Behaviorism (or behaviourism), also called the learning perspective (where any physical action is a behavior), is a philosophy of psychology based on the proposition that all things that organisms do—including acting, thinking and feeling—can and should be regarded as behaviors. The behaviorist school of thought maintains that behaviors as such can be described scientifically without recourse either to internal physiological events or to hypothetical constructs such as the mind. Behaviorism comprises the position that all theories should have observational correlates but that there are no philosophical differences between publicly observable processes (such as actions) and privately observable processes (such as thinking and feeling).

From early psychology in the 19th century, the behaviorist school of thought ran concurrently and shared commonalities with the psychoanalytic and Gestalt movements in psychology into the 20th century; but also differed from the mental philosophy of the Gestalt psychologists in critical ways. Its main influences were Ivan Pavlov, who investigated classical conditioning although he did not necessarily agree with Behaviorism or Behaviorists, Edward Lee Thorndike, John B. Watson who rejected introspective methods and sought to restrict psychology to experimental methods, and B.F. Skinner who conducted research on operant conditioning. While behaviorism and cognitive schools of psychological thought may not agree theoretically, they have complemented each other in practical therapeutic applications, such as in cognitive–behavioral therapy that has demonstrable utility in treating certain pathologies, such as simple phobias, PTSD, and addiction. In addition, behaviorism sought to create a comprehensive model of the stream of behavior from the birth of the human to his death (see Behavior analysis of child development).

Versions

There is no classification generally agreed upon, but some titles given to the various branches of behaviorism include:

Methodological: The behaviorism of Watson; the objective study of behavior; no mental life, no internal states; thought is covert speech.

Radical: Skinner's behaviorism; is considered radical since it expands behavioral principles to processes within the organism; in contrast to methodological behaviorism; not mechanistic or reductionistic; hypothetical (mentalistic) internal states are not considered causes of behavior, phenomena must be observable at least to the individual experiencing them. Willard Van Orman Quine used many of radical behaviorism's ideas in his study of knowing and language.

Teleological: Post-Skinnerian, purposive, close to microeconomics. Focuses on objective observation as opposed to cognitive processes.

Theoretical: Post-Skinnerian, accepts observable internal states ("within the skin" once meant "unobservable", but with modern technology we are not so constrained); dynamic, but eclectic in choice of theoretical structures, emphasizes parsimony.

Biological: Post-Skinnerian, centered on perceptual and motor modules of behavior, theory of behavior systems.

Psychological behaviorism: Arthur W. Staats' unifying approach to behaviorism and psychology. He merges psychological concepts like "personality" within a behavioral model like BBR Basic Behavioral Repertoires.

Two subtypes are:

Hullian and post-Hullian: theoretical, group data, not dynamic, physiological;

Purposive: Tolman's behavioristic anticipation of cognitive psychology

Definition

B.F. Skinner was influential in defining radical behaviorism, a philosophy codifying the basis of his school of research (named the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, or EAB.) While EAB differs from other approaches to behavioral research on numerous methodological and theoretical points, radical behaviorism departs from methodological behaviorism most notably in accepting feelings, states of mind and introspection as existent and scientifically treatable. This is done by identifying them as something non-dualistic, and here Skinner takes a divide-and-conquer approach, with some instances being identified with bodily conditions or behavior, and others getting a more extended "analysis" in terms of behavior. However, radical behaviorism stops short of identifying feelings as causes of behavior.

Experimental and conceptual innovations

This essentially philosophical position gained strength from the success of Skinner's early experimental work with rats and pigeons, summarized in his books The Behavior of Organisms and Schedules of Reinforcement. Of particular importance was his concept of the operant response, of which the canonical example was the rat's lever-press. In contrast with the idea of a physiological or reflex response, an operant is a class of structurally distinct but functionally equivalent responses. For example, while a rat might press a lever with its left paw or its right paw or its tail, all of these responses operate on the world in the same way and have a common consequence. Operants are often thought of as species of responses, where the individuals differ but the class coheres in its function-shared consequences with operants and reproductive success with species. This is a clear distinction between Skinner's theory and S–R theory.

