ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is two-fold: first, to provide a historical background to the current studies of aversively motivated behaviors, and secondly, to introduce the six perspectives on aversively motivated behaviors that make up the balance of this volume. The contrast between these two sections is, in itself, rather a point of interest. Despite the historical importance of the study of aversively based behaviors in stimulating theoretical developments and these in generating empirical research, many of the historically important lines of research are seen only in vestigial form in the contemporary perspectives presented in the present volume. This occurs in part because a substantial portion of the historically important research was devoted to various challenges to strict S-R theories. These challenges emphasized analyses of avoidance. Nowadays, the S-R theories have at last been abandoned in favor of approaches to learning that emphasize cognitions rather than responses, and outcomes rather than strict performance (Blanchard & Blanchard, 1969; Dickinson & Shanks, 1985: Staddon & Simmelhag, 1971: Wagner, 1978).
