Watson: Un dinosauro estinto ovvero l'evoluzione continua

Abstract

Just before World War I, thanks to John B. Watson a new approach to psychology began which eschewed traditional theories of the mentalistic determination of behavior. Behaviorists believed that a strictly objective approach would be a great advantage in the long run towards theories based on a firmer empirical foundation and providiog more accurate prediction and control or behavior. Behaviorism has long been the bastion of objectivity for psychology, but while it continues this role, it ìs undergoing a number of changes, many of which are makìng it more compatible with non-behavioristic psychology. The thesis of this paper is that the core of modern behaviorism is a world view called contextualism. From a contextual view behavior analysis concentrates on the study of the on goìng behavior of the whole organism as it interacts in and with a context. However the evolution toa cotextualistic view far behaviorism has been made possible by mechanistic early behaviorismo.