Running head: JOHN WATSON ON BEHAVIORISM
John Watson on Behaviorism
By:
Kirk Satoh
John Watson on Behaviorism
John Watson was an intelligent student, getting his masters degree at the age 21. In 1913, he published his most important work called "Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It". This is where Watson outlined his philosophy of psychology called “behaviorism”. John Watson is the father of Behavioral studies. It was ground breaking studies at the time. Behavioralism is the study of human conditioning based on stimuli. Before John started the behavioral studies, the conventional thought at the time was of Freud with sex and aggression or Carl Jung’s collective unconscious. These were based upon primal instincts of sex, aggression, and fear.
John was studying the behavior of mice as they traversed their way through a maze. At first he studied how long it took the mice to go through the maze. Later as the mice started to master the maze he made them more complicated by adding a string that needed to be pulled in order to get the reward at the end of the maze. He also added obstacles like a balance beam that needed to be walked over and once the mice got to the end then a door open with the treat. Also dead ends were added to try to confuse the mice. Once the mice learned all the new obstacles John then went further. John removed the eyes of some mice. He cut off the whiskers of other mice. John also removed the sense of smell from other mice. Some of his experiments also had to do with the age of mice and how young a mouse had to be to master the maze.
While studying the mice John theorized that humans could be studied through stimulation and not just through interaction. Was John studying behavior to better human beings or was he trying to learn more about himself? John’s mom was a very religious person and lived by the laws of the Baptist church. But his father was just the opposite; he was a womanizing, bourbon drinking and non religious...