John Broadus Watson (January 9, 1878 – September 25, 1958) was an American psychologist who popularized the scientific theory of behaviorism, establishing it as a psychological school.Cohn, Aaron S. 2014. "Watson, John B.." Pp. 1429–1430 in The Social History of the American Family: An Encyclopedia, edited by M. J. Coleman and L. H. Ganong. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Retrieved May 16, 2020. . . Watson advanced this change in the psychological discipline through his 1913 address at Columbia University, titled Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It. Through his behaviorist approach, Watson conducted research on animal behavior, child rearing, and advertising, as well as conducting the controversial "Little Albert" experiment and the Kerplunk experiment. He was also the editor of Psychological Review from 1910 to 1915. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Watson as the 17th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
Early life Watson was born on January 9, 1878 in Travelers Rest, South Carolina. His father, Pickens Butler Watson, was an alcoholic and left the family to live with two Indian women when John was 13 years old.Hothersall, D. (2004). History of Psychology. Boston: McGraw Hill His mother, Emma Kesiah Watson (née Roe), was a very religious woman who adhered to prohibitions against drinking, smoking, and dancing, naming her son John after a prominent Baptist minister in hopes that it would help him receive the call to preach the Gospel. In bringing him up, she subjected Watson to harsh religious training that later led him to develop a lifelong antipathy toward all forms of religion and to become an atheist.Kimble, Gregory A., Michael Wertheimer, and Charlotte White. 2013.Portraits of Pioneers in Psychology. Psychology Press.
"Watson's outspoken atheism repelled many in Greensville." (p. 175).Martin, Michael. 2006. The Cambridge Companion to Atheism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
"Among celebrity atheists with much biographical data, we find leading psychologists and psychoanalysts. We could provide a long list, including…John B. Watson." (p. 310).
In an attempt to escape poverty, Watson's mother sold their farm and brought Watson to Greenville, South Carolina, to provide him a better opportunity for success. Moving from an isolated, rural location to the town of Greenville, which then had a population of 8,000, proved to be important for Watson, giving him the opportunity to experience a variety of different types of people, which he used to cultivate his theories on psychology. Watson also held some racist beliefs, believed to be more extreme than most at the time, and was arrested for doing hate crimes against African American people in the Greenville area only being saved by his mother's influence with the local Baptist church.
Marriage and children While he was in graduate school, Watson married Mary Ickes, sister of the newspaper reporter Harold L. Ickes, later a politician. They had two children, also named John and Mary Ickes Watson, the latter of whom attempted suicide later in life.Smirle, Corinne. 2013. "Profile of Rosalie Rayner ." Psychology's Feminist Voices, edited by A. Rutherford. Retrieved May 16, 2020. Young Mary and her husband, Paul Hartley, had a daughter, Mariette Hartley, an actor who suffered from psychological issues that she attributed to her being raised according to her grandfather's theories.Hartley, Mariette, and A. Commire. 1990. Breaking the Silence. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.
Watson's wife later sought a divorce due to his ongoing affair with a student, Rosalie Rayner (1898–1935). In searching Rayner's bedroom, Mary discovered love letters from Watson. The affair became front-page news in Baltimore. The publicity resulted in Johns Hopkins University asking Watson to resign his faculty position in October 1920.The Washington Times. January 2, 1921.
In 1921, following the finalization of the divorce, Watson and Rayner married in New Jersey, and had two sons, William Rayner Watson (1921) and James Broadus Watson (1924), who were raised with the behaviorist principles that John espoused throughout his career. The couple remained together until Rayner's death at age 36 in 1935.Murray, D. J. (1988). A History of Western Psychology. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Like their half-sister, both sons later attempted suicide, with William killing himself in 1954.
Later life and death Watson burned his letters and personal papers, thus depriving historians of a resource for understanding the early history of behaviorism and of Watson himself.Burnham, John C. 1994. "John B. Watson: Interviewee, Professional Figure, Symbol." Modern Perspectives on John B. Watson and Classical Behaviorism. Greenwood Press.
Historian John Burnham interviewed Watson late in life, presenting him as a man of strong opinions and some bitterness towards his detractors. In 1957, shortly before his death, Watson received a Gold Medal from the American Psychological Association for his contributions to psychology.Hergenhahn, B. R. (1992). An Introduction to the History of Psychology. California: Wadsworth Publishing Company.
Watson lived on his farm until his death in 1958 at age 80, at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in Upper Manhattan. He was buried at Willowbrook Cemetery, Westport, Connecticut.
