Gifts and Limitations in Behaviorism

From my perspective as an Integral practitioner, the most important gift of behaviorism is to enhance my understanding of objective aspects in human beings. In behaviorism, human beings are defined as measurable objects in a scientific manner. Due to this objective approach, a plethora of human behavioral mechanisms are elucidated. 

Although behaviorism has contributed to social science extensively, that includes inherent limitations. For instance, Skinner (1957) explains that “[t]he simplest and most satisfactory view is that thought is simply behavior” (p. 449). This statement implies one of the limitations in behaviorism. Even though our subjective experiences (thoughts, emotions, feelings, etc.) can’t be measured objectively, Skinner reduced our thoughts (subjective aspect) into our behaviors (objective aspects). We need to respect the wisdom of behaviorism mentioned above, but we need to pay attention to the intrinsic limitations at the same time. 

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