John B. Watson (1878-1958) was born in Greenville, South Carolina, USA. His PhD in psychology was completed at the University of Chicago where he subsequently lectured. Later he took up a position as a professor at Johns Hopkins University. Scandal led to his being dismissed from the post and in 1920 he left for New York, moving out of the academic world
to apply his knowledge very successfully to the world of advertising.
However, he continued to write psychology articles for popular magazines such as Harpers and Cosmopolitan. Watson strongly rejected introspection as a method for understanding human behaviour. His method was based upon the principles of objective observation of behaviour, and placed emphasis on the importance of the environment in shaping human development.
The first psychological laboratories set up in Germany and America defined psychology as the study of consciousness. Introspection or the consideration of one's own behaviour was the principal method used to discover the content of consciousness. However, in evaluating the method- ology, critics quickly identified that subjects could not agree with any reli- ability on the description of sensation, images and feelings. At the same time Freud was arguing that important aspects of the mind were not in consciousness. In North America a literal revolution was occurring in the study of human behaviour. A range of researchers was making a significant contribution to the understanding of human development, utilizing basic tenets of the scientific method. J.B. Watson called behaviourism a 'purely American production' (1914: ix).
In brief, Watson's method involved a great deal of emphasis upon objec- tive observation. Drawing upon his experience as a student of animal behavior, Watson claimed that the subject matter of psychology was not consciousness but the behaviour of the person. Thus, he rejected all sub- jective methods, relying instead solely on what could be observed or recorded:
Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely objective, experi- mental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior. Introspection forms no essential part of its methods, nor is the scientific value of its data dependent upon the readiness with which they lend themselves to interpretation in terms of consciousness. The behaviorist attempts to get a unitary scheme of animal response. He recognizes no dividing line between man and brute.
(Watson, 1913: 158) He emphasized environmental stimuli (such as a loud noise or praise from a teacher) and the response (such as a startled reaction or on-task pupil behaviour). For this reason Watson's view of behaviour is often called stimulus-response (S-R) psychology.
There are two important aspects to Watson's view of psychology. The first is the belief that the environment is all-important. Watson argued that the only inherited features of behaviour were simple physiological reflexes (such as the knee-jerk reflex). Watson credited all else to learning, hence his claim:
Give me a dozen healthy infants, well formed and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take anyone at ran- dom and train him to become any kind of specialist I might select - doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and yes even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, abilities, vocation and race of his ancestors.
(Watson, 1930: 104) Second, Watson was heavily influenced by the work of Pavlov on the conditioned reflex. Watson wanted to explain how all complex behaviours of both animals and humans were the result of conditioning by their environment.
One of the most frequently cited learning theory experiments in psycho- logical literature was conducted in 1920 by John Watson and his research assistant Rosalie Rayner (who was implicated in the scandal that led to his dismissal from Johns Hopkins University). They had already tested an infant, Little Albert, at nine months, and had found that he did not show any fear reactions when confronted suddenly with a white rat, rabbit, dog, monkey masks, cotton wool and so on. That is, in learning theory terms, the stimuli were neutral. The unconditioned stimulus was to be a loud sound made by striking a hammer upon a steel bar. They discovered that when the iron bar was struck behind Albert he would cry. When Albert was 11 months and 3 days old, a white rat was presented to him and as he reached for the rat the iron bar was struck immediately behind his head.
Little Albert jumped and fell forward with his face in the mattress. When he reached for the rat again and his hand touched it, the iron bar was struck and once more he fell forward and began to whimper. The experi- ment was stopped at this point. One week later, when the rat was present- ed he would not reach for it. When the rat was pushed nearer he reached for it very tentatively. Thus, Watson and Rayner demonstrated learning in infancy through a process of conditioning.
An interesting aside in Watson's biography is that he reported suffering from an anxiety attack while at the University of Chicago. He observed that this experience 'in a way prepared me to accept a large part of Freud when I first began to get really acquainted with him around 1910' (Watson, 1936: 274). Watson first used William James' habit theory to explain psychoanalysis and later used Pavlov's notion of classical con- ditioning. He hoped ultimately to assimilate psychoanalysis with behaviourism (Rilling, 2000) as exemplified in Box 6.1.
Horowitz (1992: 360) has noted that evaluating Watson's contribution to developmental psychology is problematic given that many psychologists suggest that 'he was, at best, a psychologist concerned only with defining psychology as a natural science and, at worst, a dogmatist who went far beyond his data to popularize his beliefs about development'. Watson
certainly acknowledged the biological functions of the human organism (Horowitz, 1992), but his theory focused on learning as almost entirely responsible for behavioural development. In sum,
Watson's developmental model was exceedingly simple, containing no discussion of stages and little of sequences; there was no con- sideration that learning principles were in any way influenced by the age of the child. Furthermore, the developmental progression, despite the nod to structural change as variable, was linear and cumulative.
(Horowitz, 1992:361) John Watson's theory provided a basis for shaping the nature of psycho- logical thought in the early 1900s, particularly in North America. In fact, he was hailed as a 'second Moses' for achieving the 'promised land' of behav- iourism (Magai and McFadden, 1995: 98). He also influenced parenting at the time, providing the following advice in a book on child care:
There is a sensible way of treating children. Treat them as though they were young adults. Dress them, bathe them with care and cir- cumspection. Let your behavior always be objective and kindly firm.
Never hug and kiss them, never let them sit in your lap. If you must, kiss them once on the forehead when they say goodnight. Shake hands with them in the morning. Give them a pat on the head if they have made an extraordinarily good job of a difficult task. Try it out.
In a week's time you will be utterly ashamed of the mawkish, senti- mental way you have been handling it.
(Watson, 1928: 81-2) Watson himself was rather ambivalent towards parenthood, and did not display physical affection towards his own children. In Chapter 9 we will see a suggestion that Watson's cultural and personal background influ- enced his attitude to emotions. However, he did compare children favourably with the subjects of his comparative psychology experiments, commenting that a baby could be 'more fun to the square inch than all the frogs and rats in creation' (Buckley, 1989, cited in Magai and McFadden, 1995). Box 6.1 describes Watson's views about introspectionism and psychoanalysis.