JOHN B. WATSON: BIOGRAPHY, THEORY, EXPERIMENTS, CONTRIBUTIONS - PSYCHOLOGY - 2025

John B. Watson (1878 - 1958) was an American psychologist who completely revolutionized the study of human behavior with the creation of behaviorism, one of the most important psychological theories in history. His ideas dominated this branch of science for several decades in the 20th century.

Watson earned a doctorate in psychology from the University of Chicago in 1903, at which point he became a professor. Later, in 1908, he moved to Johns Hopkins University and created a comparative psychology laboratory, where he developed most of the ideas that would later become part of behaviorism.

John B. Watson. Source: Prakruthi Prasad

During his career, Watson tried to extrapolate the techniques used in comparative psychology (which uses animals to try to understand the foundations of behavior) to the field of human behavior. In particular, he tried to promote the use of classical conditioning as a valid methodology for the study of people's behavior.

John B. Watson published a number of highly influential works throughout his life, developed much of the foundations of behaviorism, and conducted a series of highly controversial experiments that made him rise to fame. Unfortunately, due to a scandal related to his personal life, he had to abandon his research career early.

Biography

Early years

John B. Watson was born on January 9, 1878 in South Carolina, where he also spent his first years of life. He was raised in a very religious family: his mother promoted very strict standards of conduct, and disapproved of all kinds of behaviors, such as drinking and smoking. Despite this, Watson grew up to be very anti-religious.

During his first years of life, Watson had to deal with all kinds of academic and personal problems. Despite entering Furman University at just 16 years old, thanks to her family's professional connections, she did not find her way easily and ended up developing problems with depression.

Several years after graduating, Watson, on the verge of suicide, decided to do an experiment on himself: he would try to act as if he were going to succeed in everything he set his mind to for a year, and he would kill himself if he failed to improve his life. situation.

This experiment led him to study psychology, a field in which he ended up receiving a doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1903.

Laboral life

In 1908, five years after earning his doctorate, John B. Watson began teaching psychology at Johns Hopkins University. There he began to develop the ideas that would later give rise to behaviorism, a current that went against almost all the practices that were carried out in the field of the study of the human mind at that time.

In 1913, he gave a very famous talk at Columbia University entitled "Psychology from a Behaviorist's Point of View," in which he explained his theory of human behavior.

Basically, he argued that psychology should be an experimental and empirical science, and that introspection (the main method used until then) had no validity.

During this time he continued to conduct experiments on various aspects of behaviorism, such as classical conditioning and the effects of reinforcement and punishment on behavior in animals.

His idea was to extrapolate what he was discovering to human behavior, leaving aside any attempt to understand the inner workings of the mind.

"Little Albert" experiment

During his time, John B. Watson was a very controversial character in the world of psychology. This is perfectly reflected in one of his most famous experiments: that of "Little Albert." In this study, Watson, aided by his assistant Rosalie Rayner, tried to prove that the origin of fear is operant conditioning.

To achieve this, Watson used this technique to create a phobia in a baby he named "Little Albert." The method was as follows: the researchers presented the child with a stuffed toy in the shape of a rat, while making a sound that scared him. Thus, when this was repeated several times, the child showed fear simply by seeing the stuffed animal.

In a second phase of the experiment, Watson and Rayner were able to generalize the phobia they had created in the child to other mammals and animal-like objects.

Today, the unethical nature of this experiment is often pointed out: Although Watson's intention was to decondition the baby later on, he never did because he was fired from his post shortly thereafter.

For years, various researchers tried to find Little Albert to see what effects this study had had on him; but in 2009 it was discovered that he had died shortly thereafter, at the age of six, due to a severe case of hydrocephalus. Furthermore, it was discovered that he had had neurological problems during his childhood.

Withdrawal from university life

John B. Watson continued to practice as a professor and researcher at Johns Hopkins University until 1920. In that year, it was discovered that he had an extramarital affair with Rayner, his assistant in the Little Albert experiment. After this, Watson had to resign his position and leave his wife, after which he married his assistant and began working in an advertising agency.

Following Rayner's death in 1935, and his retirement in 1945, Watson retired to live his last years on a Connecticut farm, where he remained until his death in 1958.

Due to his bad relationship with his family, the criticism he received and his resentment against the world, shortly before his death he decided to burn much of his personal documents, research and letters.

However, despite his fall from grace, Watson's contributions shaped behaviorism, which was the mainstream of academic psychology until the 1950s.

Even today, many of his ideas continue to be used in the field of mental health, making him one of the most influential psychologists of all time.

Theory of behaviorism

Behaviorism is a psychological theory that emphasizes observable, objective, and scientific research methods. Watson developed it in contrast to the prevailing theories of his time, which used mainly introspection to try to better understand the workings of the human mind.

To avoid the subjective element that arose from introspection, Watson (and the rest of the psychologists who developed this current) decided to focus on the only really observable element of psychology: human behavior. Thus, he began to study it on the basis of two phenomena already known in his time, classical conditioning and operant conditioning.

