John B. Watson

Professional Psychology: Debating Chamber · Psychology Journals · Psychologists

John Broadus Watson (January 9, 1878–September 25, 1958) was an American psychologist who established the psychological school of behaviorism, after doing research on animal behavior. He is known for having claimed that he could take any 12 healthy infants and, by applying behavioral techniques, create whatever kind of person he desired. He conducted the controversial "Little Albert" experiment; he went on from psychology to become a popular author on childrearing, and an acclaimed contributor to the advertising industry.

Early life

Watson was born and raised in Greenville, South Carolina, and attended Furman University. He was a precocious but troublesome student, entering college at age 16 and leaving five years later with a masters degree at age 21. He spent a year teaching grade school, then entered the University of Chicago to study philosophy with John Dewey on the recommendation of a Furman professor, Gordon Moore, who had spent a sabbatical year there. Watson claimed he did not understand what Dewey was talking about. He sought out a different advisor and settled on functionalist psychologist James Rowland Angell and physiologist Henry Donaldson. He had considered working on the physiology of the dog's brain with the radical biologist, Jacques Loeb. The combined influence of Dewey, Angell, Donaldson, and Loeb lead Watson to develop a highly descriptive, objective approach to the analysis of behavior that he would later call "behaviorism." Watson's behaviorism is typically considered a historical descendent of British empiricism, and particularly the views of John Locke. However, Watson said nothing substantive about these things. His philosophy of science is more accurately traced to the history of experimental physiology through the influence of Loeb. The reflex studies of Ivan M. Sechenov (1829-1905) and Vladimir Bekhterev (1857-1927) were particularly influential. Watson became interested in the work of Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) later, and eventually included a highly simplified version of Pavlov's principles in his popular works.

Dissertation on animal behavior

Watson graduated from the University of Chicago in 1903. His dissertation "Animal Education: An Experimental Study on the Psychical Development of the White Rat, Correlated with the Growth of its Nervous System," is the first modern scientific book on rat behavior. It has been described as a "classic of developmental psychobiology" by historian of psychology, Donald Dewsbury. "Animal Education" described the relationship between brain myelinization and learning ability in rats at different ages. Watson showed that the degree of myelinization was largely unrelated to learning ability. Watson stayed at the University of Chicago for several years doing research on the relationship between sensory input and learning and bird behavior. His major work during this period was a series of ethological studies of sea birds done in the Dry Tortugas Islands in Florida. He studied all aspects of the birds' behavior imprinting, homing, mating and nesting habits, feeding, and chick-rearing. These extensive studies, carried out over four years, are some of the earliest examples of what would later be called "ethology", and his comprehensive records of the birds' behavior were some of the earliest examples of the "ethogram"--a comprehensive record of the naturally occurring behavior of an organism. In 1907, at age 29, due to his reputation as a top researcher in animal behavior, Watson was hired by Johns Hopkins University as a full professor of psychology.

Behaviorism

In 1913, Watson published what is sometimes considered his most important work, the article "Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It"--sometimes called "The Behaviorist Manifesto." In this article, Watson outlined the major features of his new philosophy of psychology, called "behaviorism." The first paragraph of the article concisely described 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.

The "manifesto" is notable for its lack of reference to specific principles of behavior. In 1913, Watson viewed Ivan Pavlov's conditioned reflex as being 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 Watson would recognize the more general significance of Pavlov's formulation and make it the subject of his presidential address to the American Psychological Association. The lack of a specific mechanism of behavior caused Watson's colleagues to dismiss "Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It" as philosophical speculation without much foundation. The article only became well-known to psychologists generally after it started to be widely cited in introductory psychology textbooks in the 1950s. 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. Watson's theory of thinking as consisting of "subvocal speech" was also introduced in the article. However, its addition was more of an afterthought as it appeared in a series of extended footnotes, not in the body of the article itself. Watson seems to have added the footnote because another article on subvocal speech by Anna Wyczoikowska was to appear in the same issue of the "Psychological Review." The theory of thinking as subvocal speech was not original to Watson. About 15 years earlier, H. S. Curtis had attempted to measure movements of the larynx during thinking.

