- Email: [email protected]
Gary Cziko (2000). The things we do. Using the lessons of Bernard and Darwin to understand the what, the how, and why of our behavior. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press (ISBN 0-262-0.277-5)
Acta Psychologica 110 (2002) 125–127 www.elsevier.com/locate/actpsy
Book review Gary Cziko (2000). The things we do. Using the lessons of Bernard and Darwin to understand the what, the how, and why of our behavior. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press (ISBN 0-262-0.277-5) ‘The things we do’ is a fascinating book. Conflicting impressions come to the reader’s mind. At times, it feels as if the book is too simple and too vague to convey any interesting information, let alone to be able to influence the field. At other times, it is difficult to deny the impression that Cziko is reinventing the wheel. Nevertheless, some way or another, one remains convinced that this book promises great progress in behavioral science. These conflicting evaluations call for some self-evaluation on the reader’s part: Why does this book evoke such diverging feelings? It is clear that Cziko’s purpose was nothing less than conveying a revolutionary message. Basically, his message is that behavioral science has been trapped in a one-way cause-effect scheme, for at least a century. This basically Newtonian scheme has been hampering further progress. He proposes that behavioral sciences fully accept purposiveness of animal behavior, and that this be grounded in and integrated with contemporary biology. However, he seems well aware that in contemporary behavioral science, with its researchers espousing quite diverging convictions and methodologies, the odds are very much against his message making a real difference. Moreover, since behaviorism, purposiveness sounds conspicious in a scientific community, mainly because it is associated with prescientific Aristotelian thought. Granted, modern psychology often uses the goal concept, but this research remains marginal with respect to the main stream, and it is strongly forced into the one-way cause-effect scheme. That is, goals are considered cognitive entities that are caused by the environment and elicit behavior. Nothing wrong with this scheme, you might say, but Cziko identifies a lot of problems inherent in the basic one-way cause-effect scheme. What he proposes is to break the scheme down, and allow circular causality between behavior and perception. Given a scientific climate that is rather hostile to purposiveness as a central explaining concept, it makes sense that Cziko goes through a lot of trouble showing how deeply his approach is rooted in materialist Western thought (50 pp. or almost 20% of the book). I am confident that no self-respecting reader will hold Cziko for an animist or a teleologist, even though ‘purpose’ is the central concept of his book. Probably, as most of us are die-hard materialists, this part of the book may make many of us wonder when the book really starts.
0001-6918/02/$ - see front matter Ó 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 0 0 1 - 6 9 1 8 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 7 3 - 7
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Book review / Acta Psychologica 110 (2002) 125–127
And then it does. Cziko describes the applicability of Bernard’s lesson to voluntary action. Bernard discovered the amazing stability of several body variables (such as body temperature) and identified a number of mechanisms responsible for it. He proposed a simple feedback system to model this behavior. A certain variable is perceived and compared to a reference level. Whenever there is a discrepancy between the input variable and the reference level, the system does something to reduce the discrepancy. Now Cziko invites us, following Powers (1989), to apply this basic feedback loop scheme to voluntary behavior. (This application is what Cziko calls the ‘extended Bernardian lesson’.) Probably the most appealing example of such a control system is a person driving a car to a well-determined location. Regardless of wind force and direction, slopes, traffic lights, jams, or deviations, a person will eventually reach his/her destination on most occasions. However, let the same person make the same trip a thousand times, and the behavioral sequences will differ time after time. Clear evidence, according to Cziko, that the goal is not the cause of this behavior. The trick seems to be to turn the picture around: what we really do is control our perceptions by means of behavior, rather than control our behavior as a function of our perceptions. The goal (e.g., reaching one’s destination) and the host of subgoals (such as passing a certain point along the way) represent the perceptions we strive for. Is this insight new? Definitely not. Cziko grants this by his extensive referring to Powers. Moreover, in social psychology, this insight has thrived for two decades now (Carver & Scheier, 1981) but Cziko does not mention this work. So, it is neither new nor is it so uncommon as he seems to believe. However, Cziko may have a point that research methodology should follow this insight. Although control theory might be widely known among social psychologists, the research methodology may not have followed this insight. Indeed, control theory is accompanied by a host of quite novel research approaches, with the major goal of pointing out which reference level the organism is striving for (i.e., the goal) and how it does so. Of course, control theory is vulnerable to a homunculus fallacy: Where does the reference level come from in the first place? At this point, Cziko invokes ‘Darwin’s (first) lesson’. He argues that natural selection managed to select desired behavior by means of providing us with goals and reference levels. Indeed, we are selected to strive for food (certain types and not others), but the way we find it is largely undetermined. Obviously, the importance of natural selection in understanding human behavior is not new at all. The last decade, dozens of writers have paid attention to our evolutionary past, and by now, this message has reached most behavioral researchers’ minds. Finally, Cziko comes up with the ‘extended Darwinian lesson’ to account for behavioral flexibility. The goals we and other animals have do not only originate in our evolutionary past. In addition, within-organism evolution plays a key role in shaping our strivings. Moreover, the way we attain inborn and learned goals is something we have to learn. We accomplish this by varying the means and evaluate their effects on the outcomes. In other words, we try to align our perceptions with the reference level by varying behaviors. The action that does the job (i.e., leads to the right perception) is retained and the others discarded. Although this process has not yet made it to
