Watson’s views on prediction and control were welcomed in the business field. The propaganda efforts of First World War gave him the framework of advertising and met with a great success. Advertising executives designated themselves as scientific ‘Consumption Engineers’. They convinced business leaders that to reach the goals of increased profit, advertising was absolutely necessary.
J. Walter Thompson Agency specifically perceived the idea of science within advertising. Dr. Watson being a newcomer to the advertising world, had to undergo lengthy training programme, which included the selling Yuban coffee to retailers and clerking at Macy’s. The training programme gave him a new concept for the business community.
In 1922, Watson gave a speech and said, "I did not know anything about industry, and above all that I did not know the habits and dwelling places of peculiar and widely distributed animal we call the "Consumer". Theoretically, I had been studying this animal all my days; practically, I did not know how to get at him ?
He was given promotion immediately to an ‘Ambassador’ type position. Thereafter his primary function was to act as a spokesman for the J.W.Thompson Agency at business conventions. He said in his particular speech, "Since the time of the serpent in the garden of Eden influenced Eve and Eve in turn persuaded Adam, the world has tried to find out ways and means of controlling human behavior. In advertising, we call the process selling." Quite oftenly he spoke about the correlations between advertising, selling and behaviorist psychology.
He discovered that infants are born with an inventory of only three basic reactions. They are : love, fear and rage. Besides these emotions, the environment was also a responsible factor for individual habits. In simpler way, advertising job was to peep into either rage, fear or love and thus strike at a deep psychological need. On the basis of this Watson gave new concept of research in advertising. According to him, the best way to reach the consumer was to know the consumer, and this was possible only through research.
The research practices which are undertaken by today’s advertising agencies can be linked to the ideas of Dr. Watson. It seems that Watson was a contributor to the growing theory of advertising, which involves that an advertising should be aesthetically more pleasing, appeal more to non-rational emotions rather than reason. This trend continued over the first three decades of the century. Watson’s contribution to this phenomena was his attempt to peep into the non-rational emotions of fear, rage and love. It is remarkable that while working as an advertising executive, he was simultaneously selling books through which he wanted to teach people that the emotions they feared were only controlled by them because they didn’t understand them. He confirmed their emotions could be controlled through the training. Later he himself realized that he was ineffective in applying behaviorist psychological theory to the advertising. He found on advertising as a media to spread over his views on behaviorism as an applicable science. He also managed to convey the content of his work through topics like Child-Rearing, Sex, Marriage, Women’s roles, how to succeed business etc. In 1924 he became the Vice President of J. Walter Thompson. It was he who introduced science and research to the advertising community.
THE MAJOR GOALS
Watson had two major goals. First to convert the discipline of psychology to a behavioral science and second to formulate psychological principles that would be effective in planning, a better society.
The demonstration that psychological phenomena could be systematically investigated without employing introspection was Watson’s strategy, which he adopted for his methodical goal. To prove this point, he illustrated how the basic of problems of human psychology could be investigated with lower animals.
His strategy for formulating psychological principles to serve practical needs which was based on the assumption that conditioning held the key to an effective programme for modifying behavior. In his academic life, he attempted to demonstrate how laboratory research supported his assumption.
CONCEPT OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Watson rejected consciousness as the subject matter of psychology. He had raised the issue of the role of consciousness to humans. This change is false, when applied to his early writings. In one of his previous paper he wrote the psychology "needs introspection as little as do the science of chemistry and physics." However he did not deny the existence of consciousness. Watson’s thesis revealed that natural sciences are based on the conscious experience of the observing scientist. Although he acknowledge the existence of consciousness, he believed that it could not be studied scientifically. After eleven years he stated that consciousness was a "tool with which all scientists work."
The two views of consciousness have been classified as ‘Methodological Behaviorism and Metaphysical Behaviorism’. His original conception came from his conviction that the direct examination of consciousness could not serve as a method of psychological investigation as it had not and could not give reliable knowledge of the type found in natural science. Due to this failure, behavior that should have been objectively observed, became subject matter of psychology. The conscious experience has to be considered only as a tool, and not the object, of scientific inquiry. The change in status of methodological behaviorism to metaphysical behaviorism, the position that consciousness does not exist, had an effect of enlarging the ranks of anti-behaviorists. It can be said that it’s historical impact was to confuse the picture for those who craved to understand and evaluate behaviorism.
