Behaviorism - A study (Part 2)

This week is the behaviorism week. It is so interesting to discuss this. Dr. Quinn made all of us to study the subject very well. Now we all are arguing each other to confirm Behaviorism's claim that we should or should not posit mental states.
I think majority of us with “should have mental state” statement.
As I wrote in the discussion board of our class,
One of my students in Oman was very good in studies. He was having very good behaviors. One day I found, he is behaving differently. I felt that, he is in my class physically; but mentally not! I had a personal meeting with him. As I suspect, he happened to have a family problem which he cannot discuss with everybody. That incident shows me how his mental status affects his behavior and learning capacity.
One example is every baby can learn the sounds of any language when it is exposed to them. According to Chomsky, this is possible only because there is an innate ability in human brain/mind to learn language.
The opposite argument is we should not posit mental states, but must only work with inputs (stimulus) and outputs (response). That argument tells us that give a stimulus, get the response. In certain situations, this argument is true. Like one of my class-mate tells her experience about her last visit to china with her child. Her child was reluctant to learn Chinese because he felt it was boring and no use. At his visit to China he found difficulty in communion with others. So he started to learn Chinese very hard after the trip.
My wife and I were discussing this situation. Her thoughts were helpful for me to decide my position in this argument. I responded back my class-make back like this, “Of course there was a mental stress when your son cannot communicate with others. That mental state forced him to learn Chinese language. Also this is an example for an environmental need. In this case, the stimulus is the need of communication and the response is study of Chinese language".
(Psychology of Learning for Instruction Marcy P. Driscoll, 06/16/2006 9:45 pm, updated on06/18/2006)