What is Behavioral Perspective?
The behavioral perspective suggests that we must only reference what is observable when trying to understand human behavior. Classically, this perspective rejects internal processes and focuses on behavior as a consequence of interactions with the environment.1
The Basic Idea
Many philosophers, scientists and biologists have long sought to answer a simple question: What motivates human beings? What can explain our decisions, actions and behavior?
The behavioral perspective belongs to a school of thought known as behaviorism or behavioral theory. Behavioral theory is the overarching analysis of human behavior focused on examining a person’s environment and learned associations. Behaviorism suggests that all behavior is acquired through conditioning and can therefore be observed without consideration of thoughts or feelings. Since all behavior is but a response, behaviorism also suggests that anyone can learn to perform any action with the right conditioning. Instead of attributing talents, skills, or behaviors to genetics, personality, or cognition, behaviorists believe them to be simply a product of conditioning.2
Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select – doctor, lawyer, merchant-chief, and yes, even beggar man and thief – regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors.
– John B. Watson in his paper “Psychologists as the Behaviorists View It”2
