The evolution of behaviorism.

Abstract

New data on conditioning processes favor an eclecticism between the traditional nativist and environmentalist extremes in the analysis of be- havior. It is suggested that the theory of behavior based on conditioning processes can be reconciled with the new data, but only by revising certain tacit be- haviorist assumptions about the parameters of the con- ditioning processes, particularly instrumental or oper- ant conditioning. Operant conditioning specifies how stimuli, responses, reinforcers, and drive states are woven into relationships that change and sustain an organism's behavior. The new data undermine tradi- tional assumptions about each of those elements rather than about the form of their interrelationship. Be- cause some of the assumptions fall under the heading of motivation, it is concluded that behaviorism is at last reflecting motivation's subtleties, after several decades of failing to do so. Thus refined, behaviorism appears to merge with the main lines of ethology as a more complete science of behavior than either one alone has been