Herbert Spencer's contributions to behavior analysis: a retrospective review of principles of psychology.
Selectionist thinking started in 1855 with Spencer, and today’s ABA still rests on that same core idea.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The author read Herbert Spencer’s 1855 book Principles of Psychology.
He traced how Spencer described mind and behavior as shaped by consequences.
The paper is a history lesson, not an experiment.
What they found
Spencer wrote that actions followed by good outcomes stick around.
He called this survival of the fittest habits.
He also said free will is an illusion, long before Skinner.
How this fits with other research
Takashima et al. (1994) took Spencer’s seed and grew it into full operant evolution. They showed the environment both selects long-term behavior and triggers the next response.
Neuringer et al. (2017) adds another ancient voice. Where Spencer gave us selectionism, Epicurus gave us pleasure-based living. Both papers give historical roots for modern practice.
Cole (1994) looks at a different set of philosophers—Ryle and Austin—who cleaned up our everyday language. Together these works show that good behavior analysis borrows from many old thinkers, not just Skinner.
Why it matters
Knowing that selectionism is 150 years old helps you explain to parents why reinforcement works. You can say, “This idea has been tested since 1855.” That short story builds trust and shows science, not fad.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Herbert Spencer's Principles of Psychology (1855, first edition) was regarded by his contemporaries, including William James and John Dewey, as a major contribution to what was then a very new discipline. In this book he first expounded his ideas about both evolution of species and how behavior of the individual organism adapts through interaction with the environment. His formulation of the principle that behavior changes in adaptation to the environment is closely related to the version of the law of effect propounded some years later by Thorndike. He can thus be seen as the first proponent of selectionism, a key tenet of behavior analysis. He also explicitly attacked the then prevailing view of free will as being incompatible with the biologically grounded view of psychological processes that he was advocating, and thus put forward ideas that were precursors of B. F. Skinner's in this important area of debate.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 2006 · doi:10.1901/jeab.2006.04-06