Overview

Behaviorism was the dominant school of psychology in the mid-20th century. It argued that we can’t study the “mind” (it’s a black box), so we should only study observable behavior.

Core Idea

The core idea is conditioning. All behavior is learned through interaction with the environment.

  • Classical Conditioning: Pavlov’s Dog. Associating a neutral stimulus (bell) with a biological one (food).
  • Operant Conditioning: Skinner Box. Learning through rewards (reinforcement) and punishments.

Formal Definition

The theory that human and animal behavior can be explained in terms of conditioning, without appeal to thoughts or feelings.

Intuition

  • Training a Dog: You don’t explain “sit” to a dog. You push its butt down and give it a treat. Eventually, it learns Sit = Treat. Behaviorists say humans are just complicated dogs.
  • Gamification: Apps use variable rewards (likes, loot boxes) to condition you to keep clicking. This is pure Skinner.

Examples

  • Little Albert: Watson conditioned a baby to fear white rats by making a loud noise whenever the rat appeared. (Unethical today).
  • Skinner’s Pigeons: Pigeons learned to play ping-pong and guide missiles by being rewarded with food.

Common Misconceptions

  • Misconception: It ignores genetics.
    • Correction: Radical Behaviorism (Skinner) downplayed genetics (“Give me a dozen healthy infants… and I’ll train them to be anything”), but modern behaviorism accepts biological limits.
  • Misconception: It’s dead.
    • Correction: Pure behaviorism is dead, but its techniques (CBT, ABA therapy) are widely used.
  • Cognitive Psychology: The reaction against behaviorism (studying the mind again).
  • Free Will: Skinner argued free will is an illusion; we are just responding to our conditioning.
  • Habit: Automated behavior.

Applications

  • Therapy: Phobia treatment (Systematic Desensitization).
  • Parenting: Time-outs and gold stars.
  • Marketing: Brand association.

Criticism and Limitations

  • Chomsky’s Critique: Noam Chomsky destroyed behaviorism by showing that language is too complex to be learned just by reinforcement; we must have an innate “Language Acquisition Device.”

Further Reading

  • Beyond Freedom and Dignity by B.F. Skinner
  • Don’t Shoot the Dog by Karen Pryor