Perspectives Paper

December 17, 2012

Behavioral psychology, also known as behaviorism, is a perspective that became dominant during the early half of the 20th century thanks to prominent thinkers such as B.F. Skinner, and John B. Watson. The basis of behavioral psychology suggests that all behaviors are learned. Conditioning is the process of learning to react to the environment. Many theorists contributed to the theories of classical and operant conditioning, some theorists being Skinner, Watson, and Tolman. Each theorist contributed their own theories proven to impact a part of psychology. Many behaviors have been previously conditioned in the human species by the environment. Skinner, Watson, and Tolman all made their contributions to psychology with theories and proven statistics.

John B. Watson

John Watson proposed the idea of an objective psychology of behavior called "behaviorism." He saw psychology as the study of people's actions with the ability to predict and control those actions. His idea became known as “the behaviorists” theory (Goodwin. 2008). Theorists such as Skinner, Watson, and Tolman all had one common idea; that psychology was defined as the natural science of behavior, objective in its study, and was a pattern of adjustment functionally dependent upon stimulus conditions in the environment, and was emphasized in theory and research. Watson also used animal subjects to study behavior. Later he turned to the study of human behaviors and emotions. He wanted to develop techniques to allow him to condition and control the emotions of human subjects. He argued that organizations like the Boy Scouts and YMCA lead to homosexuality, and girls in particular were susceptible because they held hands, kissed, and slept together in the same bed at pajama parties