behaviorism

Behaviorism is a school of psychology that emphasizes the study of observable behavior and rejects introspection as a basis for science. It holds that behavior is learned through interaction with the environment and can be studied objectively through controlled experiments. Internal mental states are regarded as outside the scope of scientific inquiry.

The movement began with Ivan Pavlov’s work on classical conditioning and was developed in the United States by John B. Watson, who advocated studying stimulus–response relationships. B. F. Skinner further advanced the approach with radical behaviorism, stressing operant conditioning and the influence of reinforcement and punishment on behavior. Earlier, Edward Thorndike’s law of effect shaped learning theory and experimental methods such as the Skinner box became common.

Classical conditioning pairs a neutral stimulus with a reflexive response to produce a conditioned response. Operant conditioning reasons that behavior is shaped by its consequences: reinforcement increases behavior, punishment decreases it. Key concepts include shaping, extinction, generalization, and discrimination, as well as different reinforcement schedules (continuous and partial) that affect learning rate. Although behaviorists focus on observable processes, they acknowledge biological constraints that can affect what is learned.

Critics argue that behaviorism neglects cognition, emotion, and biology, offering an incomplete account of behavior. Proponents point to its practical applications in education, therapy (behavior modification), and animal training. The approach laid the groundwork for behavior analysis and applied behavior analysis (ABA), and its influence persists in contemporary psychology, where behavioral insights are integrated with cognitive and biological perspectives.