• Steel rod hung behind Albert
• John Watson struck the rod with a hammer in the presence of the rat, startling the baby who reacted fearfully and cried
• Rosalie Raynor also was there as an assistant
• Albert had been chosen because he was “emotionally stable”
• Prior to the conditioning, Albert showed little fear response to a variety of objects
• After the conditioning, Albert shows fear in reaction to a variety of stimuli that were similar to the rat is some way (furry, white)
• Watson and Raynor show that fears can be conditioned, argued that adults’ fears are result of conditioning
Overview
– Watson credited the work of others as originators of behaviorism
– saw himself as bringing together the emergent ideas
– Goal: to found a new school
Watson’s life
– delinquent behavior in youth
– determined to be a minister to fulfill mother’s wish
• enrolled at Furman University (S.Carolina): studied philosophy, math, Latin, Greek. Earned master’s degree at Furman
Watson
– 1900: enrolled at the University of Chicago
• planned to pursue graduate degree in philosophy with Dewey
• attracted to psychology through work with Angell
• studied biology and physiology with Loeb
• 1903: at age 25 earned Psychology PhD from University of Chicago
Watson
– dissertation published
• neurological and psychological maturation of the white rat
• not successful at introspection & felt much more of a preference working with animals.
– 1908: offered professorship at Johns Hopkins University
• reluctant to leave University of Chicago
• new job offered promotion, salary raise, and opportunity to direct the psychology laboratory
James Mark Baldwin (1861-1934)
• James Baldwin offered the John Hopkins’s job to Watson
• a founder with Cattell of Psychological Review
• 1909: forced by the university president to resign after caught in a police raid on a brothel
• 11 years later Watson forced to resign by the same president after he had affair with graduate student that led to a scandal
John Watson
– 1909: chair of Hopkins psychology department
– 1909: editor of Psychological Review
– 1912: presented ideas for a more objective psychology in lectures at Columbia
– 1913: “Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It” (launched behaviorism)
– 1914 Book : Behavior: An Introduction to Comparative Psychology
• argued for acceptance of animal psychology
• described advantages of animal subjects
• discussed importance of ridding psychology of the remnants of philosophy
– desired practical applications
Watson
– 1920: forced resignation from Johns Hopkins University
• marriage deteriorated and led to divorce due to his infidelities
• fell in love with Rosalie Rayner, graduate assistant
– half his age
– from family of wealthy donors to the university
• wife found his passionate but rather scientific love letters to Rosalie
• excerpts published in Baltimore Sun
• astonished when forced to resign
• married Rosalie but still banished from academia
• Titchener one of the few academics who reached out to comfort him
Watson
– second career: applied psychology in advertising
• mechanistic view of humans
• proposed experimental (lab) study of consumer behavior
– Produced positive publicity for psychology in the popular media. Wrote articles in popular magazines, gave public lectures, spoke on radio.
