Latest / Why We Do What We Do / Mini: What is a Repertoire?
Transcript
- 0:03Speaker 1: You're listening to Why we Do what we Do. Welcome
- 0:15Speaker 1: to Why We Do what we Do? Mini. I am
- 0:18Speaker 1: your host Abraham, and I'm yourro Shane. We are a
- 0:21Speaker 1: psychology podcast. We talk about the things that humans and
- 0:24Speaker 1: non human animals do and sometimes we dig deep, deep
- 0:28Speaker 1: into the philosophy of a single topic, which is what
- 0:31Speaker 1: we're doing today. Yeah. Yeah, So I think suffice it
- 0:36Speaker 1: to say really quickly that if you are joining us
- 0:39Speaker 1: for the first time, this is a short form style
- 0:41Speaker 1: of episode that we do. These come out on Mondays.
- 0:44Speaker 1: There are a quick dive into something. We try and
- 0:46Speaker 1: keep it fifteen minutes or less, which we've been very
- 0:48Speaker 1: successful with the last several episodes we have done, because
- 0:51Speaker 1: sometimes we have gone quite long. But we're going to
- 0:53Speaker 1: try and keep it short.
- 0:55Speaker 2: It's well within our repertoire to keep it under fifteen minutes.
- 0:57Speaker 1: Ooh, good, nicely done. We are behavior analysts by training,
- 1:04Speaker 1: and I think that gives us a lens through looking
- 1:08Speaker 1: at psychological events that I find particularly useful, and so
- 1:13Speaker 1: we're gonna use that lens to try and really objectively
- 1:16Speaker 1: break down a concept here that we're gonna be talking about.
- 1:19Speaker 1: But if you're joining us, for the first time.
- 1:21Speaker 2: Welcome.
- 1:21Speaker 1: I hope that you enjoy this. This is going to
- 1:23Speaker 1: be one that does have some technical jargon, although we
- 1:26Speaker 1: are also going to break it down into more colloquial terms.
- 1:29Speaker 1: And this one is sort of more deep in the
- 1:31Speaker 1: philosophy end of things and one of those topics where
- 1:33Speaker 1: you hear it and be like, I just don't care
- 1:35Speaker 1: about that, and that's fine, But nevertheless, I hope you
- 1:37Speaker 1: do enjoy Would you hear today and you maybe walk
- 1:39Speaker 1: away from this thinking at least a little bit differently
- 1:42Speaker 1: about this topic that than you did when you arrived here.
- 1:45Speaker 1: Either way, if you'd like to support us, you can
- 1:47Speaker 1: join us on Patreon, pick up some merch from a merchdoor,
- 1:50Speaker 1: or leave us a rating and review like subscribe, tell
- 1:52Speaker 1: a friends, and I'll talk more about the ways that
- 1:54Speaker 1: you can support us at the end of this discussion.
- 1:57Speaker 1: I think that that's all I have to say before
- 1:59Speaker 1: jump into our topic. Are we ready?
- 2:00Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do it all right.
- 2:01Speaker 1: We talk about people's repertoire and having a repertoire, but
- 2:06Speaker 1: what does that mean exactly? And what we're gonna do
- 2:10Speaker 1: is we're going to describe the different definitions of repertoire
- 2:14Speaker 1: that have been proposed, and we're going to provide our
- 2:17Speaker 1: own to try and help explain this. And I'm hoping
- 2:21Speaker 1: that by describing a repertoire and how we know what
- 2:24Speaker 1: it is, the reason it's worth asking and answering this
- 2:27Speaker 1: question will become clear because I help, it'll illustrate the
- 2:31Speaker 1: sort of thinking that went into why we should maybe
- 2:34Speaker 1: not necessarily take this turn for granted, but consider what
- 2:37Speaker 1: it really means and what we're talking about as we
- 2:40Speaker 1: use it.
- 2:40Speaker 2: If that makes sense, yeah, I think it makes perfect sense.
