Life Is Like a Scientific Experiment - Essay Example

06 March Rosalie Rayner: Life is like a scientific experiment If anyone asked me whether I would change anything in my life, I would confidently reply that I would not. My life is fascinating and diverse, and I never feel bored. Probably there were moments in my biography, when I did something wrong, but it is not my prerogative to feel sorry. Being an adventurer by nature, I looked for my calling and, finally, I found it. It was psychology – my main passion, which penetrated not only through my career, but all spheres of my life. In spite of the fact that thousands of researchers have already made a lot of discoveries in this domain, it still remains an untilled field. There was no doubt that it needed just me. It happened that from my early childhood I was curious for people, their behavior and mind, thus I spent my time in observations. I have to admit that Mary Cover Jones’ views made an impact on me, but still the experience of my childhood had a big importance for me. My family. I was born on September 25, 1898 in Baltimore, the largest city in the State of Maryland. Except me, there was one more child in our family – my sister Evelyn. My father, Albert Rayner, and my grandfather, William Rayner, were successful businessmen, therefore I can say that I got a lucky lottery ticket being born to such a family. My uncle, Isidor Rayner, was a Senator of Maryland who dealt with sinking of the Titanic and from 1899 to 1903 served as Attorney General of Maryland. I also had a mother, Rebecca Selner Rayner, with which I had warm relationships. (Smirle, web). As my family was affluent, I had carefree childhood. While the other children had to work part time, I could do everything what I want. Prosperity spoiled me somehow, but in the question of education I was always insistent. Studying and scientific activities. My grandfather William was a strong supporter of John Hopkins University and contributed 10,000 $ to its original research. I enrolled for the graduate courses of that university in1919, after I graduated from Vassar College, there I met Mary Cover Jones whose views influenced me and changed not just my life, but also the psychology as a whole. (Smirle). At the university I became an assistant to John Broadus Watson, one of the most famous psychologists of the world who is considered to be the “father” of behaviorism. “He became the youngest president of the American Psychological Association in 1915; headed two major journals, as editor of Psychological Review and founding editor of the Journal of Experimental Psychology (1916); wrote two famous papers on behaviorism (1913 and 1915) that staked out his version of psychology as a purely objective science; and proposed how behaviorism’s principles could lead to the betterment of society and peoples’ individual lives. Watson also served in several different capacities as a psychologist in World War I: on the Committee on Classification of Personnel in the Army, and in the Signal Corps and the Aviation Medical Corps, before being (he asserted) punitively transferred to the General Staff to be trained for overseas military intelligence work in Europe; he wrote that this work was designed, ultimately, so that “...I was sure to be killed”. By his own account, his military career was one of fractiousness and disagreements with superiors on research methods and results.” (Littman, web). He was destined to become my husband, and many people reckoned me to be only a shadow of such a respectable scientist. If it was so, no one would ever recall my name when talking about our joint experiment – “little Albert”. We made numerous researches on behaviorist philosophy and matters, we studied over 500 children, and this large scope of work enabled us to formulate behavior as a simple response to stimulus. (Smirle). “Early in his writing, Watson described emotions as instinctive, universal, natural reactions. Whereas he ultimately rejected the notion of instinct as superfluous, he assumed that fear, rage, and love were primary emotional responses and undertook to investigate their modifiability in children”. (Littman). It was very interesting for me to assist such an outstanding scientist. This positive cooperation, though, had a very significant negative consequence on John – we fell in love with each other, as it often happens in such male-female cooperation, and he had to divorce from his wife, Mary Ickes. The divorce was very public, it struck Watson’s reputation as he was asked to resign from John Hopkins University, he could not find another job related to psychology even years later on; this unattractive event affected me as well – I did not complete my degree and left the university too. Life is such a thing, however, that if you lose something, then you will find some other things, probably even better – we married on December 31, 1920, and John started working for a prominent advertising agency in Connecticut with a salary four times bigger than at the John Hopkins University. (Smirle) Such twists and turns of life could not make us give up studying behaviorist psychology. Watson’s “career choice was quite compatible with his often-stated belief that psychology had a duty to influence and better the lives of people and the functioning of society”. (Littman). Little Albert. Let us come back to the above mentioned experiment which made us famous forever. It is necessary to mention, however, that this fame can be referred to as negative one: some critics say that such experiments are unethical, other admit that no further investigation into the boy’s life have been made after the experiment has been finished, there is also an opinion that Watson wanted to prove one of his main theses: if he was be given a dozen of healthy, well-developed newborn children and his own special world in which he will grow them up, he would to be able to choose one out of that dozen and make him a specialist of any profile – a physician, a lawyer, a trader, a beggar or even a burglar independently of his talents, inclinations, professional abilities and race of his ancestors. The purpose of this experiment was to call a complicated psychic emotion where it was not observed before by means of external stimuli. “Experimental work had been done so far on only one child, Albert B. This infant was reared almost from birth in a hospital environment; his mother was a wet nurse in the Harriet Lane Home for Invalid Children. Alberts life was normal: he was healthy from birth and one of the best developed youngsters ever brought to the hospital, weighing twenty-one pounds at nine months of