Explaining Humans: Winner of the Royal Society Science Book Prize 2020

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Braat, M., Engelen, J., van Gemert, T., & Verhaegh, S. (2020). The rise and fall of behaviorism: The narrative and the numbers. History of Psychology, 23(3), 252-280.

Furthermore, the approach’s focus on meeting our needs and fulfilling our growth potential reflects an individualistic, self-obsessed outlook that is part of the problem faced by our society rather than a solution. References

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However, it is limiting to describe behavior solely in terms of either nature or nurture, and attempts to do this underestimate the complexity of human behavior. It is more likely that behavior is due to an interaction between nature (biology) and nurture (environment). Therefore people might behave differently from animals, so the laws and principles derived from these experiments, might apply more to animals than to humans. Radical Behaviorism expands upon earlier forms of behaviorism by incorporating internal events such as thoughts, emotions, and feelings as part of the behavioral process.

Man’s behavior, with all of its refinement and complexity, forms only a part of the behaviorist’s total scheme of investigation.

Charles Darwin proposed the theory of natural selection. He argued that genetically determined characteristics or behavior that enhance our chances of survival and reproduction would be passed on to the next generation and become more common in a population. From the 1930s, behaviorism split into two clusters, possibly reflecting “classical” vs. “neobehaviorist” approaches. However, the combined behaviorist cluster was still smaller than mental testing and Gestalt clusters. Humanistic psychologists rejected a rigorous scientific approach to psychology because they saw it as dehumanizing and unable to capture the richness of conscious experience.