John B. Watson and the Foundations of Behavioral Psychology

Introduction

John B. Watson came to be known as one of the founders of behavioral psychology and a leading authority on the subject. He later left psychology and worked in advertising, creating a new niche in that field by applying behavioral principles to marketing. This paper examines Watson's life, his foundational contributions to behaviorism, his most notable experiments, and his enduring legacy.

Watson's Academic Background and Early Career

John B. Watson was an American psychologist born in Travelers Rest, South Carolina, in 1878. His father left the family when Watson was a young boy, an experience that affected him later in life. He attended Furman University in South Carolina and later earned his master's degree from the University of Chicago. While in Chicago, he became interested in animal behavior and wrote his dissertation on the relationship between behavior in the white rat and the growth of the nervous system. After graduation, he took a position in the psychology department at Johns Hopkins University, where he continued his studies on behaviorism (Watson, 2010).

Behaviorism as a New Science

Watson believed that psychology, as it was defined at the time, was outmoded. As one biographer writes, "In 1913 at Columbia University, Watson delivered a lecture entitled 'Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It.' Before this speech, the field of psychology was in disagreement over the ideas of the nature of consciousness and the methods of studying it" (Watson, 2010). He later expanded the speech into a book about behavioral psychology. In that book he wrote, "For the behaviorist, psychology is that division of natural science which takes human behavior—the doings and sayings, both learned and unlearned, of people—as its subject matter. It is the study of what people do from even before birth until death" (Watson, 1924, p. 4).

Watson argued that before behaviorism, psychology was introspective, and that approach no longer served the discipline. When he first began his research, he studied the behavior of animals; later, he turned to humans, convinced that their behaviors, instincts, and reactions were the key to understanding human psychology. He also believed this shift was necessary to raise psychology to the level of the other sciences, as many scientists at the time looked down on psychology as insufficiently rigorous.

As his studies continued, Watson proposed the idea of an objective psychology of behavior—one that could predict and control human actions. His theories were considered quite radical at the time, and his books created controversy; his framework became known as "radical behaviorism" (Watson, 2010). Watson continued to teach and conduct research at Johns Hopkins until 1920, when the university forced him to resign due to a personal scandal involving an affair with his laboratory assistant. Two scholars note, "Six days later, under severe pressure from the university, Watson submitted his resignation" (Scull & Schulkin, 2009). He subsequently changed careers and entered the advertising business, though he continued to write about behaviorism and conduct experiments, becoming a leading authority in the field.

The Little Albert Experiment and Conditioned Emotions

Watson is perhaps most famous for the Little Albert experiment, which studied the conditioning of emotions in children. He believed that children possess three basic emotions—fear, love, and rage—and wanted to demonstrate that these reactions could be artificially conditioned. As his biographer notes, "Watson used a little boy named Albert to test his theory. He repeatedly presented Albert a rat in conjunction with a sudden, loud noise to classically condition fear of the rat" (Watson, 2010). This approach closely paralleled Pavlov's famous experiment, in which a bell was rung at feeding time until the dog began to salivate at the sound of the bell alone.

Watson described the experiment in his own words: "We determined to take Albert and attempt to condition fear to a white rat by showing him the rat and, as soon as he reached for it and touched it, to strike a heavy steel bar behind him. We first showed by repeated tests that Albert feared nothing except loud sounds (and removal of support)" (Watson, 1924, p. 231). He subsequently found that the conditioned fear transferred to other white objects, including a white furry hat, a dog, white yarn, and even Watson's own white hair (Watson, 2010). Watson believed that he could shape behavior so thoroughly that, given twelve infants, he could guide them toward any career by the time they reached adulthood.

Following the Little Albert study, Watson investigated whether conditioned fears in other children could be reversed, and he found that behavioral changes could be achieved in many situations. He wrote, "Fear responses to cotton, the fur coat, and feathers were entirely gone. He looked at them and handled them and then turned to other things. He would even pick up the fur rug and bring it to the experimenter" (Bentley et al., 1928, p. 65). Watson believed that adults could also be "reprogrammed," though he acknowledged this was considerably more difficult, since years of learned behavior made change harder to achieve.

Conclusion

John B. Watson was one of the most significant figures in American psychology, and he helped invent an entirely new way of looking at behavior and understanding how it is acquired and altered. Watson's method is grounded in observed behaviors and the processes by which those behaviors are learned, rather than in the analysis of interior personality states, making it more accessible as a basis for clinical assessment. Behavior analysis continues to be used throughout psychology today, growing directly out of Watson's foundational ideas. Behavioral psychology rose in popularity through the mid-twentieth century, experienced a decline in interest thereafter, but remains in active use in many contemporary practices—allowing practitioners and patients alike to modify behavior using the pioneering techniques Watson first developed.

References

Bentley, M., Dunlap, K., Hunter, W. S., Koffka, K., Kohler, W., McDougall, W., et al. (1928). Psychologies of 1925: Powell lectures in psychological theory (C. Murchison, Ed.) (3rd ed.). Worcester, MA: Clark University Press.

Grant, J. (2004). A "real boy" and not a sissy: Gender, childhood, and masculinity, 1890–1940. Journal of Social History, 37(4), 829+.

Scull, A., & Schulkin, J. (2009). Psychobiology, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis: The intersecting careers of Adolf Meyer, Phyllis Greenacre, and Curt Richter. Medical History, 53(1), 5+.

Watson, E. (2010). John B. Watson. Retrieved 22 April 2010 from the Muskingum University Web site:

Watson, J. B. (1924). Psychology: From the standpoint of a behaviorist. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company.