ON HABITS
For Watson, the basic unit of behavior was the sensory-motor reflex. This was commonly referred to as a stimulus-response association. According to Watson such associations could be innate or acquired. An innate reflex, such as fear of a sudden loud noise, is a result of genetic organization of the nervous system. Stimulus-response association gained Albert’s fear of a white rat, which resulted from learning.
A habit could be both-explicit or implicit. An explicit habit, which is clearly observable, as it takes place in the playing of violin and tennis. A habit can said to be implicit, when it is hidden from direct examination but not made observationable by technical procedure. The importance and pervasiveness of habits drew the attention to the principles that govern their actions. Watson confessed that he could only speculate about a theory of stimulus-response associations. Watson suggested three principles-recency, frequency and context. His theories about habits has never been extended beyond simple speculation. He designed a rich programme for developing systematic theory, which was never attempted. Today his conception of habit formation and strengthening has only historical events. But the theory did not exert an important influence by directing attention to the basic problem of discovering principles that govern habitual behavior.
PERIPHERAL THEORY OF THINKING
Watson put forward a contributive theory of thinking that reduced thought to implicit motor behavior in contrast to the common sense, which occurs in the brain. The central role is assigned to language habits involving movements in the throat and tongue. To support his peripheral theory, Watson offered developmental evidence Watson said that children at early ages talk aloud when thinking. Later on, while thinking, the children reduce their over speech to a whisper and finally the speech becomes inaudible. He insisted that even when it is inaudible, the muscular responses were occurring in the speech mechanism. He coined the phrase ‘subvocal talking’ to describe the thinking. He also acknowledged that kinesthetic and emotional cues were involved.
He also acknowledged that the empirical evidence supporting his peripheral theory of thinking was limited. The best thing he could give was naturalistic observations of young children and deaf mutes. Mutes frequently exhibit hand movement associated with sign language while reading and thinking. This was reported by their (mute’s) companions. Max was encouraged by these observations, as a result he used electronic methods to record muscular activity too slight to see.
Watson’s peripheral theory of thinking suffered from insufficient evidence and also an intrinsic ambiguity. Peripheral events stressed on such a degree that the theory was interpreted to imply that the central nervous system, including the brain, does not play essential role in thinking. But Watson has denied such position.
In the final analysis, his peripheral theory of thinking motivated interesting research on motor involvement in thinking. But the over all theory itself proved to be both superficial and incomplete.
INTRODUCTION
John Broadus Watson is known as a ‘Founder of Behaviorism’. He was a vigorous writer and his writings give additional insight into his ‘Behaviorism’.
The major contribution of John B. Watson is his redefinition of psychology from the science of the mind to the science of behavior. He became famous for his views on behaviorism. He was a man of change. He constantly modified and revised his perspective of himself. Though J. B. Watson’s research and theoretical contributions are controversial, his study of behaviorism laid foundation for today’s psychology and its application to the world of advertising.
CHILDHOOD
John Watson was born in Greenville, South Carolina on January 9, 1878. His mother was Emma. His father was Pickens Watson. They lost their riches during the civil war. Watson was the fourth child of the six.
HIS ADOLESCENCE
Watson himself has admitted that he was lazy and rebellious. In his early adolescence, he had a fighting nature. He was even arrested twice, one of the reasons being firing a gun within the city limits of Greenville.
A TURNING POINT
After his father, Pickens, left home, John’s school work slipped. His discipline or lack of it became a problem for his teachers and mother equally. His behavior worsened, which included mocking teachers, boxing with other children and also assaulting black children while he walked home from the school. He was also known as ‘Infant Terror’ among his teachers. After his short arrest, his violent behavior changed. There was a sudden turn in his life, when he was accepted by Furman University. This event affected his mind to great extent. As a result, he focused major portion of his time concentrating on academic career.
EDUCATION
Enrollment at Furman University was Watson’s first exposure to academic environment. Here he was deeply affected by a teacher, Gordon Moore, who introduced him to psychology. It was ironic that Watson’s first introduction to psychology was through introspective study. Later philosophy which was discounted, was through behaviorism. It is worth noting that initially he did not disregard this psychology but he contained it under the protection of his new-found mentor.
