Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-03-26
Behaviorism.

Now and again, by letter and directly,
am asked whether am behaviorist.
The answer is, Yes" Few modern
psychologists are not. But the test
question is, What kind of behaviorist?
Psychology is the study OF mental be-
havior. On that the agreement Is fairly
complete. But DR.. John B. Watson and
few OF his followers claim the term
for their own extreme behavioriSm.
That claim cannot be allowed without
inviting psychology to commit suicide.
j 1t came about in this way: An inter-
esting bit of behavior was discovered by
the Russian Psychologist Pavlow You
know that the sight or smell of appetite
ing food makes your mouth water. It
makes a dogs mouth water also. Dr.
Pavlow devised method of measuring
the secretion of the dogs saliva He
then sounded a bell whenever he pre-
sented the food, and in time there was
flow of saliva when the bell sounded,
though no food was shown. This was
called conditioned reflex or response.
Then the extreme hehaviorists came
along and said that that's the clue to
all behavior. It's all stimulus and re-
Spouse. The only difference is that I
am so conditioned that when ! hear
the clock strike in the morning turn
around and go to sleep and you get up
TO work. Similarly, the workman starts
to work when the whistle blows; but
why does he stop when the whistle
blows four hours later? When you hear
the o'clock signal on Sunday you
don't get up. So it doesn't seem so
simple, after all.
DR.. Watson holds that it doesn't make
any difference what we are to begin
with; what we become, whether doctor,
lawyer, beggarman or thief, is Just the
result OF the environment and the con-
tons it offers. 1t is that extreme doc
trine. comforting as it may be to believe
1t. that has aroused strong protest. It
shuts out heredity almost entirely.
Along with the great majority of my
fellow psychologists, ] am not that kind
of behaviorist
The extreme behaviorist holds that
all we know Of dogs mental life is
what we infer from the dogs behavior.
And that's all you need to know Of a
man. It's all in the muscles and what
the muscles have learned TO do. Talk
ing Is Just another kind Of behavior
and your idea Of what you think you
have on your mind has as little to do
with the case aS your so-called con-
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is just so much rubbish that must be
thrown In the discard il psychology is
to be a real science like physics.
That type Of behaviorism sounds
plausible and UP 10 date; it seems SIM
pie until you look into 1t. You don't
get anywhere, however, by denying
realities, which means that you car
make anything just like something else
by ignoring the difference. Because
psychology had so long set up false
differences and been on the wrong trail
and because the right trail lies pre-
cisely where all behaviorists are tracing
tin the clues of bodily behavior to
begin with-it doesn't follow, by many
miles. that that is where all ends and
that by discarding ancient errors you
discover new truths.
AS a matter of fact, the conditioned
response explains very little and tn,
truth is that men behave like human
beings because they are not slaves Of
such responses. The vastly important
truth is that we are quite different
enough to begin with to make those
differences count heavily in all we DE-