Final answer:
Behaviorists, contrary to the statement, do not believe the inner nature of human beings is critical in predicting behavior; they focus on environmental factors and learning history instead. B. F. Skinner emphasized that personality and behavior are the results of environmental influence, which is a key principle of the behavioral perspective.
Step-by-step explanation:
The statement that behaviorists believe that the inner nature of human beings is most critical in predicting behavior is False. Behaviorists, such as B. F. Skinner, assert that behavior is primarily the result of environmental factors and prior learning. They focus on the effects of external stimuli, reinforcements, and punishments that shape an individual's behavior. Deeply embedded in the behavioral perspective is the belief that personality and behaviors are not innate but are instead learned through interactions with the environment.
Skinner, as a strict behaviorist, suggested that the environment is the sole factor responsible for all human behavior, dismissing the notion that there are inborn personality traits. Behaviorists argue that all human actions, including emotions and thoughts, can be understood in terms of responses to physical factors and prior conditioning. Therefore, behavior can be expected to follow patterns based on past reinforcements and experiences.
Contributions from John Watson and B. F. Skinner were critical in shaping the school of behaviorism, which aimed to make psychology an empirical science centered around observable behavior rather than unobservable mental states. The deterministic view within behaviorism suggests that human actions, as physical events, follow the natural laws and can be predicted if the environmental patterns and conditioning factors are understood.