383 BOOK REVIEWS

Alan E. Kazdin. History of Behavior Modification: Experimental Foundations of Con- temporary Research. Baltimore: University Park Press, 1978. pp. xi + 468. (Re- viewed by W. SCOTT WOOD)

Alan Kazdin’s History of Behavior Modijication is the third in a series of historical reviews of socially significant scientific accomplishments commissioned by the Com- mittee on Brain Sciences of the National Research Council. Professor Kazdin was selected by the Committee’s Subcommittee on Behavior Modification, and the com- pleted draft was approved by a group of specialists in that field. One would expect from all this a rather substantial body of work, and the reader is not disappointed. There are sixty pages of references and over twelve hundred names indexed. The book certainly will become an important resource for anyone seeking documentation of clinically relevant basic and applied psychological research.

Kazdin distinguishes between the principal divisions in behavior modifi- cation-behavior therapy and applied behavior analysis-by tracing the sequences of major experimental and clinical findings which separate them empirically and in terms of who, when, and where. He also reviews a number of early efforts to control behavior that bear methodological similarities to modern techniques but which are not linked to the general body of literature in the field. He goes on to describe some recent trends in treat- ment, including what is called “cognitive behavior modification” by its supporters; the organizational structure of the field, including its principal journals; matters of current ethical and legal concern; and, finally, his views on future directions for behavior modification.

The book will not go uncriticized, of course. Kazdin’s attempt to describe the ac- tivities of living researchers and clinicians will certainly not please all, and many niggling questions of who really ought to get credit for this or that can be expected. At the same time, Kazdin had the cooperation of many of the principal figures of the field and it is un- likely that such a task could have been better executed. Inasmuch as Kazdin himself is an extremely productive member of the behavior modification field, it also is not too sur- prising that some of the topics and the way they are considered somewhat reflect his own views. (In the book, only Pavlov and Skinner are referenced more often than the author himself!) For example, the lengthy discussion of cognitive behavior modification seems elaborated to an extent that is rather out of proportion in terms of either research or researchers in that area. Nevertheless, questions of author emphasis in the reporting of issues or individuals are probably inevitable in reviews of this sort.

There is another matter, though, which Kazdin’s book occasions, and that is the question of how one writes a history of any area of scientific endeavor. Kazdin’s ap- proach falls principally in the category that John J. Sullivan calls “structural history,” an analysis of theories placed in historical order. (See Sullivan, “Prolegomena to a Text- book History of Psychology,” in Historical Conceptions of Psychology, ed. Mary Henle, Julian Jaynes, and John J. Sullivan [New York: Springer, 19731). This is the perspective taken by most authors of scientific histories, where the increased use of particular con- cepts and methods within a scientific community is described developmentally-theories are said to “emerge,” “grow,” and “evolve”; sciences “mature,” and so on. The only un- derlying process which can reasonably be inferred from such descriptions is one of struc- tural development, changes occurring principally as a function of age. As a model, such an explanation seems inadequate for at least two reasons: First, there is a sort of implicit inevitability to it all. The science proceeds on a course that is depicted as somehow in-

384 BOOK REVIEWS

herent in the subject area itself. In that regard, Brian Mackenzie and S. Lynne Macken- zie have argued that some authors have (incorrectly) interpreted certain events in the history of psychology as steps in a sequence of progress toward a behavioral position. (See Mackenzie and Mackenzie, “The Case of a Revised Systematic Approach to the History of Psychology,” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 10 [1974]: 324-347.) Second, the basic substance of the discipline becomes separated from the research and descriptive behavior of individual scientists and is converted to mentalistic notions such as ideas, theories, and so forth. Behaviorists such as Kazdin may be sym- pathetic with the determinism of such an approach, but they certainly ought to take ex- ception to its mentalistic developmentalism.

What kind of history ought a behaviorist to write, whether of his field or of someone else’s? There would seem to be at least two general considerations, one empirical, the other perhaps interpretative, First, there ought to be an objective assessment of the products of the science. “Growth” of this kind, after all, can be quantified. As an exam- ple there is Norman Guttman’s recent “On Skinner and Hull: A Reminiscence and Pro- jection” (American Psychologist 32 [1977]: 321-328) where he provides data on the in- crease of operant terminology in the Educational Index. Second, the explanatory mechanism ought to be environmental in nature, not developmental. Kazdin does provide a footnote caveat ruling out considerations of social, cultural, or political factors (p. 9), but even their inclusion wouldn’t guarantee a behavioral treatment. To a behaviorist, scientific activities are attempted and continued principally because of their real life consequences and not as a reflection of any inherent growth process nor as a result of Hegelian combinations or Kuhnian clashes. Perhaps there is no better depiction of the role of outcomes in determining scientific procedures than B. F. Skinner’s “A Case History in Scientific Method” (American Psychologist 1 1 [1956]: 221-233). Of course, a review of this sort is scarcely the place to elaborate the dimensions of writing scientific histories from a behavioral perspective, it is just that Kazdin’s book provides such an ironic opportunity to bring up the issue.

In conclusion, Kazdin reviews a large number of behavior modification studies which he organizes methodologically (for theoretical purposes) and sequentially (for historical ones). And perhaps that is a necessary step in describing the history of any science. Unfortunately, an annotated bibliography could serve many of the same pur- poses. One hopes that the next step, whether taken by Kazdin or someone else, will focus on functional rather than structural issues, that is, on the actual contingencies which shape the behavior of the scientists, past and present, in the field of behavior modifica- tion. Such an approach, of course, will force the historian to come to grips with science as it really is practiced, an often unglamorous world of publish-or-perish universities, federal grants, and professional one-upmanship as well as one of theory testing and social progress. That story of behavior modification (as of most other fields) remains to be told.

Johan Goudsblom. Sociology in the Balance: A Critical Review. New York: Columbia University Press, 1977. 232 pp., $12.50 (Reviewed by CARL M. SCHMITT)

The unparalleled growth and specialization of modern society has been an impetus for the differentiation of modern sociology into a discipline of theoretical, methodological, and substantive specialties. Sociology in the Balance asserts that the pervasiveness of specialization within the discipline has led to its disjointedness and to the