
hugs, kisses, and caresses while secreting certain hormones and presenting
various reactions of excitement) that he loves him and that he likes him, dualistic approaches would affirm that this
person is informing, describing, narrating, or offering testimony of the events
that occur within him (i.e., the passionate acts of love). With such
statements, a single episode is conceptually divided into two: one of a public
nature (i.e., hugs, kisses, caresses, excitement, etc.) and another of a
private nature (i.e., passions and feelings) that are connected descriptively
by the terms “mentalistic” used (i.e., the sentimental or emotional
verbalizations emitted during the love episode). Some studies that illustrate
this theoretical perspective are, for example, the works of Barrett, Quigley,
Bliss-Moreau & Aronson (2004), De-Damas-González & Gomariz (2020),
Lolas (1987), Kyrylenko & Bobrovytska (2017), Scherer (2000).
Dualism and mental
health
The dualistic reasoning of the previous
example is not only found in cases of reference to hypothetical affective or
cognitive processes but also when terms are used that supposedly refer to
states or processes associated with the so-called mental health of people and their alterations, such as
anxiety, depression, anguish, etc. (Cfr. Ezama, Alonso & Fontanil, 2010) To
illustrate, imagine that a woman consults a doctor, psychologist, or
psychiatrist about possible solutions to the discomfort (e.g., tremors, dry
mouth, incontinence, stuttering, dizziness, etc.) that she suffers when night
comes and anticipates that her husband will arrive drunk and violently assault
her, as he usually does. In this hypothetical consultation, it would be very
likely that the woman reported fear, anguish, or anxiety as a cause of
insomnia, loss of appetite, physical discomfort, etc. The dualistic reasoning
in this example would again involve transforming a single episode (i.e., the
woman's exposure in the consultation) into two distinct episodes: one public
and observable (i.e., the woman's verbalizations of how she feels) and an
internal, private, and unobservable one (i.e., anxiety, anguish, fear, and
“described” thoughts). In this reasoning, a causal relationship is again postulated
between events, processes, or mental events (in this case the fear, anguish,
and anxiety supposedly referred to) and the physical alterations that “express”
or “manifest” them publicly (in this case tremors, dryness, stuttering,
incontinence, etc.). The causal connection thus proposed between “the
behavioral” and “the mental” constitutes the core of the dualistic
conceptualization of mental illness as a physical expression of internal
alterations not directly observable (Cfr. Bertolín-Guillén, 2023; Lemos,
Restrepo & Richard, 2008; Ramos-García, Gutiérrez-Yáñez,
Escamilla-Gutiérrez & Ortega-Andrade, 2023; Szasz, 1976, 2019).
Those who have assumed the dualistic
assumption that the mental is not publicly observable have attempted to solve
the problem of privileged access to its structural and operational
characteristics by constructing instruments that hypothetically assess verbal
reactivity to standardized “items” (whether in the form of “tests,”
“instruments,” “batteries,” “scales,” and other variants of planned
conversational interaction) by interpreting it as a reliably revealing
manifestation or expression. of the events, states, or processes that occur in
a private and unobservable way inside the person who responds to them.
With some procedural or instrumental
variants, this strategy is overwhelmingly dominant in contemporary
psychological research, whose tools have ended up turning behavior into a
simple indicator or epiphenomenon of the mental, as represented in Figure 1 that
shows the dualistic conceptual architecture described and the postulated causal
relationships between: a) the existence of psychopathogenic factors in the
physical environment, social or psychological with the potential to cause
disturbances in “normal” or “healthy” mental state or functioning; b) the
alteration of internal affective processes (mentally or cerebrally controlled,
depending on the specific theoretical model adopted), and; c) the external
public expression or manifestation of internal disturbances, in the form of
unwanted, unexpected or unacceptable behavior.
Figure 1. Traditional model of affective disturbances
THE
INTERBEHAVIORAL POINT OF VIEW: A NATURALISTIC OPTION
Unlike the dualistic conception,
interbehavioral psychology (Kantor, 1924, 1926, 1933, 1956; Kantor & Smith, 1975) opposes
the idea that episodes involving mental, affective, or cognitive terms and
expressions (e.g., fear, think, reason, imagine, love, miss, crave, worry,
distress, etc.) involve the existence of internalized extra-episodic events or
events. Instead, it proposes to eradicate the dualistic dichotomies around the
hypothetical mind-behavior relations and to assume as a matter of psychological
study the interaction or
adjustment between the total action of complete organisms and the corresponding
activity of specific segments of their environment, assuming that in this
adjustment are basic factors both the biological equipment of the organism and
the physical characteristics of the objects of the environment. whose
functional properties evolve in the specific interactive history between them.
The proposition that it is the activity of
the whole organism that interacts with the activity of the
objects and events of the environment eliminates for psychology the need to
describe independently, partially, and separately the operation of each of the
multiple biological subsystems involved in each interactive segment. Also,
and above all, it avoids the temptation to locate in any of these biological
sub-systems specific psychological functions (a frequent
temptation in neuropsychological models
and theories), without limiting or questioning the legitimacy of analyzing the
particular operation of cells, tissues, or organs under particular stimulating
conditions at non-psychological descriptive levels, as occurs in the research
of nephrologists. Neurologists, pulmonologists, gastroenterologists,
pathologists, endocrinologists, etc.