age. He was on the whole stolid and unemotional. His stability was one of the principal reasons for using him as a subject in this test. We felt that we could do him relatively little harm by carrying out such experiments as those outlined below”. (Rayner, Watson 2). Initially we checked the boy’s reaction showing him a white rat, different masks, a burning newspaper and cotton yarn. None of these items caused the boy’s emotion of fear. Then we started formulating fear reaction: while the boy was playing with the rat, John struck a steel strip with a hammer strongly in such a manner that the boy did not see either the hammer or the strip. Albert was then frightened by a very loud sound. After that, he was also frightened when seeing the rat without hearing the sound – this was the first stage of the experiment, a conditioned reflex to the rat was formed at the boy’s. Then there was a five-day break in the experiment. After that break we decided to check the child’s reactions once again. Ordinary toys did not cause any reaction at the boy’s, whereas he was still afraid of the rat. It was necessary to check whether the same reaction could be caused by other animals and similar objects. We received the following results: the boy was afraid of a rabbit (intense fear), a dog (fear of low intensity), a fur coat, cotton yarn (minimal intensity fear), John’s wig, Santa Claus mask. Then, we also wanted to demonstrate the ability to cancel (redefine) the fear reactions caused, but the boy was suddenly taken away from the hospital. Apparently, we did not carry out any further investigations and experiments to secure the results obtained, and it was logical that many psychologists had doubts in our experiment. (Smirle). "Times were just different, people were trusted to behave themselves," said Stewart Hulse, Hopkins psychology professor emeritus. "Its only been in the last 20 to 30 years that issues of ethics in science have become profoundly part of the consciousness of scientists." (Simpson). An experiment in the home. The life has brought me and Watson together, and having suffered from numerous scandals, we finally made our own family. “He built a huge house in Connecticut for our family, staffing it with servants.” (Napier). We had two sons: William and James. William was three years older than his brother, and, of course, he was a leader. Certainly, Watson and I decided to bring them up according to behaviorist principles. Our children were not kissed or coddled at home. We treated our children like small adults, they had to play with each other without disturbing us, and consequently they discovered special hobbies. I think that they were more advanced than their peers. Sometimes I wanted to break the laws of behaviorism, to cuddle and kiss my children – to do the things people call typical of a good mother. I and John thought that parents took responsibility for the environment in which we grew our children, and discipline them not by emotions, but by reason. (Smirle). We reflected our views on children’s upbringing in our book “Psychological Care of Infant and Child”, this is an illustrative citation from it: “When you are tempted to pet your child remember that mother love is a dangerous instrument. An instrument which may inflict a never-healing wound, a wound which may make infancy unhappy, adolescence a nightmare, an instrument which may wreck your adult son or daughter’s vocational future and their chances for marital happiness.” (Smirle). This book was considered to be the “how-to” book teaching the mothers to follow scientific principles in mind while bringing up their children and to break maternal bond as early as possible. It was supposed that as a result of following these principles would make children well-adjusted and open to life, not afraid of their environment, with a self-confidence that would help them bear any difficulties in their lives. (Smirle). Anticipating the end of behaviorism, I decided to publish the first article of my own, written without John’s participation: “I Am the Mother of a Behaviorist’s Sons” according to which some researchers suppose that in fact I had the same maternal instinct as all the women in the world and did not reckon maternal love as a dangerous instrument. Probably I was a bad behaviorist, but I really thought that coddling and kissing the children could make them weaker when they grow up. “In some respects I bow to the great wisdom of behaviorism, and in others I am rebellious,” she said. “I was still somewhat on the side of the children. I wanted to have dinner with them more often than just on national holidays. Also, I liked to play practical jokes and giggle, which I thought was childish. Childishness was something the Watsons abhorred, apparently to the detriment of our sons. In my article I referred to my sons as “pieces of protoplasm” to be shaped by me, and suggested that proper upbringing would produce small sized adults at an early age, instead of children who acted immaturely.” (Harris 64). A few words to contemporary women. Looking back I understood that everything I had done was right. We live in the century of great researches, various inventions and splendid opportunities, so taking motherhood too seriously means to become a home slave. Looking into the future I can say that American women will be free from their children’s bonds and will enjoy their career success. There is nothing better than presenting yourself as respectable, self-confident and purposeful personality, therefore I would recommend every woman to value herrself and go ahead without any fear or doubt. Works Cited Duke, C., Fried, S., Pliley, W., Walker, D. A. (1989). Contribution To The History Of           Psychology: LIX Rosalie Rayner Watson: The Mother Of A Behaviorists Sons. Psychological Reports, 65, 163-169. Harris, B. (2014). Rosalie Rayner, Feminist? Revista De Historia De La Psichologia, 2014, vol. 35, num.1 (marzo), Valencia, Publicacions de la Universitat de Valencia, 61-70. Littman, R. A. (2008). Watson, John Broadus. Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/John_Broadus_Watson.aspx Napier, V. (2012). Sex Scandals and Psychology: John Watson, Rosalie Rayner and the Emergence of Behaviorism. http://www.vicnapier.com/MyArticles/PsychEssays/WatsonSexScandel Rayner, R., Watson, J. B. (1920). Conditioned Emotional Reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 3, 1, 1-14. Simpson, J. C. (2000). It’s All In The Upbringing: Doctor, Lawyer, Artist, Thief? John Hopkins Magazine, 62-65. Smirle, C. (2013). Rosalie Rayner. Psychology’s Feminist Voices. http://www.feministvoices.com/rosalie-rayner/ Read More