Ch. 10 John B. Watson and Behaviorism

The Psychologist, the Baby, and the Hammer: Don’t Try This at Home

  • Little Albert Experiment

    • Conducted by John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner in 1920.

    • Albert was 8-months, “emotionally stable + not easily excited”

    • Goal: Aimed to demonstrate conditioned emotional responses.

    • Albert was exposed to a white rat, rabbit, dog, monkey, burning newspapers, masks — all did not invoke fear response

    • Watson introduced a loud noise (hammer striking metal bar) that Albert was fearful of — unconditioned response

    • 7-pairings of white rate with noise = fearful Albert

    • Established a fear of the rat (previously a neutral stimulus) through conditioning.

    • Fear generalized to similar furry white stimuli (e.g., rabbits, fur coat, Santa Claus mask).

  • Conclusion: fear/phobias/anxieties are emotionally conditioned responses from infancy and childhood.

  • What happened to Little Albert?

    • Real name - Douglas Merritte

    • possible neurodivergent before experiment

John B. Watson (1878–1958)

  • Watson’s Life

    • Born in South Carolina; had a troubled childhood with an alcoholic + cheating father who left him at 13 yrs. old.

    • Not an ideal student - delinquent, not very academic-focused

    • attended University of Chicago; initially pursued philosophy with Dewey - moved on to psychology with Angell

    • earned his PhD, youngest at Chicago University to get doctorate

    Academic Career:

    • 1908 - instructor at U of C; dissertation involved white rats

    • wasn’t good at introspection (maybe why he rejected it?) — became interested in behaviorism

    • brought animal psychologists into mainstream psychology

    • spent 12 yrs. at Hopkins University - eventually resigned due to scandals

      • messy divorce

    • “drove himself to exhaustion”

Development of Behaviorism

  • Foundational Ideas

    • Psychology should focus on observable behaviors rather than introspection.

      • Psychological Review, 1913 - launch of behaviorism

    • Advocated for the objective study of behavior as a natural science.

    • Acceptance of animal psychology - Comparative Psychology, 1914

    • Mary Cover Jones - amazed by Watson’s Program

    • Promoted applied psychology - personnel consultant, taught advertising psychology courses, IO psychology training

    • WW1 - created tests for pilot selections, e.g. film for soldiers on restraining from sex

    • Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist - apply same methodology to humans and animals

  • Career in Applied Psychology

    • due to academic unemployment + payments for child support

    • believed humans were like machines — can be controlled and predicted

    • Advertising - focus on style not substance

    • promoted celebrity endorsements + services = way to control human motives + emotions

  • wrote Behaviorism - successful, reaching those outside of psychology

  • wrote Psychological Care of the Infant and Child:

    • regulatory, not permissive system of childrearing

    • “behaviorist upbringing”

    • frowned upon physical affection

  • Watson’s Children:

    • raised in a strictly behaviorist manner

    • “father was unaffectionate”

    • “closeness was a taboo”

    • sons suffered from depression, with one son and daughter committing suicide

Views on Women

  • Was a misogynist - opposed to women who fought for right to vote

  • claimed women just needed to find “sexual satisfaction”

  • Said men maintain attractiveness, while women lose their touch in 40s

Later Years:

  • he was a celebrity

  • struggled with depression — got 50 writing samples from those who were previously suicidal — results described in Cosmopolitan

  • hide himself away from the world following Rosalie’s death

  • burned his letters, manuscripts and notes before his death

Reaction to Watson’s Program

  • psychology to be purely objective and experimental

  • to discard mentalistic ideas and terms — use only stimulus + response

  • Goal of psychology: to predict and control behavior

  • Watson’s ideas not initially impactful until 1919 - Standpoint…

  • critiqued by Mary White Calkins — she said some processes could only be studied by introspection

  • Margaret Washburn called him “enemy of psychology”

  • 1920s-1930s - behaviorism grew among young psychologists + taught in universities

Methodological Approaches in Behaviorism

  • Research Methods

    • Observation: Both with instruments and naturalistic settings.

    • Testing Methods: Assess responses to stimuli, measuring behavior.

    • Verbal Reports: Controversially allowed as objective measures of behavior (contrary to strict behaviorist principles).

      • But, ruled out those of imageless thought or feelings

    • Conditioned Reflex Method: Key in studying behavior; focuses on stimulus-response relationships.

      • applicable to complex human behaviors

Mechanistic Tradition

  • to study human behavior by breaking it into it’s components parts (like atoms and elements)

  • subjects were less important (not observers, but rather observed by experimenters)

  • shift in terminology — “observers” to “subjects”

  • reinforced view of humans as machines - “role is to behave”

Subject Matter of Behaviorism

  • Elements of Behavior (muscular movements + glandular secretions)

  • Different Types of Responses:

    • Simple - e.g. knee jerk

    • “acts” - complex responses, movement that fulfills a goal

      • eating - writing - dancing - building a house

      • these could be reduced to lower-level motor responses

    • Explicit: Observable behaviors (e.g., moving, speaking).

    • Implicit: Internal behaviors not directly observable (e.g., glandular activity).