Skinner's empirical work expanded on earlier research on trial-and-error learning by researchers such as Thorndike and Guthrie with both conceptual reformulations—Thorndike's notion of a stimulus–response "association" or "connection" was abandoned; and methodological ones—the use of the "free operant", so called because the animal was now permitted to respond at its own rate rather than in a series of trials determined by the experimenter procedures. With this method, Skinner carried out substantial experimental work on the effects of different schedules and rates of reinforcement on the rates of operant responses made by rats and pigeons. He achieved remarkable success in training animals to perform unexpected responses, and to emit large numbers of responses, and to demonstrate many empirical regularities at the purely behavioral level. This lent some credibility to his conceptual analysis. It is largely his conceptual analysis that made his work much more rigorous than his peers, a point which can be seen clearly in his seminal work Are Theories of Learning Necessary? in which he criticizes what he viewed to be theoretical weaknesses then common in the study of psychology. An important descendant of the experimental analysis of behavior is the Society for Quantitative Analysis of Behavior.

Relation to language

As Skinner turned from experimental work to concentrate on the philosophical underpinnings of a science of behavior, his attention turned to human language with Verbal Behavior and other language-related publications; Verbal Behavior laid out a vocabulary and theory for functional analysis of verbal behavior, and was strongly criticized in a review by Noam Chomsky. Skinner did not respond in detail but claimed that Chomsky failed to understand his ideas, and the disagreements between the two and the theories involved have been further discussed. In addition; innate theory is opposed to behaviorist theory which claims that language is a set of habits that can be acquired by means of conditioning. According to some, this process that the behaviorists define is a very slow and gentle process to explain a phenomenon complicated as language learning. What was important for a behaviorist's analysis of human behavior was not language acquisition so much as the interaction between language and overt behavior. In an essay republished in his 1969 book Contingencies of Reinforcement, Skinner took the view that humans could construct linguistic stimuli that would then acquire control over their behavior in the same way that external stimuli could. The possibility of such "instructional control" over behavior meant that contingencies of reinforcement would not always produce the same effects on human behavior as they reliably do in other animals. The focus of a radical behaviorist analysis of human behavior therefore shifted to an attempt to understand the interaction between instructional control and contingency control, and also to understand the behavioral processes that determine what instructions are constructed and what control they acquire over behavior. Recently a new, promising line of behavioral research on language was started under the name of Relational Frame Theory.

Molar versus molecular behaviorism

Skinner's view of behavior is most often characterized as a "molecular" view of behavior; that is, behavior can be decomposed into atomistic parts or molecules. This view is inconsistent with Skinner's complete description of behavior as delineated in other works, including his 1981 article "Selection by Consequences". Skinner proposed that a complete account of behavior requires understanding of selection history at three levels: biology (the natural selection or phylogeny of the animal); behavior (the reinforcement history or ontogeny of the behavioral repertoire of the animal); and for some species, culture (the cultural practices of the social group to which the animal belongs). This whole organism then interacts with its environment. Molecular behaviorists use notions from melioration theory, negative power function discounting or additive versions of negative power function discounting.

Molar behaviorists, such as Howard Rachlin, Richard Herrnstein, and William Baum, argue that behavior cannot be understood by focusing on events in the moment. That is, they argue that behavior is best understood as the ultimate product of an organism's history and that molecular behaviorists are committing a fallacy by inventing fictitious proximal causes for behavior. Molar behaviorists argue that standard molecular constructs, such as "associative strength", are better replaced by molar variables such as rate of reinforcement. Thus, a molar behaviorist would describe "loving someone" as a pattern of loving behavior over time; there is no isolated, proximal cause of loving behavior, only a history of behaviors (of which the current behavior might be an example) that can be summarized as "love".

Behaviorism in philosophy

Behaviorism is a psychological movement that can be contrasted with philosophy of mind. The basic premise of radical behaviorism is that the study of behavior should be a natural science, such as chemistry or physics, without any reference to hypothetical inner states of organisms as causes for their behavior. A modern example of such analysis would be Fantino and colleagues' work on behavioral approaches to reasoning. Other varieties, such as theoretical behaviorism, permit internal states, but do not require them to be mental or have any relation to subjective experience. Behaviorism takes a functional view of behavior.

There are points of view within analytic philosophy that have called themselves, or have been called by others, behaviorist. In logical behaviorism (as held, e.g., by Rudolf Carnap and Carl Hempel), the meaning of psychological statements are their verification conditions, which consist of performed overt behavior. W.V. Quine made use of a type of behaviorism, influenced by some of Skinner's ideas, in his own work on language. Gilbert Ryle defended a distinct strain of philosophical behaviorism, sketched in his book The Concept of Mind. Ryle's central claim was that instances of dualism frequently represented "category mistakes", and hence that they were really misunderstandings of the use of ordinary language. Daniel Dennett likewise acknowledges himself to be a type of behaviorist.

