Behaviorism from john b. yotson to e. tolman

Behaviorism is the direction of American experimental psychology. According to its radical concept, all animal behavior is reduced to a complex of secretory and muscular reactions of the organism to external stimuli (the concept of «stimulus-reaction»). In the article we consider the main moments of the formation of behaviorism as a science of animal behavior. Also, the main points of the theories of John B. Watson, B. F. Skinner and E. Tolman are established, the positive and negative aspects of their theories. The main provisions of behaviorism by J. Yotson: - the behavior is constructed from the secretory and muscular reactions of the organism, which in turn are determined by the external stimuli acting on the animal; - the analysis of behavior should be conducted strictly objectively, limited to the registration of outwardly detected phenomena; - the main content of experimental psychology is the registration of reactions in response to strictly dosed and controlled stimulation. The main provisions of behaviorism by B. F. Skinner: - the behavior of the animal almost entirely directly determined by the possibilities of reinforcement from the environment; - the study of personality involves finding a peculiar nature of the relationship between the behavior of the organism and the results that support it; - Individual differences between animals should be understood as interaction of "behavior of the environment" in time; - the behavior of the animal is deterministic, predicted and controlled by the environment. The main provisions of behaviorism by E. Tolman: - the laws of behavior are common to all living beings, but most clearly and thoroughly can be traced on elementary levels of behavior; - the analysis of behavior should not be limited only to the formula «stimulus-reaction» and ignore the factors that play an irreplaceable role in the «gap between them»; - behavior – not a chain of individual reactions, but a holistic, molar organization; - the organism, gradually mastering the situation, builds a cognitive («cognitive») map of the path that needs to be followed to solve the problem.