Book review / Acta Psychologica 110 (2002) 125–127
127
mainstream psychology, and although its current adherents espouse a more one-way cause-effect version of the same idea, it has steadily gained support during the last few years (which Cziko grants). Given the power this mechanism has, it can be expected that it will gain much adherents in the years to come. But again, this insight is not new. But what about the combination of the three lessons, specifically: (1) that animals are control systems and that behavior is the control of perception; (2) that some of the reference levels (or goals) are a product of among-individual natural selection, and (3) that others are a product of intra-individual evolution? According to Cziko, no theorist has put these lessons together. Powers and Dennett came closest to understanding the three lessons and integrating them, but most other great thinkers (like Skinner, Piaget, Pinker, and Chomsky) failed at understanding one or more lessons. By now, I begin to understand why I kept thinking that Cziko was reinventing the wheel: He kept bringing up and defending insights that I have been familiar with for several years, and probably many psychologists with me. On the other hand, I believe that Cziko indeed deserves credit for his endeavor: Combining these three insights is indeed quite revolutionary. The gist of his contribution is reconciling purposiveness of an organism with materialism in general and selectionism (both among and within individuals) in particular. As I have mentioned before, in today’s world, with incredible amount of information engulfing us, the odds against the book gaining enough impetus to turn over behavioral science are formidable. In the end, it is data that will have to prove the fertility of Cziko’s insights. If these supporting data can be generated, time will do the rest. So the first hurdle to be taken will be that of inspiring researchers to apply these general insights in their respective domains of interest. Cziko helps us taking it by offering some novel ways of testing hypotheses (pp. 242–243). Let us wait a couple of years for papers that apply these insights to emerge. This will be the ultimate evaluation of Cziko’s book. References Carver, C. S., & Scheier, M. F. (1981). Attention and self-regulation: a control-theoretical approach to human behavior. Berlin: Springer. Powers, W. T. (1989). Living control systems. Gravel Switch, KY: Control Systems Group.
S. Dewitte Faculty of Economics and Applied Economics and Fund for Scientific Research-Flanders Naamsestraat 69, 3000 Leuven Belgium E-mail address: [email protected]
Book review Gary Cziko (2000). The things we do. Using the lessons of Bernard and Darwin to understand the what, the how, and why of our behavior. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press (ISBN 0-262-0.277-5) ‘The things we do’ is a fascinating book. Conflicting impressions come to the reader’s mind. At times, it feels as if the book is too simple and too vague to convey any interesting information, let alone to be able to influence the field. At other times, it is difficult to deny the impression that Cziko is reinventing the wheel. Nevertheless, some way or another, one remains convinced that this book promises great progress in behavioral science. These conflicting evaluations call for some self-evaluation on the reader’s part: Why does this book evoke such diverging feelings? It is clear that Cziko’s purpose was nothing less than conveying a revolutionary message. Basically, his message is that behavioral science has been trapped in a one-way cause-effect scheme, for at least a century. This basically Newtonian scheme has been hampering further progress. He proposes that behavioral sciences fully accept purposiveness of animal behavior, and that this be grounded in and integrated with contemporary biology. However, he seems well aware that in contemporary behavioral science, with its researchers espousing quite diverging convictions and methodologies, the odds are very much against his message making a real difference. Moreover, since behaviorism, purposiveness sounds conspicious in a scientific community, mainly because it is associated with prescientific Aristotelian thought. Granted, modern psychology often uses the goal concept, but this research remains marginal with respect to the main stream, and it is strongly forced into the one-way cause-effect scheme. That is, goals are considered cognitive entities that are caused by the environment and elicit behavior. Nothing wrong with this scheme, you might say, but Cziko identifies a lot of problems inherent in the basic one-way cause-effect scheme. What he proposes is to break the scheme down, and allow circular causality between behavior and perception. Given a scientific climate that is rather hostile to purposiveness as a central explaining concept, it makes sense that Cziko goes through a lot of trouble showing how deeply his approach is rooted in materialist Western thought (50 pp. or almost 20% of the book). I am confident that no self-respecting reader will hold Cziko for an animist or a teleologist, even though ‘purpose’ is the central concept of his book. Probably, as most of us are die-hard materialists, this part of the book may make many of us wonder when the book really starts.
