146 A Psychological Behaviorism Theory of Personality
Rather than being a biologically determined cognitive abil-
ity, attention span is actually a learned behavior. The same is
true with the infant’s standing and walking, the development
of both of which can be advanced by a little systematic train-
ing. The child of 2 years also can be straightforwardly trained
to count unarranged objects (Piaget said 6 years). Writing
training can be introduced early and successfully, as can other
parts of the sensorimotor repertoire. I also developed a proce-
dure for potty training my children (see Staats, 1963) that was
later elaborated by Azrin and Foxx (1974). Such findings have
changed society’s view of child development.
What emerges from this work is that the individual learns
the sensorimotor repertoire. Without the learning provided in
the previous cases, children do not develop the repertoires.
Moreover, the human sensorimotor repertoire is, again, vast
for individuals. And over the human community it is infi-
nitely varied and variable. There are skills that are generally
learned by all, such as walking and running. And there are
skills that are learned by only few, such as playing a violin,
doing surgery, or acting as an NFL quarterback. As such there
are vast individual differences among people in what sensori-
motor skills are learned as well as in what virtuosity.
Additional Concepts and Principles
Human Learning Principles
As indicated earlier, a basic assumption of traditional behav-
iorism is that the animal learning principles are the
necessary and sufficient principles for explaining human be-
havior. Psychological behaviorism’s program has led to the
position that while the animal conditioning principles, inher-
ited through evolution, are indeed necessary for explaining
human behavior, they are far from sufficient. I gained an early
indication of that with my research on the language condition-
ing of attitudes, and later findings deepened and elaborated the
principles.
What the traditional behaviorists did not realize is that
human learning also involves principles that are unique to
humans—humanlearning principles. The essential, new fea-
ture of these principles is that much of what humans learn
takes place on the basis of what they have learned before. For
example, much human learning can occur only if the individ-
ual has first learned language. Take two children, one of whom
has learned a good verbal-motor repertoire and one of whom
has not. The first child will be able to follow directions and
therefore will be able to learn many things the second child
cannot because many learning tasks require the following of
directions. The goodness of that verbal-motor repertoire dis-
tinguishes children (as we can see on any intelligence test for
children). In PB, language is considered a large repertoire
with many important learning functions. Learning to count, to
write, to read, to go potty, to form attitudes, to have logic and
history and science knowledge and opinions and beliefs, to be
religious, to eat healthily and exercise, and to have political
positions are additional examples in which language is a foun-
dation. A child of 18 months can easily learn to name numbers
of objects and then to count if that child has previously learned
a good language repertoire (see Staats, 1968). On the other
hand, a child of 3 years who has not learned language will not
be able to learn those number skills. The reason for the differ-
ence is not some genetic difference in the goodness of learn-
ing. Rather, the number learning of the child is built on the
child’s previous language learning. It is not age (biology) that
matters in the child’s learning prowess; it is what the child has
already learned.Cumulative-Hierarchical LearningHuman learning is different from basic conditioning because
it typically involves learning that is based on repertoires that
have been previously learned. This is called cumulative-
hierarchical learningbecause of the building properties
involved—the second learning is built on the first learning
but, in turn, provides the foundation for a third learning. Mul-
tiple levels of learning are typical when a fine performance is
involved. Let us take the learning of the language repertoire.
When the child has a language repertoire, the child can then
learn to read. When the child has a reading repertoire, the
child can learn more advanced number operations, after
which the child can learn an algebra repertoire, which then is
basic in learning additional mathematics repertoires, which
in turn enable the learning of physics. Becoming a physicist
ordinarily will involve in excess of 20 years of cumulative-
hierarchical learning.
Cumulative-hierarchical learning is involved in all the
individual’s complex characteristics. A sociopath—with the
complex of language-cognitive, emotional-motivational, and
sensorimotor repertoires this entails—does not spring forth
full-blown any more than being a physicist. Understanding
the sociopathic personality, hence, requires understanding the
cumulative-hierarchical learning of the multiple repertoires
that have been involved.The Basic Behavioral Repertoire: A Cause as Well
as an EffectAnd that brings us to another concept developed in PB, that
is, the basic behavioral repertoire (BBR). The BBRs are those
repertoires that provide the means by which later learning can