文章基本信息

标题：Is Behaviorism Becoming a Pseudo-Science?: Power Versus Scientific Rationality in the Eclipse of Token Economies by Biological Psychiatry in the Treatment of Schizophrenia
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作者：Jerome C. Wakefield
期刊名称：Behavior and Social Issues
印刷版ISSN：1064-9506
出版年度：2006
卷号：15
期号：2
页码：202-221
语种：English
出版社：Behaviorists for Social Responsibility
摘要：Wyatt and Wong argue that biological psychiatry's power, not its scientific merits, explain token economies' eclipse by biological treatments of schizophrenia. However, Wyatt and Wong's critiques of biological psychiatry, while partly true, ignore offsetting strengths and achievements as well as plausibility arguments that schizophrenia is partly biological; behavioral theory offers no cogent alternative account of etiology. Moreover, token-economy research fails to establish generalizability of changes to post-ward environments. Even Paul and Lentz's (1977) definitive research on token-economy treatment of schizophrenia failed to show generalization of changes to community life, and in fact, due to an inadvertent "natural experiment," reveals the instability of behavioral changes even after years of treatment. To preserve their belief system, behaviorists seem in danger of turning behaviorism into a pseudoscience defended by ad hoc hypotheses.