Behavioural psychology is created by the environment because of the way it acts upon the organism to make it behave in the way it does. This is a natural progression from the views of Charles Darwin where the environment was seen to be the sole agency responsible for the evolution of all organic life. While these ideas (brought about my Darwin) required extremely long periods of time to take effect on the organism, the theory was applied to Man with the idea that the response or effect (i.e. behaviour towards the subject) results from immediate or recent environmental forces or causes (i.e. stimuli). Main psychologists in this area were Watson, Skinner, James, Thorndike and Pavlov.
Skinner developed a psychology that concentrates not on the person but on those variables and forces in the environment that influence a person and that may be directly observed, presenting behaviourism and learning theory in its purest, most extreme form.…