It is sometimes argued that Ludwig Wittgenstein defended a behaviorist position (e.g., the beetle in a box argument), but while there are important relations between his thought and behaviorism, the claim that he was a behaviorist is quite controversial. Mathematician Alan Turing is also sometimes considered a behaviorist, but he himself did not make this identification.

21st century behavior analysis

As of 2007, modern-day behaviorism, known as "behavior analysis", is a thriving field. The (ABAI) currently has 32 state and regional chapters within the United States. Approximately 30 additional chapters have also developed throughout Europe, Asia, South America, and Australia. In addition to 34 annual conferences held by ABAI in the United States and Canada, ABAI held the 5th annual International conference in Norway in 2009.

The interests among behavior analysts today are wide ranging, as a review of the 30 Special Interest Groups (SIGs) within ABAI indicates. Such interests include everything from developmental disabilities and autism, to cultural psychology, clinical psychology, verbal behavior, Organizational Behavior Management (OBM; behavior analytic I/O psychology). OBM has developed a particularly strong following within behavior analysis, as evidenced by the formation of the OBM Network and the influential Journal of Organizational Behavior Management (JOBM; recently rated the 3rd highest impact journal in applied psychology by ISI JOBM rating).

Modern behavior analysis has also witnessed a massive resurgence in research and applications related to language and cognition, with the development of Relational Frame Theory (RFT; described as a "Post-Skinnerian account of language and cognition"). RFT also forms the empirical basis for the highly successful and data-driven Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). In fact, researchers and practitioners in RFT/ACT have become sufficiently prominent that they have formed their own specialized organization, known as the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS).

Some of the current prominent behavior analytic journals include the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (JABA), the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior (JEAB) JEAB website, the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management (JOBM), Behavior and Social Issues (BSI), as well as the Psychological Record. Currently, the U.S. has 14 ABAI accredited MA and PhD programs for comprehensive study in behavior analysis.

Behavior analysis and culture

Cultural analysis has always been at the philosophical core of radical behaviorism from the early days (As seen in Skinner's Walden Two, Science & Human Behavior, Beyond Freedom & Dignity, and About Behaviorism.)

During the 1980s, behavior analysts, most notably Sigrid Glenn, had a productive interchange with cultural anthropologist Marvin Harris (the most notable proponent of "Cultural Materialism") regarding interdisciplinary work. Very recently, behavior analysts have produced a set of basic exploratory experiments in an effort toward this end.

List of notable behaviorists

Alan E. Kazdin

Albert Bandura

Edwin Ray Guthrie

Richard J. Herrnstein

Clark L. Hull

Ivan Pavlov

B.F. Skinner

Edward Lee Thorndike

Edward C. Tolman

Murray Sidman

John B. Watson

Ole Ivar Lovaas

Steven C. Hayes

Donald Baer

See also

Animal training

Applied behavior analysis

Behavior modification

Behavior therapy

Behavioral change theories

Professional practice of behavior analysis

Behavior analysis of child development

Classical conditioning

Cognition

Cognitive revolution

Dog behaviorist

Experimental analysis of behavior

Important publications in behaviorism

Models of abnormality

Psychological behaviorism

Notes

Further reading

Baum, W.M. (2005) Understanding behaviorism: Behavior, Culture and Evolution. Blackwell.

Ferster, C.B., and Skinner, B.F. (1957). Schedules of reinforcement. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

Mills, John A., Control: A History of Behavioral Psychology, Paperback Edition, New York University Press 2000.

Lattal, K.A. and Chase, P.N. (2003) "Behavior Theory and Philosophy". Plenum.

Plotnik, Rod. (2005) Introduction to Psychology. Thomson-Wadsworth (ISBN 0-534-63407-9).

Rachlin, H. (1991) Introduction to modern behaviorism. (3rd edition.) New York: Freeman.

Skinner, B.F., Beyond Freedom & Dignity, Hackett Publishing Co, Inc 2002.

Skinner, B.F. (1938). The behavior of organisms. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

Skinner, B.F. (1945). The operational analysis of psychological terms. Psychological Review. 52, 270–277, 290–294.