- 2:43Speaker 2: So let's go ahead and dive in. I think we
- 2:45Speaker 2: generally understand repertoire to mean things we can do or
- 2:49Speaker 2: skills that we have. Right. In fact, a seminal behavioral
- 2:52Speaker 2: textbook initially described repertoire as quote, all of the behaviors
- 2:57Speaker 2: a person can do. Can say that without laughing, all
- 3:01Speaker 2: of the behaviors a person could do. So that's everything
- 3:04Speaker 2: that we do, all of.
- 3:05Speaker 1: It's it's just all of it. Yeah, it is kind
- 3:08Speaker 1: of funny. So this comes from Latin repertorium, also from
- 3:13Speaker 1: French repertoire and an older English version repertory. These different
- 3:18Speaker 1: words meant things like the whole body of items that
- 3:21Speaker 1: are regularly performed, which was a direct quote, by the way,
- 3:24Speaker 1: and quote the stock of skills and types of behavior
- 3:27Speaker 1: that a person habitually uses. End quote. Those are a
- 3:31Speaker 1: little bit more descriptive. They're more sort of I give
- 3:33Speaker 1: us some more direction. But those are the history of
- 3:36Speaker 1: where the word comes from.
- 3:37Speaker 2: So we might analyze a particular set of behaviors or
- 3:40Speaker 2: a lack of behaviors is belonging to or being absent
- 3:43Speaker 2: from someone's repertoire. Indeed, if we are able to observe
- 3:46Speaker 2: any kind of behavior or performance, we can definitively say
- 3:49Speaker 2: that the person has the observed behavior in their repertoire.
- 3:53Speaker 2: And something you'll hear us say sometimes too, is like
- 3:55Speaker 2: it's in strength in their repertoire. It's not in strength
- 3:57Speaker 2: in their repertoire. You'll hear that sometimes too.
- 3:59Speaker 1: Yes, all good points. B. F. Skinner, famous psychologist, described
- 4:04Speaker 1: repertoire quite a bit, and he described it as quote
- 4:07Speaker 1: a behavior which is what a person or company is
- 4:10Speaker 1: capable of doing given the right circumstances end quote. I
- 4:14Speaker 1: took some out of that quote because he's sort of
- 4:16Speaker 1: elaborating on that that really wasn't.
- 4:19Speaker 2: Who Skinner long winded, No.
- 4:21Speaker 1: Was not integral to the definition. So I cut that
- 4:23Speaker 1: part out. I did that for the second part two.
- 4:25Speaker 1: He also said, quote, a verbal repertoire is a convenient construct.
- 4:29Speaker 1: A person is said to possess a vocabulary of so
- 4:32Speaker 1: many thousands of words if these words are observed in
- 4:35Speaker 1: his verbal behavior during a period of time. End quote.
- 4:38Speaker 1: That one obviously comes from this book Verbal Behavior from
- 4:41Speaker 1: nineteen fifty seven, Riveting. So those are some ways that
- 4:43Speaker 1: he sort of describes repertoire.
- 4:46Speaker 2: Yeah, riveting stuff. I mean, there's clear. It's clear why
- 4:49Speaker 2: he's a best selling author and just constantly quoted because
- 4:52Speaker 2: he's so easy to quote. Yeah, man, Skinner's so hard
- 4:54Speaker 2: to read. Okay, So how do we know whether something
- 4:57Speaker 2: is or is not in someone's repertoire? How do we
- 5:00Speaker 2: know when something should be added, removed, or modified in
- 5:03Speaker 2: a repertoire? Abraham, you have answers, right.
- 5:05Speaker 1: Some kind of sure?
- 5:07Speaker 2: Okay? Cool?
