John B. Watson
Psychologist · 1878-1958 · Psychology, stage 3: Meet the psychologists
Declared that psychology should abandon consciousness altogether and study only what can be observed from outside.
Overview
John B. Watson announced behaviourism in a 1913 lecture, arguing that fifty years of introspection had produced no agreement about anything and that psychology should redefine itself as the prediction and control of behaviour. The manifesto is short, blunt, and worth reading in the original, because everything behaviourism was later praised and attacked for is stated in it openly, including the claim that the same methods apply to animals and to people. With Rosalie Rayner he ran the 1920 study of a nine-month-old known as Little Albert, pairing a white rat with a loud noise until the infant showed fear, and presented it as evidence that emotional responses are conditioned rather than innate. By present standards the study is not usable evidence: one participant, no control condition, subjective judgements of fear, and the child was never deconditioned. Watson left academic psychology in 1920 after a scandal and spent the rest of his career in advertising.
Where to start reading
Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It 1913
The founding manifesto: six pages declaring that psychology is a purely objective branch of natural science with no need for consciousness or introspection.
Conditioned Emotional Reactions 1920
The Little Albert report, written with Rosalie Rayner, claiming that a fear response was conditioned in an infant and generalised to similar objects.
Behaviorism 1925
The popular statement of the programme, including his claim that he could train any healthy infant into any specialist he chose, which he immediately conceded went beyond his evidence.
Part of
Sources
- Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It Classics in the History of Psychology, York University
- Conditioned Emotional Reactions Classics in the History of Psychology, York UniversityThe Little Albert paper itself, which is short enough to assess as evidence on your own.
- Little Albert experiment WikipediaCovers the methodological and ethical criticisms and the disputed attempts to identify the child.