Skinner, B.F. (1953). Science and Human Behavior (ISBN 0-02-929040-6) Online version.

Skinner, B.F. (1957). Verbal behavior. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Skinner, B.F. (1969). Contingencies of reinforcement: a theoretical analysis. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

Staddon, J. (2001) The new behaviorism: Mind, mechanism and society. Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press. pp. xiii, 1–211.

Watson, J.B. (1913). Psychology as the behaviorist views it. Psychological Review, 20, 158–177. (on-line).

Watson, J.B. (1919). Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist.

Watson, J.B. (1924). Behaviorism.

Zuriff, G.E. (1985). Behaviorism: A Conceptual Reconstruction, Columbia University Press.

LeClaire, J. and Rushin, J.P. (2010) Behavioral Analytics For Dummies. Wiley. (ISBN 978-0-470-58727-0).

External links

Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Behaviorism

Books and Journal Articles On Behaviorism

Wuerzburg University: behaviourism

B.F. Skinner Foundation

Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies

Skinner's Theories

APA Behaviour Analysis

Association for Behavior Analysis

Theory of Behavioral Anthropology (Documents No. 9 and 10 in English)

California Association for Behavior Analysis

Association for Contextual Behavioral Science

Category:Psychological theories Category:Theories of mind

Victoria Elizabeth Wells Wulsin, M.D., D.P.H. (born October 27, 1953) is a physician and three-time Democratic congressional candidate in the Second District of Ohio (map). She is a resident of Indian Hill, an affluent suburb of Cincinnati.

Early life and career

Wulsin was born in Elyria, Ohio, the daughter of a teacher and a social worker. She attended high school in Ohio and completed her undergraduate coursework at Harvard University. After college, she returned to Ohio and earned a medical degree from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland (1980). She received her masters in Public Health (1982) and her doctorate in Epidemiology (1985), both from the Harvard University School of Public Health. Wulsin has obtained medical licenses in Massachusetts (1981) and Ohio (1989). From 1989-1995, she was Director of Epidemiology in the City of Cincinnati's Health Department. From 1986-2001, she worked in various capacities for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Her husband, Dr. Lawson Reed Wulsin, is a psychiatrist on the faculty of the University of Cincinnati, and they have four sons: Wells, Reed, Stuart and John,.

In April 2003, Wulsin founded SOTENI International, a non-profit organization to fight AIDS in Africa, which has its headquarters in Cincinnati and an office in Kenya. SOTENI uplifts women and orphans who were most affected by the AIDS pandemic. Soteni is a Swahili word which translates as "all of us".

Politics

2005 special election for Congress

Wulsin was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Congress to replace Rob Portman in the Second District of Ohio in the special primary held June 14, 2005. In the Democratic primary, Wulsin campaigned to reform health care to provide every citizen with coverage, promised to protect Social Security and the environment, said the Iraq War "has not been worth the cost of American service personnel or the dollars we have spent", and said America needed "fair trade" in the proposed CAFTA agreement. She also defended contraception, legal abortion and reproductive rights.

In the primary election, Wulsin finished second behind Paul Hackett. She received 3,800 votes (27.35%).

2006 election for Congress

In 2006, Wulsin sought the Democratic nomination again. With Paul Hackett having announced he would not run again, she faced health care administrator James John Parker and civil engineer Jeff Sinnard, who both ran in 2005, and newcomers Gabrielle Downey, a high school teacher, and Thor Jacobs, a building contractor. Wulsin won the May 2 primary by nearly 15 percentage points and received the Democratic nomination for the 2nd District. She faced Rep. Jean Schmidt (R) in the November 2006 general election and was defeated by only 2,517 votes out almost 240,000 votes cast. This is the closest that a Democrat has come to winning a full term in the heavily Republican 2nd District in 42 years; the last Democrat to win this district for a full term was future Governor Jack Gilligan, who held it for one term after being swept into office by the massive Democratic landslide of 1964.

Wulsin carried Pike County and Scioto County by wide margins and narrowly carried Brown County. She also defeated Schmidt in the 2nd's share of Hamilton County, by far the largest portion of the district; Schmidt had won Hamilton County during her special election victory against Hackett. However, Schmidt carried her home in Clermont County by over 8,000 votes, enabling her to keep the seat.

