Behaviorism studies behavior, the interaction of individuals with their environment.
The term behaviorism was born from the translation of behaviorism , an English word derived from behavior (which translates as "conduct" ). The concept is used in the field of psychology to refer to the theory that is based on analyzing people's behavior without considering their interior or their thoughts .
Study of behavior
Behaviorism, therefore, is the study of behavior . It is not oriented to questions of consciousness or the mind, but rather points to the interaction of individuals with their environment .
For behaviorism, cognitive processes are properties of behavior that include sensory and linguistic responses. These reactions must be investigated according to the specific type of interaction .
Behaviorism, in short, left aside the preponderance of introspective analysis of feelings, emotions and mental processes. Instead, he privileged the use of experimental methods to objectively study the behavior of subjects. Thus he strengthened the link between psychology and biology , chemistry and other sciences.
Watson behaviorism
One of the pioneers of behaviorism was John B. Watson , an American psychologist born in 1878 and died in 1958 . Against the psychological current focused on the analysis of psychic phenomena through introspection , Watson maintained that these experiences, since they were not observable, could not be examined scientifically.
According to Watson 's behaviorism, thought, emotions and language can be analyzed as chains of glandular or muscular responses that can be observed and, therefore, measured. Based on a stimulus-response relationship, this psychologist stated that emotional reactions are learned by human beings.
Noam Chomsky
The American philosopher Noam Chomsky , who also dedicated himself to other areas such as language, psychology and anthropology, was one of the most prominent critics of behaviorism. His vision can be found in his review of the book Verbal Behavior by BF Skinner, which proposes a theory to explain the way in which we acquire language during our childhood, based on conditioning and the possibility of reinforcement. Chomsky does not think the same, but leans towards what is called generative grammar .
In short, this concept of linguistics proposed by Chomsky refers to a set of rules that help us accurately predict the combinations that exhibit correct sentences from a grammatical point of view. The American scientist affirms that our brain has a genetic module that specializes in the task of acquiring language . To this end, he adds that non-human animals cannot understand or speak our language, regardless of whether they are exposed to it for a long time and receive rewards or reinforcements.
Chomsky affirms that our brain has a specialized module for learning language.
This characteristic that Chomsky believes to be unquestionable in the rest of animals is contrasted with the speed at which children learn language. Furthermore, to reject the bases of behaviorism that Skinner supports, he points out that there must be neurocognitive mechanisms that have specialized in this task through evolution, since children are exposed to a large number of different cultures and environments that could confuse it and make learning difficult if it were based solely on external stimuli.
Cognitive neuroscience
Certain authors of cognitive neuroscience have also expressed their criticism of behaviorism. Some of the most notable are Gerald Edelman, John Pinel, Antonio Damasio, F. Javier Álvarez-Leefmans and Charles Randy Gallistel . One of the points they frequently discuss is the search for an answer to questions regarding language such as "is it inherited or learned?", "is it a psychological or physiological process?"