Summarize Bechterev’s reflexology. Why did Bechterev believe that he was the first behaviorist?
Vladimir Bechterev was also a renowned psychologist like Sechenov and Pavlov, with equal contributions to the school of thought of behaviorism. His views were similar in some way to Sechenov and Pavlov, and differed from them in some other ways. He was in favor of objective psychology and even published a paper on the same.
Bechterev summarized his thoughts in ‘General Principles of Reflexology’. He used a term reflexology, which refers to the study of human behavior, making an attempt to study the relationship between environmental reflexes and overt behavior. He said that if in case, psychic activity exists, it will manifest itself in the form of overt behavior.
Bechterev had started working on objective psychology as early as 1885. By 1928, the concept of objective psychology had come out, but he proposed that he initiated this notion.
Though, this is not exactly true because every concept is developed with the culmination of different thoughts from different influential personalities.