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Radical Behaviorism

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Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences

Synonyms

Behaviorism; Operant psychology; Skinnerian behaviorism; Theoretical behavior analysis

Definition

Radical behaviorism is the philosophy of science that serves as the conceptual foundation of modern behaviorism, including the experimental analysis of behavior, applied behavior analysis, and some areas of behavioral psychology.

Introduction

Considered as the philosophy undergirding the science of human behavior, radical behaviorism traces its roots to the work of B.F. Skinner (1904–1990) over the mid to late twentieth century. The foundation of this philosophical tradition maintains that questions concerning the complexity of the human experience can be better understood through the study of behavior. The primary assertion of radical behaviorism posits that the causes of behavior can be uncovered using the same methodologies and rigor as other natural sciences, such as biology and chemistry. Through this lens, predictions regarding human behavior can be empirically tested using...

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References

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Correspondence to Parker Lundy .

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Lundy, P., Moore, J.W., Bishop, K. (2020). Radical Behaviorism. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24612-3_995

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