This allows the interbehavioral
postulation to emphasize that the psychologist does not have this task of
physiological description but that of conceptualizing and describing the simultaneous operation of all the biological subsystems
organized during the interaction, not as a molecular physiological and summary
description of the entire biological operation but molarly as integrated action
in functional adjustments to the objects and events of the environment. For
this purpose, Kantor (1933; Kantor & Smith, 1975) developed the concept of reactive system to refer to
the configuration or organization of all biological reaction systems (endocrine, neurological,
motor, skeletal, visuomotor, gustatory, olfactory, thermomechanical, etc.)
during the organism's adjustment to the conditions of the environment with its
objects and events.
From this point of view, in all
interactions, the entire biological team of the organism is involved,
although its functional configuration is varied and unique in each of them,
with differentiated preeminences in each case. As an example, consider that
when dancing a Son Montuno in Old Havana (case 1), it is especially important
to enjoy and exercise, have a good hearing capacity, a reasonable kinesthetic,
and acceptable motor coordination. Of course, this does not mean that dancing
suspends other activities of the body, such as gastrointestinal activity or
kidney functions (in fact, a sudden variation in these or some other would
most likely drastically modify the dance). In another example, when cutting
wood for the home (case 2), although all biological systems also operate, the
most relevant are others, such as vision and the musculoskeletal system. It is
clear that the participation of each biological system is not equally critical
in both examples, but this does not mean that any operation is suspended while
the others act, so interbehavioral psychologists would affirm that it is
the person who dances and not the feet or ears, and that it is the people. those that cut the wood and
not the hands or arms; that is, it is the whole organism and not some of its
isolated parts that interact psychologically.
A relevant fact that should be emphasized
is that reactive systems are configured through historical processes of
integration or learning of skills and competencies that take place throughout
the interactive life of each person. Therefore, it can be said that
psychological behavior and its development are necessarily individual,
singular, unique, and unrepeatable, and their description cannot be limited to
the invariant relationships described by the chemical-biological sciences
(Carpio et al., 2007).
On the previous definitional basis,
interbehavioral psychology proposes that, although the biological team is the
substrate of the reactive systems, the description of these is not equal to or
reduced to that because the first develops as a result of the phylogenetic
evolution of the species while the others are configured based on the
ontogenetic vicissitudes of the individual. In this way, psychological action
itself is conceptualized as the functional result of the joint and organized
operation of all the biological components of the organism, integrated into
multiple systems or varied and changing reactive configurations, not static. In
fact, the processes of integration of the reactive systems through which the
psychological interaction capacities of organisms are shaped (i.e., skills and
competences) correspond to what has traditionally received the generic
name of Learning and development
processes (Carpio
et al., 2014). This postulation has, at least, two important consequences for
the study of psychological behavior: One, that the description and
characterization of behavior, as a relationship and adjustment
between actions of the whole organism
and the actions of the objects and events of the environment with which it
interacts, cannot be reduced to a topographic or morphological inventory of the
actions of the organism; Two, that the relationship cannot be given spatial location
because relationships do not occupy a place in space (although the objects and
events that are related to occupy it) and therefore one cannot speak of
“internal” or “external” behavior, and therefore it is incorrect to propose
that an “external” form of behavior (e.g., verbally answering a questionnaire)
is an indicator of another “internal” form of behavior (e.g., cognitive
processes, affective states, etc.) or that this is the cause of it.
Based on the interbehavioral
postulation, it is not rejected or denied that people think, reason, imagine,
love, sadden, or distress, but the dualistic assumptions of psychological
theories that have conferred on these expressions the status of reference and
evidence of trans or extra-episodic, internal, private, and unobservable events
are questioned. On the contrary, interbehavioral psychology conceptualizes them
as part or integral components of interactive adjustment, along with all other
actions that are executed during interactions, colloquially called “cognitive”,
“emotional” or “mental”. For this reason, it also proposes to elaborate
objective and naturalistic descriptions to give them a more coherent treatment
in the conceptual sense and a more congruent methodological approach that
allows for better integration with other disciplines in the construction of
solutions to the multiple problems in the field of health (cf. Kantor, 1933;
Kantor & Smith, 1975).
A
GENERAL OBJECTIVE ORIENTATION TO SO-CALLED MENTAL HEALTH
That our heartbeat is not, in any way, an
alarm signal. However, if the heart palpitations are so intense and accelerated
that they cause us to suspend our regular activities in a certain situation,
this will likely have undesirable or unpleasant effects. Similarly, if at any
time sudden changes occur in our sensory-motor abilities (such as when we
“stop feeling” a part of our body or feel that we “cannot move it”; when
we “cannot see” or our “tongue locks”, etc.), the usual course of the activities
and tasks we were performing at that moment will most likely be altered,
subtracting effectiveness, appropriateness, congruence, or behavioral
coherence. Cases like these and others similar (such as insomnia, lack of
concentration, some sexual dysfunctions, aggressiveness, intolerance to
ambiguity, eating disorders, addictions, nightmares, etc.) are usually called
diseases, alterations, disorders, pathologies, or “mental” problems, and it is
common to postulate as their causes anguish or anxiety in most dualistic psychological
approaches, which use these terms practically interchangeably to postulate
various types of states or responsible internal entities, inevitably incurring
the logical problems of dualism (v.gr. Arita, 2001; Silva, 2007; Simon, 2009).
