Overview
“Behaviorism” within psychological circles generally refers to an approach to understanding humans through an examination of their behavioral outcomes.
For empiricists who embrace behaviorist perspectives, assessing a state of mind is impossible except for the end results that can be empirically observed. If someone says they hate ice cream but eats it every day, there is nothing we can conclude about their beliefs that differs from someone who says they love ice cream and eats it everyday. B.F. Skinner is perhaps the most famous foundational behaviorist, who described his philosophy as “radical behaviorism.” Staunch behaviorists might be entirely uninterested in neuroscienctific and psychological models, or see them as theoretical exercises comparable to fictional worldbuilding where a system of logic is clearly at work but only applicable to the real-wold insofar as it is observed. Others might acknowledge them as useful for explaining the mechanisms through which behavior occurs, but not a useful way to explore the independent sources of behavior.
Cognitive scientists and neuroscientists usually reject radical behaviorism, arguing that treating humans like black boxes won’t provide a complete enough explanation to model our attitudes and actions. Humans generally seek explanations preceding behavioral change that work with our mental model of reality.
Commentary
I’m a big fan of behavioral interventions like Contingency Management (CM) and Behavioral Activation (BA), and I’ve expressed criticism of cognitive therapies, but I wouldn’t classify my thoughts as anything resembling radical behaviorism. I really enjoy exploring psychological and neurological models, not just for the sake of intellectual completeness but also because I find it intuitively uncomfortable to treat our internal worlds as black boxes.