ABSTRACT
A triarchic organization of behavior, building on Skinner’s description of respondents and operants, is proposed by introducing a third class of behavior called “emergents.” Emergents are new responses, never specifically reinforced, that require operations more complex than association. Some of these operations occur naturally only in animals above a minimum level of brain complexity, and are developed in an interaction between treatment and organismic variables. (Here complexity is defined in terms of relative levels of hierarchical integration made possible both by the amount of brain, afforded both by brain-body allometric relationships and by encephalization, and, also, the elaboration of dendritic and synaptic connections within the cortex and connections between various parts/regions of the brain.) Examples of emergents are discussed to advance this triarchic view of behavior–the prime example is language. This triarchic view reflects both the common goals and the cumulative nature of psychological science.