In contrast to dualistic psychology,
behavioral orientation, in general, has sought a much more objective
naturalistic approach without appealing to internal mental entities or
processes. For example, formulations based on the theory of conditioning (cf.
Pavlov, 1927; Skinner, 1931, 1935, 1938) have conceptualized anxiety as the
alteration, or disruption, of current behavior by the presence of a conditional
stimulus that generates affective responses (i.e., those that by themselves do
not produce effects on the stimulating conditions of the environment) that are
intense, incompatible, or competitive with the altered behavior. This
formulation is illustrated by Watson's famous work with the child Albert
(Watson &
Rayner, 1920), which showed how the “ear or anxiety responses” (e.g., crying,
startling, distancing, etc.) that the child presented to a white rat that
previously did not provoke them developed from being repeatedly made to
coincide with a sudden and strong noise produced by the tapping of a metal plate.
Additionally, Watson and Rayner (1920) observed that these conditioned fear
responses were also presented to a dog, a coat, or pieces of wool, that is,
generalized towards objects similar to the white rat.
Similarly, Estes and Skinner (1941)
defined anxiety as “the response to some present stimulus that, in the
past, has been followed by a disturbing
stimulus [...] This disturbing stimulus does not precede or
accompany the emotional state but is anticipated in the future” (p. 573),
and to evaluate its quantitative properties, they used 24 albino rats of six
months, which they subjected to a program of fixed interval (FI) of four
minutes, reinforcing the leverage response. After two weeks under FI, they introduced during
the session a tone that lasted three minutes, followed by an electric shock,
repeating this arrangement several times during some sessions. Subsequently,
the tone duration was increased to five minutes, and the tone-shock arrangement
was presented only once during the sessions, although the tone alone, without
the shock, was presented several more times. The results showed that the
response rate decreased markedly in the presence of tone. This suppression of
the response, or “freezing,” during the tone was precisely the disturbing
effect of the conditioned aversive stimulus, that is, anxiety as a conditioned
suppression of the response maintained independently by positive reinforcement.
A consequence of the work of Estes and
Skinner (1941) was the consolidation of the area of experimental research on
conditioned suppression, with the study of Hunt and Brady (1951) being one of
the most recognized in the field. In that study, the authors worked with
water-deprived rats subjected to a variable interval (VI) reinforcement
program, also reinforcing the leverage response. Subsequently, with a classical
forward conditioning procedure, they presented a sound for five minutes,
followed by an electric shock.
Of such an arrangement, they observed an
almost total decrease in the lever response in the presence of tone, as well as
gasps, tremors, and defecation in rats. These effects of suppression of the
operant response and the appearance of conditioned emotional responses have
been repeatedly confirmed by other authors (e.g., Arcediano et al., 1996; Di Giusto & Bond, 1978;
James et al., 2013; Kelleher et al., 1963; Riddle, & Cook, 1963; Sidman, 1958).
In addition to the suppression of operant
responses and the emergence of conditioned emotional responses such as those
described, other studies have shown the development of organic lesions as part
of a “behavioral anxiety syndrome” (e.g., muscle pain, headaches, ulcers,
etc.). An example of these studies is that of Sawry and Weisz (1956), who
placed a group of rats in a box, which at one end contained water and at the
other end contained food; both containers were electrically charged. In the
case of remaining in the center of the box, the animals did not access the
water or food; on the contrary, only if they approached any of the containers did,
they receive an electric shock (for some in the water and others in the food).
In one more group, rats received food and water in the containers without
receiving electric shocks. The results showed that six of the nine rats in the
first group developed gastric ulcers, while none of the subjects in the other
groups did. The design of the study allows us to consider with a reasonable
margin of certainty that the ulcers were not caused by the electric shocks but
by the presence of the stimuli (i.e., the containers) associated with
them.
Another work with results compatible with
the previous ones is the well-known study of the "executive monkeys"
in which Brady (1958) worked with pairs of monkeys, one of which (the
“executive monkey”) could operate a lever and thereby postpone the occurrence
of an electric shock in the feet of both monkeys. Every 20 seconds, a light was
presented, indicating the occurrence of the next electric shock and also
signaling the opportunity to emit the avoidance response. Each day, pairs of
monkeys spent six hours in the chamber for six hours of rest. In all cases, the
executive monkeys developed gastric ulcers, in some cases so severe that some
of them died from them, while the passive monkeys did not develop any lesions
at all. Based on these results, Brady (1958) concluded that the anticipatory
responses to the experimental situation that occurred during the rest period
were those that favored the development of ulcers.