- 5:07Speaker 1: So yes, so we have that repertoire is like a
- 5:10Speaker 1: set of behaviors or skills. This to me is kind
- 5:13Speaker 1: of vague. We are behaving all of the time, sure,
- 5:17Speaker 1: all the things that we do all of the time
- 5:19Speaker 1: our behavior. So it's I kind of I find myself
- 5:22Speaker 1: asking when we're talking about a repertoire, what makes one
- 5:25Speaker 1: behavior a skill or worthy of consideration as belonging to
- 5:30Speaker 1: a particular repertoire but not some other behavior That sort
- 5:34Speaker 1: of I'm thinking about this, thinking like, I mean, we're
- 5:36Speaker 1: always doing stuff, and what do we mean is to
- 5:39Speaker 1: say like that is not in their repertoire, or this
- 5:42Speaker 1: is or this belongs to a certain repertoire and this
- 5:45Speaker 1: does not, and starting to draw those lines between like
- 5:49Speaker 1: all the behaviors that we're doing all the time, and
- 5:52Speaker 1: saying some of them have this special categorization that means
- 5:55Speaker 1: it belongs to a particular repertoire of some sort.
- 5:58Speaker 2: Right, So we're gonna go ahead and into this. We've
- 6:01Speaker 2: got just a fair warning, technical jargon warning. We are
- 6:04Speaker 2: going to talk about advertisements. Okay, obviously we didn't define advertisements.
- 6:16Speaker 2: We know it when we see it. It's kind of
- 6:18Speaker 2: like pornography, right, it's like, you know what it is.
- 6:20Speaker 2: It's lax definition, it's nebulous, and uh it's a little
- 6:24Speaker 2: bit jarring.
- 6:24Speaker 1: Oh, we did define that. We did a whole minyon.
- 6:26Speaker 2: We did. Yeah, we we we nailed pornography, advertisements not
- 6:32Speaker 2: so much, all right, So let's uh, let's talk about repertoires. Okay, So,
- 6:35Speaker 2: a repertoire is a discriminated operant. That is, it is
- 6:39Speaker 2: a class of behavioral topographies behavior topographies that have been
- 6:43Speaker 2: shaped and discriminated such that the threshold for measuring these
- 6:46Speaker 2: topographies arbitraris. It may be will occur in the presence
- 6:49Speaker 2: of a salient discriminatet stimulus SD with an available reinforcer.
- 6:53Speaker 2: So now we understand it, we can end the episode
- 6:56Speaker 2: right now. We don't have to explain it further because
- 6:57Speaker 2: that was really easy to understand.
- 6:59Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, as you know, if you've listened to us before,
- 7:02Speaker 1: we tend to try and avoid the super technical jargon,
- 7:05Speaker 1: but I did want to have it in there for
- 7:06Speaker 1: those of you who appreciate that sort of thing. Less technically,
- 7:11Speaker 1: a repertoire is specifically observable behavior that occurs in the
- 7:14Speaker 1: context in which that behavior has been learned. I really
- 7:17Speaker 1: agonized over trying to write this as a simplified definition,
- 7:20Speaker 1: but I wanted to get after the point that when
- 7:24Speaker 1: we're talking about a repertoire, it means we're saying essentially
- 7:27Speaker 1: that there are conditions such that that behavior can and
- 7:32Speaker 1: does occur. And when we talk about a behavior, that
- 7:35Speaker 1: means that we're isolating some topography of behavior, meaning the
- 7:39Speaker 1: way that it looks, how it appears to us as
- 7:42Speaker 1: being its own thing, which does make sense. Like our
- 7:45Speaker 1: behavior is going to have specific forms that are shaped
- 7:48Speaker 1: and reinforced over time to appear a certain way. That's
- 7:52Speaker 1: how language works. It's like just very highly shaped, articulate
- 7:56Speaker 1: movements of our lips, tongue, and throat as we move
- 7:59Speaker 1: air over those surfaces. Sure, and that is something that
- 8:02Speaker 1: we learned to do and become very good at, and
- 8:04Speaker 1: it has a lot of steps and components to it.
