John Broadus Watson - Research Paper Example

?John Broadus Watson Introduction Psychology is an area of science which had been contributed immensely by many famous personalities. John Broadus Watson presumes an important position among the experts who were considered to be the icons of psychology and was very well recognized as the founder of behaviorist school of psychology which focus on the control and identification of behavior. His contributions to psychology can be matched with Sigmund Freud who put forward many scientific ideologies such as the theories of unconscious mind, mechanisms of repression and analysis of dreams (Encyclopedia of Psychology, 2001). One could find many writings and analysis about J B Watson and his concept of behaviorism and all these writings prove the relevance and impact of his contributions to the field of psychology. Watson’s childhood John Broadus Watson was born on 9th of January 1878 in the village of Travelers Rest, South Carolina and his parents were Emma Kesiah Roe Watson and Pickens Butler Watson. His birth was in a poor farmer’s family and there are contradictions regarding his sibling particulars among experts. Watson’s mother was immensely religious and an active member of the Reedy River Baptist Church which made him to involve in religious activities during his childhood. His mother expected him to become a minister and so she kept his name after John Albert Broadus, a minister of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and she tried to keep her family always close to the church and she never let her family members to drink, smoke and dance. Watson’s father, on the other hand, was least religious. He used to drink and chase women and eventually separated from his family in 1891. Watson’s childhood was immersed in poverty and isolation. The religious convictions of his mother had immense impact on developing a fear towards darkness which continued throughout his life and he never succeeded in curing his phobia using the principles of behaviorism (Hergenhahn, 2009, p. 397). Watson’s adult life Watson got admission to the Furman University at the age of 15 even though he had a previous background of aggression and laziness during his schooling. Cohen observes Watson’s convincing ability which he demonstrated throughout his life as the reason behind his admission to the Furman University. He engaged himself in a part time job at a chemical laboratory to pay his college fees and continued to live with his family during his college days. Watson was influenced by Gordon B. Moore who taught him philosophy and psychological works of Wundt and James at his college. Watson was not happy with his brother Edward and there had been constant clashes between these two brothers and Edward considered Watson as a shame to his family. Watson’s graduation took one additional year to complete and he made it in 1899 as he was flunked by his favorite teacher in 1898. But there is an interesting counterpart to the story and it restarts at the point when Watson received a letter form Gordon B. Moore requesting to accept him as a research student under the guidance of Watson. But unfortunately Moore died soon after loosing his eyesight before starting his research under the supervision of his former student. Even though it is true that Watson had to spend one additional year to complete his graduation at Furman; the extra year benefited him to achieve a post graduation at the age of 21. The Chicago era Watson worked in a tiny school at Greenville as a teacher for a monthly salary of $25 after completing his graduation form Furman and it was the death of his mother which made him think about going for higher studies in the University of Chicago or in Princeton. He applied in both the universities and decided to choose Chicago by recognizing the fact that it is necessary to have thorough knowledge of Greek and Latin to go on with his studies at Princeton. His favorite faculty at Furman who flunked him was also from the University of Chicago and this was yet another personnel reason behind his decision. He took many part time assignments along with his studies at Chicago. He worked as a waiter in a boardinghouse and as a janitor in a psychology laboratory and took care of white rats. Philosophy was his subject of study at Chicago and he was influenced by the philosophies of Hume as he taught that “nothing was necessarily fixed or sacred” and he took the ideas of John Dewey even though he felt it is difficult to follow him (Hergenhahn, 2009, p. 397). As a result of the dissatisfaction with Dewey’s teaching he turned in to psychology and he received an opportunity to work with James Angell who was considered to be a master of functional psychology and he is the one who really influenced Watson during his studied at Chicago University. Angell was the one who taught him the fundamentals of psychology and which turned to be useful for him while forming his theories of behaviorism (Hergenhahn, 2009, p. 397). Psychology was defined as a study of consciousness during the graduate level studies of Watson at Chicago and the two major streams of psychology during that era were the structuralism and functionalism. The structural psychologists supported the analysis of psychological behavior by considering different components of consciousness such as sensations, feelings and images and on the other hand the factionalists supported the ideas of Charles Darwin and were keen on the factions of consciousness and mental operations than mental contents and both the schools used introspective methods for their research purposes. In 1903 Watson finished his PhD in animal psychology and in 1908 he got positioned at John Hopkins University and there he continued his researches in animal psychology and became the editor for psychological review and the head of psychology department at John Hopkins in 1909. (Hergenhahn, 2009, p. 154). The behaviorist view of psychology Watson could never find himself to be happy with the definition and concepts of psychology of his era and he was very much concerned about the independence of psychology. He was totally against the introspective analysis which was considered to be the fundamental psychological research method at that period. He observed that introspection bounds psychology to