Obviously, a notable advantage of the
works described above is that none of them postulate internal, private, and
unobservable mental entities or processes (e.g., anxiety, anguish) as
responsible for the observed behavior and its pathological effects on the
organism, but all focus their explanation on the relationship between stimuli
(public, observable, measurable, and manipulable) that makes one of them a sign
of a subsequent aversive event, evoking incompatible responses (e.g.,
“freezing”) with the suppressed response or harmful to the organism (e.g.,
excessive secretion of gastric acids, increases in blood pressure, increases in
heart rate, etc.).
Despite the conceptual improvement
represented by the Skinnerian tradition, Kantor (1933; Kantor & Smith, 1975)
considered it necessary to go beyond the theories of conditioning and proposed
to distinguish affective reactive systems (in which the action of the organism
has no effect on the objects and events of the environment with which it
interacts) from effective reactive systems (those in which the action of
the organism does produce direct effects on the objects and events of the
environment with which it interacts) and, based on this, to differentiate
emotional interactions from
sentimental interactions.
According to Kantor (1933; Kantor & Smith, 1975), in
emotional interactions, the presence of a certain stimulus activates the
operation of the reactive system always in the same way in all intact
organisms of the same species, so that the behavioral result of its interaction
with effective reactive systems is the
functional disorganization of these, regardless of the interactive history
of organisms, so they are biological and not psychological. An illustrative
example of these interactions is in cases in which the presence of an intense,
sudden, and surprising stimulus functionally disorganizes the effective action
that is taking place, as occurs when the sudden and intense sound of a horn
while driving a car alters the precision of driving to such an extent that
control of the vehicle can even be lost. These interactions also occur when,
for example, the pain produced by the bite of an animal surprises us while we
read, and we immediately suspend the reading by orienting our eyes to the area
of the picket. In this case, the effectiveness of the reading behavior is
momentarily lost by the operation of the affective-reactive system (sensory, in
this example) activated by the picket. A further example of the emotional
interactions thus characterized is when there is a sudden loss of lift (as in
the excessively rapid descent of an elevator, during an episode of turbulence
in a flight, or in an intense earthquake) and immediately the interaction that
is taking place is disorganized, affecting for a moment the operation of the
effective reactive systems. In all these cases, the operation of the
affective-reactive systems occurs in the same way in all people, regardless of
the experience or history they have with the stimuli involved, and always as a
momentary disturbance or disorganization of effective behavior. This is why
Kantor (1933; Kantor & Smith, 1975)
stresses the non-psychological nature of emotional interactions.
Unlike the above, Kantor (1933) argues that in
sentimental interactions, the operation of affective reactive systems obeys the
history of previous interactions that individuals have had with objects and
events in particular situations, so this does not occur in the same way in all
individuals. To illustrate, consider the case of a car driver who begins
to cry, tremble, and moan when crossing a bridge whose railings are painted
green, in such a way that he even loses control of the vehicle. This, of
course, does not happen to all the people who cross said bridge, because
neither the bridge nor the railings or their green color by themselves produce
these reactions, but these occur only because that driver has a particular
history with them in certain situations (it could be that on that bridge or in
a very similar one, the driver suffered a strong love disappointment). In this
case, the intense activity of the affective reactive systems is due to the
fragmentary elements of that situation (the bridge and its green railings), and
it is precisely because of the intensity of the affective activity that the
effectiveness of the behavior in that situation is altered. Insisting, it must
be said that this happens because of the peculiar interactive story of the driver,
different from that of the rest of the other people, in which neither the
bridge nor its green railings will produce the disruptive affective activities
described. What should be insisted on is that this experiential ontogenetic
characteristic is what confers the psychological character to the affective
alteration of behavior that Kantor (1933; Kantor & Smith, 1975) calls sentimental interactions.
From the Kantorian interbehavioral point
of view, it is assumed that affective reactive systems involving glandular,
sensory, autonomic neuronal activity, smooth muscle activity, etc. participate
outstandingly, and it is emphasized that this does not suppress in any
way the operation of effective reactive systems involving the activity of
striated muscles, skeletal action, central neural activity, etc., but is
integrated into the setting. From this, it follows that these are constituted
and are always present as
components, aspects, or dimensions of all psychological interactions. In this
way, it can be said that affectivity and effectiveness are adjectives that
qualify or characterize reactive systems but not total behavior as interaction,
so it is not correct to speak of emotions or feelings in isolation, nor of
emotional or sentimental behavior, but of the affective and effective dimensions of
psychological behavior, whose balance can be altered at a specific time, in
particular situations, by the predominance of one over the other in such a way
that one or more of the functional
qualities of behavior is altered.
FUNCTIONAL
QUALITIES OF BEHAVIOR
According to Carpio (1994), the functional
qualities of behavior can be identified based on the adjustment criteria that
individuals must satisfy in each of their interactions. Such criteria
constitute the performance requirement indispensable for the functional
adequacy of the individual's actions to the characteristics of the objects and
events of the medium in each interactive episode and may derive from the
morphological characteristics of the situation but may also be imposed by other
individuals (in the form of orders, requests, instructions, suggestions, etc.)
and even by the individual himself (as a self-instruction, objective, or
goal).
