John B. Watson in the context of List of psychological schools

Psychological behaviorism is a form of behaviorism—a major theory within psychology which holds that generally human behaviors are learned—proposed by Arthur W. Staats. The theory is constructed to advance from basic animal learning principles to deal with all types of human behavior, including personality, culture, and human evolution. Behaviorism was first developed by John B. Watson (1912), who coined the term "behaviorism", and then B. F. Skinner who developed what is known as "radical behaviorism". Watson and Skinner rejected the idea that psychological data could be obtained through introspection or by an attempt to describe consciousness; all psychological data, in their view, was to be derived from the observation of outward behavior. The strategy of these behaviorists was that the animal learning principles should then be used to explain human behavior. Thus, their behaviorisms were based upon research with animals.

Staats' program takes the animal learning principles, in the form in which he presents them, to be basic. But, also on the basis of his study of human behaviors, adds human learning principles. These principles are unique, not evident in any other species. Holth also critically reviews psychological behaviorism as a "path to the grand reunification of psychology and behavior analysis".

The Little Albert experiment was a study that mid-20th century psychologists interpret as evidence of classical conditioning in humans. The study is also claimed to be an example of stimulus generalization although reading the research report demonstrates that fear did not generalize by color or tactile qualities. It was carried out by John B. Watson and his graduate student, Rosalie Rayner, at Johns Hopkins University. The results were first published in the February 1920 issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology.

After observing children in the field, Watson hypothesized that the fearful response of children to loud noises is an innate unconditioned response. He wanted to test the notion that by following the principles of the procedure now known as "classical conditioning", he could use this unconditioned response to condition a child to fear a distinctive stimulus that normally would not be feared by a child (in this case, furry objects). However, he admitted in his research article that the fear he generated was neither strong nor lasting.

The Kerplunk experiment was a stimulus and response experiment conducted on rats and demonstrates the ability to turn voluntary motor responses into a conditioned response. The purpose of the experiment was to get kinaesthetic feedback rather than guidance through external stimuli via maze learning. It was conducted in 1907 by John B. Watson and Harvey A. Carr and its name comes from the sound the rat made after running into the end of the maze. The study would help form a chain of responses, hypothesis proposed by Watson.

The study's findings would later give credibility to stimulus and response interpretations that rewards work by strengthening the learned ability to show a habitual motor action in the presence of a particular stimulus.

Purposive behaviorism, also known as cognitive behaviorism, is a branch of psychology that was introduced by Edward Tolman. It combines the study of behavior while also considering the purpose or goal of behavior. Tolman thought that learning developed from knowledge about the environment and how the organism relates to its environment. Tolman's goal was to identify the complex cognitive mechanisms and purposes that guided behavior. His theories on learning went against the traditionally accepted stimulus-response connections (see classical conditioning) at his time that had been proposed by other psychologists such as Edward Thorndike. Tolman disagreed with John B.Watson's behaviorism, so he initiated his own behaviorism, which became known as purposive behaviorism.

Tolman's purposive behaviorism focused on meaningful behavior, or molar behavior, such as kicking a ball. This focus was in contrast to simple muscle movements or molecular behavior such as flexing of the leg muscle. Tolman regarded the molecular behavior as fairly removed from human perceptual capacities for a meaningful analysis of behavior. This approach of Tolman's was first introduced in his book, Purposive Behavior in Animals and Men, published in 1932. To Tolman, it was obvious that all actions of behavior are goal-oriented, including those for animals. The main difference between other types of behaviorism and Tolman's purposive behaviorism is that in his view behavior is goal orientedas opposed to?.