In his article "Psychology from the point of view of a behaviorist", John B. Watson postulated the principles and assumptions that governed the development of this current of study of the human being. Next we will see the most important ones.

All behavior is learned from the environment

One of the most important debates in psychology is that of genetics vs. the environment. Since the emergence of this discipline as a science, researchers have wondered if behavior is learned throughout life or if, on the contrary, it is determined by our genetic makeup. Watson, and consequently the entire behaviorist model, believed that all behaviors are 100% acquired.

In fact, for Watson there were only a small number of mechanisms by which a person could acquire a behavior, way of thinking or feeling. The most important were the two types of conditioning already mentioned, but there were also others, such as habituation, imitation or sensitization.

As a consequence, furthermore, John B. Watson viewed all human behavior as triggered by a series of stimulus-response associations. In fact, he believed that human and animal learning were essentially the same.

Psychology is an empirical science

For behaviorism, psychology must follow the same methods as the rest of the natural sciences; that is, it must be based on objective, measurable and empirical observations. Therefore, most of the research that had been done so far was not considered valid from this perspective.

As a consequence, behaviorism focuses only on observable behaviors, and completely ignores other phenomena such as emotions or thoughts, since it cannot measure them empirically.

Furthermore, from this perspective, it is thought that neither feelings nor thoughts have any influence on the way of acting, so they are discarded as irrelevant.

Although this allowed much progress in research on human behavior, it also ended up causing the downfall of behaviorism.

With the arrival of currents such as cognitive psychology, researchers realized that in order to understand people, it is essential to understand their internal world as well.

Behaviorism today

Behaviorism was the predominant branch of academic psychology for several decades; But with the appearance of other currents, such as humanism, evolutionary psychology or cognitivism, it ended up losing its validity. Many of his discoveries, however, are still used today.

Thus, many of the psychological therapies most used today, such as cognitive-behavioral, use many of the techniques developed by behaviorists during the first decades of the 20th century. In addition, his studies on learning and other aspects of human behavior continue to be used to explain some specific psychological phenomena.

Featured experiments

Although he did much research in different fields throughout his life, Watson's most famous experiment was Little Albert, in which he conditioned a young child to develop a strong fear of animals and animals. teddies.

This experiment was very controversial already in its time, and today it is considered that it breaks the acceptable ethical limits for the practice of psychology.

However, although John B. Watson did not have time to undo Little Albert's conditioning as he intended, he did perform other experiments in which he sought to achieve the opposite effect: to find a method to eliminate fears using only the conditioning techniques.

Thus, in an experiment with another child (Little Peter), Watson developed one of the most widely used techniques today for treating phobias: systematic desensitization. In this study, she managed to eliminate Peter's fear of rabbits completely successfully.

Other contributions

Watson's most important contribution was probably the manifesto we have already mentioned: "Psychology from the point of view of a behaviorist." In this work, based on his university talk, he explained the basic concepts of behaviorism and the principles by which this branch of the science of human behavior is governed.

However, Watson devoted himself to many other subjects throughout his life. After leaving the academic world due to his personal scandals, he spent a long time in the advertising world, where he also developed a large number of marketing and persuasion techniques aimed at improving sales.

Moreover, this clinical psychologist also worked for a long time in the field of child development. One of his most important ideas in this regard was that the first years of life were critical for a person's mental health.

Therefore, he recommended that parents not be excessively affectionate with their children, so that they could develop the skills they needed to function adequately in the world.

In addition to this, Watson's work had a very marked influence on the debate on the influence of genetics and learning on human behavior. For the next several decades, the clean slate theory dominated the field of psychology due to its contributions.

Published works

John B. Watson published a large number of important works throughout his life within the field of psychology. Some of them are listed below.

- Organic and kinesthetic sensations: their role in the reactions of the white rat to the labyrinth (1907).

- Psychology from the point of view of the behaviorist (1913).

- Behavior: an introduction to comparative psychology (1914).

- Conditioned emotional reactions (1920).

- Psychological care of children and infants (1928).

- A history of psychology in autobiography (1936).

References

1. "Biography of Psychologist John B. Watson" in: VeryWell Mind. Retrieved on: June 12, 2019 from VeryWell Mind: verywellmind.com.
2. "John B. Watson" in: New World Encyclopedia. Retrieved on: June 12, 2019 from New World Encyclopedia: newworldencyclopedia.org.
3. "John B. Watson: life and work of the behavioral psychologist" in: Psychology and Mind. Retrieved on: June 12, 2019 from Psychology and Mind: psicologiaymente.com.
4. "Behaviorism" in: Simply Psychology. Retrieved on: June 12, 2019 from Simply Psychology: simplypsychology.org.
5. "John B. Watson" in: Wikipedia. Retrieved on: June 12, 2019 from Wikipedia: es.wikipedia.org.