Behavioral history: a brief introduction to a new frontier.

The expansion of social history research over the past several decades provides an exciting opportunity for practitioners that begs for more formal and systematic exploration. The ability to offer serious historical analysis for all major population groups, and even more the growing capacity to cover aspects of life from sleep to the senses, from boredom to courtship, puts social historians in a position to contribute, directly and explicitly, to an understanding of current patterns of behavior. Hence the idea of behavioral history, to focus key aspects of historical analysis on contemporary issues. The idea is to show how a current behavioral pattern has emerged from the past--when the pattern took hold, what caused it, what has reinforced it, and what its prospects are--bringing history more precisely than ever before into a core position in discussing the current human condition. (1)

The general claim derives from the conviction that substantial components of contemporary beliefs and actions, in any society, are shaped by developments in the past and cannot be assessed without examining their origin and the factors that have sustained them. Social history's redefinition of the past, to include far more than politics and to recognize the wide range of behaviors susceptible to significant change (and therefore requiring historical analysis), is fundamental to this claim in turn, providing an exciting path to social self-appraisal.

Behavioral history, applied to areas like the emotions, sexuality or the senses, propels social historians into direct conversations with psychologists and biologists, improving the capacity to discuss the relationship between social variables and "human nature" or genetic determinisms in shaping key aspects of behavior. Even more generally, social history, directed at explaining human behavior, puts historians in comprehensive interactions with other disciplines involved in the same venture, not just providing a background chapter prior to the real stuff of social science analysis, but forming part of the analysis itself. Happily, these kinds of interactions have already developed in areas such as the study of alcoholism or smoking, where social historians are members of the core research team--a development that offers more than theoretical promise for this new application of social history. (2)

There are some caveats, of course: no one would want this particular branch of social history to preempt the field. We still need social historians devoted to exploring the past for its own sake, or interested in efforts that will help provide identity and legitimacy for neglected groups. We can also expect disappointments. Two decades ago John Demos wrote of his frustration in trying to sell serious family history to legislators debating family policy--an obvious opportunity for a behavioral history perspective, that Demos was well qualified to provide, that simply misfired, given a desire to write an idealized past against which contemporary family patterns could be judged. (3)

But examples of influential behavioral history--though not so named--also abound. It would be negligent, for example, to discuss problems of anorexia nervosa (4) without active awareness of its recent history, or to deal with addictions (5) such as gambling or smoking without the perspective of addiction's modern history and its role in American culture. Negligence happens, of course, but it is up to an appropriate group of social historians, bent on expanding the contributions of the field, to reduce its likelihood by illustrating the necessity of sociohistorical analysis and advertising its availability and utility.

The idea of using history to understand the present is, of course, hardly novel. Usually, however, the connections are either fairly vague; or disproportionately directed at political institutions, behaviors and cultures; and/or spearheaded by nonhistorians whose vigor sometimes outstrips their historical accuracy. Behavioral history intends direct linkages, by scholars really trained in social history, and employing social history's fantastic expansion of the useable past and capacity for new discovery toward improving our grasp of the contemporary.

Behavioral history builds directly on social history's range of topics, but it does require some analytical adjustments in standard historical practice. One of the reasons social history is not even more widely used in contemporary discussions is that social historians, like their colleagues in other branches of history, are too often resistant to the adjustments that will win them an appropriate audience. Behavioral history, obviously, requires more than implicit links to the present--the history that stops in 1960 and urges readers to jump ahead in their own minds. It also requires explicit attention to explanation, in contrast to the history full of good stories about the past but without the real analysis that will generate meaningful findings.

Topic choice is the first departure. A behavioral historian may come to a topic by observing a contemporary phenomenon--I got engaged in what proved to be an interesting exploration of the history of posture by watching my kids slouch and realizing that I never criticized them about this, in contrast to my father who (abortively) urged correctives on me at a somewhat earlier phase in the deterioration of modern American stance; or the contemporary link may be suggested by more orthodox historical inquiry, beginning at the beginning and leading to a delineation of the relevant current pattern. Either way, the formal exercise begins with the present, and this is a surprisingly considerable jolt to many otherwise innovative historians.

