The study of the human mind has traditionally been done through the analysis of verbalizations, physical reactions and behaviors. Different tests and trials have been proposed through which to infer the mental state of people and how they react to the natural and social environment.

One of the many aspects that have been studied is the process of socialization and the ability to relate to our fellow human beings. Studied among other disciplines by social psychology, this object of study has been observed from different perspectives, among them by behaviorism.

Although the latter is based on the association between stimuli and responses in the same subject without generally taking into account the intermediate mental processes, there is a branch of this that did take into account these factors, trying to explain the mind through behavior, focusing on the processes of social interaction. This is social behaviourism l .

Preamble: A Brief Explanation of Behaviorism

Behaviorism is one of the main theoretical currents that have emerged throughout history with the purpose of understanding why human beings act as they do. This paradigm is based on the objective observation of reality , seeking empirical and scientific knowledge based on observable and measurable evidence.

Being the mind something that does not enjoy such characteristics, behaviorism in general ignores its direct study and relies on behavior as an object of study. It is based on the observation of the capacity of association between stimuli, which allows the generalization of responses from one stimulus to another. Thus, the basis of behaviorism is the association between stimulus and response .

From the time that the behaviorists began to work on the basis of operating conditioning, it came to be considered that the realization of a particular behavior is mainly influenced by the consequences of that behavior, which can be positive (so that the behavior emitted will become more likely) or negative, assuming that the realization of the behavior is a punishment (which reduces the behavior).

The black box

Although from behaviourism we are aware that the mind exists, it is considered a “black box”, an unknowable element to which little importance is given to explain behaviour and which is located in the middle between stimuli and responses. The human being is a fundamentally passive being who limits himself to capturing stimuli and responding in a relevant manner.

However, the mere association between stimuli and responses or the link with positive or negative consequences is not enough to explain a large number of complex behaviors, processes such as thinking, or to understand the reason for certain behaviors (such as some due to psychopathology).

The mind does not cease to have an influence on this process, which would cause other currents to emerge over time, such as cognitivism , which focuses on explaining mental processes. But before that, some authors tried to take into account the existence of a middle ground. This is how social behaviourism was born.

Social behaviorism

Traditional behaviorism, as we have seen, bases its theory on the association between stimuli and tried to explain behavior in a direct way. However, it left aside the influence of internal processes and ignored the role in behavior of subjective and non-measurable facets of our mental life. Elements such as the opinion of others or beliefs, which in principle do not imply immediate harm or reinforcement on a physical level, were not considered.

That is why some authors, such as George H. Mead, decided to try to explain the mind through behavior, focusing their research on the field of social bonding and initiating the type of behaviorism called social behaviorism.

In social behaviourism, which is more focused on the process of behaviour formation and on the factors that initiate it, the human being is not considered a mere passive element in the chain between stimuli and responses, but rather an active part that is capable of acting on the basis of internal impulses or external elements. The person interprets the stimuli and responds according to this interpretation.

Exploring mental processes

Thus, social behaviorism takes into account that all those traces left in our minds by the interaction with others and their study is partly behaviorist, in the sense that it starts from the systematic observation of behavior in the process of performing social acts. However, it is not possible to ignore the existence of internal processes that affect the realization of social behaviors.

Although the link between stimuli and responses is still used to explain behaviour, in social behaviourism this link is exercised through the concept of attitude, in the sense that through the accumulation and interpretation of experiences we form an attitude that will alter our behaviour and induce a specific type of response, while these responses and attitudes can act as a stimulus in others.

The social aspect, both one’s own interaction with others and the cultural context in which it takes place, is used as a stimulus for the emission of behaviour, while at the same time the behaviour elicits a response from the environment.

Keys to understanding this school of psychology

Below you can see a series of ideas that help to understand what is the perspective from which social behaviorism starts and what methodology defines it.

1. Social behavior

Social behaviourism considers that the relationship between people and the actions and behaviours we carry out become a stimulus that will provoke a response in another person , which in turn will become a stimulus for the first person.

In this way, the interaction will be continuous, affecting the acts of one another and following in part the stimulus-response chain.

2. The importance of language in the construction of the person

For social behaviorism, one of the main elements of interest in all social acts is communication and language. The person emerges as such in a concrete context in which numerous meanings have been socially constructed, acquiring different attitudes towards them and exercising our behaviour based on them.

Sharing the use of meanings through language allows for the existence of learning , and on this basis the subjectivity through which we guide our behaviour can be born. That is why for Mead and social behaviourism the self and the mind are a product, a consequence of social interaction.

In fact, personality formation depends largely on language. Throughout development, the child will participate in different situations and games in which his or her performance will receive a series of responses from the rest of the components of society, which through language and the act are communicated to him or her. On the basis of these responses, different attitudes towards the world and towards themselves will be formed, allowing the child to forge his or her personality and self.

3. Self-concept from social behaviorism

For this current, the term self-concept refers to the set of verbal self-descriptions that a subject makes of himself, descriptions that are used by others in order to interact with him.

It can therefore be observed that these self-verbalizations act as a stimulus that elicits a response in other subjects, a response that, as we have said, will generate a response in us. But these self-descriptions do not appear out of nowhere , but depend on the stimulation that the person has received.

  • Related article: “Self-concept: what is it and how is it formed?”

4. The I and the Me

Thus, a person’s subjectivity depends largely on the capture of our behavioural responses, which we use as a stimulus.

Mead considered the existence in the self of two internal elements in the structuring of the person , the me and the self. The self is the perception that the individual has with respect to how society, understood as the “generalised other”, perceives him. It is the value of the person that integrates external expectations into one’s own being, reacting and acting on them.

On the contrary, the ‘I’ is the most internal part that allows the existence of a concrete reaction to the environment, the primal and spontaneous part. This is what we believe ourselves to be , a part of us that will emerge through the conjunction and synthesis of the different perceived “mys”. Through this we can again observe how within Mead’s social behaviourism the mind is considered as something that has emerged and is prepared from and for social action.

Bibliographic references:

  • Mead, G. H. (1934). Spirit, person and society. From the point of view of social behaviourism. Buenos Aires: Paidós.