Explaining Radical Behaviorism

This is a difficult task to decide which viewpoint is the most appropriate and agreeable to my thinking. Each viewpoint has merit to my own thinking that I am in agreement. If left to choose one, I would choose radical behaviorism. I cannot accept any viewpoint that does not consider an individual’s environment to explain their behavior. Viewpoints 1 & 2 do not account for external factors (genetics, culture ) which I believe influence an individual’s thinking and behavior. Both Views 1 and 2 focus on “unobservable” behavior, “mentalism”, (cognition and consciousness), of an individual’s mind. However, Viewpoint 3 will take the unobservables into account to explain behavior, but is not the focus of their research. As stated in Moore’s article on page 684, the historian of psychology Thomas Leahey stated “Behavioralists seek to predict, control, explain or model behavior and to do so may or may not refer to conscious or unconscious mental processes. Behaviorism is aimed at behavior; consciousness--the mind--is not the object of study, although it may be called upon to explain behavior” (Leahey, 1994, p.138). Leahey is stating that Radical Behaviorists will consider the “unobservables” when …show more content…
Also, as stated in Moore’s article on page 687 as he cites Skinner, “Thinking as a form of covert behavior has the same physical dimensions as forms of overt behavior (Skinner, 1953, 1957).” I choose Viewpoint 3, Radical Behaviorism because it takes into account both environmental factors and will consider “mentalism”