Since the 1920s, colleges have offered how-to-study courses orientating students to the rituals of academic study. We present an historical overview of these courses by highlighting major developments including the emergence of courses that evolved from skill-based curriculum underpinned by behaviorism to strategy-based curriculum underpinned by…

The paper presents the conceptual basis of the theories: Behaviorism, Gestalt, Cognitive Psychology, and the Historic-Cultural Psychology. The essential categories of these theories were validated in a population of 2704 courses at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT (USA). The research seeks the relationship of theories with course…

One of the attributes necessary for Watson to be considered human is that it must be conscious. From Rachlin's (2012) point of view, that of teleological behaviorism, consciousness refers to the organization of behavioral complexity in which overt behavior is distributed widely over time. Consciousness is something that humans do, or achieve, in…

Foundations are the forces that influence the minds of curriculum developers, which affect the content and structure of the curriculum. These forces are beliefs and orientations as well as conceptions of learning and the needs of society. Foundation of curriculum is rooted with the foundation of education. Historically, modern curriculum and…

Psychologists and philosophers have long been interested in two questions: (a) What do mental terms mean? and (b) what role do mental terms play in explanations of behavior? In the current sketch I review how mediational neobehaviorism, cognitive psychology, and the radical behaviorism of B. F. Skinner address these questions. In so doing, I seek…

The philosophy of science is the branch of philosophy that critically examines the foundations, assumptions, methods, products, and implications of the activity called science. The present sketch reviews the historical development of the philosophy of science, representative individuals in the field, and topics of long-standing interest. The…

Cognitivism has dominated mainstream psychology for decades, but lately its position has been weakened. It has been criticized not only by behavior analysts but also by social and evolutionary psychologists, neuroscientists, and authors who are or used to be cognitivists themselves. At the same time, psychologists and neuroscientists in several…

Dr. Hefer Bembenutty interviewed Dr. Bill McKeachie, a past president of the American Psychological Association, Division 15 (Educational Psychology). In the interview, Professor McKeachie revealed his experience as past president of Division 15. Professor McKeachie has been the president of the American Psychological Association (APA), the…

Chomsky's (1959) review of "Verbal Behavior" (Skinner, 1957) has been hailed as the most influential document in the history of psychology. Although many rejoinders to Chomsky's review have been published, their impact has been minimal. Moreover, Chomsky has not answered them in detail. To invite Chomsky to revisit a number of matters concerning…

The movement within behavior therapy to introduce cognitive terms, constructs, and techniques reflects and involves an extension of the pervasive cognitive movement within the experimental field and the long-standing cognitive approach of many clinicians. Modern day attacks on behaviorism by cognitivists have been almost exclusively geared to the…

Cognitive psychology has replaced behaviorism as the dominant school of thought in American psychology regarding learning and development. This paper investigates changes in the field that have led to this major shift. The different methods used by behaviorists and human information processing (HIP) psychology are described. The metaphor of the…

"A History of the Behavioral Therapies" (O'Donohue, et al., 2001) contains no description of psychological behaviorism (PB) and the role it played as one of the foundations of behavior therapy. This article indicates some of the contributions made by PB that make the missing chapter and related phenomena a major aberration in science. (Contains 39…

The influence of behaviorism's methods and theories on theory and research in the neurosciences is examined, partly in light of John B. Watson's 1913 essay. An attempt is made to reconcile classical behaviorism and modern cognitive psychology and neuroscience. (SLD)

This paper attempts to synthesize how biological-nativist theories emerged as a response to logical and empirical flaws in behaviorist learning theories, and how in turn, recent research findings in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience and Connectionist models of language acquisition are questioning the present innatist framework. As a result of…

Because computer-oriented researchers apply cognitive notions such as meaning, symbol and understanding, or concept, cognition and knowledge, it has become mandatory to inquire into the traditional explanatory models of science, including behaviourism. The article outlines the steering and control mechanism that has governed a new outlook in which…