Critically evaluate the impact behaviourism has had on psychology.

For hundreds of years philosophers speculated about "the mind" and in around the 1880's the popular method of psychology dealt only with the conscious mind. The experiments carried out at this time were criticised for their lack of objectivity and by the 1920's a new brand of psychology emerged in the form of behaviourism. Psychology became a recognised discipline in around 1897 when Wilhelm Wundt started the first psychology lab in Germany. Wundt, along with others, …

…critics it undoubtedly changed the direction of psychology, away from philosophy and towards science. J B Watson can been seen as the father of behaviourism and perhaps even of modern day psychology, and those that came after him built on sturdy foundations. The fact that the "skinner box" is still used today after being adopted by pharmaceutical research companies for observing how drugs may modify animal behaviour, is a testament to the roots of psychology.