2006 Polls

{| class=wikitable |- ! width=150px | Source ! width=150px | Date ! width=150px | Wulsin (D) ! width=150px | Schmidt (R) ! width=150px | Undecided ! width=150px | Margin of error |- |SurveyUSA |November 1, 2006 | 48% | 45% | 7% | -/+ 4 |- |- | SurveyUSA | October 17, 2006 | 40% | 48% | 12% | -/+ 4 |- |- | Majority Watch | October 10, 2006 | 48% | 45% | 6% | -/+ 3 |- |- | SurveyUSA | September 21, 2006 | 42% | 45% | 12% | -/+ 4 |- |- | Momentum Analysis | June 2006 | 44% | 44% | 11% | -/+ 4 |- |- |}

2008 election for Congress

In the 2008 election cycle Wulsin ran as the Democratic candidate for the Second District of Ohio for a third time. She defeated Cincinnati attorney Steve Black by 28 points in the March 4 primary.

In the general election, Wulsin faced two opponents, Republican incumbent Jean Schmidt and independent candidate David Krikorian. Polls showed the race to be close between Wulsin and Schmidt, with Krikorian attracting a significant amount of support for an independent candidate.

The three candidates engaged in three debates. The first took place at the Anderson Community Center on October 6, 2008, the second was aired on WCET on October 22, and the third was aired on Channel 12’s Newsmakers program on October 26. All three debates focused mainly on the economy, the financial crisis, and local issues.

On November 4, Representative Schmidt defeated Wulsin in the general election.

Malariotherapy controversy

Wulsin has stated that in 2004 she was hired by Cincinnati's Heimlich Institute to conduct a literature review on "malariotherapy", a controversial AIDS treatment which consists of infecting HIV+ patients with malaria. Wulsin produced a report for the Heimlich Institute entitled "Immunotherapy and Beyond", which included suggestions for proceeding with the Heimlich Institute's ongoing "malariotherapy" experiments in Africa, but also concluded that the treatment found a "consistent pattern of increasing disapproval over time" and that "the preponderance of evidence indicates that neither malaria nor Immunotherapy will cure HIV/AIDS".

A "Wulsin for Congress" statement includes, In the course of her work, (Dr. Wulsin) was given a single page of data from an experiment taking place in Africa ... Dr. Wulsin's contract with the Heimlich Institute was terminated the day after her draft report was submitted for review by the Institute's board and the board of the parent Deaconess Foundation. Dr. Wulsin's report is dated December 2004.

A request for an investigation of Wulsin's work for the Heimlich Institute was filed with the State Medical Board of Ohio on Nov. 3, 2006 by Dr. Robert S. Baratz of the National Council Against Health Fraud. The complaint accused Wulsin of "participation in unsupervised, unapproved, and dangerous experiments." An April 28, 2008 letter from the State Medical Board stated that "no further action was required by the board and the complaint has been closed."

Steve Black, Dr. Wulsin's opponent in the Spring 2008 Democratic primary, made the matter a campaign issue via mailers and a TV ad. A June 8, 2008 "Jean Schmidt for Congress" fundraising letter stated, Wulsin's contempt for the culture of life has even led her to participate in grotesque medical experiments. Wulsin was paid for her work in medical "studies" where victims of AIDS in Africa and China were, without their consent, injected with the malaria virus, all in the name of "scientific inquiry". Mr. Black later endorsed Wulsin: "During the primary election campaign, I raised the issue of a medical ethics complaint filed against Dr. Wulsin. Now that the Ohio State Medical Board has found no merit in that complaint, I hope we can all put this issue behind us".

See also

Ohio's 2nd congressional district

References

External links

Victoria Wulsin for Congress official campaign site

Category:1953 births Category:American physicians Category:Living people Category:People from Elyria, Ohio Category:Harvard University alumni Category:Radcliffe College alumni Category:Case Western Reserve University alumni Category:Indian Hill, Ohio

Name	Christopher Guest
Caption	Guest speaking at Vancouver Film School, July 18, 2008
Birth name	Christopher Haden-Guest
Birth date	February 05, 1948
Birth place	New York City, New York, U.S.
Medium	Film, Music
Active	1971–present
Genre	Mockumentary, Improvisational
Influenced	Ricky Gervais, The Comic Strip
Spouse	Jamie Lee Curtis (1984-present)
Notable work	This Is Spinal Tap, Best in Show

