"HOW TO CHANGE BEHAVIOR: Timothy Leary It is my plan ‘to talk to you tonight about methods of effecting change—change in man’s behavior and change in man’s conscious. ness. Behavior arid Consciousness. Please ndte the paired distinction. Behavior and Consciousness. Up until recently, I considered myself a behavioral scientist and limited the scope of my work to overt and inieasutdble behavior. In so doing I was quite in the Zettgetst of thodern psychology. Studying the subject matter which our Ameri- can predecessors defined some fifty years ago. Behavior. Routinely following the group rules they Iaid down. Scrupulously avoiding that which is most important to the subject: his consciousness. Con- centrating, instead, on what is most important to us who seek to observe, measure, manipulate, control and predict—the subject's overt behavior. This decision to tun our backs on consciousness is, of course, typically Western and very much in tune with the experimental, objective bent of Western science. Professor Huston Smith of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has pointed out some basic differences between the Western approach and the philosophies of China and India. Differences which have some importance for the applied psychologist concemed with behavior change. Professor Smith reminds us that our Western culture has stressed measure- ment and control of objects, whereas China has historically em- phasized the rules of the social encounter, and Indian philosophy the development and expansion of human consciousness. Tonight T speak to you from a point midway between the western and eastern hemispheres of the cortex, presenting a theory and method which is Chinese in that behavior is seen as an intricate social game; Indian in its recognition of consciousness and the need to develop a more *Timothy Leary, “How to Change Behavior” (lecture delivered at the Interna- tional Congress of Applied Psychology, 14th Session, Copenhagen: August 18, 1961) in Clinical Psychology, (ed.) G. S. Nielsen, Vol. 4, Proceedings (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1962), pp, 50-68. (Reprinted with slight revision and expanded footnotes—IFIF, Repritits Division, Cambridge 38, Mass.) acosmic awareness; and fin; measurably well. I plan to present, first, some thoughts on behavior change, then some new conceptions of conscious: : ness and its alteration, and finally some data from recent research in these areas. ally Western in its concern to do good BEHAVIOR AND ITS CHANGE Except for reflexes and instinctual reactions and random. nyusr. cular movements (which fall into tl the province of physiology), all: behavior is leaned. Saas Behavior is therefore artifactual and culturally determined, Br- havior sequences might usefully be considered as game sequences. The use of the word “game” in this sweeping context is likely to be misunderstood. The listener may think I refer to “play” as, opposed to the stern, real-life, serious activities of man. But, as you shall see, I consider the latter as “game.” At this point you are asking for and you deserve a definition. What do I mean by game? A game is a Jearned cultural sequence. characterized by six factors: 1. Roles: A game assigns roles to the human beings involved. 2. Rules: A game sets up a set of rules which hold only during the geme sequence. 3. Goals: Every game has its goal or purpose. The goals of baseball.arg. to. score more runs than the opponents. The goals of the game of psye chology are more complex and less explicit, but they exist. 4, Rituals: Each game has its conventional behavior pattexn not related, to, the goals or rules, but yet quite necessary to comfort and _c¢ a 5. Language: Each game has its jargon, unrelated to the rules. 7 and yet necessary to learn and use. 6. Values: Each game has its standards of excellence or goodness. Baseball and basketball have clearly definable roles, rules, rituals, goals, languages and values. Psychology, religion, politics are games, too: learned, cultural sequences. with. claasly definable roles, rules, rituals, goals, jargons, values. They axe.less explicitly formulated than the so-called sports and therein, dear friends, lies the pity. For this. simple reason millions have died, and we may die tomorrow. ‘The behavior which psychiatrists label as disease entities can be considered as games, too. Dr. Thomas Szasz, the distinguished psy- choanalyst-philosopher, in his book, The Myth of Mental Illness, suggests that “hysteria” is the name we give to a certain doctor~ patient game involving deceitful helplessness The “bluff” in poker is a similar deceitful but perfectly legitimate game device, Pays. chiatry, according to this model, is a behavior-change gama... ;Far from being frivolous, many so-called “play-gaines” are gy. perior in their behavioral science and in their behavior-chatige tech. niques to the “not-called games” such as psychiatry and psychology, In terms of the epistemology and scientific method etnployed, the “game” of American baseball is superior to any of the so-called, behavioral sciences. Baseball officials have classified and they reli. ably record molecular behavior sequences (the strike, the hit, the doubleplay, etc.). Their compiled records are converted into indices most relevant for summarizing and predicting behavior (RBI, runs batter in; ERA camed rim average, etc.). Baseball employs well- trained raters to judge those rare events which are not obviously and easily coded. Their raters are called umpires. When we move from behavior science to behavior-change, we see that baseball experts have devised another remarkable set of techniques for bringing about the results which they and their sub. jects look for; coaching. Baseball men understand the necessity for sharing time and space with their learners, for setting up role mod- cls, for feedback of relevant information to the learner, for endless practice of the desired behavior. And most important of all, base- ball scientists understand the basic, cosmic lesson of percentage: that the greatest player gets, on the average, one hit in three tries; the winning team loses at least one game in three; and no team can lead the league every year, neither Rome, nor Athens, nor Londow, nor Moscow, nor Washington. Those who wish to measut®, sutte marize, predict, and change human behavior could do worse than model themselves after this so-called “game.” All behavior involves learned garnes. But only that rare West- erner we call “mystic,” or who has had a visionary experience of some sort, sees clearly the game structure of behavior. Most of the rest of us spend our time struggling with roles and rules and goals and concepts of games which are implicit and confusedly not seett as games. Trying to apply the roles and rules and rituals of of¢ game to other games. Worst of all is the not-knowing that it is a game. Baseball is # clean and successful game because it is seen as a game. You can shift positions. You know the game is limited in space and in time. You know how you are doing. You sign your contract. You renew your contract. You can quit. Start a new game. Cultural stability is maintained by keeping the members of ait} cultural group from seeing that the Roles, Rules, Goals, Ritual, Language, and Values are game structures, The family game is