Behaviorism: History, Development, and Current

Behaviorism: History, Development, And Current Applications

There are many different schools and branches of psychological theory and thought, and even though this area of science is barely a century old these branches have all developed and evolved tremendously. Behaviorism is certainly no exception; in some ways one of the oldest and most fundamental schools of psychology, there have been drastic changes and splits to behavioral psychology and amongst behavioral theorists. The following pages will briefly outline the foundation of behaviorism by detailing the contributions made to the theory by three of its most prominent researchers and theorists. Changes that were brought to the theory during the course of its development will also be discussed, as will current applications and trends in behaviorism. Though brief, an examination of these areas of the theoretical and practical implications of historical and modern behaviorism will provide a comprehensive overview of the theory and its potential effectiveness.

One of the major themes of John Watson's writings on behaviorism was the strain now known as methodological behaviorism, which is essentially a commentary on the science of psychology itself. Believing things like mood and mental states to be individual and thus ultimately unknowable and non-empirical, methodological behaviorists are quite strict in observing only external and thus objectively measurable data in drawing their conclusions (Graham 2010). Psychological behaviorism is not at all mutually exclusive of methodological behaviorism, and Watson as well as the more well-known Ivan Pavlov could both said to be of this school of though, which focuses on learning histories and conditioning as primary influences of psychology and behavior (Graham 2010).

Pavlov had his famous experiment (or coincidental discovery) with dogs in which the subjects became used to a bell ringing when their meal was being served, and would salivate at the ringing of the bell even without the presence of food (Mills 1998). Watson and others took this form of operant conditioning to its height with behavior modification techniques and therapies during the first half of the twentieth century (Mills 1998) B.F. Skinner, who came on the scene later (his life spanned most of the twentieth century, from 1904 to 1990) took psychological behaviorism to its logical conclusion, seeing mental activity and mental states as behavior and claiming it was circular reasoning to explain behavior with behavior; the most prevalent non-behavioral influence on behavior Skinner could identify was environment, and thus he became intimately concerned with the details of environment and its effect on learning and behavior (Graham 2010; Mills 1998). Skinner also proposed a full social model of an ideal society based on his principles of behaviorism.

The growth of cognitive psychology (aided in no small part by advances in neuroscience and medicine) has served to both discredit many behaviorist claims and to bolster the theory in the eyes of some through an incorporation of cognitive theories (Graham 2010; Mills 1998). Focusing explicitly on how the mind processes, stores, and retrieves information -- exactly the kind of "mental states" rejected by early behaviorists -- cognitive psychology at first seemed directly opposed to behaviorism (Graham 2010). There has actually been an incorporation of the two theories by some, however, where cognitive processes join other influences on behavior (Mills 1998).

In modern applications of behavioral theory, certain philosophical elements and conclusions have become especially important. In one emerging view of behaviorism, the concept of a teleological view is increasing important, and a root level of behavioral explanation is sought with all other more complex behaviors and patterns behavior seen as evolutions of this root or basic behavioral explanation (Rachlin 2010). This view has been applied not only to general psychological theory and explanations but also to fairly specific constructs of social interaction and conflict, thus attempting to do something somewhat akin to Skinner in theorizing that there is a "key" to understanding human behavior that could, once discovered and properly utilized, lead to the creation of a more utopic society based on a near-total understanding of how behavior and thus psychology is created and influenced (Rachin 2010).