JOHN B. WATSON

John B. Watson

John B. Watson

Introduction

John Broadus Watson was one of the most prominent psychologist scientists of his era, writing on applied psychology for academic journals, business publications, and popular magazines and is considered to be the founding father of behaviorism. John was born in South Carolina to Emma and Pickens Watson in 1878. The Watson family lived in Greenville, South Carolina and was extremely poor.(Dewsbury, 2000, 315)

John B. Watson and his Theory

John spent much of his boyhood in the relative isolation and poverty of rural South Carolina. John's mother, Emma, a religious individual constantly wanted the best for her family. However, John's father Pickens, with whom he was closer, did not follow the same rules of living as his mother. Pickens was an alcoholic and always drank; he had extra-marital affairs, and abandoned the family in 1891. (Dewsbury, 2000, 315)

The absence of his father had a negative effect on John; he rebelled against his mother and teachers and turned to violence. However, in 1894, at the age of 16, John entered Furman University, from which he graduated five years later with a basic introduction to psychology and an M.A. degree. He turned his life back around with the help of his teacher, Gordon Moore. With Moore's help, John was able to succeed and moved on to the University of Chicago. (Dewsbury, 2000, 315) It was there that he became interested in the field of comparative psychology and studying animals. He wrote his dissertation about the relationship between behavior in the white rat and the growth of the nervous system. In 1903, he received his doctorate and later, at the age of 29 became an associate professor of psychology at Johns Hopkins University. At the age of 31, Watson became the director of psychology at this major research institution and also the editor of Psychological Review.

Eventually, John married Mary Ikes whom he met at the University of Chicago. Together, they had two children, Mary and John and like his father, he had affairs with a number of women. John and Mary finally divorced and he married one of his graduate students, Rosalie Rayner. They also had two children, James and William. John focused much of his study of behaviorism on his four children. After Rosalie's death, his poor relationships with his children grew worse and he became a recluse. (Harris, 2005, 151)

Behaviorism originated with the work of John B. Watson. Watson claimed that psychology was not concerned with the mind or with human consciousness. Instead, psychology would be concerned only with behavior. In this way, men could be studied objectively, like rats and apes. Watson's work was based on the experiments of Ivan Pavlov, who had studied the responses of animals to conditioning. In Pavlov's best-known experiment, he rang a bell as he fed some dogs several meals. Each time the dogs heard the bell they knew that a meal was coming, and they would begin to drool. Pavlov then rang the bell without bringing food, but the dogs still ...