Education Despite his poor academic performance and having been arrested twice during high school—first for fighting, then for discharging firearms within city limits—Watson was able to use his mother's connections to gain admission to Greenville's Furman University at the age of 16. There, he would complete a few psychology courses, though never excelling. He would also consider himself to be a poor student, holding a few jobs on campus to pay for his college expenses. Others thought him as quiet, lazy, and insubordinate, and, as such, he continued to see himself as "unsocial," making few friends. Nevertheless, being a precocious student, Watson would leave Furman with a master's degree at the age of 21.
After graduating, Watson spent a year at Batesburg Institute, the name he gave to a one-room school in Greenville, at which he was principal, janitor, and handyman. Watson entered the University of Chicago after petitioning the University President. The successful petition would be central to his ascent into the psychology world, as his college experience introduced him to professors and colleagues who would be integral to his success in developing psychology into a credible field of study. Watson began studying philosophy under John Dewey on the recommendation of Furman professor, Gordon Moore. The combined influence of Dewey, James Rowland Angell, Henry Herbert Donaldson, and Jacques Loeb, led Watson to develop a highly descriptive, objective approach to the analysis of behavior, an approach he would later call behaviorism.Fancher, R. E. (1990). Pioneers of Psychology. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Wanting to make psychology more scientifically acceptable, Watson thought of the approach as a declaration of faith, based on the idea that a methodology could transform psychology into a scientific discipline. Later, Watson became interested in the work of Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936), and eventually included a highly simplified version of Pavlov's principles in his popular works.Bolles, R. C. (1993). The Story of Psychology: A Thematic History. California: Brooks/Cole Publishing.
Dissertation on animal behavior Watson earned his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1903."John B. Watson." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2020 . Retrieved May 16, 2020. In his dissertation, "Animal Education",Watson, John B. 1903. "Animal Education: An Experimental Study on the Psychical Development of the White Rat, Correlated with the Growth of its Nervous System" (dissertation). University of Chicago. he described the relationship between brain myelination and learning ability in rats at different ages. Watson showed that the degree of myelinization was largely related to learning ability. Watson stayed at the University of Chicago for five years doing research on the relationship between sensory input and learning. He discovered that the kinesthetic sense controlled the behavior of rats running in mazes. In 1908, Watson was offered and accepted a faculty position at Johns Hopkins University and was immediately promoted to chair of the psychology department.
Behaviorism In 1913, Watson published the article "Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It" (also called "The Behaviorist Manifesto"). In the "Manifesto", Watson outlines the major features of his new philosophy of psychology, behaviorism, with the first paragraph of the article concisely describing Watson's behaviorist position:Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental 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, in his efforts to get a unitary scheme of animal response, recognizes no dividing line between man and brute. The behavior of man, with all of its refinement and complexity, forms only a part of the behaviorist's total scheme of investigation.In 1913, Watson viewed Pavlov's conditioned reflex as primarily a physiological mechanism controlling glandular secretions. He had already rejected Edward L. Thorndike's 'law of effect' (a precursor to B. F. Skinner's principle of reinforcement) due to what Watson believed were unnecessary subjective elements. It was not until 1916 that he would recognize the more general significance of Pavlov's formulation, after which Watson would make such the subject of his presidential address to the American Psychological Association. The article is also notable for its strong defense of the objective scientific status of applied psychology, which at the time was considered to be much inferior to the established structuralist experimental psychology.
With his notion of behaviorism, Watson put the emphasis on external behavior of people and their reactions on given situations, rather than the internal, mental state of those people. In his opinion, the analysis of behaviors and reactions was the only objective method to get insight in the human actions. This outlook—combined with the complementary ideas of determinism, evolutionary continuism, and empiricism—has contributed to what is sometimes called Methodological Behaviorism (not to be confused with the Radical Behaviorism of Skinner). It was this new perspective that Watson claimed would lead psychology into a new era. He claimed that prior to Wilhelm Wundt, there was no psychology, and that after Wundt there was only confusion and anarchy. It was Watson's new behaviorism that would pave the way for further advancements in psychology.
Watson's behaviorism rejected the studying of consciousness. He was convinced that it could not be studied, and that past attempts to do so have only been hindering the advancement of psychological theories. He felt that introspection was faulty at best and awarded researchers nothing but more issues. He pushed for psychology to no longer be considered the science of the 'mind'. Instead, he stated that psychology should focus on the 'behavior' of the individual, not their consciousness.
Meanwhile, Watson served as the president of the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology in 1915.
Language, speech, and memory