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Behaviorism or behaviourism is an approach within psychology based on the proposition that behavior can be researched scientifically without recourse to inner mental states.

Definition

Behaviorism is a form of materialism, denying any independent significance for the mind. A similar approach may be found in political science known as Behavioralism.

One of the assumptions of many behaviorists is that free will is an illusion. As a result, behaviorism dictates that all behavior is determined by a combination of forces comprising of genetic factors and the environment, either through Classical conditioning or Operant conditioning.

The behaviorist school of thought ran concurrent with the psychoanalysis movement in psychology in the 20th century. Its main influences were Ivan Pavlov, who investigated classical conditioning, John B. Watson who coined the term behaviorism and sought to restrict psychology to experimental methods, and B.F. Skinner who sought to give an grounding to behaviorism, relating it to pragmatism, and conducted research on Operant conditioning.

Key Concepts

Learning: A change in behavior attributed to the result of experience.

Parsimony: The principle that states in the philosophy of science, a person should always opt for the simplest explanation.

Stimulus: Anything that may affect the environment and thereby affect an individual's behavior.

Response: Any reaction to a stimulus. For behaviorists, the response is limited to any measureable behavior.

Reflex: Unlearned responses that are triggered by certain stimuli.

Voluntary Response: A response that the individual has control over.

Classical Conditioning: The study of learning that focuses on reflex responses.

Operant Conditioning: The study of learning that focuses on the changes in the voluntary responses as a result of their consequences.

Radical Behaviorism: A position adopted by Watson and Skinner which states that the study of internal processes are impossible to objectively study and are irrelevant to understanding a person's behavior.

Behavior Modification: Applying conditioning principles to alter a person's behavior.

Equipotentiality: The idea that the principles of condition should appy to all behaviors and all species.

Ethology: The study of the behavior of animals in their natural habitat.

Species-Specific Behavior: Sometimes referred to as instincts, there are behaviors that are characteristic of a specific species.

Behaviorism in philosophy

In many ways, behaviorism is both a psychological and philosophical movement. The basic premise of radical behaviorism is that the study of behavior should be an empirical science, such as chemistry or physics, without any reference to hypothetical and subjective internal states of organisms.

There are approaches within analytic philosophy that have named themselves or have been coined by other as 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. [1]. It is sometimes argued that Ludwig Wittgenstein defended a behaviorist position, and there are important areas of overlap between his philosophy, logical behaviorism, and radical behaviorism (e.g., the beetle in a box argument). However, Wittgenstein was not a behaviorist, and his style of writing is sufficiently elliptical to admit of a range of interpretations. Mathematician Alan Turing is also sometimes considered a behaviorist, but he himself did not make this identification.

Versions of Behaviorism

Disclaimer: There is no generally agreed upon classification. Some would add to or modify this list.

Classical behaviorism: The behaviorism of Watson; the objective study of behavior; no mental life, no internal states; thought is covert speech.
Methodological behaviorism: The objective study of third-person behavior; the data of psychology must be inter-subjectively verifiable; no theoretical prescriptions. It has been absorbed into general experimental and cognitive psychology.
Radical behaviorism|Radical: Skinnerian behaviorism; is considered radical since it expands behavioral principles to processes within the organism; in contrast to methodological behaviorism, does not require inter-observer agreement; not mechanistic or reductionist; hypothetical (mentalistic) internal states are not considered causes of behavior, phenomena must be observable at least to the individual experiencing them.
Logical behaviorism: Established by Oxford philosopher Gilbert Ryle in his book The Concept of Mind (1949).
Teleological behaviorism: Post-Skinnerian, purposive, close to microeconomics.
Theoretical behaviorism: 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 behaviorism: Post-Skinnerian, centered on perceptual and motor modules of behavior, theory of behavior systems.
Interbehaviorism: Founded by J. R. Kantor before Skinner´s writings and currently worked by L. Hayes; E, Ribes; and S. Bijou. Centered in the interbehavior of organisms, field theory of behavior; emphasis on human behavior.

Two popular subtypes are Neo-: Clark L. Hull, Hullian, and post-Hullian, theoretical, group data, not dynamic, physiological, and Purposive: Edward C. Tolman'ss behavioristic anticipation of cognitive psychology.

The Founders of Behaviorism

J. B. Watson

Early in the 20th century, Watson argued in his book Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist for a psychology which concerned itself solely with objective observation of behavior. At the time, this was a substantial break from the predominant structuralist psychology, which used the method of introspection and considered the study of behavior of little or no value.

Watson, unlike many of his colleagues, studied the adjustment of organisms to their environments. More specifically, he was interested in determining the particular stimuli that led organisms to make their responses. Most of Watson's work was comparative, since he studied the behavior of animals. Watson's approach was much influenced by the work of Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov, who discovered the phenomenon of classical conditioning in his famous study of the digestive system of dogs. Watson's approach emphasized physiological response and the role of stimuli in producing conditioned responses. For this reason, Watson may be described as an S-R (stimulus-response) psychologist.

