FreeThink: Reflections, Criticisms and Emotion

  It was John Watson who changed the paradigm of psychology from structuralism to behaviorism. It was a shift of focus. He led the deviation from the structuralism school of thought that was the most influential prior to their time. The main focus of structuralism is to study the process of the mind through introspection. Driven by the goal of eliminating the ambiguous barrier of psychology to being classified as a hard science. John Watson, along with his contemporaries, wanted to shift the focus of the discipline to a more observable aspect of human behavior. Influenced by the S-R model of Ivan Pavlov, Skinner, among others, established the Behaviorist School of thought. The Behavioral approach to psychology provided a more objective approach to understanding behavior. This move furthers the development of psychology, but it sets a limitation on its domain. It left mental functions untouched and not to be touched. That is because they believe that something that is unobservab...