Editing Behaviorism (section)

===Modern-day theory: radical behaviorism===
{{main|Radical behaviorism}}

B. F. Skinner proposed radical behaviorism as the conceptual underpinning of the [[experimental analysis of behavior]]. This viewpoint differs from other approaches to behavioral research in various ways, but, most notably here, it contrasts with methodological behaviorism in accepting feelings, states of mind and introspection as behaviors also subject to scientific investigation. Like methodological behaviorism, it rejects the reflex as a model of all behavior, and it defends the science of behavior as complementary to but independent of physiology. Radical behaviorism overlaps considerably with other western philosophical positions, such as American [[pragmatism]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Moxley |first=R.A. |year=2004 |title=Pragmatic selectionism: The philosophy of behavior analysis |url=http://www.baojournal.com |format=PDF |journal=The Behavior Analyst Today |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=108–25 |doi=10.1037/h0100137 |access-date=2008-01-10|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Although John B. Watson mainly emphasized his position of methodological behaviorism throughout his career, Watson and Rosalie Rayner conducted the infamous [[Little Albert experiment]] (1920), a study in which [[Ivan Pavlov]]'s [[Classical conditioning#Forward conditioning|theory]] to respondent conditioning was first applied to eliciting a fearful reflex of crying in a human infant, and this became the launching point for understanding covert behavior (or private events) in ''radical'' behaviorism;<ref name=JEAB2010/> however, Skinner felt that aversive stimuli should only be experimented on with animals and spoke out against Watson for testing something so controversial on a human.{{citation needed|date=September 2024}}

In 1959, Skinner observed the emotions of two pigeons by noting that they appeared angry because their feathers ruffled. The pigeons were placed together in an operant chamber, where they were aggressive as a consequence of previous [[reinforcement (psychology)|reinforcement]] in the environment. Through [[stimulus control]] and subsequent discrimination training, whenever Skinner turned off the green light, the pigeons came to notice that the food [[extinction (psychology)|reinforcer is discontinued]] following each peck and responded without aggression. Skinner concluded that humans also learn aggression and possess such emotions (as well as other private events) no differently than do nonhuman animals.{{citation needed|date=September 2024}}