Founders and Critics of Behaviourism

• John B. Watson founded behaviourism in the early 1900s, which is an approach to psychology based on the premise that only observable behaviour should be scientifically investigated.
• Behaviourism was met with criticism because it disregarded the importance of introspection by other schools of thought.
• Watson's ideas were termed radical behaviourism because he proposed that psychologists discard the study of consciousness and focus solely on behaviours that could be directly observed.
• The implications of Watson's theory on how psychology was viewed at the time were colossal. He attempted to redefine the essence of psychology as a science.
• B.F Skinner supported the earlier beliefs of Watson's focus on observable behaviour. Though he didn't deny the existence of internal mental events, he insisted they could not be studied scientifically.
• Skinner's analysis of behaviour was reflective of Darwinian evolutionary theory. He believed that the environment controls behaviour, not the person.

Test your knowledge about the founders and critics of behaviourism, and their influential ideas that shaped the approach to psychology in the early 1900s.