ipl-logo

John Watson Research Paper

553 Words3 Pages

How John Watson Made Psychology a True Science
Many people know John Watson as the father of behaviorism. Along with creating this new train of thought, he brought true scientific observation and method into the field psychology. Instead of inferring about a state of consciousness, you make physical observations of behavior individuals are enacting (Heffner, 2017). This was a radical idea when it was originally introduced, but over time this idea evolved into the psychological school of behaviorism that we see today, and allowed psychology to develop into a true science. Before John Watson gave a speech introducing and explaining the behaviorist perspective, psychologists were in argument over how psychology was studied. Dr. Watson believed that psychologists were studying unsuitable subjects, using insufficient …show more content…

The concepts around this school of psychology were focused on the unconscious mind, the repression of emotions etc. Many psychologist spoke to people to discover what was going on in their minds. Then they would use this information to help shape their theories. Then John Watson gave his speech at Columbian University in 1913 titled, “Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It”. In this speech Dr. Watson laid the basis for behaviorism. In the speech he explained that psychologists should study physical, observable behaviors instead of the unconscious mind. (Watson, 1999).
Dr. Watson went on to carry out various studies using his behaviorist methods. The most famous and most notable of these experiments is known as the “Little Albert Experiment”. This experiment was designed to show that young children learn their emotions through classical conditioning. In this experiment a 9 month old infant boy named Albert was shown a white rat. Every time he was shown the rat a loud noise was made to scare him. After a while Albert would become scared immediately when shown the white rat (Watson,

Show More
Related

  • John B Watson Research Paper

    205 Words  | 1 Pages

    John B Watson was born 1878, in South Carolina, with an extremely religious mother and a completely opposite father. His father was known to drink heavily and had several affairs; when Watson was 13 his father ran away with another woman. Only after Watson was rich and famous did his father try to make contact with him and Watson refused because he was resentful towards him. “But like his father he became heavily attached to bourbon and he freely transgressed his marriage. Watson had affairs with many women” (Karier, 1986, p.133).

    Read More

  • The Little Albert Experiment

    1155 Words  | 5 Pages

    For this paper, I chose to write about the Little Albert experiment The overall importance of this study was to discover if a human could be conditioned to develop a bias, fear, or generalized fear of an animal, object, or person based the stimuli placed around the involved person, animal or object. Watson & Rayner (1920) suggested that “in infancy the original emotional reaction patterns are few, consisting so far as observed of fear, rage and love, then there must be some simple method by means of which the range of stimuli which can call out these emotions and their compounds is greatly increased.” This means that before any conditioning occurs, the subject should have a pure response, but after minor and simple experimentation and conditioning,

    Read More

  • Ecological Validity In Psychological Research Essay

    1385 Words  | 6 Pages

    Skinners experiment was based on operant conditioning, using the concept of discrimination learning, he carried out experiments on animals with the idea that their behaviour is predetermined by their environment and using a well controlled environment would allow him to in turn control their behaviours using a range of triggers. Using reinforcement and expectancy, the animal associates acting out certain behaviours with rewards. (Toates, F., 2010, pp. 165-167) After performing a number of experiments on rats using mazes, he subsequently designed the Skinner box.

    Read More

  • Little Albert Experiment: A Case Study Of The Little Albert Experiment

    2094 Words  | 9 Pages

    The Little Albert experiment was a case study showing empirical evidence of classical conditioning in humans. The study also provides an example of stimulus generalization. It was carried out by John B. Watson and his graduate student, Rosalie Rayner, at Johns Hopkins University. The results were first published in the February 1920 issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology. After observing children in the field, Watson hypothesized that the fearful response of children to loud noises is an innate unconditioned response.

    Read More

  • The Experiment Baby Album: John B. Watson

    421 Words  | 2 Pages

    John B Watson was a famous psychologist and behaviorist. In today's society some of his beliefs practices and studies would be extremely taboo. One of his most famous experiments was the study known as little Albert. Little Albert was an infant no older than 11 months. Watson

    Read More

  • How Did John B Watson Use Little Albert

    1511 Words  | 7 Pages

    Set against the backdrop of the psychology school of behaviourism, John B. Watson was an innovative character in the field. His school of thought related to the study and measurement of behaviours of human beings. Prior to Watson’s theory, researchers used animal behaviour traits to draw conclusions in respect of human behaviour. However, Watson’s primary focus was on human emotions (Discovering Psychology). Watson used an infant, named Albert, in his experiments.