In the simplest case, the criteria of
ajustivity establish the requirement that the activity of the individual is adapted morphologically
in time and space to the morphology and temporo-spatial structure (duration,
intervals, density, place of occurrence, etc.) of unique stimuli (as in
temporal conditioning procedures) or paired with others (as in simultaneous or
delayed conditioning procedures, forward or backward). In these cases,
behavioral functionality occurs as a temporo-spatial adjustment of the individual's
activity that, in some cases, seeks contact with some stimulating events (as in
appetitive conditioning) or distancing from others (as in aversive
conditioning). In this case, the functional quality of the behavior is
precisely the ability to adapt, or ajustivity, to the morphology and temporal
structure of the stimulating environment.
The second type of adjustment criteria
defines effectiveness as the characteristic functional quality of behavior. In
the words of Carpio (1994):
“Effectiveness refers to the
temporal, spatial, topographical, durational, and intensive adequacy of the
response to regulate the occurrence and temporo-spatial and intensive
parameters of stimulus events...Operant conditioning and its procedures,
phenomena studied as practical intelligence and others, are examples of this
level in which the effectiveness of the responses is the central characteristic
of the interaction [emphasis added]” (p. 64).
One type of functionality, more complex
than effectiveness, derives from the criteria of appropriateness. This
functionality was originally characterized as:
the
effective variability of the response and its properties according to the variability of the environment and
its conditions. The answer, to put it another way, must be situationally
relevant to operational contingencies and their continuous variation...Sample
matching procedures, studies on concept formation in animals, and rule
learning, among others, illustrate the level at which the central
characteristic of interaction is appropriateness [emphasis added] (Carpio,
1994, p. 65).
To characterize the functionality of
behavior that derives from fit criteria linked to the functional correspondence
between interactive segments say-do and say-tell, Carpio (1994) proposed that:
congruence describes a characteristic that is
only present in interactions in which reactivity is morphologically independent
of the physicochemical properties and the spatio-temporal parameters of the
situation, that is, when functional contingencies are established by linguistic
substitution. Congruence in these interactions refers to the correspondence
between linguistically substituted contingencies and actual situational
contingencies. Finally [emphasis added], at the most complex level, in which the organization of
contingencies occurs as contingencies between substitutions as a linguistic
product, that is, that the
individual with his behavior establishes new relationships between linguistic
products abstracted from the concrete situations in which they are elaborated,
coherence, as an organization of the correspondences described at the previous level,
is established as the functional characteristic that describes the
correspondence between sayings as a way of doing[emphasis added]. (pp. 65-66).
In short, the functional qualities of
behavior constitute the updating of the interactive capacities of individuals
who depend both on their biological equipment and on the skills and
competencies they learn and develop throughout their individual interactive
history, and whose functional appropriateness is differentially
“selected” moment by moment by the criterion of adjustment to be satisfied and
by the morphological and functional characteristics of the situations in which
every interaction occurs. Table 1 synthesizes the functional qualities of
behavior as interactive capabilities.
Table 1. Functional qualities of psychological
behavior
|
Functional qualities of behavior |
Definition |
|
Ajustivity |
Capacity to adjust the spatio-temporal,
morphological and intensive distribution of the activity with the spatio-temporal parameters of the stimulating conditions,
unalterable by the individual. |
|
Effectiveness |
Capacity to produce effects on the
distribution and spatio-temporal parameters of
stimulating conditions, regulating their values (including their occurrence
or omission). |
|
Appropriateness |
Capacity to adapt the spatio-temporal,
morphological and intensive distribution of the activity to the local
functional variations of the stimulating conditions. |
|
Congruence |
Capacity to deploy activities
conventionally corresponding to linguistic conditions of stimulation. |
|
Coherence |
Capacity to establish and apply functional
correspondence criteria between different segments or linguistic products. |
AFFECTIVE
ALTERATIONS OF BEHAVIOR
The concept of affective alteration of
behavior that we propose here refers to the condition in which the exacerbated
operation of the affective reactive systems modifies the functional quality of
the distinctive behavior in an interaction or set of functionally linked
interactions at a given time (Cfr. Alonso-Vega, Núñez, Lee & Froján, 2019;
Kantor & Smith, 1975; Piña, 2008). This characterization assumes that the
affective operation is triggered by the presence, physically or verbally
enunciated by the individual himself or by others, of stimulating elements that
arouse it due to a particular learning history (as in the aforementioned
example of the green railings of the bridge that shock a person who passes by).
Equally, it assumes that the alteration may imply the deterioration of the
corresponding functional quality but also its improvement. These variants
illustrate the freezing that a person can suffer before the sudden appearance
of an aggressive animal (e.g., a dog that barks and throws itself fiercely) or
the rapid escape to a safe place (e.g., a high and inaccessible place for the
animal) without having previously exercised that climbing capacity. In another
example, it is common to observe the “nervousness” of some people in exam
situations, in which they forget even the most elementary of what the exam
explores, while in others their intelligence and memory are “sharpened,”
which makes them overcome the exam in question more successfully.
