John B. Watson: Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It - Comprehensive Study Guide

Definition and Theoretical Goal of Behaviorism

Psychology as the behaviorist views it: Defined as a "purely objective experimental branch of natural science."
Theoretical Goal: The primary objective is the "prediction and control of behavior."
Methodological Rejection of Introspection: John B. Watson asserts that introspection forms "no essential part of its methods."
Status of Scientific Data: The scientific value of behavioral data is not dependent upon its ability to be interpreted in terms of "consciousness."
The Unitary Scheme of Response: The behaviorist recognizes "no dividing line between man and brute." Human behavior, despite its complexity and refinement, is merely one part of a total scheme of investigation.

Critique of Contemporary Introspective Psychology

Problem of Mind-Analysis: Traditional psychology has defined itself as the "science of the phenomena of consciousness." It focuses on: * Analyzing complex mental states into simple elementary constituents. * Constructing complex states from given elementary constituents.
View of the Physical World: The natural scientist's world of physical objects (stimuli/receptor excitations) is viewed by traditional psychologists merely as a means to an end—the production of mental states to be "inspected."
Subjectivity of Observation: In the case of emotion, traditional psychologists observe the "mental state itself" to determine constituent numbers, kind, loci, intensity, and order of appearance.
The Problem of Comparative Psychology: Under the introspective regime, behavioral data from animal studies are considered to have "no value per se." They are only significant if they throw light on conscious states via an analogical or indirect reference.
Watson’s Professional Experience: Watson confesses he was often embarrassed by the question, "What is the bearing of animal work upon human psychology?" because he could not find a connection to psychology as a study of consciousness.
Fragility of Current Findings: Watson notes that vast amounts of work on animal senses and learning have contributed very little to general theories of human sense organ processes or suggested new experimental attacks.

The Analogy of Consciousness and the Phylogenetic Scale

The Anthropomorphic Reproach: Watson argues that psychologists feel forced to interpret animal behavior through the lens of human consciousness. * Example: Acknowledging that an animal without eyes cannot have brightness or color sensations, but then assuming their conscious content is made up of thermal or tactual sensations, adding the caveat "if it has any consciousness."
The Origin of Consciousness: Texts often search for the "point" where consciousness arise, assuming it appears when reflex and instinctive activities fail to conserve the organism. * Argument: A perfectly adjusted organism would lack consciousness. * Alternative: Consciousness is assumed when diffuse activity results in habit formation.
The "Will o' the Wisp" Character: Watson argues that searching for criteria of the "psychic" (objective, structural, or functional) to decide if a response is "conscious" or "purely physiological" is a futile endeavor.
Independence of Behavior: One can assume the presence or absence of consciousness anywhere in the phylogenetic scale "without affecting the problems of behavior by one jot or one tittle."

Comparison to Biological Evolution

Darwinian Parallel: Watson compares the current state of psychology to biology in Darwin's time. * Previously, the Darwinian movement was judged solely by its bearing on the origin of the human race. * Zoology collected material largely to develop the concept of human evolution.
The Shift to Experimental Zoology: When zoology became experimental, man ceased to be the "center of reference." * Modern biologists gather data from many species to work out laws of inheritance (e.g., coat color in mice) without feeling the need to interpret them in terms of human race differentiation.

Psychology as a Natural Science

Failure as a Discipline: Watson believes psychology has failed during its $50$ -odd years as an experimental discipline to establish itself as an "undisputed natural science."
Esoteric Methods: In introspective psychology, failure to reproduce results is blamed on the observer (i.e., "untrained introspection") rather than the experimental setting.
Comparison to Hard Sciences: In physics and chemistry, failure is attributed to apparatus sensitivity or impure chemicals. In psychology, if you cannot see states of clearness in attention, you are told your introspection is poor.
Ambiguity of Terms: Terms like "sensation" lack agreement. * One psychologist defines visual sensation attributes as: quality, extension, duration, and intensity. * Another adds "clearness." * Another adds "order."
The Sensation Count Dilemma: There is no agreement on the number of color sensations (e.g., some say four: red, green, yellow, blue; others claim a unique sensation for every just noticeable difference).
Titchener’s Defense: E.B. Titchener argues that differences of opinion are natural in an undeveloped science, but Watson predicts that in $200$ years, the same questions will still be unresolved if the introspective method persists.