mentalism which limit its freedom to be an independent branch of natural science and therefore he adopted a controlled ‘stimulus-response’ method for his experiments carried out with rats in Hall’s psychological laboratory. Watson shared his behaviorist ideology to his closest ones such as Angell and Yerkes but none of them encouraged him as they were the supporters of functionalism. In 1908 he tried to proclaim his ideas in a conference at Yale University and all of the mainstream psychologists severely criticized his new concept. He was not confident enough to counter those critiques at that time and therefore he remained silent and concentrated more on his experiments. The title of Watson’s article which he published in 1913 to express his concept of behaviorism after his four years long directorship of the Hopkins Psychology laboratory was “psychology as the behaviorist views it”. This article is considered to be first step which instigated revolutionary changes in psychology and as Watson puts it “psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior. Introspection forms no essential part of its methods, nor is the scientific value of its data dependent up on the readiness with which they lend themselves to interpretations in terms of consciousness. The behaviorist, in his efforts to get a unitary scheme of animal response, recognizes no dividing line between man and brute. The behavior of man with all of its refinement and complexity forms only a part of the behaviorist’s total scheme of investigation” (Green). Behaviorists consider psychology as a branch of natural science and their approaches are considered to be more scientific in nature. He criticized both the structuralist and fundamentalist ideologies as they were in a misconception of studying consciousness. There were many disappointed experts by the subjectivism of psychology and Watson’s attempt succeeded in gaining attention by them and he is considered to be the founder of behaviorist school of psychology even though the idea was not originally presented by him. Watson instigated the revolution and behaviorism became the back born of American Psychology by the 1930s. The relevance of childhood according to behaviorist idea could be summarized in his own words: “Give me a dozen healthy infants….and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random train him to become any type of specialist I might select….regardless of his talents, penchants, abilities, vocations, tendencies and the race of his ancestors” (Encyclopedia of Psychology, 2001). Watson was the director for both animal and human laboratories at Hopkins but he was least interested to carry out experiments using humans. However he started experiments to analyze the motor reflexes observed in kids and the fear conditioning experiment which he conducted in Albert B. became the most famous one among the series. Watson with his graduate student assistant Rosalie Rainer who later became his life partner succeeded in conditioning 11 year old Albert B to fear a white rat when it was coupled with a loud voice and his experiment proved that it is possible to generate fear in human beings by conditioning and his environmentalist theory of emotions in humans received empirical backing by the success of this experiment. This was his last experiment at Hopkins and he resigned his directorship in 1920 as his wife found his affair with his assistant and which lead to their divorce (Benjamin, 2006, p. 154). Professional career Watson’s professional career starts with his advent as a teacher at the John Hopkins University in 1908 and he was fully engaged in teaching and researching along with developing his behaviorist theory until his resignation from academic positions. Apart from the role of psychologist Watson was famous in the field of advertising also and he was offered huge salary by different companies such as the J Walter Thompson Company and William Esty Advertising. His earnings were increasing every year and by 1930 his yearly income crossed $70,000. The use of market research which was unfamiliar during that period was one of the reasons behind the impressive success of Watson as an advertiser or a business promoter. Watson believed that it is possible to influence the sale of a particular product by relating them with established brand names and his theory proved to be fruitful in the case of many consumer products. In the year 1945 he joined William Esty Advertising and continued his service as the vice president up till the age of 67 when he retired. Even though he turned in to the industrial side which provided him monitory benefits it is true that psychology was his real passion and he regretted for his unattained goals in the field of psychology (Hergenhahn, 2009, p. 403). Conclusion It is clear from the above description that J B Watson holds an important position among the iconic personalities in the field of psychology. Even though his academic career ended with the scandal at Hopkins one can never disagree with the fact that Watson succeeded in providing a new face to psychology and developing it as a branch of natural science. He is considered as founder of the behaviorist school of psychology and his article which published in the year 1913 is regarded as the manifesto of modern psychology. He pulled himself back from public writing by 1936 and led his later life with a female companion on a farm and departed at the age of 80 in the year 1956. He destroyed all his vast collection of letters and personnel documents which made it difficult for historians to get details regarding his childhood and the earlier developments of behaviorism. References Benjamin, L.T. (2006). A history of psychology in letters. 2nd Illustrated ed: Wiley-Blackwell. Encyclopedia of Psychology. (Apr 06, 2001). ‘Watson, John Broadus (1878-1958)’. CBS Interactive. Retrieved April 1, 2011 from: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_g2699/is_0006/ai_2699000650/ Green, C.D. Psychology as the Behaviorist Views it. John B. Watson (1913). First published in Psychological Review, 20, 158-177. Retrieved April 1, 2011 from: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Watson/views.htm Hergenhahn, B. R. (2009). An Introduction to the History of Psychology. 6th Illustrated ed: Cengage Learning. Read More