With his behaviorism, Watson put the emphasis on external behaviour of people and their reactions on given situations, rather than the internal, mental state of those people. In his opinion, the analysis of behaviours and reactions was the only objective method to get insight in the human actions.

The "twelve infants" quote

Eventually, Watson's penchant for strong rhetoric would overshadow his science. He is famous for boasting, facetiously, that he could take any 12 human infants, and by applying behavioral techniques, create whatever kind of person ("beggarman and thief") he desired. Naturally, he admitted that this claim was far beyond his means and data—noting, pointedly, that others had made similarly extravagant claims about the power of heredity over behavior for thousands of years. The quote, probably Watson's most well-known, reads:

Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select – doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. I am going beyond my facts and I admit it, but so have the advocates of the contrary and they have been doing it for many thousands of years. (1930)

The last sentence is usually left out, making Watson's position more radical than it actually was. Watson had, in fact, done extensive ethological studies of the instinctive behavior of animals early in his career, particularly sea birds. Nevertheless, Watson strongly sided with nurture in the nature versus nurture discussion.

Views on childrearing

The importance of learning in humans, Watson believed, was an evolutionary adaptation due to natural selection. For this reason, Watson stated that parents must train their children to instill good habits.

Although he wrote extensively on childrearing in many popular magazines and in a book, "Psychological Care of Infant and Child" (1928), he later regretted having written in the area saying that "he did not know enough" to do a good job. Watson's advice to treat children with respect, but with relative emotional detachment, has been strongly criticized. But this perspective was not unique to Watson. It is also associated with psychoanalytic thinkers who worried that too much emotional attachment in childhood would lead to overly dependent adults. (Watson's borrowing from Sigmund Freud and other early psychoanalysts remains an unexamined aspect of his behaviorism.) Not commonly mentioned by modern critics is that Watson warned strongly against the use of spanking and other corporal punishment, and advised parents that masturbation was not psychologically dangerous. The 1920s and 1930s were an age in which some childrearing books still instructed parents to pin down their infants' sleeves to prevent supposedly dangerous 'infantile masturbation," and described methods of spanking that would leave few or no marks.

Rosalie Rayner affair

In October 1920, Watson was asked to leave his faculty position at Johns Hopkins University because he was having an affair with his top research assistant, a graduate student named Rosalie Rayner. Watson was already married to Mary Ickes (sister of Harold L. Ickes, who would later become Secretary of the Interior to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt). Johns Hopkins president Frank Goodnow reportedly gave Watson a choice: his relationship with Rayner, or keeping his job at Hopkins. Rayner was a member of a prominent Baltimore political family; an affair involving two powerful Baltimore political families (the Ickes and the Rayners) could bring considerable embarrassment to the university if ignored. Goodnow was right to worry: In December, the Watsons' split was not only front-page news, but Baltimore newpapers published excerpts from some of Watson's love letters to Rayner (stolen from her bedroom by Mary during a dinner party involving the Rayner and Ickes families). Watson's closeness to Rayner -- who was literally half his age -- was so strong that he resigned from Johns Hopkins, divorced Mary Ickes, and married Rayner in December 1920. The divorce settlement required Watson to pay support equal to more than 50% of his Hopkins professor's salary, regardless of his job status. The scandal that Watson had brought upon Johns Hopkins, one of the world's top research universities at the time, was so great that his reputation among the U.S. academic elite was ruined. Watson realized this, and knew that he now had to start over in a new career...at age forty-two.

