Cognitive Revolution

Minds, Brains, and Computers presents a vital resource -- the most comprehensive interdisciplinary selection of seminal papers in the foundations of cognitive science, from leading figures in artificial intelligence, linguistics, philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience.

For a long time, psychology was a discipline devoted to the study of mind. Behaviorism represented a rupture in that tradition, redefining psychology as the study of behavior. The rupture, however, would not have been everlasting. When the cognitive revolution broke out in the 1950s, the study of mental life was renewed in the form of cognitivism. Since then, it is usually told that the cognitive revolution displaced behaviorism, causing the latter's decline or even its death. Nonetheless, at that same time, behaviorism saw the growth of behavior analysis, which remained until today as a living behaviorist field. This article analyzes how behaviorism is depicted in the story of the cognitive revolution, as well as some of the reactions that portrayal generated within behavior analysis. It is argued that the story of the cognitive revolution affirms the importance of cognitivism and consolidates its historical identity but fosters the movement at the expense of behaviorism's depiction. At the same time, behavior analysts' reactions often contradict the revolution's story and, consequently, offer an alternative but disarticulated version of history. As a result, each side tells a different story, and the case would be illustrative of how such kind of stories can favor one position while distorting some notions.

This article presents a textual analysis of the inaugural issue of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology. The analysis culminated in the creation of a composite narrative that expresses the character of the humanistic vision for psychological science, a historical snapshot of the evolving humanistic revolution circa 1961. The analysis showed humanistic psychology to have proposed a nonreactionary, inclusive, integrative approach to psychology. This approach was anchored in a radicalized image of humanity, one that would not rely wholly on theories and methods of research designed for nonhuman beings. The findings further indicate that, from its inception, humanistic psychology was envisioned to be a unique amalgam of what would today be considered cultural psychology, cognitive psychology, and developmental psychology, without being reducible to any one of these subfields. It was and remains an effort in earnest to do justice to a truer self, engaged in the process of becoming, operating within biological and cultural parameters.