- 8:06Speaker 1: But all that being said, like a repertoire is these
- 8:10Speaker 1: specific ways that our behavior looks and appears that occurs
- 8:14Speaker 1: in specific context when it would be available for that
- 8:16Speaker 1: behavior to occur. And I like to think of this
- 8:18Speaker 1: in terms of like what I also can't do, Like
- 8:21Speaker 1: there is no particular context you could create for me
- 8:26Speaker 1: where all of a sudden I'll be able to do
- 8:27Speaker 1: a triple backflip from a standing position, at least not
- 8:29Speaker 1: right now, because like I do not have and have
- 8:33Speaker 1: not practiced this skill, so you cannot create a situation
- 8:37Speaker 1: in which I can perform it. For someone who is
- 8:40Speaker 1: an Olympic level athlete, you could create that context and
- 8:43Speaker 1: they would perform that skill potentially assuming that's something that
- 8:46Speaker 1: they've done. And so just sort of outlining here the
- 8:50Speaker 1: fact that, like the repertoire shows that, like, given this circumstance,
- 8:56Speaker 1: I engage in a particular set of behaviors that look
- 8:59Speaker 1: a specific way relevant to that circumstance, Like just doing
- 9:03Speaker 1: if you go to like go to a cashier and
- 9:06Speaker 1: instead of handing the money, you do three backflips from
- 9:08Speaker 1: a standing position, unlikely they'll accept that as legal currency.
- 9:12Speaker 1: They will probably be like, that's amazing, please pay for
- 9:14Speaker 1: this now and time. Yeah, some people will probably be
- 9:18Speaker 1: interested in that, but not all others. And that is
- 9:20Speaker 1: to say, because that's not the situation where you do
- 9:22Speaker 1: that behavior, that's specific behavior. You do a different behavior
- 9:25Speaker 1: in the situation. So that's sort of what I mean,
- 9:27Speaker 1: if that makes sense, Yeah, yeah.
- 9:28Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. So Another example would be this, like let's
- 9:30Speaker 2: say we have a student that has multiplication quote in
- 9:33Speaker 2: their repertoire. If given any single digit multiplication problem, they
- 9:37Speaker 2: correctly solve the problem. Does that mean that they understand
- 9:40Speaker 2: the concept of multiplication. No, we could teach a pigeon
- 9:43Speaker 2: to pack out the answer to every conceivable single digit
- 9:45Speaker 2: multiplication problem, but we didn't specify that it had to
- 9:48Speaker 2: be understood, only that it had to be performed, which
- 9:51Speaker 2: is so we nailed it.
- 9:53Speaker 1: Yeah, So that is to say, like to say that
- 9:56Speaker 1: the performance occurred is sufficient to say that it's in
- 9:59Speaker 1: a repertoire, whether or not there is additional language around
- 10:02Speaker 1: that performance that might we might also describe that language
- 10:05Speaker 1: as being understanding if you will sure, and that would
- 10:08Speaker 1: maybe be a different thing to say in a repertoire,
- 10:10Speaker 1: is like, do they have in their repertoire that they
- 10:13Speaker 1: understand multiplication? Well, then we're asking a different question. We're
- 10:16Speaker 1: looking for a different observable behavior, which is probably that
- 10:20Speaker 1: they can explain it would probably be where most people
- 10:22Speaker 1: would find themselves that they would use language that sort
- 10:25Speaker 1: of indicates that they could talk through it. But that
- 10:27Speaker 1: being said, like, I also think you could ask JATGBT
- 10:29Speaker 1: to explain it and it would be it would explain
- 10:31Speaker 1: it very well and still suck at multiplications.
- 10:33Speaker 2: So, yeah, what.
- 10:34Speaker 1: These things mean. It depends on the situation. And so
- 10:38Speaker 1: I guess all this is to say that the Cloquil
- 10:40Speaker 1: definition works, It's just a little vague and imprecise. A
- 10:43Speaker 1: repertoire is the behaviors that occur in the context in
- 10:45Speaker 1: which they can occur and readily do so. So yes,
- 10:49Speaker 1: in a way, it is all the things that a
- 10:50Speaker 1: person or not human animal can do in the right conditions.