  • Belief — everything can be described in S-R terms

Instincts

  • Initially accepted:

    • Proposed 11 instincts

    • studied instincts in aquatic bird, in Dry Tortugas Island (Florida coast) — accompanied by Lashley, student at Hopkins

  • Later, rejected instincts:

    • said they were socially conditioned responses

    • refused to believe in inherent capacities, temperaments, or talents

    • claimed behaviors that seem inherent are result of early childhood training

    • emphasis on nurture aspect of nature-nurture debate

  • Zeitgeist?

    • Ideas of environmental influences was progressing already,

    • Early 20th American Psychology was more accepting of applied psychology - so, interested only if behavior could be changed/trained

Emotions

  • physiological conditioned responses to stimuli

  • implicit behavior — eg. blushing, increased heart rate

  • described as objective stimulus - overt bodily response - internal physiological changes

  • In Infants:

    • 3 Unconditioned Responses: fear, rage, and love

    • Elicited Via:

      • Fear - loud noises, sudden loss of support

      • Rage - restrictions to movement

      • Love - caressing the skin, rocking, and patting

    • All responses are derived from these emotions and learned via conditioning

Little Albert - Phobias

  • phobias do not arise from unconscious conflicts, rather are conditioned in childhood

  • Called psychoanalysis “voodooism” - opposed Freud’s belief

  • fear can be generalized to similar stimuli

  • Watson could not attempt to eliminate unlearned fears in Albert

Mary Cover Jones

  • “mother of behavior therapy”

  • inspired by Watson, wanted to see if fears can be removed

  • Subject: Peter, 3yr.s old

    • Was fearful of rabbits, not conditioned in lab

    • Gradually over several weeks, Mary introduced the rabbit to Peter while he was eating

  • Conclusion: systematized desensitization

    • exposure = extinction of fear response

    • support for Watson’s approach

    • behaviorism could be applied to treat mental health issues

    • not a mainstream technique until 50yrs later

Thought Process

  • thoughts can be reduced to speech reactions or movements

  • act of talking represents thought

  • expressed through muscles of tongue, larynx, and gestures - overt reactions to stimuli

  • we rely on same muscular habits when talking to self and during speech

Behaviorism - Popular Appeal

  • Formed a new society — based in scientific principles and controlled behavior

  • Emphasis on the nurturing effect of the parental and social environment

    • Allows parents to mold their children in any
      way they desire

    • Undesirable behaviors can be eliminated in
      childhood, leading to a “perfect” child

  • a new status quo:

    • to push disenchanted people to behaviorism

    • took on aspects of religion

Brave New World

  • Childhood conditioning program could prevent adult disorders

  • to raise children in a scientific way, using behaviorism

  • to replace religious-based ethics with experimental ethics based on behaviorism

Outbreak of Psychology

  • Watson’s behaviorism captured people’s attention

  • Many believed psychology was the path to health, happiness, and prosperity

  • Promoters of psychology:

    • Jastrow - university-trained psychologists emphasized popularization of psychology, explored many topics — “everyday life”

    • Wiggam - wrote newspaper column Exploring Your Mind

    • Leacock psychology was everywhere

Criticisms and Controversies

Lashley

  • student of Watson at John Hopkins, believed in the mechanistic tradition

  • Initially, he advocated for Watson’s behaviorism

  • Later, challenged that brain plays role in learning

  • Laws of Mass Action - the efficiency of learning is the function of intact mass of cortex (more tissue = better for learning)

  • Equipotentiality - one part of cerebral cortex is equal to another in it’s contributions to learning

  • Watson believed the brain was merely to switch sensory impulses to motor impulses, but Lashley claimed that the brain was more active in learning

  • Challenged Watson’s notion of behavior is comprised of only conditioned reflexes

McDougall

  • known for his instinct theory of behavior + social psychology book

  • supporter of free will

  • vilified by psychologists for his view on behaviorism

  • challenged Watson’s notion of behavior being determined and predicted by past experiences

  • if humans had no free will — there would be no human initiative, creative effort, or desire to be better

  • Watson-McDougall Debate:

    • at Psychology Club in Washington - not affiliated with university

    • 1,000 people attended - Watson was popular

    • McDougal voted as winner by the judges

    • argued for introspection and need of self-reports (challenged Watson’s verbal reports)

    • Watson was inconsistent - used verbal reports where it supported data and could be verified

Legacy and Contributions

  • an effective agent of the Zeitgeist

  • objective in methods and terminology - new outlook

  • Watson’s behaviorism replaced by psychological objectivism that built on it

  • recognized for his founding role

  • varying views of Watson

  • to an extent, Watson’s behaviorism was a function of his personality (charismatic, confident, and persuasive)

  • personal qualities + spirit of time contributed to his popularity

  • Despite controversies, his work laid the groundwork for future psychological research and therapy methods.

  • Provided a strong conceptual base for other forms of psychological objectivism

  • Inspired Mary Clover Jones to develop — Systematic Desensitization

  • Inspired Skinner to pursue behaviorism

  • Possibly did the most to popularize psychology more broadly