Relating the Analytical, Behavioral, and Physiological Models of Behavior to Schizophrenia and Neurosis

by Morris Jax

Substrates of Behavior

Analytical Model

behavior is driven by the id, i.e. the desire to maximize pleasure and minimize pain

behavior is filtered and tempered by the ego, i.e. through experience learned in the course of development & growth

Behavioral Model

autonomic nervous system & involuntary musculature action is learned via temporal contiguity, i.e. classical or respondent conditioning

somatic nervous system & voluntary musculature action is learned via conscious understanding of contingencies, i.e. operant conditioning

Physiological Model

pleasure centers in the brain agonistically motivate behavior, i.e. physiological substrate of positive reinforcers in the behavioral model

pain centers in the brain antagonistically motivate behavior, i.e. physiological substrate of negative reinforcers in the behavioral model

Basic Mappings

The id is the driving force behind the Stimulus-Response paradigm, equivalent to the innate desire to maximize pleasure center stimuli and minimize pain center stimuli.

Analysis of schizophrenia and neurosis, starts with two putatively quantifiable aspects of behavior:

OR : the ratio of operants to respondants in the behavioral repertoire

EI : the ratio of exteroceptive to interoceptive stimuli in the perceptual repertoire

It is proposed that as

OR gets larger, the person tends toward neurosis
OR gets smaller, the person tends toward psychosis
EI gets larger, the person tends toward neurosis
EI gets smaller, the person tends toward psychosis

These statements are consistent with clinical observations, and the thought that an infant is 'naturally schizophrenic' and develops towards neurosis with age. The current folk notion of 'getting in touch with one's inner child' begs this analogy.

As the Freudian model puts it
too much ego -> neurosis
too much id -> schizophrenia.

Behaviorally this can be restated as :

too many operants -> neurosis
or in the popular jargon, too much reacting w/o feeling

too much feeling w/o thinking of real world consequences -> schizophrenia
commonly expressed as "that person doesn't know what they're doing"
which can be taken to mean the person is behaving w/o regard to real world impact.

Site Sections

Abstract of the Model

Pages in this Section

Physiology Overview

Analytical Overview

Behaviorism Overview