Looking at Skinner's behavioral slant on humanity, I can't help marveling at how much I agree with him when I've spent so much of the last twenty years bad mouthing his views.  What's changed my opinion is my recent experience using operant conditioning in training my puppy, and seeing first hand with a simpler mind (the dog's, not mine) the effects of reinforcement, conditioning and how extinction is achieved.  So it is with this background that I read the Valence chapter from Skinner's  Beyond Freedom and Dignity and waded through his (to me) arrogant tone to ponder the application of his theory to my own values and perceptions.

Likewise, I waded through Freud's incredibly difficult-to-read treatise on Id, Ego and Superego in An Outline of Psychoanalysis and dodged yet again his ludicrous "every woman wants a penis" bias, to find that I agree with him, too.  Perhaps it is because his work has so thoroughly permeated our culture that I am able to recognize in my own psychological structure the ways in which my ego seeks to support, protect and defend my needs, and the ways in which my superego is in constant effort to keep things in check.

What's hard for me to explain is that I agree to some extent with both.  I don't see those views in opposition to each other, unless you take into account how each might view the other in terms of the existence or non existence of "the inner man.".  Rather, I see Freud's description of how we are organized as foundational in understanding the ways in which our ids, egos and superegos work in symphony with reinforcement and conditioning.  And I see Skinner's theory of reinforcement and extinction as a description of (but not necessarily a prescription for!) the ways in which our ids seek and receive satisfaction in accordance with the pleasure principles described by both Freud and Skinner.  Our egos experience and react to these negative and positive reinforcements in mediation between the primitive drives of our ids and our environments.  And our superegos do likewise, organizing, on occasion, our perceptions of negative and positive with what we internalized from our parents and others in our culture.

What's even harder in this analysis, though, is to give you an example out of my own life.  Among the reasons is that I work hard to go beyond my own unconscious conditioning.   In a Freudian line of thinking I'm probably trying to create a Metaego; one that chooses beyond the superego created by my parental instructions.  I work hard to recognize and not avoid certain things that have become extinguished through complex histories of negative reinforcement and emotional reactions.  Combine that with the many choices I make in a day, throw in the many discrepancies and conflicts between my values and my preferences, and you have a web to untangle that looks like a mat in my cat's hair.  Unresolvable.

So, in the simplest terms I can think of, I'd apply my "both are right" hypothesis to this situation.  Let's take,  for example, throwing a plastic bottle into the trash instead of into the recycling bin.

Skinner would say I throw it into the trash because there has been insufficient reinforcement to make the extra work of recycling not create extinction of the behavior.

Freud would say I throw it into the trash because my id has no interest in the effort since it's only seeking pleasure, my ego sees the effort as negative and unworthy of the effort of mediation, and my superego formed in my early years has insufficient input to create a consciousness of recycling that will override what the other two see as a purely negative experience.

The words sound different, but the bottom line is the same.  No motivation for maintenance of an inconvenient behavior.   Skinner would go further to say that I need to create a positive reinforcement of some kind to bolster and reinforce the creation of any new consciousness (and conscienceness) of environmental values.

Frankly, that hasn't worked for me.  In order to do unrewarding things, I've had to create a level of compassion and interest on a very deep level that produces in me a heartful desire to live and utilize differently in order to achieve this end.  I have difficulty tying that back to Freud and Skinner's hypotheses other than to say that perhaps I'm trying to create a broader superego – by my definition, a kind of meta ego – that is reinforced by my own sense of grace from deep inside me.

As William James' theory applies, I'm constructing my own set of values.  In Freudian terms, I've applied a new coat to my superego that will modify the demands of my id and ego.  In Skinnerian terms, I have found a way to reinforce my own behaviors in a way that insures a repeat of the performance.

But what if we're talking about an inner process.  Skinner is unhappy with our cultural focus on the "inner man" and his freedom and dignity.  He says it is inconsequential at best and culturally destructive, and that only through behavioral reinforcement and extinction will we make necessary changes in our culture.  But how do we apply his hypothesis to an experience like forgiveness, for example?  If I forgive someone for an injustice, it is not necessarily going to generate an external demonstration.  Forgiveness is something that takes place in one's heart and mind.  It is an inner letting go -- not to be confused with condoning, excusing or reconciling.  It is a non-physical action that may only affect the forgiver, setting aside for the moment the possibility that positive and negative subtle energies generated by our hearts and minds affect others around us.  Forgiveness within a person will express itself as an attitude of trust in the world, but Skinner doesn't -- at least to my understanding -- acknowledge the existence of attitudes occuring from within.  So unless Skinnerian theory is bent to include internal experiences that bear no interaction with the external world, I find it doesn't cover all possible explanations of our choices.

And forgiveness is not necessarily Freud's superego phenomenon.  A researcher in the 60s, Pattison, described forgiveness as occuring on a different plane than that of ordinary moral and psychological functioning. Pattison said that a spiritual (as opposed to religious) or higher self beyond the superego made forgiveness possible.  And though it may be hard to believe without personal experience, the meta ego production  of inner states like forgiveness creates an all-encompassing desire to live in accordance with the difficult values that create such tension and conflict between the ego and superego.  In short, a spiritual experience that is pursued by a compelling desire for spiritual release.  So, unless Freudian theory is bent to include this desire as a property of the id -- as a property of our evolutionary condition, then Freudian theory doesn't cover all possible explanations of our choices either.

References:

  Freud, S. (1949).  Abriss der Psychoanalyse (An Outline of Psychoanalysis) p. 13-25, 103-119.-  W.W. Norton: New York.   [See section in Origins].

  James, W. (1948). "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life".  Essays in Pragmatism, p. 65 - 87.  Hafner: New York.   [See section in Origins].

  Pattison, E.M. (1965). On the failure to forgive or to be forgiven.  American Journal of Psychotherapy, 19, 106-115.  [external to this project]

  Skinner, B.F. (1971). "Valence".  Beyond Freedom and Dignity, p. 444 - 462.  Knopf: New York.   [See section in Origins].

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