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Three views of behaviorism are examined in an effort to clarify its meaning. The views are composites of what readers might hear or read in the professional literature of psychology. View 1 is un-self-consciously critical of behaviorism and might represent the view taken by a contemporary cognitive psychologist. View 2 appears to support behaviorism but actually represents only a methodological behaviorism and an epistemological dualism. View 3 represents a radical, thoroughgoing behaviorism. The radical behaviorism of View 3 regards any differences between Views 1 and 2 as superficial-both are mediational and mentalistic and therefore objectionable. In contrast to Views 1 and 2, radical behaviorism emphasizes the functional analysis of verbal behavior, which leads to a thoroughgoing, behavioral conception of knowledge and explanatory practices in psychology.
Key words: methodological behaviorism, mentalism, epistemological dualism, radical behaviorism, explanation
Schneider and Morris (1987) suggested that John B. Watson was the first to invoke the term behaviorism. Moore (2008, 2011) recently argued that there is a lot of debate about just what behaviorism means and whether it is in fact a broadly monolithic viewpoint, appropriately understood in a majority of cases. The present article examines three views of behaviorism, in a further effort to clarify an understanding of behaviorism.
View 1
View 1 is openly critical of any form of behaviorism. It summarizes things one might hear or read from researchers and theorists who identify themselves as contemporary cognitive psychologists. It is presented here as a vehicle to bring forth important issues, rather than as a "straw man" argument:
Behaviorism is outmoded. It may have helped to make psychology more scientific in 1913, when Watson advocated replacing (a) a subjective and admittedly unreliable methodology based on introspection and verbal reports with (b) an objective methodology based on publicly observable data. However, it can contribute little if anything of value now to explanations of human behavior.
Behavior analysis is nothing but another form of behaviorism. At best, it applies to simple, observable motor behavior of rats, pigeons, individuals with developmental disabilities, and small children in highly controlled, artificial, or contrived situations. Even if laboratory experiments show aspects of human behavior can be temporarily influenced by classical or operant conditioning processes (and even then there is the question that the results...