The Rt. Hon. Christopher Haden-Guest, 5th Baron Haden-Guest (born February 5, 1948), better known as Christopher Guest, is an American-born screenwriter, composer, musician, director, actor and comedian. He is most widely known in Hollywood for having written, directed and starred in several improvisational "mockumentary" films that feature a repertory-like ensemble cast, such as This is Spinal Tap. In the United Kingdom, he holds a Baronial peerage, and has publicly expressed a desire to see the House of Lords reformed as a democratically-elected chamber. Despite initial activity in the Lords, his career there was cut short by the House of Lords Act 1999. When using his title, he is normally styled for short as Lord Haden-Guest

Early years

Guest was born in New York City, the son of Peter Haden-Guest, a British United Nations diplomat who later became the 4th Baron Haden-Guest, and his second wife, Jean Pauline Hindes, a former vice president of casting at CBS. Both of Guest's parents had become atheists, and Guest had no religious upbringing. Guest later began performing with bluegrass bands until he took up rock and roll.

Career

1970s

Guest began his career in theatre during the early 1970s with one his earliest professional performances being the role of Norman in Michael Weller's Moonchildren for the play's American premiere at the Arena Stage in Washington D.C. in November 1971. Guest continued with the production when it moved to Broadway in 1972. The following year he began making contributions to The National Lampoon Radio Hour for a variety of National Lampoon audio recordings. He both performed comic characters (Flash Bazbo-Space Explorer, Mr. Rogers, music critic Roger de Swans, and sleazy record company rep Ron Fields) and also wrote, arranged and performed numerous musical parodies (of Bob Dylan, James Taylor and others). He was featured alongside Chevy Chase and John Belushi in the Off-Broadway revue National Lampoon's Lemmings. One of his earliest films includes a bit part as a uniformed police officer in Death Wish starring Charles Bronson.

Guest played a small role in All In the Family as Michael's college buddy named Jim, who dated Gloria's girlfriend Debbie Priscilla Lopez and set up a blind date for Michael and Gloria. The title for that 1977 episode of was "Mike and Gloria Meet". It was a flashback of Mike and Gloria recalling their first date.

1980s

Along with Martin Short, Billy Crystal and Harry Shearer, Guest was hired as a one-year only cast member for the season on NBC's Saturday Night Live. Recurring characters on SNL played by Guest include Frankie, of Willie and Frankie (coworkers who recount in detail physically painful situations in which they've found themselves, remarking laconically "I hate when that happens"); Herb Minkman, a shady novelty toymaker with a brother named Al (played by Crystal); Rajeev Vindaloo, an eccentric foreign man in the same vein as Andy Kaufman's Latka character from Taxi; and Senor Cosa, a Spanish ventriloquist often seen on the recurring spoof of The Joe Franklin Show . He also experimented behind the camera with pre-filmed sketches, notably directing a documentary-style short starring Shearer and Short as synchronized swimmers. In another short film from SNL, Guest and Crystal appear as retired Negro-League baseball players, "The Rooster and the King".

He has appeared as Count Rugen in The Princess Bride, Charley Ford in The Long Riders, Lord Cromer in Mrs Henderson Presents and Dr. Stone in A Few Good Men. He had a cameo role as Dylan, a smarmy pedestrian, in the 1986 musical remake of The Little Shop of Horrors. As a co-writer and director, Guest made the Hollywood satire The Big Picture.

Guest's biggest role of the first two decades of his career, however, is likely that of Nigel Tufnel in the 1984 mockumentary film This Is Spinal Tap. Guest made his first appearance as Tufnel on the 1978 sketch comedy program The TV Show.

Upon his father succeding to the family peerage in 1987, he was henceforth known as The Hon. Christopher Haden-Guest in full. This was his official style and name until he himself inherited the barony in 1996.

1990s-present

The experience of having made Spinal Tap would directly inform the second phase of his career. Starting in 1996, Guest began writing, directing and acting in his own series of heavily improvised films. Many of them would come to be definitive examples of what came to be known as "mockumentaries".

