John B Watson

By: Eduardo Maradiaga

Early Life

Birth Date: January 9, 1878Birth Place: Travelers Rest, South

CarolinaWatson was the fourth out of six

siblings total.His father’s name was Pickens

Butler Watson.His mother’s name was

This is a picture oh John’s house where he lived as a child.

Life at School

Barely 16 years old, he commenced his studies at Furman University in 1894.

In the few psychology classes he took, he got the lowest grades out of the group.

Watson is the one at the far right…

University of Chicago

He arrived at Chicago in 1900 to pursue his dream of becoming a philosopher.

To earn some cash money he worked as a janitor, waiter and rat caretaker.

Being the youngest person to earn a PhD at the university, he graduated in 1903.

Starting a Family

John married Mary Ickes in 1904 after graduating.

They had two children named Mary and John after their parents.

Foundation of Behaviorism

“Psychology as the Behaviorist views it”, published in the Psychological Review made Watson successful at John Hopkins University, where he worked for 14 years.

Considered a “landmark in the founding of Behaviorism”.

The Affair

Watson’s career balked when he had an affair with Rosalie Rayner, which he married shortly after divorcing his first wife.

When the scandal went public, John Hopkin’s administrator asked for his resignation.

Advertising

After leaving John Hopkins, he took a job with J. Walter Thompson in an advertising agency.

In 1935, John Watson switched jobs to become an advertising executive at the William Esty Co.

Road to Success..

During his career as an advertiser, he received some influence by Ivan Pavlov and decided do the famously known “Little Albert”experiment.

Little Albert Experiment

Summary of Theory: Emotions, like fear, is taught and conditioned. Emotions are not innate.

Summary of Work: He conducted this experiment by grabbing a random baby to prove he ha no emotions yet. He showed him 5 types of animals including a dog and a rat. The baby responded normally without a noticeable reaction. After several tries, he started pairing the rat with an annoying bell. The baby startled.He later feared the image of the rat alone without any noise.

CEGM

Cultural: NoEthical: Non-ethical. Most of

the rules now established were severely broken.

Gender: NoMethodology:

Experimentation

Reductionist vs Non-ReductionistThis was reductionist since

we had no detailed explanation on how the baby reacted or what actions did the animals took while they were left free to run around. Many details were not clearly stated.

See it for Yourself…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aG6A66iV5tk

Works Cited Bergmann, G. (1956). The contributions of John B.

Watson. Psychological Review, 63, 265-276. Brewer, C. L. (1991). Perspectives on John B. Watson.

In G. A. Kimble, M. Wertheimer, & C. L. White (Eds.), Portraits of pioneers in psychology. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Buckley, K. W. (1989). Mechanical man: John Broadus Watson and the beginnings of ﾊ behaviorism. New York: Guilford Press.

Hartley, M., & Commire, A. (1990). Breaking the silence. New York: Putnam.Watson, J. B. (1936).

John Broadus Watson. In C. Murchison (Ed.), A history of psychology in autobiography (Vol. 3, pp. 271-281). Worcester, MA: Clark University Press.