Editing Behaviorism (section)

== Criticisms and limitations ==
{{See also|Cognitive psychology|Cognitive neuroscience}}
In the second half of the 20th century, behaviorism was largely eclipsed as a result of the [[cognitive revolution]].<ref>Friesen, N. (2005). Mind and Machine: Ethical and Epistemological Implications for Research. Thompson Rivers University, B.C., Canada.</ref><ref>Waldrop, M.M. (2002). ''The Dream Machine: JCR Licklider and the revolution that made computing personal''. New York: Penguin Books. (pp. 139–40).</ref> This shift was due to radical behaviorism being highly criticized for not examining mental processes, and this led to the development of the [[cognitive therapy]] movement.
In the mid-20th century, three main influences arose that would inspire and shape cognitive psychology as a formal school of thought:
* [[Noam Chomsky]]'s 1959 critique of behaviorism, and empiricism more generally, initiated what would come to be known as the "[[cognitive revolution]]".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Chomsky |first=N |year=1959 |title=Review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior |journal=Language |volume=35 |issue=1 |pages=26–58 |doi=10.2307/411334 |jstor=411334}}
Chomsky N. Preface to the reprint of A Review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior. In: Jakobovits L.A, Miron M.S, editors. Readings in the psychology of language. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall; 1967.</ref>
* Developments in computer science would lead to parallels being drawn between human thought and the computational functionality of computers, opening entirely new areas of psychological thought. [[Allen Newell]] and [[Herbert A. Simon|Herbert Simon]] spent years developing the concept of [[artificial intelligence]] (AI) and later worked with cognitive psychologists regarding the implications of AI. The effective result was more of a framework conceptualization of mental functions with their counterparts in computers (memory, storage, retrieval, etc.).
* Formal recognition of the field involved the establishment of research institutions such as [[George Mandler]]'s Center for Human Information Processing in 1964. Mandler described the origins of cognitive psychology in a 2002 article in the ''Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences''<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Mandler |first=George |year=2002 |title=Origins of the cognitive (r)evolution |url=http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/22s8x969 |journal=Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences |volume=38 |issue=4 |pages=339–353 |doi=10.1002/jhbs.10066 |pmid=12404267 |s2cid=38146862}}</ref>

In more recent years, several scholars have expressed reservations about the pragmatic tendencies of behaviorism.
* Burgos (2003) highlights the potential peril of pragmatism, noting that within [[William James]] pragmatism—widely discussed in philosophy and science, including behaviorism and behavior analysis—there exists a tolerance for anything deemed useful, even if nonsensical.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Burgos |first=José E. |date=2003 |editor-last=Hayes |editor-first=S. C. |editor2-last=Barnes-Holmes |editor2-first=D. |editor3-last=Roche |editor3-first=B. |title=Laudable Goals, Interesting Experiments, Unintelligible Theorizing |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27759445 |journal=Behavior and Philosophy |volume=31 |pages=19–45 |issn=1053-8348 |jstor=27759445}}</ref> Additionally, Burgos (2007) contends that pragmatism engenders a relativism that contradicts the emphasis on science as the paramount path to knowledge.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Burgos |first1=José E. |last2=Murillo-Rodríguez |first2=Esther |date=2007-06-01 |title=Neural-network simulations of two context-dependence phenomena |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376635707000289 |journal=Behavioural Processes |series=Proceedings of the Meeting of the Society for the Quantitative Analyses Behavior(SQAB 2006) |volume=75 |issue=2 |pages=242–249 |doi=10.1016/j.beproc.2007.02.003 |issn=0376-6357 |pmid=17346905 |s2cid=24283635|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
* Staddon (2018, as cited in Araiba, 2019) further argues that the proliferation of diversification in [[social science]] poses disadvantages by hindering healthy and open scientific communication and critique among specialized areas.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Araiba |first=Sho |date=2020 |title=Current Diversification of Behaviorism |journal=Perspectives on Behavior Science |language=en |volume=43 |issue=1 |pages=157–175 |doi=10.1007/s40614-019-00207-0 |issn=2520-8969 |pmc=7198672 |pmid=32440649}}</ref>
* Rider (1991) shares a similar concern, highlighting reduced communication between the experimental analysis of behavior and [[applied behavior analysis]]. Contrarily, diversification is portrayed as an innate and uncontrollable consequence of the environment, a natural facet contributing to species' survival. It is viewed as an integral aspect of the evolution of behaviorism.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rider |first=David P. |date=1991 |title=The Speciation of Behavior Analysis |journal=The Behavior Analyst |language=en |volume=14 |issue=2 |pages=171–181 |doi=10.1007/BF03392567 |issn=0738-6729 |pmc=2733502 |pmid=22478096}}</ref>

In the early years of [[cognitive psychology]], behaviorist critics held that the empiricism it pursued was incompatible with the concept of internal mental states. [[Cognitive neuroscience]], however, continues to gather evidence of direct correlations between physiological brain activity and putative mental states, endorsing the basis for cognitive psychology.

=== Limitations ===
Staddon (1993) found that [[B. F. Skinner|Skinner's]] theory presents two significant deficiencies: Firstly, he downplayed the significance of processes responsible for generating novel behaviors, which it is term as "behavioral variation." [[B. F. Skinner|Skinner]] primarily emphasized reinforcement as the sole determinant for selecting responses, overlooking these critical processes involved in creating new behaviors. Secondly, both [[B. F. Skinner|Skinner]] and many other behaviorists of that era endorsed contiguity as a sufficient process for response selection. However, [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rescorla%E2%80%93Wagner_model&oldid=1138116120 Rescorla and Wagner] (1972) later demonstrated, particularly in [[classical conditioning]], that competition is an essential complement to contiguity. They showed that in [[operant conditioning]], both contiguity and competition are imperative for discerning [[cause-and-effect]] relationships.<ref name="Beer-1995">{{Cite journal |last=Beer |first=Colin |date=1995 |title=Behaviorism: Mind, Mechanism and Society. Interpretations. John Staddon |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/419257 |journal=The Quarterly Review of Biology |language=en |volume=70 |issue=4 |pages=546–547 |doi=10.1086/419257 |issn=0033-5770|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

The influential [[Rescorla–Wagner model|Rescorla-Wagner model]]  highlights the significance of competition for limited [[Association value|"associative value,"]] essential for assessing predictability. A similar formal argument was presented by Ying Zhang and John Staddon (1991, in press) concerning operant conditioning: the combination of contiguity and competition among action tendencies suffices as an assignment-of-credit mechanism capable of detecting genuine instrumental contingency between a response and its reinforcer.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Scholars@Duke publication: ON THE ASSIGNMENT-OF-CREDIT PROBLEM IN OPERANT LEARNING |url=https://scholars.duke.edu/publication/915273 |access-date=2023-12-08 |website=scholars.duke.edu}}</ref> This mechanism delineates the limitations of [[B. F. Skinner|Skinner's]] idea of adventitious reinforcement, revealing its efficacy only under stringent conditions – when the reinforcement's strengthening effect is nearly constant across instances and with very short intervals between reinforcers. However, these conditions rarely hold in reality: behavior following reinforcement tends to exhibit high variability, and superstitious behavior diminishes with extremely brief intervals between reinforcements.<ref name="Beer-1995" />