Behaviorism is a systematic approach to understanding the behavior of humans and other animals, emerging in the early 1900s as a reaction against introspection-based psychology. It assumes behavior results from environmental stimulus-response pairings and reinforcement or punishment rather than internal mental states; Skinner's later radical behaviorism incorporated private events like thoughts and feelings as behaviors subject to the same laws. Watson and Skinner are considered its principal figures, alongside Pavlov as a pioneer of its conditioning methods.
Facts
Central QuestionHow can behavior be explained and predicted through observable stimulus-response pairings and reinforcement, without reference to unobservable internal mental states? 1 Founded Year FAQs
How does behaviorism differ from cognitivism?
Behaviorism studies only observable behavior; cognitivism studies internal mental processing.
Behaviorism restricts itself to observable behavior and how reinforcement shapes it, deliberately avoiding claims about internal mental states. Cognitivism, which grew out of the cognitive revolution of the 1950s and 1960s, instead treats the mind's internal processing of information as central to explaining behavior.
Why did behaviorism reject structuralism's approach to psychology?
Behaviorism rejected structuralism's reliance on introspection as unverifiable, restricting psychology to observable behavior instead.
Structuralism analyzed the mind through controlled introspection, asking trained subjects to report the contents of their own conscious experience. Behaviorism, founded by John B. Watson in his 1913 address Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It, rejected introspection as unscientific because its reports could not be independently verified or replicated by another observer. Watson argued psychology should restrict itself to observable behavior and the stimulus-response relationships that produce it, discarding consciousness and mental content as data altogether.
Connections
Associated With
Skinner extended behaviorism into radical behaviorism and the experimental analysis of behavior after Watson's founding.
Source Wikipedia: B. F. Skinner
Pavlov's classical conditioning research is considered a foundational pioneering influence on behaviorism, though Pavlov himself worked as a physiologist rather than as a member of the behaviorist school.
Source Wikipedia: B. F. Skinner
Tolman conducted his cognitive map research within a behaviorist methodology, while diverging from the radical behaviorist wing represented by Skinner.
Source Wikipedia: Edward C. Tolman
Critiqued Here
Maslow named behaviorism psychology's 'first force' and argued it systematically excluded the subjective data of consciousness and the complexity of human personality, one of the two schools humanistic psychology positioned itself as a 'third force' against.
Source Humanistic psychology
Held Differently
Radical behaviorism inherits from behaviorism the position that the science of behavior is a natural science, extending it to include private events such as thinking and feeling as behavior subject to the same laws.
Source Wikipedia: Radical Behaviorism
Rejected Here
Watson's 1913 behaviorist manifesto rejected introspection and the analysis of consciousness into elementary mental constituents that structuralism had made its method and subject matter, redefining psychology as a purely objective science of behavior.
Source Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It (Watson, 1913)
Founded By
Source Wikipedia: John B. Watson
In Branch
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Behaviorism
Wikimedia Foundationintro paragraphQuote, intro paragraph
Behaviorism is a systematic approach to understanding the behavior of humans and other animals.
2. Wikipedia: John B. Watson
Wikimedia FoundationBehaviorism section
his 1913 address at Columbia University, titled Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It
Founded By: John B. Watson, intro paragraph
popularized the scientific theory of behaviorism, establishing it as a psychological school
Wikipedia: B. F. Skinner
Wikimedia FoundationAssociated With: B.F. Skinner, intro paragraph
Skinner, John B. Watson, and Ivan Pavlov are considered to be the pioneers of modern behaviorism.
Associated With: Ivan Pavlov, intro paragraph
Skinner, John B. Watson, and Ivan Pavlov are considered to be the pioneers of modern behaviorism.
Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It (Watson, 1913)
Classics in the History of Psychology (York University)Associated With: Structuralism, Opening paragraphsQuote, Associated With: Structuralism, Opening paragraphs
Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior. Introspection forms no essential part of its methods, nor is the scientific value of its data dependent upon the readiness with which they lend themselves to interpretation in terms of consciousness.
Humanistic psychology
Wikimedia FoundationAssociated With: Humanistic Psychology, History sectionQuote, Associated With: Humanistic Psychology, History section
Maslow believed the first force systematically excluded the subjective data of consciousness and much information bearing on the complexity of the human personality and its development.
Wikipedia: Radical Behaviorism
Wikimedia FoundationAssociated With: Radical Behaviorism, Radical behaviorism as natural science sectionQuote, Associated With: Radical Behaviorism, Radical behaviorism as natural science section
Radical behaviorism inherits from behaviorism the position that the science of behavior is a natural science, a belief that animal behavior can be studied profitably and compared with human behavior, a strong emphasis on the environment as cause of behavior, and an emphasis on the operations involved in the modification of behavior.
Wikipedia: Edward C. Tolman
Wikimedia FoundationAssociated With: Tolman's Cognitive Map Experiments, Article body, section "Purposive behaviorism"Quote, Associated With: Tolman's Cognitive Map Experiments, Article body, section "Purposive behaviorism"
Although Tolman was firmly behaviorist in his methodology, he was not a radical behaviorist like B. F. Skinner.
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