A REVIEW OF M. J. MAHONEY'S Cognition and Behavior Modification1

Abstract

This is a book on application of current cog- nitive psychology to behavior modification.It is of interest to the readers of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis because the author, Mahoney, explicitly rejects a wholly behavior- istic psychology in favor of the "cognitive ap- proach".At various points Mahoney rejects the philosophical, the scientific, and the clinical as- pects of behaviorism.Mahoney's arguments are worth noting because he claims to be riding the first swell of a new wave of psychology.The book contains a large amount of Mahoney's own intellectual history, which perhaps symbolizes the direction in which he sees psychology devel- oping.Mahoney was an undergraduate at Ari- zona State University in the days when the fac- ulty was dominated by operant conditioners.There he learned how to experiment with animal subjects and became a strong, perhaps even rigid, Skinnerian adherent.Mahoney remains loyal to Skinner personally: he speaks with pride of sev- eral conversations with him about "cognitive" topics and takes pains to quote from Skinner's works in support of psychological inference, the existence of internal events, and the right of the scientist to interpret and speculate beyond the data given.

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