ABSTRACT
It has been referred to as the mechanical mirror (Langer, 1969), black box psychology, and many other names, some of which are even less complimentary. It has been declared obsolete, overthrown, and outmoded. Yet, paradoxically, this object of derision, behaviorism, has given us our most unassailable behavioral laws and has provided the underlying principles from which our most powerful behavioral technologies have been derived to help the retarded, the handicapped, the dependent, and the ill. To understand the intellectual contradictions inherent in this paradox it is important to briefly reflect on the orientations that stand in opposition to behaviorism and to consider the kinds of questions about development that can be posed from a behavioristic framework. Some of the early history of behaviorism is then reviewed in order to get at the source of the caricatures that have come to be associated with stimulus-response (“S-R”) psychology. The essential scientific power inherent in the behavioristic approach is also discussed. This leads to a consideration of the relationship between learning and development and, finally, a discussion of processes and mechanisms to account for behavioral development.
