PSYC 409 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Relational Frame Theory, Noam Chomsky, Somatic Nervous System
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Behaviorists also rejected the method of introspection but criticized functionalism because it was not based on controlled experiments and its theories provided little predictive ability. He did not think that considering how the mind affects behavior was worthwhile, for he considered behavior simply as a learned response to an external stimulus. Yet, such behaviorist concepts tend to deny the human capacity for random, unpredictable, sentient decision-making, further blocking the functionalist concept that human behavior is an active process driven by the individual. Perhaps, a combination of both the functionalist and behaviorist perspectives provides scientists with the most empirical value], but, even so, it remains philosophically (and physiologically) difficult to integrate the two concepts without raising further questions about human behavior. For instance, consider the interrelationship between three elements: the human environment, the human autonomic nervous system (our fight or flight muscle responses), and the human somatic nervous system (our voluntary muscle control).
