Mr. Ruiz, SKINNER,B.F. RADICAL BEHAVIORISM - HISTORICAL MISCONSTRUCTIONS AND GROUNDS FOR FEMINIST RECONSTRUCTIONS, Psychology of women quarterly, 19(2), 1995, pp. 161-179
Feminist critiques of traditional psychological approaches have genera
ted feminist revisions, most notably in psychoanalytic and develop men
tal theory. Although behaviorism has attracted strong objections from
feminist critics, claims of its antithetical positioning vis-a-vis fem
inist theory construction have generally remained unchallenged. A prel
iminary step in formulating grounds for a synthesis is to clarify mult
iple meanings of behaviorism. Specifically, the fusion of Watson's met
hodological behaviorism and Skinner's radical behaviorism in the liter
ature must be disentangled in order to address the latter's potential
as a conceptual framework for constructing feminist theory. Key concep
tual features of radical behaviorism that suggest its potential as a v
ehicle for building a feminist epistemology include: radical behaviori
sm's contextualistic world view, its interpretation of agency, its tre
atment of private experience and self knowledge, and its understanding
of the pivotal functions of the verbal community.