Often, of course, the spur to behavioral history comes through a realization of major change. Joan Brumberg--a real exemplar in the field--is currently working out a historical explanation for the massive increase in body piercing in the contemporary United States, and the disproportionately female incidence. The late Linda Rozenzweig was drawn to the apparent increase in deliberate indulgence by grandparents--in this case to find out whether it was in fact novel (a qualified yes), and if so when it began and what caused it. Occasionally, the same contemporary goad may involve realization that there's a measurable continuity in some aspects of behavior that is surprising, and therefore warranting historical explanation, because it survives amid surrounding change. Whatever the specifics, and whether arrived at through current observation or initially more conventional historical research brought to the present, the official launch to behavioral history involves what's happening now.

The contemporary identified, the exercise turns next to the explicit explanation. To my mind, this normally involves identifying the point at which the current pattern began to take shape, carefully noting what prior pattern it came to contrast with. Sometimes, of course, the relevant change will be quire recent; there is an undeniably presentist cast to some behavioral history. But in behavioral historical work to date, on the United States, key origins have sometimes dated back to the early 19th century, with the emergence of a market-based society, or often to the early 20th century. There is no set pattern, for the periodization has to relate directly to the topic at hand, and not to any preconceived historical staples. Origins uncovered, the real analytical task involves a best-possible determination of causes, for these, and not a historian's nicety about chronology, constitute the main point in helping to figure out what a current phenomenon means. What accounts for the shift away from the pre-change baseline? (always recognizing that change in social behaviors is unlikely either to be entirely sudden or magically complete).

Analysis of origins and causation leads next, particularly in those more interesting cases where the change did not occur day before yesterday, to the need to trace evolution from that point to now, without bogging down in unnecessary or distracting detail. What factors have joined the phenomenon since its origins? Have there been significant countercurrents? The modern history of concern about fat in the United States began around 1900, but it has been significantly embellished and complicated at several points in the succeeding century plus; (6) and this internal periodization can be established without a narrative that necessarily touches base with every intervening decade. Again, the key point is keep an analytical eye on the core purposes, explaining current patterns and providing fuller understanding of what they mean, rather than exploring the past for its own sake.

Some behavioral historians will go a step further, and offer suggestions about whether the current pattern is desirable and/or how it should and might be changed. Certainly they must be prepared for questions from the audience about precisely this point, and the exploration of the nature and reasons for the change that yielded the current pattern provides a superior base for making such suggestions. To be sure, remedies are unlikely to be as dramatic as those offered by genetic engineers or other currently-fashionable saviors, but their grounding in historical reality may make them more effective. Other practitioners may not be comfortable with this further step, preferring (quite legitimately) to contribute to improved understanding of the nature of the phenomenon and leaving it to others to offer subjective assessments and policy proposals. (7)

As they derive from social history, behavioral histories must include in their methodologies appropriate attention to factors such as class and gender. Undifferentiated statements about change will be less than helpful, and social history provides, along with the expanded historical palette, the obvious correctives here. Behavioral history is as valid and important when directed at patterns among Latinos, for example, as when applied to the more hegemonic middle to upper middle class.

Some behavioral history may also introduce an explicit comparative element, to determine the extent to which a pattern is regional as opposed, say, to attaching to a broader process of industrialization or globalization. American and European approaches to foods and dieting, for example, have obviously had different results; using a comparative behavioral history approach to determine when and why the differences emerged, along with the easier task of tracing distinctive American corpulence, adds heft, so to speak, to a purely national tack.

