Behaviorism in Psychology

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Behaviorism As one of the most influential school of American psychology, behaviorism derived its rudiments from Russian objective psychology, and was emphases by John Watson. A lot of people contributed for the development of behaviorism, but the ideas of behaviorism are extreme and one-sided for behaviors and consciousness. The details are as following. Behaviorism is a school of psychology in U.S. and is founded by John Watson. Behaviorism insists the importance of behavior in psychology rather than consciousness. Behaviorism emphases subjective consciousness should be abandoned, and all the mental activities are actually physical activities. As for the methods of behaviorism, it abandons the introspection and use some objective ways such as objective observation, conditioned reflexes, or some other ways. Except John Watson, so many psychologists established some important ideas and have some debates about behaviorism. Considering the contribution of the establishing and development of behaviorism, Ivan M. Sechenov, Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, Vladimir M. Bechterev, John B. Watson, and William McDougall are the most influential ones. Ivan M. Sechenov is the founder of Russian objective psychology, which establishes a good foundation of behaviorism. Sechenov did not negate the importance of consciousness or itself, but he try to explain the consciousness by physical activities and some external stimulation, and he thought consciousness is not mysterious at all (Hergenhahn B.R., 2013). A important concept said by Sechenov is inhibition, which is associated with brain and make Sechenov begin to study psychology by the terms of physiology. (Hergenhahn B.R., 2013). Sechenov uses frogs and found the frog’s behavior of leg was associated with inhibition and some certain parts of the brain. “ In reflexes, sechenov attempted to explain all behavior in terms of the
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