Which form of behaviorism attempts to understand all human behavior including private events?

• A. METHODOLOGICAL BEHAVIORISM
• B. MENTALISM
• C. RADICAL BEHAVIORISM
• D. HYPOTHETICAL CONSTRUCT

Answer: (A)

Understanding all human behavior, including private events, requires a view that treats internal experiences as part of the same behavioral system we study. Radical behaviorism, championed by Skinner, does exactly this. It extends the analysis of behavior to private events—thoughts, feelings, sensations—arguing that these are also shaped by environmental contingencies and can be understood through the same principles that govern observable actions. Even though private events aren’t directly observable by others, we can infer how they relate to stimuli and consequences by carefully examining behavior and the surrounding context, just as we do with public actions.

This stands in contrast to methodological behaviorism, which limits science to what can be directly observed and analyzed publicly, avoiding private experiences as objects of explanation. Mentalism treats internal mental states as causal factors in their own right, which is not aligned with a behaviorist framework. Hypothetical constructs are unobserved ideas used in some theories, but they don’t form the basis of a behaviorist account like radical behaviorism does.

So, the approach that attempts to understand all human behavior, including private events, is radical behaviorism.