BEHAVIOURISM

a highly influential academic school of psychology that dominated psychological theory between the two world wars. Classical behaviourism concerned itself exclusively with measurable and observable data and excluded ideas, emotions, and the consideration of inner mental experience and activity in general. The organism is seen as "responding" to conditions (stimuli) set by the outer environment and inner biological processes. The dominant school of thought at the time, structuralism, conceived of psychology as the science of consciousness, experience, or mind; while bodily activities were not excluded, their paramount interest was considered to lie in their relations to mental phenomena. The characteristic method of psychology was thus introspection-observing and reporting upon the working of one's own mind. The early formulations of behaviourism were a reaction by the U.S. psychologist John B. Watson against the introspective psychologies. Watson wrote that "Behaviorism claims that 'consciousness' is neither a definable nor a usable concept; that it is merely another word for the 'soul' of more ancient times. The old psychology is thus dominated by a subtle kind of religious philosophy" (Behaviorism, 1924). Behaviourism "attempted to make a fresh, clean start in psychology, breaking both with current theories and with traditional concepts and terminology" (Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist, 3rd ed., 1929). Introspection was to be discarded; only such observations were to be considered admissible as could be made by independent observers upon the same object or event-exactly as in physics or chemistry. In this way psychology was to become "a purely objective, experimental branch of natural science." However abstract these proposals may seem, they have had a revolutionary influence on modern psychology and social science and on man's conception of himself. Watson's objectivist leanings were presaged by many developments in the history of thought and were in fact symptomatic of strong trends that had been emerging in biology and psychology since the late 19th century. Thus, his desire to "bury subjective subject matter" enlisted widespread cooperation. Between the early 1920s and mid-century, behaviourism in the methodic sense dominated U.S. psychology and had wide international repercussions. Though the chief alternatives to behaviourism (e.g., Gestalt psychology and psychoanalysis) promulgated methods that use experiential data, even these positions accommodated the objectivist emphasis by a steadily increasing stress on the need for objective validation of experientially based hypotheses. The period 1912-30 (roughly) may be called that of classical behaviourism. Watson was then the dominant figure, but many others were soon at work giving their own systematic twists to the development of the program. Classical behaviourism was dedicated to proving that phenomena formerly believed to require introspective study (e.g., thinking, imagery, emotions, feeling) might be handled in terms of stimulus and response. Classical behaviourism was characterized by a strict determinism based on the belief that behind every response lies a stimulus that elicits it. From 1930 through the late '40s the derivative form known as neobehaviourism may be distinguished, when psychologists attempted to translate the general methodic program prescribed by Watson into a detailed, experimentally based theory of adaptive behaviour. This era was dominated by learning theorists Clark L. Hull and B.F. Skinner; Skinner's thought was the direct descendant of Watson's intellectual heritage, and became dominant in the field after the mid-1950s. Other important behaviourists included Hull-influenced Kenneth W. Spence; Neal Miller, who felt that neuroscience is the most productive avenue in psychological research; Edward C. Tolman; and Edwin R. Guthrie. Beginning in this period, with people like cognitive theorist Tolman, a tendency toward a liberalization of strict behaviourist doctrine (both methodic and conceptual) occurred. The posture toward objectivism remained fundamentally the same, even while admitting the existence of intervening (i.e., mental) variables, accepting verbal reports, and branching into problem areas such as perception. A natural outgrowth of behaviourist theory was behaviour therapy (q.v.), which rose to prominence after World War II and focussed on modifying observable behaviour, rather than on the thoughts and feelings of the patient (as in psychoanalysis). Emotional problems are considered the consequences of faulty acquired behaviour patterns or the failure to learn effective responses. The aim of behaviour therapy, also known as behaviour modification, is therefore to change behaviour patterns. See also conditioning.