Structuralism, Functionalism, and Behaviorism

Critique of Functionalism: Functional psychology decries the static elements of structuralism, emphasizing the biological significance of conscious processes. However, Watson finds it confusing because: * It continues to use the same terms (sensation, perception, emotion) without clear definition changes. * It merely adds the word "process" to remove the "corpse of content."
The Mind-Body Problem: Functionalists often lapse into "interactionism" while claiming "parallelism" for convenience.
Behaviorism as Logical Functionalism: Watson views behaviorism as the only consistent functionalism because it avoids both the "Scylla of parallelism and the Charybdis of interaction."

The Constructive Argument for Behaviorism

New Terminology: Psychology can be written without the terms: consciousness, mental states, mind, content, introspectively verifiable, or imagery.
Standardized Vocabulary: Use terms like "stimulus and response," "habit formation," and "habit integrations."
Core Premises: 1. Organisms (man and animal) adjust to their environment via hereditary and habit equipments. 2. Certain stimuli lead to certain responses.
The Law of Prediction: In a complete system, "given the response the stimuli can be predicted; given the stimuli the response can be predicted."

Practical Applications and Case Studies

Tortugas Bird Study: Watson describes his field study of birds where he controlled reactions using nests and eggs as stimuli. He focused on the order of appearance of hereditary adjustments and the beginnings of habit formation.
Anthropological Application: If studying an Australian tribe, Watson would determine the social setting and physical stimuli, noting that habits would be more complex than in birds.
The Educated European: While more complex, the "general line of attack" (accurate knowledge of adjustments and stimuli) remains the same.
Societal Utility: Practical fields (educators, physicians, jurists, business men) cannot use laboratory psychology currently because it is expressed in "content terms."
Applied Psychology Successes: Areas that have partially withdrawn from introspection—experimental pedagogy, psychology of drugs, advertising, legal psychology, and psychopathology—are "flourishing."

Experimental Examples and Methodology

Drug Psychology Case: Testing the effect of caffeine on the speed and accuracy of work. This is a search for general principles to control human behavior.
Legal Testimony Case: Testing the effects of recency and motion on the reliability of witness reports.
Animal vs. Human Vision: * Traditional phrasing: "Does the animal see colors as I do?" * Behaviorist phrasing: "Is the animal responding on the basis of difference in intensity or difference in wave-lengths?"
The Abridged Behavior Method: Watson suggests human subjects could be fed for right choices and punished for wrong ones to get dependable results without relying on verbal reports. If a subject says two reds are "identical," but can learn to choose one over the other to avoid punishment, the stimuli afford a basis for differential response.
Memory Research: Emphasis should move from "mental machinery" to the rapidity of habit formation, errors, persistence, and curves of learning.

Summary of Final Assertions

Failure of Human Psychology: It has failed as a natural science by focusing on conscious phenomena and introspection, leading to speculative, non-experimental questions.
Objective Science: Behaviorism is a branch of natural science that needs introspection as little as chemistry. The separate observation of "states of consciousness" is not the psychologist's task.
Value of Animal Research: Data on the behavior of simple organisms (like amoebae) have value in themselves, regardless of their reference to human behavior. Laws of habit and response must be evaluated for every form.
Removal of Barriers: Eliminating consciousness as an object of study removes the barrier between psychology and other sciences, making behavioral findings the "functional correlates of structure" explained in physico-chemical terms.
Preservation of Essentials: Behaviorism will eventually address complex problems like imagination and judgment by rephrasing them and developing more refined behavioral methods.