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Thirty years ago, behaviorism made psychology essentially irrelevant to the study of culture. (DiMaggio, 1997, p. 265).
One of the strengths of the behavior analytic position is that it possesses one of the characteristics of a genuinely useful theory-it provides for comprehensive accounts for a very wide range of phenomena. It is not specifically a theory about individual comportment, the activities of social groupings, of organizational behavior, of community action, or of social change. Rather it is capable, with varying degrees of specificity and empirical support, of developing conceptual explanations for all human phenomena, micro through macro. Few theories possess this near universal applicability. Although we most commonly associate (pun intended) Skinner with accounts of individual actions, he was indeed a most prolific writer in terms of extending behavior analysis to cultural growth and development, and to the design of societies. His utopian community Walden II (1948) is perhaps the earliest example of such an extrapolation. Midcareer, right around the time DiMaggio (in the prefactory quote) dismisses the relevance of behaviorism to the development of a science of culture, Skinner produced thought provoking essays titled The Design of Cultures (1961), Contingencies of Reinforcement in the Design of a Culture (1966), Utopia Through the Control of Human Behavior (1967), Vision of Utopia (1967), and The Design of Experimental Communities (1968). Late in life he edited a collection of related essays into a book titled Reflections on Behaviorism and Society (1978).
Others have accepted the behavior analytic baton of cultural analysis and...