Is talking to yourself thinking?

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Behavioral Science
• Philosophy of Mind

Background:

• The relationship between self-talk and the cognitive process of thinking is a complex topic.
• Behaviorism offers distinct frameworks for understanding mental events and their relation to observable actions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine the question of whether talking to oneself constitutes thinking.
• To analyze this question through the lenses of radical behaviorism and teleological behaviorism.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of philosophical viewpoints on behaviorism, specifically referencing Skinner's work (1945, 1938).
• Distinguishing between private and overt behavior within behavioral frameworks.
• Defining 'thinking' according to the principles of both radical and teleological behaviorism.

Main Results:

• Radical behaviorism, aligning with Skinner (1945), can equate self-talk with thinking as a form of private, internal behavior.
• This perspective necessitates that private behavior, or thinking, is identical to covert muscular speech movements.
• Teleological behaviorism, following Skinner (1938), defines 'thinking' as extended patterns of overt behavior, thereby excluding covert self-talk.

Conclusions:

• Radical behaviorism permits the identification of self-talk with thinking, conceptualizing it as private behavior.
• Teleological behaviorism, by contrast, does not consider covert self-talk as thinking because thinking is defined as overt behavior.