THE LEGACY OF JOHN B. WATSON’S BEHAVIORIST MANIFESTO FOR APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS

1. Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science.

1.1. Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior.

2. The behavior of man, with all its refinement and complexity, forms only part of the behaviorist’s total scheme of investigation.

3. The Behavioral Dimension: Objectivity

3.1. Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science

3.1.1. Behavior cannot be measured accurately and reliably through mechanical means or through permanent products, the validity of behavior’s observation and measurement is supported by obtaining interobserver agreement (IOA)

4. The Applied Dimension: Applied Research, Behavioral Applications, and Practice

4.1. The label applied is not determined by the research procedures used but by the interest in which society shows in the problems being studied.

4.1.1. In behavioral application, the behavior, stimuli, and/or organism under study are chosen based on their imp

5. Watson’s metaphysical behaviorism, in contrast, denied the dualistic assumption that consciousness existed as a thing independent of behavior.

5.1. psychology was a “natural science.” Naturalism is the monistic view that nothing exists outside of nature.

6. The Analytic Dimension: Experimental

6.1. The analysis of behavior…requires a believable demonstration of the events that can be responsible for the occurrence or non-occurrence of…behavior.

7. Structuralism studied conscious states and their elements, in particular, sensations, feelings, and images. Functionalism studied conscious processes, for instance, sensing, thinking, and remembering

7.1. Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It