Behaviorism (Psychology)

A concept that emphasizes the role of learning (especially classical and operant conditioning) and behavioral observation in psychology and dominated psychological research between 1920 and 1960. John B. Watson, heavily influenced by Ivan Pavlov, believed that the observable behavior of animals and humans is the most important and parsimonious source of scientific information in psychology. Unlike earlier researchers (especially, the structuralists and functionists), he did not propose to use behavior as the basis for inferences about consciousness, but he advocated that psychologists should ignore mental events (because they cannot be observed) and base psychology only on overt behavior occurring in response to environmental stimuli. Behaviorists like Watson assumed that adaptation to the environment is achieved through learning and that this basic principle holds true for all kinds of animals, including humans. Following Watson, the American psychologist B. F. Skinner worked on mapping out the details of how reward (reinforcement) and punishment shape, maintain, and change behavior in operant conditioning, mainly by experimenting with rats and pigeons. For that, he developed the so-called Skinner box, an apparatus to train rats and pigeons to push a lever in order to obtain food rewards. He saw the organism as a “black box,” solely shaped by learning experiences. Based on Skinner, Kenneth Spence and Clark Hull's stimulus-response psychology refined the basic approach of behaviorism, until the dominance of behaviorism ended with the paradigm shift during the cognitive revolution, which was put forward particularly by Donald Broadbent (1958) and Ulrich Neisser (1967), who, among others, criticized behaviorism (especially, on the basis of the linguistic approach) and emphasized cognitive processes. The basic principles and methods of behaviorism, classical and operant conditioning, rein forcement patterns, and stimulus-response theory, are influential milestones in psychology, especially, in clinical psychology (i.e., behavioral therapy). For more information, see Baum (2005), Broadbent (1958), Hull (1951), Malone (1990), Neisser (1967), Pavlov (1902), Skinner (1938), and Watson (1913).