He continued his studies, and proved to be an intelligent student. He joined the University of Chicago for further studies. It was in this University, where Gordon Moore was also positioned. He focused himself on philosophy. John was persuaded to pay major attention to experimental psychology with philosophy as minor by the influence of Dr. Angell, who was Professor at Chicago. He became interested in the fields of animal study and comparative psychology, while studying at the University of Chicago. It is said that he disliked the use of human subjects in experiments, he was feeling ‘at home’ with animals. He was convinced that the man was only a biological mechanism. He studied this prospect intensively until he got the degree of M. A. at the age of 21.
Watson continued his studies on animal behavior. He wrote his dissertation on the "Relation Between Behavior in the White rat and the growth of its Nervous System".
He soon received his doctorate and became a professor of psychology of Johns Hopkins University. During this period of his career, he earned the title of "Founder of Behaviorism".
STRUGGLE
After Watson got his M.A. from Furman University he wanted to go for Ph.D. But unfortunately he could not do so. This is because he had to support his mother who was very ill. Therefore, he took up work as a teacher in a near-by one-room school house, which was a private school for about twenty children. Later he attained the post of Principal of the Batesburg Institute. He was a principal and a janitor too.
DEVIL’S PHOBIA
A nurse who worked with his mother Emma, once scared little Watson saying that Devil lurked in the dark and if at all he would go out at night, the evil one might snatch him and take him to hell. Apparently Emma also approved this and believed that Satan was always prowling the streets. Watson could never come out of this phobia. So much so that as an adult sometimes he had to sleep with the light on.
MARITAL KNOT
He married Marry Ickes to whom he met at the University of Chicago. In June 1905, he had his first child and later he had the second child.
His friendship with variety of women affected his position at the University of Chicago.
GOLD MEDAL
APA gave John Watson its highest award ‘Gold Medal’ for his distinguished contribution to psychology in year 1957. He did not attend the convention personally, but sent Billy to accept it on his behalf.
RETIREMENT AND DEATH
John Watson lived a solitary life during retirement. Watson became a heavy drunkard due to the death of his second wife Rosalie. This brought bitterness in his relations with his son also. He built a working farm in Connecticut. He spent his time there caring for animals and maintaining a workshop. Shortly before his death, he gathered all of his unpublished works and started burning each piece one by one. When his secretary objected this loss, Watson only replied ‘ When you’re dead, you’re all dead". He died due to Chirrosis of the liver in the year 1958.
JAN. 9, 1878 John Broadus Watson was born in Greenville at South Carolina.
1891 His father, Pickens, left the family due to his extra marital affairs.
1899 He completed M.A.
1903 He started his research career as an ‘Instructor’ in psychology at the University of Chicago.
1908 He received his Ph.D.
1912 Watson’s concepts about behaviorism were fully formed.
1913 His paper on ‘Psychology as a Behaviorist View’ was published.
1919 Watson’s most important book ‘Psychology From the Standpoint of a Behaviorist’ was published.
1920 He divorced Mary and married Rosalie.
1924 Articles in magazines, lectures, radio talks and the book ‘Behaviorism’ was published. He became the Vice-President of J. Walter Thompson Agency.
1928 The book ‘Psychological Care of the Infant and Child’ was published.
1936 Rosalie, his second wife, expired.
1957 He received Gold Medal for distinguished life time contribution.
1958 John Watson died at the age of 80.
THE FOUNDER OF BEHAVIORISM
Watson’s publication on ‘Psychology as the Behaviorist View It’ (in 1913), immediately changed the face of psychology. He reassessed the earlier ‘obvious’ failings of introspective study and offered an alternative definition of psychology as the ‘Science of Behavior’.
He proposed the ‘conditional reflex’ as an objective methodology, which can be used to investigate sensory problems, which were earlier thought to be accessible only through introspection.
As a professor of psychology he mentioned that both for abandonment of current introspective methods and the appropriate subject matter of psychology was redefined as ‘Behaviorism’. As per Watson’s view, psychology is a study of what people do and as such could not only
describe events but could predict and control. This idea was known as ‘Behaviorist Theory’, which redefined psychology. He focused his scientific career on transforming psychology to the field of application, which could be recognized as a true science. He formed and chaired the first department of psychology through his hard work and dedication.