0001-6918/02/$ - see front matter Ó 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 0 0 1 - 6 9 1 8 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 7 3 - 7
126
Book review / Acta Psychologica 110 (2002) 125–127
And then it does. Cziko describes the applicability of Bernard’s lesson to voluntary action. Bernard discovered the amazing stability of several body variables (such as body temperature) and identified a number of mechanisms responsible for it. He proposed a simple feedback system to model this behavior. A certain variable is perceived and compared to a reference level. Whenever there is a discrepancy between the input variable and the reference level, the system does something to reduce the discrepancy. Now Cziko invites us, following Powers (1989), to apply this basic feedback loop scheme to voluntary behavior. (This application is what Cziko calls the ‘extended Bernardian lesson’.) Probably the most appealing example of such a control system is a person driving a car to a well-determined location. Regardless of wind force and direction, slopes, traffic lights, jams, or deviations, a person will eventually reach his/her destination on most occasions. However, let the same person make the same trip a thousand times, and the behavioral sequences will differ time after time. Clear evidence, according to Cziko, that the goal is not the cause of this behavior. The trick seems to be to turn the picture around: what we really do is control our perceptions by means of behavior, rather than control our behavior as a function of our perceptions. The goal (e.g., reaching one’s destination) and the host of subgoals (such as passing a certain point along the way) represent the perceptions we strive for. Is this insight new? Definitely not. Cziko grants this by his extensive referring to Powers. Moreover, in social psychology, this insight has thrived for two decades now (Carver & Scheier, 1981) but Cziko does not mention this work. So, it is neither new nor is it so uncommon as he seems to believe. However, Cziko may have a point that research methodology should follow this insight. Although control theory might be widely known among social psychologists, the research methodology may not have followed this insight. Indeed, control theory is accompanied by a host of quite novel research approaches, with the major goal of pointing out which reference level the organism is striving for (i.e., the goal) and how it does so. Of course, control theory is vulnerable to a homunculus fallacy: Where does the reference level come from in the first place? At this point, Cziko invokes ‘Darwin’s (first) lesson’. He argues that natural selection managed to select desired behavior by means of providing us with goals and reference levels. Indeed, we are selected to strive for food (certain types and not others), but the way we find it is largely undetermined. Obviously, the importance of natural selection in understanding human behavior is not new at all. The last decade, dozens of writers have paid attention to our evolutionary past, and by now, this message has reached most behavioral researchers’ minds. Finally, Cziko comes up with the ‘extended Darwinian lesson’ to account for behavioral flexibility. The goals we and other animals have do not only originate in our evolutionary past. In addition, within-organism evolution plays a key role in shaping our strivings. Moreover, the way we attain inborn and learned goals is something we have to learn. We accomplish this by varying the means and evaluate their effects on the outcomes. In other words, we try to align our perceptions with the reference level by varying behaviors. The action that does the job (i.e., leads to the right perception) is retained and the others discarded. Although this process has not yet made it to
Book review / Acta Psychologica 110 (2002) 125–127
127
mainstream psychology, and although its current adherents espouse a more one-way cause-effect version of the same idea, it has steadily gained support during the last few years (which Cziko grants). Given the power this mechanism has, it can be expected that it will gain much adherents in the years to come. But again, this insight is not new. But what about the combination of the three lessons, specifically: (1) that animals are control systems and that behavior is the control of perception; (2) that some of the reference levels (or goals) are a product of among-individual natural selection, and (3) that others are a product of intra-individual evolution? According to Cziko, no theorist has put these lessons together. Powers and Dennett came closest to understanding the three lessons and integrating them, but most other great thinkers (like Skinner, Piaget, Pinker, and Chomsky) failed at understanding one or more lessons. By now, I begin to understand why I kept thinking that Cziko was reinventing the wheel: He kept bringing up and defending insights that I have been familiar with for several years, and probably many psychologists with me. On the other hand, I believe that Cziko indeed deserves credit for his endeavor: Combining these three insights is indeed quite revolutionary. The gist of his contribution is reconciling purposiveness of an organism with materialism in general and selectionism (both among and within individuals) in particular. As I have mentioned before, in today’s world, with incredible amount of information engulfing us, the odds against the book gaining enough impetus to turn over behavioral science are formidable. In the end, it is data that will have to prove the fertility of Cziko’s insights. If these supporting data can be generated, time will do the rest. So the first hurdle to be taken will be that of inspiring researchers to apply these general insights in their respective domains of interest. Cziko helps us taking it by offering some novel ways of testing hypotheses (pp. 242–243). Let us wait a couple of years for papers that apply these insights to emerge. This will be the ultimate evaluation of Cziko’s book. References Carver, C. S., & Scheier, M. F. (1981). Attention and self-regulation: a control-theoretical approach to human behavior. Berlin: Springer. Powers, W. T. (1989). Living control systems. Gravel Switch, KY: Control Systems Group.
S. Dewitte Faculty of Economics and Applied Economics and Fund for Scientific Research-Flanders Naamsestraat 69, 3000 Leuven Belgium E-mail address: [email protected]