His frequent writing partner is Eugene Levy. Together, Levy, Guest and a small band of other actors have formed a loose repertory group, which appear across several films. These include Catherine O'Hara, Michael McKean, Parker Posey, Bob Balaban, Jane Lynch, John Michael Higgins, Harry Shearer, Jennifer Coolidge, Ed Begley, Jr. and Fred Willard. Guest and Levy write backgrounds for each of the characters and notecards for each specific scene, outlining the plot, and then leave it up to the actors to improvise the dialogue, which is supposed to result in a much more natural conversation than scripted dialogue would. Each of these movies also shares a hallmark plot development, where the movie leads up to some kind of a highly anticipated performance, or the outcome of a performance. This could reflect Guest's background in theater, and simply a kind of meta-commentary, as a real performance is of course what is being improvised for the duration. Notably, everyone who appears in these movies receives the same fee, and the same portion of profits.

He had a guest voice-over role in the animated comedy series SpongeBob SquarePants as SpongeBob's cousin, Stanley.

Guest appeared in the 2009 comedy The Invention of Lying.

He is also currently a member of the musical group The Beyman Bros, which he formed with his childhood friend David Nichtern and Spinal Tap's current keyboardist CJ Vanston. Their debut album Memories of Summer as a Child was released on January 20, 2009.

In 2010, the United States Census Bureau paid $2.5 million to have a television commercial directed by Guest shown during television coverage of Super Bowl XLIV.

Peerage and heirs

Guest became the The Rt. Hon. The 5th Baron Haden-Guest, of Saling, in the County of Essex, when his father died in 1996. He succeeded upon the ineligibility of his older half-brother, Anthony Haden-Guest, who was born prior to the marriage of his parents. According to an article in The Guardian, Guest attended the House of Lords regularly until the House of Lords Act 1999 barred most hereditary peers from their seats. In the article Guest remarked: }}

Guest married actress Jamie Lee Curtis in 1984 at the home of their mutual friend Rob Reiner. They have two adopted children: The Hon. Anne (born 1986) and The Hon. Thomas (born 1996). Because Guest's children are adopted, they cannot inherit the family barony under the terms of the letters patent that created it, though a 2004 Royal Warrant addressing the style of a peer's adopted children states that they can use courtesy titles. The current heir presumptive to the barony is Guest's younger brother, the actor The Hon. Nicholas Haden-Guest.

Off-stage demeanor

Guest is sometimes off-putting in interviews and promotional appearances (having been described by reviewer Warren Etheredge as, "rude, condescending and intolerable"), as well as with people who have met him outside of the work environment because contrary to expectations of him as a comedian he often seems deadpan, even dour. Of this, Guest has said, "People want me to be funny all the time. They think I'm being funny no matter what I say or do and that's not the case. I rarely joke unless I'm in front of a camera. It's not what I am in real life. It's what I do for a living."

Filmography

The Hot Rock (1972) - as policeman

Death Wish (1974) as - as Patrolman Jackson Reilly

Billion Dollar Bubble (TV Movie) (1976)

Girlfriends (1978) - as Eric

The Long Riders (1980) - as Charley Ford

This Is Spinal Tap (1984) - as Nigel Tufnel (Also Writer)

Little Shop of Horrors (1986) - as The First Customer

Beyond Therapy (1987) - as Bob

The Princess Bride (1987) - as Count Tyrone Rugen, the six-fingered man

The Big Picture (1989) - (Writer/Director Only)

A Few Good Men (1992) - as Dr. Stone

Waiting for Guffman (1996) - as Corky St. Clair (Also Writer/Director)

Almost Heroes (1998) (Director only)

Small Soldiers (1998) - Slamfist/Scratch-It (Voice Only)

Best in Show (2000) - as Harlan Pepper (Also Writer/Director)

A Mighty Wind (2003) - as Alan Barrows (Also Writer/Director)

Mrs Henderson Presents (2005) - as Lord Cromer

For Your Consideration (2006) - as Jay Berman (Also Writer/Director)

Spongebob Squarepants (2007) - as Stanley S. SquarePants (Voice Only)

(2009) - as Ivan the Terrible

The Invention of Lying (2009) - as Nathan Goldfrappe

References

External links

"Nowt so queer as folk". The Guardian (UK). January 10, 2004. Richard Grant. Interview for release of A Mighty Wind.

Category:1948 births Category:Actors from New York City Category:American comedians Category:American comedy musicians Category:American film actors Category:American film directors Category:American television actors Category:American television writers Category:American actors of English descent Category:American actors of Russian descent Category:American people of Russian-Jewish descent Category:English-language film directors Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Jewish actors Category:Living people Category:The Princess Bride