    Read More

  • How Did John B Watson Contribute To Psychology

    1308 Words  | 6 Pages

    John B. Watson was an american psychologist who studied behavioralism and conditioning in the early 20th century. He is credited with the creation of Behaviorism, which is now a very prominent branch of psychology ("John Watson"). Watson is well known for his various published works and experiments. Watson achieved many things in his lifetime, most noticeably a gold medal from the American Psychological Association for his contributions to Psychology (Weiland). He overcame many personal issues in his life, which led him to be a better psychologist.

    Read More

  • Watson's Brave New World: Classical Conditioning

    1272 Words  | 6 Pages

    Alex was conditioned to react in a passive manner when confronted with any action that could be considered ultra-violence. Classical conditioning experiments have been performed on humans with a large degree of success. One of the most notable and most controversial classical conditioning experiments done on humans was Watson’s “Little Albert” experiment. This experiment was conducted to test the fear response in humans. The experiment started off by introducing Albert to several animals, a white rat, monkey, bunny and a dog (Creelan).

    Read More

  • Skinner Vs Psychoanalysis

    1006 Words  | 5 Pages

    Behaviorists believe that anything to do with cognition is outside the study of psychology and they define psychology as the study of observable behavior whereas Freud placed much emphasis on mental life. Freud divided the mind into three parts the conscious, the preconscious and the unconscious. He believed that the unconscious mind contained desires, inaccessible memories and impulses that are responsible for human behavior. Skinner embraced psychology as a science by using experiments and observations to prove his theories.

    Read More

  • John B Watson Research Paper

    1357 Words  | 6 Pages

    Experiments of the 1900s Two experiments were conducted in the 1900s by two people named John Watson and Mary Cover Jones. John Watson’s experiment was conducted to induce fear of a white rat in a baby named Albert. Mary Cover Jones conducted an experiment that would eliminate fear of rabbits in a young boy named Peter. These two experiments are still talked about today. The Little Albert experiment presents an example of how classical conditioning can be used to condition an emotional response.

    Read More

  • John B. Watson's Theory Of Behaviorism

    1558 Words  | 7 Pages

    Behaviorists believe that our responses to environmental stimuli shapes our behaviors. John Watson believed that if he were given infants, then he would be able to make one a thei,

    Read More

  • John Watson's Theory Of Human Behavior

    1644 Words  | 7 Pages

    ‘John Watson was one of the early American psychologists to break the Freudian notions that our unconscious mind was behind most of our behavior’ - Gary Gilles. John Watson was considered the ‘father’ of behaviourism, behaviorism is the scientific study of human behaviour (Schatzie, 2016). Watson was responsible for making Ivan Pavlov’s ideas and principles into part of a psychological norm by applying it to humans. He was impressed with Pavlov’s accurate measurement of observable behaviours and believed that Pavlov’s model could be extended towards diverse forms of learning and personality characteristics. Watson believed that the goal of psychology should be ‘the prediction and control of behavior’, meaning that one should be able to assume an upcoming behavioral action and ultimately learn how

    Read More

  • Theories Of Behaviorism

    1623 Words  | 7 Pages

    Background information on the theory ‘Behaviorism’ It was invented by John Broadus Watson who was born on January 9, 1878 who died on September 25, 1958 (aged 80). He was residing in New York City, New York. His Nationality is American. Mr. J. Broadus was in the field of Psychology.

    Read More

  • Thabani Behaviourism

    1004 Words  | 5 Pages

    Watson believed that behaviourism is the only logical version of functionalism (Watson J.B 1913). Watson

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Perennialism In Education

    1197 Words  | 5 Pages

    It claims that psychology should concern itself with the behavior of organisms (human and nonhuman animals). Psychology should not concern itself with mental states or events or with constructing internal information processing accounts of behavior. According to methodological behaviorism, reference to mental states, such as an animal's beliefs or desires, adds nothing to what psychology can and should understand about the sources of behavior. Mental states are private entities which, given the necessary publicity of science, do not form proper objects of empirical study. Methodological behaviorism is a dominant theme in the writings of John Watson

    Read More

More about John Watson Research Paper

Open Document