According to the behaviorist perspective, we are the product of our environment. So if personality is the enduring ways that we think and behave over time, behaviorism would argue that all of that comes about through experience. Imagine a child who has the most loving parents of all time. This child has the best upbringing. They're raised in the most proper manner.
Compare that child to a different child who is neglected or abused. According to behaviorism, these two children are going to develop different ways of thinking and behaving as a result of those two different experiences. And that's basically the crux of behaviorism.
So here we have two names that are well associated with this perspective, B.F. Skinner and John Watson. And they basically argued that...
we are the sum of our experiences. So at the very bottom, you see the phrase tabula rasa, and that translates to blank slate. That is the idea that at birth, we essentially are completely open-minded, and the experiences that we have mold us into the people we become.
So they took this to an extreme level. This quote pretty much demonstrates how extreme These radical behaviorists really were. So John Watson says, Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed and my own specified world to bring them up in, and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him or her to become any type of specialist I might select. Doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant chief, and yes, even beggar man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendons, ease, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. So what he's basically arguing there is that we don't really have free will.
Behaviorists pretty much argue that we sit back passively and allow the world to mold us into the people we become with the personalities, the thoughts, and behaviors that we exhibit. The obvious criticism of behaviorism is that it doesn't pay any homage to our biology. So of course, think about the idea that our personality is the product of both nature and nurture. But behaviorism only emphasizes nurture.
It doesn't pay any attention to our biology, our genes. The idea that a child who is adopted might have a similar personality to their biological parents, even if they were never raised by those parents, because of the importance of both nature and nurture. So behaviorism has something to add to our understanding of personality, but of course it isn't complete, and that is why we draw upon other perspectives.