Methodological behaviorism

Watson's Behaviorist theory persuaded most academic researchers of the importance of behavioral study. In the field of comparative psychology in particular, it was consistent with the warning note that had been struck by Lloyd Morgan's canon, against some of the more anthropomorphic work such as that of George Romanes, in which mental states had been freely attributed to animals. It was eagerly seized on by researchers such as Edward L. Thorndike (who had been studying cats' abilities to escape from puzzle boxes). However, most psychologists took up a position that is now called methodological behaviorism: they acknowledged that behavior was either the only or the easiest method of observation in psychology, but held that it could be used to draw conclusions about mental states.

Among well-known twentieth-century behaviorists taking this kind of position were Clark L. Hull, who described his position as neo-behaviorism, and Edward C. Tolman, who developed much of what would later become the cognitivist program. Tolman argued that rats constructed cognitive maps of the mazes they learned even in the absence of reward, and that the connection between stimulus and response (S->R) was mediated by a third term - the organism (S->O->R).

Methodological behaviorism remains the position of most experimental psychologists today. With the rise of interest in animal cognition since the 1980s, and the more unorthodox views of Donald Griffin among others, mentalistic language including discussion of consciousness is increasingly used even in discussion of animal psychology, in both comparative psychology and ethology; however, this is in no way inconsistent with the position of methodological behaviorism.

B.F. Skinner

Skinner, who carried out experimental work in the field comparative psychology from the 1930s to the 1950s, but he still Behaviorism's best known theorist and exponent until his death in 1990. Skinner developed a distinct kind of behaviorist philosophy, which came to be called radical behaviorism. He is credited with having founded a new version of psychological science, called behavioral analysis or the Experimental Analysis of Behavior after variations on the subtitle to his 1938 work The Behavior of Organisms: An Experimental Analysis Of Behavior.

Skinner's Radical Behaviorism

While EAB differs from other approaches of behavioral research on numerous methodological and theoretical points, radical behaviorism departs from methodological behaviorism most notably in its acceptance of the treatment of feelings, states of mind and introspection as existent and scientifically treatable. However, radical behaviorism stops short of identifying feelings as causes of behavior. Among other points of difference were a rejection of the reflex as a model of all behavior and a defense of a science of behavior complementary to but independent of physiology.

Experimental and Conceptual Innovations

This philosophical position gained strength from the success of Skinner's early experimental work with rats and pigeons, surmised in his books The Behavior of Organisms (1938) and Schedules of Reinforcement (1957, with C. B. Ferster). Of particular importance was his discovery the operant response, of which is famously remembered through his 'Skinner Box'. An operant response contrasts with a reflex response as it 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 series of responses, where the individuals differ but as a whole, the class achieves similar ends.

Skinner's empirical work expanded on earlier research of trial-and-error learning by researchers such as Thorndike and Guthrie, so called because the animal was now permitted to respond on its own in contrast to earlier studies in which a series of trials that were systematically presented and executed by experimential procedures. Using this method, Skinner carried out substantial empirical work on the effects of different schedules and rates of reinforcement on the rates of operant responses made by animals.

He achieved remarkable success in training animals to perform unexpected responses, to emit large numbers of responses, and to demonstrate many empirical regularities within behavior. These findings lent some credibility to his radical conceptual analysis.

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. His book Verbal Behavior (1957) laid out a theory for functional analysis of verbal behavior. The book was strongly criticized in a review by the linguist Noam Chomsky.^[1] Skinner did not himself respond in detail; but he claimed that "[Chomsky] doesn’t know what I am talking about and for some reason is unable to understand it".^[2]

What was important for a behaviorist 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.

Legacy

The study of Operant conditioning and Classical Conditioning has greatly contributed to the understanding of human behavior in psychology. Even though it is no longer an authoritative source, behaviorism was a dominant force in North American psychology for a considerable amount of time. Behaviorism grew out of a reactionary response to introspective structuralists, who were unsuccessful in explaining mental processes. In manys, behaviorists paved the way for a new scientific based psychology.

Criticisms of Behaviorism

To some, Behaviorism is a rather deterministic view of human behavior. It is argued that by ignoring the internal psychological and mental processes, Behaviorism oversimplifies the complexity of human behavior. Some would even argue that the strict nature of radical behaviorism essentially defines human beings as mechanisms without free will. This approach has also been critized for its inability to account for learning or changes in behavior that occur in absence of environmental input; since such occurences would signal the presence of an internal psychological or mental process. Research by ethologists shows that the principles of conditioning are not universal and this restricts the behaviorist claim of equipotentiality across conditioning principles.

References
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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 0534634079)
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 0029290406)
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
Skinner, B. F. (1981). Selection by consequences. Science, 213, 501-514.
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

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↑ Chomsky, Noam (1959). A Review of B. F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior. Language (35): 26-58.
↑ Skinner, B. F. (1972). I Have Been Misunderstood.... Center Magazine (March-April): 63.

[1] Chomsky, Noam (1959). A Review of B. F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior. Language (35): 26-58.

[2] Skinner, B. F. (1972). I Have Been Misunderstood.... Center Magazine (March-April): 63.

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