Behaviourism had a considerable popular appeal and influence from the very beginning. Even then it has been vehemently criticized:
(a) Some psychologists point out that Watson was not the first to point out psychology as the science of behaviour.
(b) Watson was a extreme environmentalist. There was little room in this theory for heredity. But heredity cannot be ignored in reality.
(c) Watsonian behaviourism took a wrong view of psychology when it describes psychology as the science of overt behaviour only. Psychology is concerned both with overt behaviour and experience.
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(d) Watson believed in peripheral theory of thinking and opposed to controls theory of thinking. But the contemporary psychologists recognise that both critical and peripheral processes are involved in thinking. A few psychologists also opposed Watson’s view of thinking and silent speech.
(e) Watson regarded all behaviour as sensory motor phenomena. He wanted to study human beings as machines. Thus his approach is mechanistic.