– 1925: Behaviorism; introduced plan to perfect the social order
– 1928: Psychological Care of the Infant and Child
• strong environmentalist position
• recommended perfect objectivity in child-rearing practices
• had the greatest impact of all his work
– 1935: when his wife Rosalie died; he became a recluse
– 1957: at age 79 awarded APA citation for his vital and fruitful work
• refused to go inside to receive award
• Watson afraid that he would show his emotions and cry
• son accepted it in his place
– burned all of his papers prior to his death
• Original Source Material: from “Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It” (1913)
– the definition and goal of behaviorism
– criticisms of structuralism and functionalism
– the role of heredity and habit in adaptation
– applied psychology is truly scientific
– importance of standardized or uniform experimental procedures
His major points
– the science of behavior
– a purely objective experimental branch of natural science
– both animal and human behavior are studied
– discard all mentalistic concepts
– use only behavior concepts
– goal: prediction and control of behavior
Initial reactions
– behaviorism was not embraced
– his 1919 book Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist hastened the movement’s impact
– Calkins: disputed Watson; adhered to introspection as the sole method for studying some processes
– Washburn: called Watson an enemy of psychology
1920’s
– university courses in behaviorism
– the word “behaviorist” appeared in journals
– McDougall: issued a public warning against behaviorism
– Titchener: complained of its force and extent
– other forms of behaviorism emerging
The Methods of Behaviorism
• Only accepted objective methods
– observation, with and without instruments
– testing methods
– verbal report method
– conditioned reflex method
• Test results are samples of behavior, not indices of mental qualities
• Verbal reports
– legitimate in psychophysics
– speech reactions are objectively observable
– thinking is speaking covertly
– admitted the lack of precision and limitations
– limited it to situations where it could be verified
– came under attack (sounded like introspection)
• Conditioned reflex method (Pavlov & Bekhterev)
– adopted in 1915
– Watson responsible for its widespread use in U.S. research
– conditioning is stimulus substitution
– selected because it is an objective method of behavior analysis
– reflected reductionism and mechanism
– human subject: the observed rather than the observer
• designation changed from “observer” to “subject”
• experimenter became the observer
Items or elements of behavior
– goal: understand overall behavior of the total organism
• Act= more complex behaviors (eating, writing…)
• response or act accomplishes some result
• But capable of being reduced to simple, lower-level motor or glandular responses
Watson
– explicit versus implicit responses
• explicit is overtly observable
• implicit happen inside organism (ex., glandular secretions)
– must be potentially observable
– must be observable through the use of instruments
– simple versus complex stimuli
• complex stimulus situation can be reduced to simple, component stimuli
• example of simple stimuli: light waves striking retina
Watson
– specific laws of behavior
• identified through analysis of S-R complexes
• must find elementary S-R units
– major topics: instinct, emotion, thought
– all areas of behavior: must use objective S-R terms
Instincts
– 1914: Watson described 11 instincts
– 1925: eliminated the concept of instinct
• an extreme environmentalist
• denied inherited capacities, temperaments, talents
• children can become anything one desires
• a factor in his popularity with the American lay public
Watson
• "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–regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations and race of his ancestors"
– Watson admitted that 100% environmental impact was an exaggeration, but claimed that those believing in hereditary control exaggerated their side.
– seemingly instinctive behavior is actually a socially conditioned response
– psychology can only be applied if behavior can be modified, which is not consistent with hereditary control.
Emotions
– Watson defined as bodily responses to specific stimuli, no different than salivating to food.
– denied conscious perception of emotion or sensations from internal stimuli
– each emotion = specific configuration of physiological changes, a form of implicit behavior: internal responses are evident in overt physical signs such as blushing
Emotions
– critical of James’ more complex position involving initial conscious perception, bodily response and later a feeling state
– Watson: emotions completely described by three things
• objective stimulus situation
• overt bodily response
• internal physiological changes
Emotions
– fear, love, and rage are not learned emotional response patterns to stimuli. Inborn emotions shown by infants:
• loud noises or sudden lack of support lead to fear
• restriction of bodily movements leads to rage
• caressing, rocking, patting lead to love
Albert, Peter, and the rabbits
– Little Albert (8 months old) study demonstrated conditioned (learned) emotional responses
– Watson: adult fears are learned, do not arise from Freud’s unconscious conflicts.
Little Albert Study: Watson & Rayner
• Unconditioned stimulus (UCS): Loud bang of hammer against metal bar.
• Unconditioned response (UCR): Natural fear response.
• Neutral/Conditioned Stimulus (CS): Rat
• After 7 pairings, previously neutral rat stimulates fear response.
Little Albert ExperimentGeneralization: Fear response to stimuli similar to
rat= rabbit, cotton balls.
Harris, B. What ever happened to Little Albert?, Amer Psych, 1979, 34(2), 151-160.
Many texts have incorrect info or omit info:
Not all hairy objects induced fear, some nonwhite objects did induce fear.