Terms such as
“phobia”, “depression”, “anxiety”, “stress”, “burnout”, and
“affective alterations of personality”, among others, constitute labels that
are placed on behavioral observations that correspond to what we conceptualize
here as affective alterations of behavior. The difference is not only
nominative, but also much deeper, it is conceptual: the postulation of internal
entities (mental or cerebral) as causal agents of behavior is rejected; departs
from medical conceptions that pathologize behavior (Cfr. Szasz, 1961,1976);
abandons the dichotomy between affectivity and behavior by recognizing that in
all the interactions of individuals there is always an affective and an
effective dimension; it transcends the reflexological tradition that only
recognizes one functional level of behavior (the conditional reflex) by
postulating five levels of interactive functionality; eradicates the notion
that any affective alteration implies a deterioration of interactive
functionality by warning that in some cases these can improve it; it becomes independent of dualistic conceptions by locating
the origin and singularity of affective alterations of behavior in the
interactive history of each individual, linking it with the learning processes
that occur in it.
Based on the above, it is possible to
envisage a tentative functional classification of affective alterations of
behavior, different from those derived from dualistic theories. An advantage of
attempting a functional classification is that it can guide research and
intervention according to the level and type of interactive functionality that
is altered. For this purpose, it is possible to propose five functional
variants of affective behavioral alterations:
1.
Affective alterations of interactive
ajustivity;
2.
Affective alterations of interactive
effectiveness;
3.
Affective alterations of
interactive appropriateness;
4.
Affective alterations of interactive
congruence;
5.
Affective alterations of interactive
coherence.
For the identification of each of these
variants, the functional quality of the behavior that is altered (negatively or
positively) by an exacerbated operation of the affective reactive systems,
which is due to the presence of stimulant components that form or have been
part of other interactions of individuals, is privileged. Thus, the presence
of, for example, a stimulus that has previously been related to an aversive
event can alter the behavior of the individual, but depending on the altered
functional quality, we could be facing one or another type of affective
alteration. At this point, the functional quality of the altered.
BY WAY
OF PRELIMINARY CONCLUSION
The dualistic traditions in psychology
have produced theoretical models that, regardless of the most flagrant logical
inconsistencies, have pathologized affective alterations of behavior as if they
were diseases (mental or cerebral) that the psychologist, physician, or
psychiatrist must prevent, cure, or alleviate through action strategies that,
they suppose, are essentially therapeutic. For this reason, they have developed
methods of research and intervention that privilege the verbal report of
people, to which they grant the character of “revealing”, “informative”, or
“descriptive” of their mental interiority to which only each one has access due
to the private and publicly inaccessible character that is granted to the
mental or psychic.
The critical examination of the
logical-conceptual structure of the dominant mentalist traditions in the field
of so-called mental health leads to the search for more coherent, objective,
and naturalistic theoretical alternatives that enhance psychological research
and intervention on more solid foundations. The interbehavioral postulation
outlined here is, in our opinion, a conceptual alternative that can support
theoretical and methodological developments that improve the position and
contribution of psychology to the theorization and solution of human problems
in the field of health.
Behavior (and the type of alteration)
warns against the theoretical temptation to characterize it morphologically and
to try generic-universal explanations that avoid the singularity of the
processes of the historical constitution of individual behavior.
ORCID
Claudio
Carpio: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9183-8690
Virginia
Pacheco Chávez: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9316-1070
Valeria
Olvera Navas: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9915-5728
AUTHORS’ CONTRIBUTION
Claudio Carpio: Conceptualization,
Writing - Original Draft, Writing - Review & Editing and Visualization.
Virginia Pacheco
Chávez: Conceptualization, Writing - Original Draft, Writing - Review &
Editing and Visualization.
Valeria Olvera Navas: Conceptualization,
Writing - Original Draft, Writing - Review & Editing and Visualization.
FUNDING
SOURCE
This work was
supported by PAPIME-DGAPA-UNAM, grant to PE301223 project.
CONFLICT OF
INTEREST
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Acknowledgments to Mairene García Plata, Rodrigo Vidal Carrera and René
Rincón Reyes.
REVIEW
PROCESS
This study has been reviewed by external peers in double-blind mode.
The editor in charge was David Villarreal-Zegarra. The review process is included as supplementary material 1.
DATA
AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
Not applicable.
DECLARATION
OF THE USE OF GENERATIVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
The authors declare that they have not made use of artificial
intelligence-generated tools for the creation of the manuscript, nor
technological assistants for the writing.
DISCLAIMER
The authors are responsible for all statements made in this article.
REFERENCES
Alonso-Vega, J.,
Núñez, M., Lee, G. & Froján, M.X. (2919). El tratamieto de enfermedades
mentales graves desde la investigación de procesos. Conductual, 7(1), 44-65.
https://doi.org/10.59792/YVVN1823
American Psychiatric
Association. (2023). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders
(5th ed.). APA.
