Two strategies to overcome mechanicism in modern behaviorism
Abstract
One of the most serious methodological problems with which behavior psychology faced last third of the 20th century has become the passing of mechanicism, which was founded in its very conceptual basis since the beginning. Mechanistic attitude as a kind of strict environmental determinism significantly limited the subject field of behaviorism, deprived a full instrumentarium of research and modification of complicated forms of person’s behavior. Different strategies of reply to such a challenge has led to behavior science division into two streams which determine the form of modern behaviorism: cognitive and operant. In the context of the first one strict determinism overcomes by mean of conceptualization principle namely reciprocal determinism and by the attempts of its operationalization. In the context of the second one – by further development of operant learning idea and complicating of behavioral mechanisms which let them include the analysis of arbitrariness as a quality. In this article there is the review of methodological content of mentioned strategies and also some problematic moments each of them are indicated.
Key words: determinism, mechanicism, intervening variable, hypothetical construct, stimulus event, stimulus control, social learning theory, reciprocal determinism, operant psychology, generalization, relational frame theory.