Watson knew he would not get to treat Albert’s induced fears.
Some difficulties in replication.
Mary Cover Jones (1896-1987)
• worked with 3-year Peter who came to her with a rabbit phobia (1924) (little Albert study published 1920)
• treatment method
– involve Peter in eating
– bring in rabbit at a distance that does not produce crying
– each day, decrease the distance
– after a few months, Peter could touch the rabbit without exhibiting fear
– this approach is a forerunner of behavior therapy. (a type of exposure therapy, foreshadowing systematic desensitization)
• generalized fear responses also eliminated
• 1968: Jones given G. Stanley Hall award for her outstanding work in developmental psychology
Watson: Thought processes
– traditional view:
• thinking occurs in the absence of muscle movements
• not accessible to observation and experimentation
Watson’s Behaviorism
• thinking is implicit sensorimotor behavior
• involves implicit speech reactions or movements
• reduced it to potentially measurable subvocal talking
• same muscular habits as used for overt speech
• others warn us not to talk aloud to ourselves, so we become unaware of the muscular habits used while thinking
• thinking = silent talking to oneself
• Farthing 1992: college students- 73% of thinking was talking to themselves.
• Watson called for a society based on scientifically shaped and controlled behavior
– free of myths, customs, and convention
– The Religion Called Behaviorism (Berman, 1927): read by & influenced Skinner
Watson & Behaviorists
• Emphasis on childhood environment and minimization of heredity
• Conditioned reflex experiments
– implied emotional disturbances in adulthood due to conditioned responses during earlier years
– implies proper childhood conditioning precludes adult disorders
Behaviorism:
– Can be part of a plan to improve society
– Can be a framework for research
– Was further elaborated by Skinner
An Outbreak of Psychology
• Product of a public already attentive to and receptive of psychology and Watson’s considerable charm and vision of hope for behavioral change and the betterment of society
• Exemplified by
– psychological advice columns
– Joseph Jastrow’s popularization of psychology through magazine articles, newspaper column “Keeping Mentally Fit,” radio program, and pop psychology book, Piloting Your life: the Psychologist as Helmsman
– Albert Wiggam’s column “Exploring Your Mind”
Edwin B. Holt (1873-1946)
– Received Ph.D. under William James at Harvard
– After Harvard works at Princeton
– Consciousness should not be rejected
– Learning can occur in response to internal needs and drives (precursor to motivation theories)
– Focused on larger behaviors that had some purpose for the organism (precursor to Tolman)
Lashley
– 1929: Brain Mechanisms and Intelligence. Performed extirpation of brain areas in rats.
• law of mass action: “The efficiency of learning is a function of the total mass of cortical tissue.” Larger areas of brain used in learning than localizationists would suggest.
• principle of equipotentiality: “The idea that one part of the cerebral cortex is essentially equal to another in its contribution to learning.” (“searching for the engram”)
Lashley
– Expected his work to support Watson, but instead challenged Watson’s notion of a point-to-point connection in reflexes
• brain more active in learning than Watson accepted, not a simple/passive switching station between sensory input & behavioral output.
• disputed the notion that behavior is a mechanical compounding of conditioned reflexes
– But confirmed the value of objective methods in psychology research
McDougall: An Opponent of Watson & Behaviorism
– English psychologist, affiliated with Harvard and Duke
– noted for his instinct theory of behavior
• human behavior results from innate tendencies to thought and action
– noteworthy book on social psychology spurred that field
– supported free will, Nordic superiority, psychic research
– 1924: debate with Watson (McDougall judged as winner by most)
• agreed data of behavior are a proper focus for psychology
• argued data of consciousness also necessary
• questioned Watson’s tenet that human behavior is fully determined, no free will
• critical of Watson’s use of the verbal report method= speech behavior, without questioning meaning or accuracy of such speech.
• Watson approach missing daydreams, fantasies, aesthetic experiences.