AMERICAN BEHAVIORISM - A HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL ANALYSIS

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 comp arative psychology in Britain, continental Europe and America, Watsoni an behaviorism was a mixture of certain methodological principles and certain metaphysical doctrines. The main behaviorists were active expe rimenters and diligent theorists. They agreed with Watson and with eac h other on a few methodological principles but they disagreed on other s. In respect of content they concentrated on learning, ignored percep tion and behavior genetics and had little to say on the taxonomy of mo tivation. Even in their principal field of investigation they could no t agree on the nature and conditions of learning. Yet behaviorism has had a significant influence on mainstream empirical American psycholog y and for that matter elsewhere: while not confining itself to intersu bjectively testable data, it has become critical in respect of data us ed; it has become rigorous in experimental design and more critical in theorizing. Although some of this could have been a trend which helpe d generate behaviorism it would seem to be mainly a heritage from beha viorism itself.