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.