- 10:53Speaker 1: Is like a very colloquial way of thinking about it,
- 10:56Speaker 1: but I wanted to really dive deep into understanding like
- 11:00Speaker 1: this is a specific topography of behavior selected by environmental
- 11:04Speaker 1: circumstances that then allow that behavior topography to occur in
- 11:08Speaker 1: the right circumstances where there is some kind of reinforcer
- 11:11Speaker 1: and a stimulus that evokes that behavior, if you will, right.
- 11:15Speaker 2: And so as for when we change a repertoire, like
- 11:18Speaker 2: where we add, subtract, or modify anything that depends on
- 11:20Speaker 2: the relevant stakeholders, including the individual, and if change is
- 11:24Speaker 2: specifically requested and acceptable to the individual and can be
- 11:27Speaker 2: reasonably justified to ensure that they have greater access to
- 11:29Speaker 2: reinforcers or or a less restrictive environment, then it is
- 11:32Speaker 2: likely appropriate to get to analyze and promote alterations to
- 11:37Speaker 2: a given repertoire that basically saying, does this person want this?
- 11:41Speaker 2: Can we improve this behavior? Can we change this behavior?
- 11:44Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and do it as long as they
- 11:46Speaker 2: want this.
- 11:47Speaker 1: Thing, and I specify like, as long as they can
- 11:50Speaker 1: be reasonably justified, because like some people might ask to
- 11:53Speaker 1: change a repertoire of someone where that change is not
- 11:56Speaker 1: going to do that person any good, like right, And
- 11:59Speaker 1: actually I've I think, as we talked about in our
- 12:01Speaker 1: series on ABA, like there is I think a tendency
- 12:04Speaker 1: to over emphasize compliance and like following instructions as a
- 12:10Speaker 1: way that people behave, And I'm like, I don't want
- 12:13Speaker 1: them to follow on all instructions. There are going to
- 12:15Speaker 1: be people who take advantage of them if they do that,
- 12:17Speaker 1: Like we need to teach appropriate non compliance and right,
- 12:20Speaker 1: So exactly there is an aspect of that anyway that
- 12:23Speaker 1: gets a little bit too tangential for us in a
- 12:25Speaker 1: mini right now, But I think just understanding that, like
- 12:28Speaker 1: there are conditions under which it makes sense to change
- 12:30Speaker 1: your repertoire, we're kind of always doing that anyway, Like
- 12:33Speaker 1: it's always happening to us and we're always doing it,
- 12:36Speaker 1: Like as we go through our sort of day here
- 12:38Speaker 1: in life, our repertoire is being shaped. There is just
- 12:41Speaker 1: a more deliberate way to do it, and like, you
- 12:44Speaker 1: have a specific target in mind, and that's powerful stuff,
- 12:47Speaker 1: and so you don't want to do that without careful
- 12:50Speaker 1: consideration and scrutiny. Yeah, absolutely so for non languaging organisms,
- 12:54Speaker 1: such as non human animals who cannot give consent, it
- 12:57Speaker 1: might be appropriate to adjust repertoires when doing so similarly
- 13:00Speaker 1: promote safety and well being for the animal. Of course,
- 13:03Speaker 1: there's a bit of this that's subjective in the eye
- 13:05Speaker 1: of the beholder. But for instance, many animal trainers at
- 13:08Speaker 1: zoos now use behavior analysis to teach animals to accept
- 13:11Speaker 1: medical care. As an example, this allows them to prevent
- 13:15Speaker 1: or quickly overcome disease and survive more comfortably for longer.
- 13:19Speaker 1: Of course, we could have a debate over the quality
- 13:21Speaker 1: of life in a cage at a zoo and what
- 13:23Speaker 1: that means for these animals. But I think alternatively, these animals,
- 13:27Speaker 1: like they're going to try and give them some kind
- 13:29Speaker 1: of medical care anyway, and if they're not using these
- 13:32Speaker 1: systems to teach them like how to accept that medical
- 13:35Speaker 1: care in a way that is not stressful for them.
