Can anyone tell me since when have we been describing natural phenomena, human affairs, and market dynamics in terms of behavior?

I have read B.F Skinner some 15 years ago, and am still astonished at his legacy in describing human behavior in terms of conditioned responses or reinforcement learning and cognitive processes that don't reside somewhere in the mind but in behavior in an environment.

What I'm really getting at, and the topic sentence here is the following: since when have we begun describing natural phenomena in terms of initial states - and preferences and dispositions - and since then has adopted so quickly the terminology of describing the behavior of dynamical systems. Furthermore, since when has human behavior been interpreted in terms of actions and reactions to and from stimuli?

Mind you, I come from a very neoclassical conceptual framework of (what I would call) incentive management towards the affairs of human behavior. A neo-classical framework will talk very persuasively about deterrents and incentives, which have a more cognitive handle towards eliciting and stimulating response que's for action and social dynamics.

Does this make any sense to you or am I just making stuff up here? Quite interested.