Behavioristic Approach is Different From Other Psychology Fields

Mental and Radical Behaviorism
Skinner’s leading discovery is anchored on behavior shaping, the foundation of operant behavior as an analysis unit, and selection by outcomes as a causal canon. Behaviorism suggests environmental influences, unlike other factors such as biological makeup and genes that could influence one’s behaviors. The behaviorism approach to psychology emphasizes that people are blank at birth and that their immediate environment significantly affects their conduct. It implies individuals are a product of what they have learned from their immediate environment or social settings. Beyond the psychological tradition school, behaviorism is transversal and central to psychology, making it different from many other psychology fields. It remains central to psychology and unique from other fields, provided behavior constitutes the reference point in the psychology discipline. Behaviorism automatically commences and ends the discussion when other psychology fields are not recognized in theory. Even when psychology evaluates something else (e.g., neural, unconscious, or processing activity), it must start with behavior and end with it too. But it nobly and firmly does so, not without typically incurring blatant fallacies (ghosts in the machine, homunculi, tautologies, reifications) (Alvarez, 2021). Provided that Skinner impacts almost everything in psychology, even when not acknowledged, his contributions are common heritage already, thus making behaviorism transversal and unique.
How does a behavior analytic approach differ from the other fields of psychology?
The behavior analytic approach is different from traditional behaviorism because it reinvents psychology as natural science, such as physics, chemistry, or biology. This natural science approach to psychology is different from that embraced by social sciences. For example, behavior analytic approach is different from cognitivism in that the latter conceptualize events as distinct in nature from overt stimuli and behavior. In addition, the behavior analytic approach evaluates such events when no demonstrably valid and reliable pathway exists to measure them. In contrast, cognitive psychologists consider hypothesized events by inference and indirectly, typically viewing them as more important than variables that can be verified directly (Hawkins & Forsyth, 1997).
How would a mentalistic approach inform one’s practice?
The mentalisti...