Arcediano, F.,
Ortega, N. & Matute, H. (1996). A behavioural preparation for the study of
human Pavlovian conditioning. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,
49(3), 270-283. https://doi.org/10.1080/713932633
Arita, W. B.Y.
(2002). Ansiedad
y síntomas de estrés en estudiantes universitarios. Enseñanza e
investigación en psicología, 6(2), 297-302. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A115973212/IFME?u=anon~38df10cb&sid=googleScholar&xid=d062c40a
Barrett, L.F.,
Quigley, K.S., Bliss-Moreau, E. & Aronson, K.R. (2004). Interoceptive
sensitivity and self-reports of emotional experience. Journal of personality
and social psychology, 87(5), 684-697.
https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.87.5.684
Beers, C. (1980). A
Mind That Found Itself: An Autobiography; University of Pittsburgh Press;
Pittsburgh. (Original work published 1908).
Bertolín-Guillén,
J.M. (2023). Psicopatlogía y el problema epistémico de la filosofía de la
mente. Norte de salud mental, 19(69),
47-55. https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=9372271
Bertolote, J.
(2008). The roots of the concept of mental health. World Psychiatry,
7(2), 65-128. https://doi.org/10.1002%2Fj.2051-5545.2008.tb00172.x
Brady, J. (1958).
Ulcers in "executive" monkeys. Scientific American, 199(3),
95–104. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24944795
Carpio, C. (1994).
Comportamiento animal y teoría de la conducta. En: L. Hayes, E. Ribes y F.
López (Eds.). Psicología Interconductual. EDUG.
Carpio, C., Canales,
C., Morales, G., Arroyo, R. & Silva, H. (2007). Inteligencia, creatividad y
desarrollo psicológico. Acta Colombiana de Psicología, 10(2),
41-50.
http://www.scielo.org.co/scielo.php?pid=s0123-91552007000200005&script=sci_arttext
Carpio, C. Pacheco,
V., Canales, C., Morales, G. & Rodríguez, R. (2014). Comportamiento
inteligente y creativo: efectos de distintos tipos de instrucciones. Suma Psicológica, 21(1),
36-44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0121-4381(14)70005-0
Dain, N. (1980). Clifford
W. Beers: Advocate for the Insane; University of Pittsburgh Press.
De-Damas-González,
M. & Gomariz, M.A. (2020). La verbalización de las emociones en educación
infantil. Evaluación de un programa de conciencia emocional. Estudios sobre
educación, 38, 279-302. https://doi.org/10.15581/004.38.279-302
Descartes, R.
(1980). Discurso del método, Meditaciones metafísicas, Reglas para la
dirección del espíritu, principios de la Filosofía. Porrúa.
Deutsch, A. (1937). The
Mentally Ill in America: A History of Their Care and Treatment from Colonial
times. Doubleday, Doran and Company
Inc. https://doi.org/10.7312/deut93794
Di Giusto, E. &
Bond, N. (1978). One-trial conditioned suppression: effects of instructions on
extinction. American Journal of Psychology, 91(2),
313-319. https://doi.org/10.2307/1421541
Estes, W. &
Skinner, B. (1941). Some quantitative properties of anxiety. Journal of
Experimental Psychology, 29(5), 390–400.
https://doi.org/10.1037/h0062283
Ezama, C.E. Alonso,
Y. & Fontanil, G.Y. (2010). Pacientes, síntomas, trastornos, organicidad y
psicopatología. International journal of psychological therapy, 10(2), 293-314.
https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=3229782
Grob, G. (1994). The
Mad Among Us: A History of the Care of America’s Mentally Ill; The Free
Press.
Hunt, H. &
Brady, J. (1951). Some effects of electro-convulsive shock on a conditioned
emotional response ("anxiety"). Journal of Comparative and
Physiological Psychology, 44(1), 88-98.
https://doi.org/10.1037/h0059967
James, W., Newton,
P., Roche, B. & Dymond, S. (2013). Conditioned suppression in a virtual
environment. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(3),
552-558. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.11.016
Kantor, J. (1924). Principles
of Psychology. Ohio: Principia Press.
Kantor, J. (1933). A
survey of the science of psychology. Ohio: Principia Press.
Kantor, J. (1956).
W. L. Bryan, Scientist, Philosopher, Educator. Science, 123(3189),
214. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.123.3189.214
Kantor, J. (1958). Interbehavioral
psychology: A sample of scientific system construction. Principia Press.
https://doi.org/10.1037/13165-000
Kantor J. (1963). The
Scientific Evolution of Psychology. Ohio: Principia Press.
https://doi.org/10.1037/11183-000
Kantor, J. (1966).
Behaviorism: Whose image? The Psychological Record, 13,
499-512. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03393552
Kantor, J. (1969).
Scientific psychology and specious philosophy. The Psychological Record,
19(1), 15–27. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03393823
Kantor, J. &
Smith, N. (1975). The Science of Psychology: An Interbehavioral Survey. The
Principia Press.
