Watson’s Human Behavior and Development

Watson was an American psychologist. Dr. Watson is best known for establishing the
psychological school of Behaviorism. Watson's theories, research, and work were influential to the
field of psychology, and through that, Watson left his marks on the larger world.

Early in Watson's career, Watson was influenced in this thinking by the work of Ivan Pavlov. Ivan
Pavlov had discovered the relationship between stimulus and response and recorded his research
showing that people andmals could learn to associate one thing with something else. His research
was some of the earliest in what is now called “Classical conditioning.”

Watson included Ivan Pavlov's basic principles in his theories and study on psychology.

Significant Contributions
"Manifesto on Behaviorism"

Watson created the school of behaviorist methodology within psychology and Watson published
his views on this psychological theory in 1913. Watson's article was entitled "Psychology as the
Behaviorist Views It," and this article is commonly considered a manifesto on behaviorism.

Watson's article outlined behaviorism as an objective branch of science that would base its
theories and findings on experimental research using purely observable data. One goal of
behaviorism that was listed in Watson's article was to understand how certain behaviors develop
as a consequence of conditioning to external stimuli.

Area of Study
Watson was not particularly concerned with the following:

•thought

•cognition

•introspection

or other forms of internal consciousness

Watson thought it was foolish to interpret the inner workings of the mind. Watson believed
psychologists should concern themselves with only what they could see.

Views on Human Behavior

Watson applied his views to all parts of human behavior including language and memory. Watson
believed language to be a "manipulative habit." Watson's meaning of this term was meant to
describe the human ability to manipulate the sounds made with the larynx. Watson believed that
language and all behavior is conditioned (taught) in this case through imitation. Watson theorized
that over time people learned to associate certain sounds or spoken words with certain objects,
situations, or symbols.

Hypothesis
Watson hypothesized that just as people learn to associate sounds with objects or symbols, so too
did people learn to associate certain feelings, behaviors, and other things with situations, objects,
and symbols. This was Watson's blueprint for learning, through which Watson believed all people
learn or can unlearn and relearn lessons as needed.

Most Influential Work

Watson's most influential and well-known work was his study of emotions. Watson was
particularly interested in studying the way that emotions could be learned. Watson believed that
emotions were merely physical responses to external stimuli and that rage, fear, and love were all
yet to be learned at birth.

Little Albert
Watson was particularly interested in studying fear.

Watson explored the aspect of fear by pairing an otherwise mundane stimulus (a loud bang), with
the appearance of an equally non-dangerous object (a white rat) also called a “neutral stimulus”,
the sudden unpleasant sensation of loud noise paired with the rat would produce a fear response.

Watson studied this phenomenon in the famous and controversial "Little Albert" study. In this
study, he used loud noises to condition (or teach) a baby to be fearful of white rats, rabbits, or
another similar neutral stimulus. In another study, Watson also found that such fears could be
unlearned through exposure to the feared object and learning new associations between stimuli.

Principles of Behaviorism
Moreover, Watson believed that the principles of behaviorism could be used to shape babies into
anything an experimenter, parent, or another person might want. Watson famously said:

Quote

"Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my specified world to bring them up in and I'll
guarantee to take anyone at random and train him to become any specialist I might select-doctor,
lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents,
penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. I am going beyond my facts,
and I admit it, but so have the advocates to the contrary, and they have been doing so for many
thousands of years." - John B. Watson
Debate
Watson emphasized the role of nurture and the ability for children to become anything,
responding to the environment around them. Some of Watson's thinking and the behaviorist
approach is how and why we know that some environments are helpful to the development of
emotionally healthy children and adults and others are not.

Despite Watson's recognition of the importance of nurture in the nature-nurture debate, Watson
also believed that parents should not be particularly nurturing. Watson believed that children
should be treated as adults and not given much attention or affection.

Watson thought that doing so would give children unrealistic expectations for their treatment in
the world. This opinion later resulted in Watson receiving criticism, and Watson did later admit he
perhaps did not know enough about child development to speak on such issues. Nonetheless,
Watson's views were influential in the fields of psychology and child development.

Lessons
Watson overcame environmental obstacles of his own and benefited from the nurturing of his
early mentors at college, despite stating that nurture wasn't necessary or could affect a child's
expectations in life. Perhaps his own childhood that lacked nurturing and Watson's later success
influenced that opinion.

Watson contributed greatly to the understanding of certain behaviors, which may be conditioned
by stimuli found in the environment, and revolutionized treatment of some behaviors. Therapists
today utilize a similar method to Watson's of "exposure" to help clients move past fears and other
conditioned responses of all sorts of things.

If in your own life, you have faced adversity, developed fears, and find yourself held back by your
circumstances, the right people and experiences can also help you to overcome those barriers.