- 13:37Speaker 1: Then instead, what they're going to do is use mechanical restraints,
- 13:40Speaker 1: heavily sedate them, or do other things that use a
- 13:43Speaker 1: lot more punishment and aversives to control their behavior so
- 13:46Speaker 1: that they can perform those procedures. And like that is
- 13:50Speaker 1: I would argue worse for the animal than allowing them
- 13:53Speaker 1: to sit comfortably and accept medical intervention that will save
- 13:56Speaker 1: their lives and improve their circumstance in many cases. And
- 13:59Speaker 1: I also thought about, like what if you go out
- 14:01Speaker 1: into the wild and you train a bunch of wild
- 14:03Speaker 1: animals to be able to recognize and run away from
- 14:06Speaker 1: traps and poachers and like have them therefore succeed more
- 14:10Speaker 1: in the wild by the virtue of the fact that
- 14:12Speaker 1: they are overcoming people who would otherwise hunt them for
- 14:15Speaker 1: sport or for meat, And that might also be in
- 14:17Speaker 1: the best interest of those animals. That is not We're
- 14:19Speaker 1: not getting into a discussion over the overall ethics of hunting.
- 14:22Speaker 1: I think that is a very deep, long conversation we
- 14:25Speaker 1: could potentially have at some point. But mostly I'm thinking
- 14:27Speaker 1: about people who do overhunting, illegal hunting situations where there
- 14:31Speaker 1: are animals who are potentially in the verge of extinction,
- 14:34Speaker 1: or animals that are falling victim to traps and things,
- 14:38Speaker 1: whether they're not even the intended target, you know, like
- 14:40Speaker 1: someone's outright hunting for deer and they end up catching
- 14:43Speaker 1: like a danger wolf or something like that. If we
- 14:46Speaker 1: could teach those animals to recognize and avoid those traps,
- 14:49Speaker 1: that might also be in their best interest.
- 14:51Speaker 2: Yeah, I think sounds good.
- 14:52Speaker 1: All right, Well that turned into a big ethical conversation. Really,
- 14:54Speaker 1: I just wanted to unpack what a repertoire was. But
- 14:57Speaker 1: I feel like we've more or less explained. Do you
- 14:59Speaker 1: feel like we have any more to say about repertoires?
- 15:02Speaker 2: I do not.
- 15:03Speaker 1: Okay, Well, hopefully that this Scott's got you thinking about this,
- 15:06Speaker 1: trying to understand, like, think about what a repertoire is.
- 15:09Speaker 1: Let's not take it for granted and consider like what
- 15:11Speaker 1: we're asking and answering when we think about and talk
- 15:14Speaker 1: about these things. If you would like to tell us
- 15:16Speaker 1: your thoughts in a repertoire, you can email us directly
- 15:18Speaker 1: at info at wwdwwdpodcast dot com. If you'd like to
- 15:22Speaker 1: support us, you can join us on Patreon, pick up
- 15:24Speaker 1: some merch at our merch store, leave us a rating
- 15:26Speaker 1: and review like subscribe and go tell a friend, and
- 15:29Speaker 1: all of those things help us out, and we really
- 15:31Speaker 1: appreciate you. If you do join us on Patreon, you
- 15:33Speaker 1: get bonus content, AD free content early episodes, and I
- 15:36Speaker 1: will shout out your name on our full length episodes.
- 15:39Speaker 1: But if you don't want to do any of those things,
- 15:40Speaker 1: and hopefully we'll just see you back here next time.
- 15:42Speaker 1: And we appreciate you joining us at all for this discussion.
- 15:45Speaker 1: Thank you so much to my team of people who
- 15:47Speaker 1: help make this podcast happen. Thank you all for listening.
- 15:50Speaker 1: Is there anything that I forgotten that you'd like to
- 15:51Speaker 1: add before we wrap up this mini?
- 15:53Speaker 2: Nothing that's not already in your repertoire.
- 15:55Speaker 1: Beautiful Why We Do What We Do Mini is out.
- 15:58Speaker 2: Bye. You've been listening to Why We Do What We Do.
- 16:02Speaker 2: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
- 16:05Speaker 2: going to WWDWWD podcast dot com. Thanks for listening, and
- 16:10Speaker 2: we hope you have an awesome day.