Critical Reflection Of The Behavioral Manifesto

Critical reflection of the behavioral manifesto

 Introduction

Next, a critical reflection of the behavioral manifesto published by J is going to be made.B. Watson will be analyzed on the one hand, the historical context as well as the comparison with the theories of structuralism and functionalism, various practical applications, implications and conclusions arising from the reading of said publication of said publication will finally be listed.

To begin, the behavioral manifesto written by the young American John Watson was published in 1913. It should be noted that this document is finally called Psychology as The Behaviorist Views It. This had great influence in the psychological community of the early twentieth century. In it, Watson towards a critique of mentalist psychology through a proposal that focused especially on the objective study of behavior, without taking into account consciousness, or using introspection as a method of study.

Developing

It should be mentioned that another of the main characteristics of the manifesto was his emphasis on the environment, since this, he never did not know the role played by biology in behavior, but in regards to the environment, gave primary importance. Also, Watson in this document, I affirm the following: Behaviors will be driven to use human beings as objects and use research methods that are exactly verifiable to employees now in animal work. 

As we saw in class, this phrase could refer to the experiment he conducted with little Albert whose objective was to demonstrate that people are born only with instincts such as anger, fear and sexual instinct.

In addition to this, with this experiment he also wanted to demonstrate that all other emotions are conditioned versions of these unconditional emotions. 

To do this, he used fear as an unconditioned stimulus;Watson chose a strong sound that occurred when hitting a metal bar and pairing this sound with the stimulus conditioned, in this case, a rat that Albert liked to play. He hit the bar in several caused, however, it was not until the seventh when Albert began to manifest fear when touching the animal.

Also in this manifesto states that without having eyes, his flow of consciousness cannot contain brilliance and color sensations, as we know;Without having pleasure, this flow cannot contain sensations of sweet, acid, salty and bitter. But on the other hand, since it responds to thermal, tactile and organic stimuli, its conscious content must be developed with much of these sensations and usually add, to protect ourselves against censorship from being anthropomorphic if this has any conscience

At this time it could refer to the experiment he conducted with rats in a maze, in which he was withdrawing one of the 5 senses, to see if that influenced the reaction time. Well, to his surprise, he had no change, which concluded that kinetic keys or muscle sensations were more important than the senses. It is important to mention that many psychologists received Watson’s proposal positively, meanwhile others flatly rejected it. This is because behaviorism was opposed to structuralism, psychoanalysis and functionalism.

As for criticism against introspectionist psychology, Watson said that to become a natural science it was necessary for psychology to abandon the study of consciousness and introspective method. This author stressed that the behavior of human beings and animals could be studied without referring to consciousness. Therefore, he rejected Wundt’s structuralism that focused his study in the structure of the mind, composed of images and emotions. 

For Wundt, the elementary unity of consciousness were the sensations, and to study them it served the introspection method. It should be noted that behaviorism was also opposed to James’s functionalism. This theory attended to the function of the mind and focused on the study of the purposes and the function of mental processes, an aspect that Watson counted. 

According to the Latin American Magazine of Psychology: to Psychology that Watson proposed was a third -person psychology while Wundt’s psychology had been a first -person psychology and Freud’s psychology had been a psychology in the second person. Therefore, that Watson psychology in the third person was a natural science, of laboratory, without speculative philosophical budgets.

At present, psychologists recognize the science of behavior as defined by Watson. It is true that their limitations have already dissipated, since muscle contractions and glandular secretions are not studied solely. Finally, behaviorism has its greatest interventions in educational psychology, especially in the learning process, together with cognitivism and constructivism. Although these ideas are interrelated, it is important to know that this current has its own particularities that allow its individualized study.

Another of the fields in which behavioral psychology is highly developed is the workplace. This psychological current is used in different jobs, as a fundamental tool for developing processes, manufacturing programs and carrying out strategies and procedures, in this way both efficiency and efficiency and effectiveness are increased. Therefore, behavioral psychology is used in the labor field to achieve higher levels of organizational performance and productivity in companies.

conclusion

Finally, Watson was the one who determined that imagination, association and feeling were behavioral concepts, since they were previously conceived as mentalist terms. In turn, he was the person who redefined psychology as the science of behavior or behavior. Today, this conception continues to be the basis of psychology along with the study of conscience, a term that Watson decided not to include, because for him it was not an essential part of psychology.

Finally, for Watson emotions are conditioned reflexes and those that considered innate were fear, sexual instinct and anger. In my opinion, these emotions are not always innate, but they develop as we are advancing in our life cycle. In addition, sometimes these are acquired in response to situations that have been presented or can occur throughout our lives. The behaviorist cannot find consciousness in the science test tube. J.B.Watson.