Reflexes are innate instincts that happen very quickly and are a product of biological evolution. All animals have reflexes, and no mental life is necessary to have them. Neither do you have to be conscious for reflexes to happen. Examples include sweating, pulling away from a fire, or knees reacting to the tapping of doctor's hammer. Reflexes stay more or less the same during the lifespan but they become less sharp with age. Human beings have little control over reflexes. They are a normal part of everyday life. They are in place because they help us to survive since biological beings' reflexes do not require any theory coming from an individual experiencing them. Reflexes are biological doings that are innate, automatic, and part of nature's formula for success as a biological species.
Behavior
Behavior is different from instincts because it based on learning and occurs among virtually all mammals. Like reflexes, no mental life is necessary. Behavior can change simply because of associations happening before the behavior (Pavlov) or consequences after the behavior (Skinner). Consequences can be reinforcers (positive and negative) and punishers (positive and negative). You don't have to be conscious of your behavior in order to have it. For example, a male who is violent with his partner and children might not know what his behavior will be right before he becomes violent. However, his "warning signs" are known by his wife and children because it is in their interests for survival to recognize it. Behaviors are not as fast as reflexes because learning takes time before the behavior becomes automatic through associations and consequences. Examples of behavior include most postures, gestures and voice inflections that are molded without any conscious or mindful intention.
Behaviors can change over time, or they can become habits, as we shall see. Unlike reflexes, behavior can be changed if feedback is received. Like reflexes, behavior permeates the everyday life of virtually all mammals, but unlike reflexes, behaviors can be maladaptive. Like reflexes, behavior requires no theoretical activity on the part of an individual member of a species. it is important to keep in mind that what is automatic and occurs below the level of consciousness is not necessarily biological. It seems natural because it happens quickly. But there was a time when it did not happen quickly, but we weren't paying attention. An example is driving a stick shift. There was a time when you had to think about what you were doing, and your behaviors were awkward. But then your body "got it" and you performed it well and quickly. It seems like a reflex. Behaviors are doings that are learned, occur below the level of consciousness. They can be individual or social, given the level of complexity of the organism.
Actions
Unlike either reflexes or behavior, actions require the participation of the mind and being conscious of what the individual is doing. Actions are limited to primates and are especially prominent in human beings. Actions are the result of the intentions of the mind carried out in space and over time. Actions occur more slowly and are more deliberate because, at least in humans, they require setting goals, making plans, and making lists before carrying them out. Unlike reflexes and behaviors, actions may have a direction that persists over time and is less subject to interruptions. Actions are part of everyday life, but they are often crowded out by reflexes and actions. A standard to measure actions are individual evaluations of past problems along with actions designed to reduce stress. Actions are doings that are learned, can be cultural and involve the mind's intervention in solving problems and changing one's direction constructively.
Habits
Like actions, habits can be either individual or cultural experiences, but their focus is mostly on primates and especially human beings. The mind is involved some of the time and sometimes not, as habits can be formed consciously or they can be acquired unconsciously. Bad habits are usually unconsciously formed but it takes the mind to develop a plan in order to form new habits. Sometimes consciousness is necessary, and with bad habits it occurs unconsciously. Habits are learned slowly at first but can be speeded up and drop into the unconscious. A way to think about this is at its best, habits are behaviors that have stood the test of time, by first making them actions.
Examples of bad habits are drinking too much alcohol, drug abuse, smoking, or eating junk food. Good habits are painting four hours a day every Tuesday and Thursdays from 6pm to 10pm. Another good habit can be writing four days a week from 5am to 7am every Wednesday or Friday. Habits are actions that have thickened and have a more committed direction. Other primates are likely to have unconscious habits but not conscious ones. Habits can be controlled and strengthened with negative feedback as the system is held in equilibrium. Or habits can result in positive feedback where bad habits are amplified and can drop from the socio-cultural level to a biological level, such as alcohol or drug addiction. The standards to be measured are the past of an individual and relationship to present circumstances and future goals (actions). There is no theoretical activity required for habits. What makes good habits unique is that unlike behaviors, they can be repeated over time when steered by a particular goal that comes from action.
Conduct
This is what Janet was most interested in cultivating in his work with patients. For him it was the indicator of a most evolved human being. Conduct is drawn from social-cultural sources, particularly scientific practice. Individual learning is involved but that learning is disciplined by the rules, procedures and methods of science. It is unique to humans and both mind and consciousness are necessary. Conduct is a thick, very slow process that takes years of formal training that is required t be a doctor, lawyer, architect, teacher, engineer, or musician. Conduct requires he highest degree of control, not just for the individual but for the entire professional community. The standards to be measured include socially established standards of excellence, which are collectively analyzed, criticized, and improved upon at conferences, in journals, or in the case of musicians, through cooperation, competition and critical audience response.
Unlike any other form of doing, in conduct theory it is necessary to inform conduct. Conduct improves theory, and theory then improves conduct by taking it to a higher level. Conduct is not a habit because it is not thickened by an individual's goals, which come out of action, but instead out of the goals of a scientific field. Conduct that is part of a social-cooperative institution has historical traditions with standards thath are emulated and improved. The individual "conductor" is both the product of that professional community and a co-producer of it.
From Conduct to Practical Critical Activity
S imilarities between Janet and Vygotsky
Vygotsky and Janet were similar in important ways. Both were against the reductionism of behaviorism - there was more to human beings than stimulus-response. Both thought that the study of consciousness was important for its role in mediating the relationship between reactions to the environment and the behaviors that followed. They were both sympathetic to Gestalt theories of perception as wholes rather than bits or atomistic information. Yet they were critical of the passive sense of the environment that Gestalt's perceptions emerged from. Both Janet and Vygotsky were also critical of subjectivist psychology such as psychoanalysis because they ignored the place of doings that we have discussed.
At the same time, both Janet and Vygotsky were against biological reductionism. They would oppose theories of temperament that argued that people are born with a certain personality. Rather they would say that personality is the result of temperament and socialization. In the process of being socialized, individual experiences accumulate resulting in a personality, which is more than temperament. Both Janet and Vygotsky were against overspecialization within a field at least in part because they were well-rounded as intellectuals. Both were interested in theatre, painting, and poetry, and these made their theoretical insights into psychology richer.
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