Behaviorism as a positivistic anti-metaphysical science presupposes a highly mechanistic one-dimensional view of the human person and therefore is often seen as an attack on transcendence, the human soul, and human freedom. The British-American psychologist William McDougall (1871-1938) introduced behaviorism in Psychology: The Study of Behavior (1912) and independently the American psychologist John B. Watson (1878–1958) in his article "Psychology as a Behaviorist Views It" (1913). Watson began his essay stating: "Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior" (p. 158). McDougall later distanced himself from Watson's mechanistic approach.

The predecessors of behaviorism

Among the predecessors of behaviorism were the British empiricist philosophers, including David Hume (1711–1776), who contended that sense impressions produce all ideas. American philosopher John Dewey (1859–1952), with whom Watson studied at the University of Chicago, introduced functionalism, which was concerned with the use of consciousness and behavior. Biologist Jacques Loeb (1859–1924), one of Watson's professors at Chicago, explained animal behavior in purely physical-chemical terms. Russian reflexology merged the mind with the brain, which was then explained in terms of reflexes; physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936) introduced experiential analysis of reflexes and their conditioning, and neurologist Vladimir Bekhterev (1857–1927) influenced Watson's interpretation of emotional behavior.

By drawing on neighboring branches of the sciences, behaviorists attempted to turn psychology into a hard science. In 1879, philosopher and psychologist Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) established an institute of experimental psychology in Leipzig, Germany. But Watson chided Wundt and his students that despite having made psychology into a science without soul, despite replacing the term soul with consciousness, they still maintained a dualistic concept of the human being. Since both soul and human consciousness elude the purely objective experimental method, they cannot be quantified and therefore do not exist for Watson. His methodological behaviorism, disallowing for the duality of mind and matter, was a materialistic monism or even a scarcely disguised atheism.

Methodological behaviorism

Between 1912 and the mid-1900s, methodological behaviorism dominated psychology in the United States and also had a wide international impact. Most important for the wider populous was the theory of learning, which was explained wholly or largely on facts and methods of conditioning.

From approximately 1930 to 1950 psychological research moved from the classic behaviorism of Watson to a neo-behaviorism. Psychologist Jacob Robert Kantor (1888–1984), schooled at the University of Chicago, believed that behavior was dependent upon the interaction of an organism with its environment. His "Organismic Psychology," later renamed "Interbehavioral Psychology," was promoted as an antidote to the notion that parts of the organism ad a causal responsibility for the rest of the organism's action.

Radical behaviorism

In his 1938 book The Behavior of Organisms: An Experimental Analysis, psychologist B. F. Skinner (1904–1990) introduced radical behaviorism. Skinner insisted that behavior should be studied as a function of external variables apart from any reference to mental or physiological states or processes. For him psychology was an experimental natural science. Fundamental to his approach was the analysis of behavior in light of stimuli. In 1948, he wrote Walden Two, a utopian novel where a social environment free of governments, religions, and capitalistic enterprises produced a "good life." In this work, Skinner advocated what some called behavioral engineering. In his book Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971) Skinner asserted that the abolition of the concept of autonomous humanity is overdue. Rather, Skinner believed that human beings are controlled by their environment. The question is whether this control should be left to accidents, to tyrants, or to people themselves. Therefore Skinner opted for designing an existence aided by psychology which enables a happy life, defined by his wholehearted endorsement of the capitalistic system and his critical view of government and religion.

In 1932, psychologist Edward C. Tolman (1886–1959) published Purposive Behavior in Animals and Man in which he incorporated motifs and perceptions into psychological consideration. Purpose to him had not a theological, but a teleological meaning. Although Tolman was as skeptical about religion as the behaviorists who preceded him, he introduced a more holistic approach to behaviorism. Nevertheless he developed mechanistic rules to account for observed behavior.

Psychologist Clark L. Hull (1884–1952) distinguished between scientific empiricism and scientific theory in his 1943 book Principles of Behavior: An Introduction to Behavior Theory. While Hull did not deny the existence of a mind or a consciousness, he did not insist on its basic, logical, priority. Yet the mind was not a means for solving problems; to the contrary, it itself was a problem. This means that Hull was open to the insights of neurophysiology.

Behaviorism since the 1950s

At least since the 1950s, increasing skepticism arose about the claims of behaviorism, and a new humility emerged. Behaviorism never abandoned its scientific rigor, but rather became more multifaceted. While some continued to pursue the discernment of behavior using the language and the terms of physical science, others pursued a more teleological track by alternatively trying to understand why behavior is created and how behavior is created.

Even a new realism emerged with regard to human nature and its potential. Behavioral scientists such as zoologist Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989) no longer explained away evil, but understood aggressive behavior as an inherent part of life. In its excessive varieties, however, aggression signaled a breakdown of cultural ethos. Ethologists such as Irenaeus Eibl-Eibesfeldt (b. 1928) have shown that humans follow some inborn norms according to which they interact with the environment, such as fear of strangers and smiling during pleasant experiences. Finally, sociobiologists such as Edward O. Wilson (b. 1929) suggest that a species neither responds just to stimuli, as classical behaviorism maintained, nor is it only instinctively fixed. Rather, a species uses whatever is advantageous to its evolution.

Behaviorism has helped the experimental method become a constituent part of psychological research. Psychology has moved from philosophy and physiology to an independent enterprise in its own right by utilizing the tools and methods of physics, chemistry, computer science, and statistics. However, it is evident that although certain principles are demonstrated in the laboratory, there is no guarantee that they are significant outside it. The reductive nature of the laboratory is quite different from the complexity of the natural environment. We can never infer from laboratory experiments that we have identified all or even the most critical influences in nature.

In its history behaviorism has not rejected rigorous experimental and observational emphasis, but has become more discerning and tentative in its claims. It has realized that a human being is a complicated biological being whose socialization has greater influence in its development than is the case with other biological beings. Therefore a strictly mechanistic one-dimensional view has been found wanting. This multifaceted approach to human behavior opens the possibility for a renewed dialogue with the humanities, including theology, on such issues as human freedom and responsibility and even on transcendence.

See also AGGRESSION; HUME, DAVID; PSYCHOLOGY; PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION

HANS SCHWARZ