The Psychology of the "Other One"

Behaviorism was a reaction against introspection as a scientific method. Watson and those who followed him were correct: introspection sheds only a very dim light on the true causes of behavior. Inaccessible to conscious thought is the vast “dark matter” of the unconscious, responsible for recollection, creativity, not to mention that “secret planner” whose hidden motives complement conscious motivation.

But behaviorism also went too far in its attempts to simplify psychology. Watson’s claim that thought is nothing but covert speech and Skinner’s puzzling objection to theoretical entities that cannot be directly observed have hobbled the development of behaviorism and allowed the rest of psychology to backslide slowly into mentalism—familiar and readily compatible with “folk psychology” but rich in philosophical error and a scientific dead-end.