Behaviourism

Also see Behavior and Social Behaviourism.

At the beginning of the term for PSYCH101, where we were looking at Conditioning, we were studying things a lot from a Behaviorism perspective.

Behaviorists believe that all our behaviors are learned and conditioned through interacts with the environment.

Behaviorists believe that behavior is determined exclusively by our environments. This is most likely what I believe at the moment.

Criticism

From History of Psychology, “For decades, behaviorism dominated American psychology. By the 1960s, psychologists began to recognize that behaviorism was unable to fully explain human behavior because it neglected mental processes”.

• Can’t mental processes also be determined by the environment??

Behaviorists focused on studying the relationship between Stimulus and responses, without giving much attention to the internal mental processes that occur between stimulus and response.

So what are the alternatives to explain human behavior? Why do humans act the way they do?

• Freudian Theory (unconscious thoughts)
• Humanist (free will)