American Behaviorism

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Abstract
Behaviorism dominated mainstream American academic psychology from the 1920s for four or five decades. It emerged slowly under Watson from a background going back to Darwin and involving the development of comparative psychology in Britain, continental Europe and America. Watsonian behaviorism was a mixture of certain methodological principles and certain metaphysical doctrines. The main behaviorists were active experimenters and diligent theorists. They agreed with Watson and with each other on a few methodological principles but they disagreed on others. In respect of content they concentrated on learning, ignored perception and behavior genetics and had little to say on the taxonomy of motivation. Even in their principal field of investigation they could not agree on the nature and conditions of learning. Yet behaviorism has had a significant influence on mainstream empirical American psychology and for that matter elsewhere: while not confining itself to intersubjectively testable data, it has become critical in respect of data used; it has become rigorous in experimental design and more critical in theorizing. Although some of this could have been a trend which helped generate behaviorism it would seem to be mainly a heritage from behaviorism itself.

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