Kelleher, R., Gill,
C., Riddle, W. & Cook, L. (1963). On the use of the squirrel monkey in
behavioral and pharmacological experiments. Journal of the Experimental
Analysis of Behavior, 6(2), 249–252.
https://doi.org/10.1901/jeab.1963.6-249
Kuhn, T. (1962). The
Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press.
Kyrylenko, T.S.
& Bobrovytska, A.A. (2017). Peculiarities of verbal description of personal
emotions by representatives of different ethnocultural communities. Ukranian
psychological journal, 3 (5), 101-112.
Lemos, . M., Restrepo, O.D. & Richard, L.C. (2008). Revisión crítica del
concepto “psicosomático” a la luz del dualismo mente-cuerpo. Pensamiento
psicológico, 4(10), 137-147.
https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=2792749
Locke, E. (1976). Ensayo
sobre el entendimiento humano. Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Lolas, F. (1987). Verbal Behavior,
emotion, and psychosomatic pathology. In Lolas, F., Mayer, H. (Eds-)
Perspectives on stress-related topics. Springer-Verlang Berlin,
Heildelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-69057-0_10
Lopera, J. (2015).
El concepto de salud mental en algunos instrumentos de políticas públicas de la
Organización Mundial de la Salud. Revista Facultad Nacional de Salud Pública,
32(1), 11-20. https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.rfnsp.19792
Organización Mundial
de la Salud [OMS]. (2020). Documentos básicos (49ª ed.).
OMS. https://apps.who.int/gb/bd/pdf_files/BD_49th-sp.pdf
Pavlov, I. (1927). Conditioned
reflexes: an investigation of the physiological activity of the cerebral
cortex. Oxford University Press. 10.5214/ans.0972-7531.1017309
Piña, J. (2008).
Variaciones dobre el modelo psicológico de salud biológica de Ribes:
justificación y desarrollo. Universitas psychologica, 7(1), 19-32.
Ramos-García, J.,
Gutiérrez-Yáñez, M. &Ortega-Andrade, N. (2023). Mente y salud mental en
psicología: un análisis conceptual desde la perspectiva conductual. Educación
y salud. Boletin científico instituto de ciencias de la salud universidad
Autónoma del estado de Hidalgo, 11(22), 105-111. https://doi.org/10.29057/icsa.v11i22.10097
Ridenour, N. (1961).
Mental Health in the United States A Fifty-Year
History. Harvard University Press.
https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674420267
Ryle, G. (1949). The
concept of mind. Hutchinson https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203875858
Sawrey, W. &
Weisz, J. (1956). An experimental method of producing gastric ulcers. Journal
of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 49(3), 269–270.
https://doi.org/10.1037/h0040634
Sidman, M. (1958).
By-products of aversive control. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of
Behavior, 1(3), 265-280. 10.1901/jeab.1958.1-265
Silva, J.R. (2007).
Sobrealimentación inducida por la ansiedad. Parte I: evidencia conductual,
afectiva, metabólica y endócrina. Terapia Psicológica, 25(2), 141-154.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4067/S0718-48082007000200005
Simon, N.M. (2009)
Generalized anxiety disorder and psychiatric comorbidities such as depression,
bipolar disorder, and substance abuse. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry,
70(2), 10-14.
Scherer, K.R.
(2000). Psychological models of emotion. In J.C. Borod (Ed.). The
neuropsychology of emotion (pp. 137-162). Oxford University Press.
Skinner, B. F.
(1931). The concept of the reflex in the description of behavior. Journal of
General Psychology, 5, 427–458.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00221309.1931.9918416
Skinner, B. F.
(1935). The generic nature of the concepts of stimulus and response. Journal
of General Psychology, 12, 40–65.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00221309.1935.9920087
Skinner, B. F.
(1938). The behavior of organisms: an experimental analysis. Appleton-Century.
Szasz, T. (2019). Esquizofrenia.
El símbolo Sagrado de la psiquiatría. Ediciones Coyoacán. (Original work
published 1961)
Szasz, T. (1976). El
mito de la enfermedad mental. Amorrortu.
Szasz, T. (1978). The
Myth of Psychotherapy: Mental Healing as Religion, Rhetoric, and Repression.
SUP.
Tomasini, A. (1988).
El pensamiento del último Wittgenstein. Trillas.
Tomasini, A. (1995).
Ensayos de filosofía de la Psicología. Universidad de Guadalajara.
Tomasini, A. (1996).
Enigmas filosóficos y filosofía wittgensteiniana. Editorial
Interlinea.
Tomasini, A. (2008).
Discusiones Filosóficas. Plaza y Valdés.
Tomasini, A. (2016).
Filosofía, Conceptos Psicológicos y Psiquiatría. Herder.
Turbayne, M. (1962).
The myth of metaphor. Yale University Press.
Watson, J. &
Rayner, R. (1920). Conditioned emotional reactions. Journal of Experimental
Psychology, 3(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0069608
Wittgenstein, L.
(1953). Philosophical Investigations. Blackwell
Wundt, W. (2019). Outlines
of Psychology. Williams and Norgate; Wilhelm Engelmann. (Original work
published 1897)