Editing Radical behaviorism (section)

== Criticism ==
{{More citations needed section|date=December 2020}}
Critics such as [[Noam Chomsky]] label Skinnerian or radical behaviorism as S–R ([[Stimulus–response model|stimulus–response]], or to use Skinner's term, "respondent"),<ref>Chomsky, N. (1959) [http://www.chomsky.info/articles/1967----.htm "A Review of B.F. Skinner's ''Verbal Behavior"'']. In Leon A. Jakobovits and Murray S. Miron (eds.), ''Readings in the Psychology of Language'', Prentice-Hall, 1967, pp. 142–3.</ref><ref>MacCorquodale, K. (1970). [http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1333660 "On Chomsky's review of Skinner's ''Verbal Behavior"'']. ''[[Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior]]'', 13, 83–99.</ref> or [[Classical conditioning|Pavlovian]] psychology, and argue that this limits the approach. Chomsky has further argued Skinner's experimental results could not be extended to humans.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Chomsky|first=Noam|date=December 27, 1971|title=The Case Against B.F. Skinner|journal=New York Review of Books}}</ref> Contemporary psychology rejects many of Skinner's conclusions, although some{{Who|date=December 2020}} scholars find his work into [[operant conditioning]], which emphasizes the importance of consequences in modifying discriminative responses, useful when combined with current understandings about the uniqueness of evolved human thought compared to other animals.<ref name="The Marvelous Learning Animal">{{cite book|author=Arthur W. Staats|url=https://www.sciencenews.org/article/book-review-marvelous-learning-animal-what-makes-human-nature-unique|title=The Marvelous Learning Animal|date=2012|access-date=April 18, 2018}}</ref>

Some{{Who|date=July 2022}} argue that radical behaviorism maintains the position that animals (including humans) are passive receivers of conditioning, although others{{Who|date=December 2020}} have countered that operant behavior is titled operant because it operates on the environment, it is emitted, not elicited, and that the consequence of a behavior can itself be a stimulus; one needs not present anything for [[shaping (psychology)|shaping]] to take place.

Radical behaviorism is sometimes described{{By whom|date=December 2020}} as a form of [[logical positivism]],{{Further explanation needed|reason=|date=December 2020}}. Skinnerians maintain that Skinner was not a logical positivist and recognized the importance of thinking as behavior, as Skinner emphasizes in ''About Behaviorism''.<ref>Skinner, B.F. (1974). ''About Behaviorism''. New York: Knopf.</ref>