Behaviourism

[Tamrin]

Behaviorism

[Excerpt- Article, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Linked Above]

Behaviorism (or behaviourism), also called the learning perspective (where any physical action is a behavior), is a philosophy of psychology based on the proposition that all things that organisms do—including acting, thinking and feeling—can and should be regarded as behaviors. The behaviorist school of thought maintains that behaviors as such can be described scientifically without recourse either to internal physiological events or to hypothetical constructs such as the mind. Behaviorism comprises the position that all theories should have observational correlates but that there are no philosophical differences between publicly observable processes (such as actions) and privately observable processes (such as thinking and feeling).

[Tamrin]

Many behaviourists in psychology have, in practice,
seemed to make philosophical claims about what exists,
rather than merely to impose methodological restrictions
on what they will allow themselves to count as evidence


Anthony Quinton
"Behaviourism" in Alan Bullock & Oliver Stallybrass (Editors),
1977, The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought,
Fontana (Collins), London, p. 57

[brandt]

There were a few people that attempted to make a living training animals to behave in a certain way for commercials and such. The problem was that once the external controls were removed the animals just went back to their natural behavior.

Unfortunately the dark days of behaviorism are not completely behind us. The "cognitive revolution" should have put the last nail in the coffin of behaviorism. Skinner was right about some things but for the wrong reasons. If you give me a cattle prod and a bowl of Skittles I could get just about anyone to do just about anything.