Closely attached to analytical method, finally, is the need for promotion. Behavioral history will generate better and more active understanding of many current social patterns, well beyond the vaguer conventional invocations of historical perspective. But these gains are meaningless without an aggressive outreach to appropriate audiences. This means vigorous engagement with kindred social scientific and even scientific disciplines exploring similar phenomena. It means a teaching program, whereby the advantages but also special analytical approaches of behavioral history are taught to students at various levels. And it means a deliberate connection with a wider public, to convince them of the merits of this kind of historical usage, in improving their grasp of elements of their own lives. There is obvious challenge here--social historians have yet to solve the riddle of consistently reaching the publics that should be interested in their wares--but impressive opportunity as well, assuming appropriate energy in outreach and in mode of presentation.

In pondering the current and prospective state of social history, many commentators have noted a decline in missionary zeal. For some this is a problem. For others, it's an inevitable result of growing success and establishment, as social historians have carved out a central place in the discipline more generally, with some attendant blurring of boundaries. Without assessing all facets of this issue--for again, behavioral history is just one part of a broader social history effort--I would argue that applying social history to current issues and to the exploration of current patterns of social and even individual behavior is a cause well suited to rekindle missionary fervor. If you don't know history, you don't know how human beings function. Social history, configured for behavioral analysis, drives this point home directly, measurably adding to our capacity to understand the human clay. Behavioral historians both argue and demonstrate that we need social history to understand ourselves. And that achievement, and the challenge of presenting it to kindred disciplines and to a wider public, are well worth getting excited about. There's a substantial new frontier in the application of social to behavioral history, and a real invitation to the engagement of a new generation of imaginative scholars.

Mason 101

Fairfax, VA 22030

ENDNOTES

1. Peter N Stearns, ed, American Behavioral History: an introduction (New York, 2005)

2. David Keogh, Smoking: The Artificial Passion (New York, 1991), pp. 15, 18, 97, 141, 155; Barbara Lyrich and R. J. Bonnie, eds., Growing up Tobacco Free (Washington, 1994), pp. 77, 98; Robert Tollison, eds., Smoking and Society (Lexington, MA 1984); John Burnham, Bad Habits: Drinking, Smoking, Taking Drugs, Gambling, Sexual Misbehavior, and Swearing in American History (New York, 1994), ch. 4.

3. John Demos, Past, Present and Personal: The Family and The Life Course in American History (New York, 1986).

4. Joan Jacob Brumberg, Fasting Girls: The Emergence of Anorexia Nervosa as a Modern Disease (Cambridge, 1988).

5. Harry Levine, "The Discovery of Addiction: Changing, Conceptions of Habitual Drunkenness in America," Journal of Studies on Alcohol 39 (1978): 143-69; Stanton Peele, "Addiction as a Cultural Concept," Psychology: Perspectives and Practice. Annals of the New York Academy of Science 602 (1990): 205-20.

6. Hillel Schwartz, Never Satisfied: A Cultural History of Diets, Fantasies and Fat (New York, 1983); Marcia Millman, Such a Pretty Face: Being Fat in America (New York, 1980); Roberta Seid, Never Too Thin: Why Women Are at War with their Bodies (New York, 1989); Peter N. Stearns, Fat History: Bodies and Beauty in the Modern West (New York, 1997).

7. It's important to be candid here. Behavioral history, as a new endeavor, needs some time to develop its potential for lesson-drawing. Many historians, willing to offer historically-derived advice, don't quite know how to do it without seeming presumptuous. They are much more comfortable pointing out erroneous historical references by other kinds of advice givers, as in the family realm where prescriptions routinely oversimplify past family forms and bathe them in a kind of false nostalgia that can actually impede a sensible take on current issues. For their part, audiences frequently crave a specific applicability to which few if any disciplines, history included, really lend themselves without serious distortion. What we need, beyond greater experience, is some mutual accommodation, with historians willing to think about what behavioral changes might follow from their findings, and how these can be framed, while audiences learn to take greater pleasure in analysis and understanding, realizing that much of the responsibility for applying behavioral history lies with individuals themselves.

By Peter Stearns 

George Mason University