The Psychology Book

68

B

y the beginning of the 20th
century, many psychologists
had concluded that the
human mind could not be adequately
studied through introspective
methods, and were advocating a
switch to the study of the mind
through the evidence of behavior in
controlled laboratory experiments.
John Watson was not the first
advocate of this thoroughgoing
behaviorist approach, but he was
certainly the most conspicuous.
In a career cut short by his marital
infidelity, he became one of the
most influential and controversial

psychologists of the 20th century.

Through his work on the stimulus–

response learning theory that had

been pioneered by Thorndike, he

became regarded as the “founding

father” of behaviorism, and he did

much to popularize the use of the

term. His 1913 lecture, Psychology

as the Behaviorist Views It, put

forward the revolutionary idea that

“a truly scientific psychology would

abandon talk of mental states... and

instead focus on prediction and

control of behavior.” This lecture

became known to later psychologists

as the “behaviorist manifesto.”

IN CONTEXT

APPROACH

Classical behaviorism

BEFORE

1890s German-born biologist

Jacques Loeb (one of Watson’s

professors) explains animal

behavior in purely physical-

chemical terms.

1890s The principle of

classical conditioning is

established by Ivan Pavlov

using experiments on dogs.

1905 Edward Thorndike

shows that animals learn

through achieving successful

outcomes from their behavior.

AFTER

1932 Edward Tolman adds

cognition into behaviorism in

his theory of latent learning.

1950s Cognitive psychologists

focus on understanding the

mental processes that both

lie behind and produce

human behavior.

Before Watson’s research at Johns

Hopkins University, in Baltimore,

Maryland, the majority of

experiments on behavior had

concentrated on animal behavior,

with the results extrapolated to

human behavior. Watson himself

studied rats and monkeys for his

doctorate but (perhaps influenced

by his experience working with the

military during World War I) was

keen to conduct experiments using

human subjects. He wanted to

study the stimulus–response model

of classical conditioning and how it

applied to the prediction and

Pavlov demonstrated that

animals can be taught

behavioral responses

through conditioning.

People can be conditioned

to produce emotional

responses to objects.

Anyone, regardless

of their nature,

can be trained

to be anything.

The fundamental (unlearned)

human emotions are fear,

rage, and love.

These feelings can be

attached to objects through

stimulus–response

conditioning.

Humans, too, can be

conditioned to produce

physical responses to

objects and events.

JOHN B. WATSON