h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have always found that the major flaw in this theory is the notion that one precursor is the stimulus for each behaviour ie precursor A = behaviour B= responce C. when in actuality any amount of precursers may cause behaviour B unless the person displaying that particular behaviour is themselves a behaviouralist in which case they should stop analysing others and get some treatment.
just a thought!

i think the notion that one stimulus leads to one response was simply used in the behaviourist experiments in order to make them more scientific, (all experiments must have only one variable). Ofcourse to us this means their theories were less applicable to the real world but the behaviourists believed that all things could be broken down into simpler units and they would still be valid.

That is actually the point that the theory is only applicable in a theoretical or lab environment and has little application in the real world

The behaviourists definately didn't believe that in real life situations there was one stimuli to one response, and limitting their experiments to this is the only way they could make them scientific. As they were highly reductionist they believed that this approach proved their general theories and proved them as well as any possible investigation could.

It is exactly that proof that disproves it for me as it is far to simplified and doesnt take into account the numerous shockxs that flesh is heir to

Personally i agree with you in that we are not overgrown white mice as the early behaviourists believed and there are more complicated areas of the human mind that psychology has not even touched upon yet, let alone all the other perspectives that Skinner ignored.

However the opinion of the time was very reductionist (in america atleast), so no1 challenged these theories for decades.