As an earlier examiner of animal behavior, he switched over to the human species. His work focused on deriving a behavioral theory of emotions. He worked on human examinations in collaboration with Adolf Meyer, a prominent figure in the development of American psychiatry. They worked together for many years, but their work was interrupted by the First World War. During the war, he and other psychologists worked with military personnel. After the war, he returned to John Hopkins and resumed his work on emotional responses.
EXPERIMENT ON "ALBERT"
Above photograph shows his experiment on the little boy Albert. This experiment was held on an 11 months old Albert. His future wife Rosalie Rayner assisted him. In this experiment, Watson began to condition a child, to make him afraid of a white rat. The unconditional stimulus was a sudden, loud sound which evoked fearful behavior. When a steel bar was suddenly struck by a hammer behind Albert. The conditioned stimulus was a white rat to which Albert initially responded positively. The first two conditioning trials were described by laboratory notes as :
White rat suddenly taken out from the basket and presented to Albert. He began to reach for rat with his left hand. Just as his hand touched the animal, the bar was struck immediately behind his head. The infant jumped violently and fell forward, burying his face in the mattress. He did not cry.
Just as the right hand touched the rat, the bar was again struck. Again the infant jumped violently, he fell forward and began to whimper.
Watson believed that infants have three innate emotional responses. They are : fear, rage and love; each of them is elicited by distinctive stimuli. Fear outcomes from sudden, loud noise or loss of support, rage from physical restraint that prevents movements, and love from stroking and manipulation of the encourageous zones.
Although Watson and Rayner’s experiment had its own limitations, it proved to be landmark study in the history of conditioning model of neurotic behavior. It is a model, which recently reached its maturity in the behavior modification approach. The study shows how a disordered reaction could be conditioned and by implication how the disordered reaction could be eliminated.
J. B. WATSON’S ORIGINAL WRITINGS
An Introduction to comparative Psychology (1914).
Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist (1919).
Behaviorism (1924).
Experimental Studies on Growth of the Emotions (1926).
Psychological Care of the Infant and Child (1928).
Behaviorism (1930).
• Many men, who know enough to take off their hats to ladies are not necessary.
• I get rather disgusted sometimes with trying to make the human character amenable to law.
• I am trying to dangle a stimulus in front of you, a verbal stimulus which if acted upon, will gradually change this universe.
• Never hug and kiss them, never let them sit on your lap. If you must, kiss them once on the forehead when they say good night. Shake hands with them in the morning. Give them a pat on the head if they have made an extraordinarily good job of a difficult task. Try it out. In a week’s time you will find how easy is to be perfectly objective with your child and at the same time kindly. You will be utterly ashamed of the mawkish, sentimental way you have been handling it.
• There are more importance in the guidance and control of the human organism emotions than any of your hair-splitting work upon thresholds.
• Most of the terrible women one must meet, women with the blatant views and voices, women who have to be noticed, who shoulder one about, who can’t take life quietly, belong to this large percentage of women who have never made a sex adjustment.
• Everyone has entirely too much to conceal to write an honest autobiography. Autobiographies are written either to sell the good points about oneself or to vanquish one’s critics. If an autobiographer honestly turned himself inside out day by day for six months, he would either commit suicide at the end of the time or else go into a blissful obivescent depression.
• When you’re dead, you’re all dead.
• Many psychologists have misunderstood the behaviorist’s position. They insist that he is only observing the individual movements of the muscles and glands… The behaviorist is interested in integrations and total activities of the individual… objective psychology can study brick-laying, house building, playing games, marriage or emotional activity without being accused of reducing everything to muscle twitch or secretion of a gland… we can describe a man’s behavior in selecting and marrying a wife. We can show how that event has influenced his whole life after marriage.
• When we study implicit bodily processes we are studying thought; just as when we study the way a golfer stands in addressing his ball and swinging his club, we are studying golf.
• It seems to be a human failing to stop improving at the lowest economic level that enables an individual to get along in his group. People are lazy. Few want to work… The formation of early work habits in youth, of working longer hours than others, of practicing more intensively than others, is probably the most reasonable explanation we have today, not only for success in any line, but even for genius. The only geniuses I have ever met have been thoroughly hard working fellows.
• Every cell I have is yours, individually and collectively. My total reactions are positive and towards you. So likewise each and every heart reaction.
• It can be just as thrilling to watch the growth of a sales curve of a new product as to watch the learning curve of animals or men.
