In a very short history psychology has made significant progress in understanding human behaviour and mind and I personally feel it would be premature to say that any specific approach or school failed psychology.

Presently, we psychologists use a host of methods and approaches many of them are influenced by behaviorism but not strictly behaviorist in true sense.

When we use questionnaires, self-report measures, interview and many other similar methods and approaches we rely on introspection of the participants. Of course it may be biased and not similar to the introspective report of the trained participants of the era of structuralism. Similarly, we are using various other methods, tools, and techniques that are not purely based on behaviorism.

The biological and neural base of human functioning and behavior though focus largely on brain - behavior relationship, the mind and consciousness has also not been totally ignored. I personally believe that body-mind parallelism is still prevalent in our scientific psychological thinking and many advances in psychotherapy and other mind healing techniques have taken place because of this.

Further, with advances in multivariate correlational methods we are approaching towards a more holistic approach of understanding human behavior and the advances in qualitative methods have paved the way to peep into the deeper recesses of human mind and develop insight into the otherwise unobservable processes and aspects of human functioning. in my opinion currently psychology is not very narrow focused and with the inter and trans- disciplinary collaboration we are trying to develop an understanding of human behavior and mind as complete as possible taking into account the biological, psychological, social and other contextual factors into account. In my view, all the psychological inquiry that are taking place today can not be considered to follow a reductionist molecular approach rather the present day psychology is characterized a more molar holistic approach that attempts to integrate the maximum possible determinants that are feasible to be considered in a single research.

Finally, I would say that behaviorism has not restricted the discipline of psychology, rather it has given opportunity to integrate earlier methods that were considered non-scientific into the mainstream psychology. Behaviorism has also recognized the organismic intrinsic mediation processes in understanding human behavior and is not that mechanical in nature as it is considered by some.

Hope, the other esteemed members will shed more light on the issue raised.

First of all, I would disagree that Behaviourism is an easy model. Yes, the definition of behaviour is simple to understand. But to be able to actually capture that definition in a data sheet can be difficult, especially to lay people, like teachers and teaching assistants. As a result of inaccuracy, sometimes we may feel that Behaviourism is not effective. However I have seen in my work with clients of all ages, developmental stages, and abilities and disabilities, that it does work. So no, in spite of having to change over time, Behaviourism is still one of the leading schools of Psychology.

To study the mind, not brain, ideas and belief systems that would not be studying behavior. Behavior as a consequence of ideas and beliefs not the other way around would be the beginning principle. Habitual thinking one way leads to repetitive or cyclical behaviors. Behaviorism has acknowledged there are things going on inside the "brain" mind, and they have therapies call cognitive behavioral, but it's simply taking the old method of treatment and applying to now acknowledged beliefs. In fact, behaviorism doesn't acknowledge the word mind. It's only "brain behavior." It really is the old discussion between whether humans are merely a blank box initially and a sum total of all the stimuli/response idea or there is something "humanistic," inherently rational, that requires methods behavioral observations can't tap. What is the research that shows that behaviorism works for problem solving, how long does it work, if so why does it work, and if it doesn't how does behaviorism explain it , or does it actually show it's limitations. Is it that behaviorism principle works or that the person has done something to rethink situations. That would not be part of the principles of behaviorism. It really is important for behaviorism has failed the criminal justice system. Even in programs that have some treatment. How does behaviorism change ones thinking? If you find contrary arguments in their thinking that doesn't change the underlying beliefs, they just end up agreeing they were contradicted.

It's not to say behaviorism hasn't been useful, but what has it been useful for and are their limitation. Are there other paradigms that if considered could integrate with behaviorism or will behaviorism recognize other systems. Since it dominates the field, it's important to consider if it is limiting Psychology.

To study behavior scientifically does not mean that behaviorism advocates psychology turning into a "medical" field. It is precisely the opposite. Behavior is a category of actions performed by organisms. The "mind" is not an entity or object. I think some of you are missing the point here. May I suggest a reading: William M. Baum, 1994. Understanding behaviorism: Science, behavior, and culture. Harper Collins College Publishers.

I find it interesting that what we use to discuss this topic we reduce to the lowest common denominator calling it brain functioning because we have some machines that tell us there are ups and downs on a graph. But, we have to infer what that is. We can't use the word mind as an entity but we can use brain and neurons and behavior as entities. Does anyone find this puzzling. For if we were to use mind and study it not as behavior, or neurons but ideas and the content of those ideas just in themselves what would be different. Take the idea of good, or beauty, without measuring it behaviorally or what the norm thinks, but to consider it as an idea. That would require a different methodology than what behaviorism has provided us. What about the ideas people have that make them act behaviorally. Say thinking they are just, or why they hold onto beliefs despite volumes of contrary evidence. Creativity, that's considered a behavior, but what if that limits the idea of creativity and that if we consider it as part of mind functioning independent of the behavioral consequences, that would take us on a different journey than measurements. If that's the case, behaviorism does not consider such questions because they have concluded the mind is not an entity apart from the behavioral consequences. Let's take an example. Dreams, we can measure when someone is dreaming, we can measure the different levels of sleeping and when the person is awakened then he can say he was dreaming. But, there is no further discussion about the dream content for that's assumed to be neurological communications and therefore it's meaning has already been limited. But, what if the meaning of dreams goes beyond neurological and has meaning in a specific way to the dreamer. This takes on a different kind of thinking, a different perspective not through behavioral eyes but through considering that the mind as an entity communicates to us in various way one being dreams. If behaviorism ignores this daily "behavior" when we sleep then it would seem to be limiting us to what behaviorism thinks to be important and argues for it from it's position. I'm throwing out the challenge that as such behaviorism has ignored or denied elements of experience, reducing it to mechanics and thus making certain experiences as irrelevant and having no personal meaning or even relevance for the field of psychology. Are we thus ignoring models that could be beneficial. Much like western medicine ignores or down plays the role of alternate medicines.

I will offer my limited opinion. Behaviourism can refer to a number of theories; Watson, Tolman, Hull, Skinner etc... are all behaviourists. Some - like Hayes and Rachlin - have attempted to move the science on from Skinner (which is where it kind of... got stuck) and have done admirably. What you think is Behaviourism is probably not what most modern behaviourists actually believe. In fact many - including myself - consider Cognitive Psychology to be the damaging theory currently slowing the development down.

In the end my suggestion is read from the source; look into Behavioural theory both historical AND contemporary and make your decision based on that.