Advertising

Thanks to contacts provided by an academic colleague, Watson subsequently began working for U.S. advertising agency J. Walter Thompson. He learned the advertising business' many facets at ground level, including a stint working as a shoe salesman in an upscale department store. Despite this modest start, in less than two years Watson had risen to a vice-presidency at Thompson. His executive's salary, plus bonuses from various successful ad campaigns, resulted in an income many times higher than his academic salary. Watson headed a number of high-profile advertising campaigns, particularly for Ponds cold cream and other personal-care products. He has been widely but erroneously credited with re-introducing the "testimonial" advertisement after the tool had fallen out of favor (due to its association with ineffective and dangerous patent medicines). However, testimonial advertisements had been in use for years before Watson entered advertising. Watson stated that he was not making original contributions, but was just doing what was normal practice in advertising. A large body of rumors circulate about Watson's dismissal from the J. Walter Thompson agency, particularly that Watson was fired for conducting research on the human sexual response with Rosalie Rayner. No evidence for these rumors has publicly surfaced. The stories can be directly traced to fanciful, highly anachronistic stories about Watson included by the late University of Michigan psychologist James McConnell (in several editions of his "Understanding Human Behavior" textbook, and his "Worms and Things" newsletter.)

Little Albert experiment

One of the most controversial experiments in psychology was performed by Watson and Rayner. It has become immortalized in introductory psychology textbooks as the Little Albert experiment. The goal of the experiment was to show how principles of, at the time recently discovered, classical conditioning could be applied to condition fear of a white rat into "Little Albert", an 11 month old boy. As the story of Little Albert has made the rounds, inaccuracies and inconsistencies have crept in, some of them even due to Watson himself; see Harris for an analysis. The controversy about this experiment is actually a modern development. There seemed to be little concern about it in Watson's time. Dewsbury reports that Watson received greater criticism from early animal rights groups over some of his experiments with rats, particularly a 1907 study, "Kinaesthetic and Organic Sensations: Their Role in the Reactions of the White Rat to the Maze."

Late life

Watson stopped writing for popular audiences in 1936, and retired from advertising at about age 65. Rosalie Rayner had died in 1935 at age 36. He lived on a farm with a female companion for the last years of his life. Rumored to be a heavy drinker, Watson actually gave up alcohol on the advice of his physician and enjoyed good health well into old age. He died in 1958 at age 80, shortly after receiving a citation from the American Psychological Association for his contributions to psychology. Historian John Burnham interviewed Watson late in life, and reported him to be a man of (still) strong opinions and some bitterness towards his detractors. Except for a set of reprints of his academic works, Watson burned his very large collection of letters and personal papers, thus depriving historians of a valuable resource for understanding the early history of behaviorism and Watson himself.

Publications

Books

Watson, J.B. (1903) Animal Education, Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press.
Watson, J.B. (1914) "Behavior: An introduction to comparative psychology." Henry Holt,
Watson, J.B. (1924) Behaviourism, New York: J.B. Lippincott.
Watson, J.B. and Watson, R.R. (1928) Psychological Care of Infant and Child, New York: W.W. Norton.

Papers

Watson, John B. (1907). "Kinaesthetic and Organic Sensations: Their Role in the Reactions of the White rat to the Maze." "Psychological Review Monograph Supplement," 8(33), 1-100.

Watson, John B. (1908). "The Behavior of Noddy and Sooty Terns." "Carnegie Institute Publication," 103, 197-255.

Watson, John B. (1913). "Psychology as the behaviorist views it" Psychological Review, 20, pp. 158-177. (on-line)

Watson, John B. (1915). "Recent experiments with homing birds." "Harper's Magazine," 131, 457-64.

Watson, John B. & Rayner, Rosalie (1920). "Conditioned emotional reactions" Journal of Experimental Psychology, 3(1), pp. 1-14. (The little Albert study, on-line)

Watson, J.B. (1913) Psychology from the standpoint of a behaviourist, Psychological Review 20: 158-77.

Watson, J. B. "John Broadus Watson [Autobiography]." In C. Murchison (Ed.), "A History of Psychology in Autobiography" (Vol. 3, pp. 271-81). Clark University Press, 1936.