In this chapter, you learned about John Watson’s “Psychology as the behaviorist views it” and its promise of a new psychology that aimed to control and predict behavior, and thus rejected psychology as the study of mind and consciousness.

Behaviorism was based on the principles of Pavlovian and operant conditioning that are still central to psychology today and paved the way for important practical applications, like token economies and behavioral therapy techniques. To help you remember the different types of operant conditioning, see if you can complete this worksheet.

More generally, behaviorism’s emphasis on systematic, experimental testing and methodological rigor, and the importance of linking basic to applied science, was successful in attracting leading academics, students, and practitioners, making it a powerful movement within 20th century psychology.

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