Abstract
Watsonian Behaviourism and the Nature-Nurture Debate. The radical environmentalism of Watsonian behaviourism cohabited at the beginning of 20th century in the U.S. with hereditarian theories, which defended a genetic determinism of human nature. The heredity environment debate was developed upon the background of the socio-political implications of each position. Opposite to the opinion that extreme environmentalism meant a reaction against the ideology of hereditarianism, I will maintain that, at least as far as Watson's behaviourism is concerned, there was not such a reaction in an important sense, because both determinisms responded to the technical needs stated by their social context favouring, at the same time, the processes of professionalization of psychology. Although they adapted their methodological lines of research to different "technical imperativos", making thus room for their theoretical oppositions, the similarity of their shape and function can be noticed by a number of signifícative signs common to both theories, such as reductionism, scientifism, the importance given to their technological component or the placement of the causes of human behaviom outside the individual.
