ABSTRACT
US Psychology’s founding phase culminated in 1913 in the movement called ‘behaviorism’ (to use the US spelling), the impact of which extended well beyond those identifying themselves as behaviourists. While experimental Psychology was well established by 1910, the forms this took varied and research report formats remained unstandardised. Basic psychophysics aside, it was difficult to compare findings of different researchers or replicate experiments. Much experimental work of the post-1900 period was explicitly ‘functionalist’, a label adopted by J. Dewey’s Chicago colleague J.R. Angell. A fairly eclectic approach, this persisted as the dominant orientation of US experimental Psychology until World War Two, avoiding most traditional philosophical issues in favour of adaptational accounts of both mental phenomena and behaviour – often in applied Psychology contexts. ‘Behaviorism’ may be seen as an extreme form of this functionalism. Its enduring effect was as much methodological as theoretical, although it was largely as a theoretical-level movement that it was launched. In this chapter we will look primarily at three aspects of behaviourism: (a) how John B. Watson, its founder, envisaged ‘behaviorism’ in 1913; (b) the variety of forms it subsequently took; and (c) the difficulties that led to a weakening of its influence after 1945, including some comments on its public image and legacy.
