John Broadus Watson

1. John Broadus Watson 1878 - 1958 Emma, Jordan, Maggie, Pearce

2. John Broadus Watson was born in Traveler’s Rest, South Carolina. This is a picture of his first home, which still exists today about five minutes north of Furman University off SC highway 276. Watson was born into a family stricken with poverty. His mother, Emma Kesiah, was a devout Baptist and eventually gave birth to six children. She wanted Watson to study ministry and become a minister. His father, Pickens Butler, was a lazy delinquent. He abandoned the family when Watson was a young child. Biography

3. Life at Furman Watson enrolled at Furman University at the age of sixteen in 1894. There he was a member of the Kappa Alpha fraternity, despite the fact the he was considered a non-conformist. He was not a very successful student and got some of his lowest grades in the psychology courses he took. He failed a philosophy class and was forced to stay at Furman for a fifth year in order to graduate.

4. Watson wrote this letter to the class of 1950 at Furman University to include in their magazine, Journal. He made sure to include Moore, the teacher that failed him.

5. Watson’s mother’s death, shortly after his graduation from Furman University, opened up an opportunity to begin his studies in philosophy rather than the ministry. In 1900, with little money he arrived in Chicago to attend the University. In order to fund his education, he worked as a janitor, waiter, and a rat-caretaker. He finished his studies in 1903, magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. At the time of his graduation, he was the youngest person ever to earn a Ph.D at Chicago University. At Chicago

6. Family In 1904, Watson married his first wife, Mary Ickes, and had two children, Mary and John. Their marriage ended after Mary discovered an affair John had been having with one of his research assistants, Rosalie Rayner. The administrators at John Hopkins discovered the scandalous affair and immediately asked him to resign. After his resignation, Rayner and Watson got married.

7. Career in Advertising After the resignation from Hopkins, Watson moved to New York with his second wife to pursue a career in advertising. While working at the J. Walter Thompson Agency, he studied how advertising motivates people’s purchasing patterns. In 1935 he transferred to the William Esty company to become a advertising executive; there he remained until he retired in 1945. During their stay in New York, John and Rosalie enjoyed driving speed boats, farming and riding horses on his farm.

8. Behavorism John Watson created the theory of behaviorism. The goal of his theory is to be able to predict and control behavior in animals as well as humans. He was especially interested in stimulus-response reactions such as a rat going through a maze. He first presented his ideas at psychological meetings and by 1912 had developed the term “behaviorists.” He published an article, “Psychology as the Behaviorists Views It,” introducing a new branch of psychology called “Behaviorist’s Manifesto.” Around 1916, he began to study infant humans and performed his most important experiment using his own son and a white lab rat.

9. "Little Albert" Experiment • Child was given a white rat to play with. • Watson got behind child and clanged a metal hammer, scaring the child. The child cried and crawled away. • A few months later he did the same thing and it produced the same results. • He repeated this several times over a few weeks. • Being afraid of rats, it scarred the child for life. • The child was afraid of anything furry. This experiment successfully showed the behaviorists idea of association and a higher order animal.

10. Graduated from Greenville High in 1894. • At age sixteen he attended Furman University. • He completed courses in Psychology in 1899 qualifying him for the M.A. • From 1899-1900 he was a principal of Batesburg Institute. • In 1900 he left the institute to do graduate work in psychology at the University of Chicago. • He earned his Ph.D at age twenty five, making him the youngest person to graduate with a Ph.D from the University. • He became an instructor in the psychology at Chicago. • His research of the white rat launched his career as a specialist in animal psychology. • In 1907 he was named Professor of Comparative and Experimental psychology at John Hopkins University. • Developed his idea that animal psychology can serve for human psychology. • He perfected a behavioristic theory of psychology emphasizing the objective study of human adaptation and behavior. • Edited the Psychological Review and the Journal of Animal Behavior. • Became president of the American Psychological Association. Accompolishments

11. Recognition • In 1984 a marker was set up, on U.S Highway 26 • near Travelers Rest, SC, in Watson’s honor to • commemorate his induction • into the SC Hall of Science and • Technology. • The psychology labs at Furman • University were named after Watson; • he was the most distinguished • alumnus of the department. • A plaque, presented in his honor, on the GHS Wall of Fame • Furman held a symposium at the centennial of Watson’s Birthday.

12. What is the theory of behaviorism? “Behaviorism ... holds that the subject matter of human psychology is the behavior of the human being. Behaviorism claims that consciousness is neither a definite nor a usable concept. The behaviorist ... holds, further, that belief in the existence of consciousness goes back to the ancient days of superstition and magic.... The great mass of people even today has not yet progressed very far away from savagery - it wants to believe in magic.... Almost every era has its new magic, black or white, and its new magician. Moses had his magic: he smote the rock and water gushed out. Christ had his magic: he turned water into wine and raised the dead to life.... The extent to which most of us are shot through with a savage background is almost unbelievable.... One example of such a religious concept is that every individual has a soul which is separate and distinct from the body.... No one has ever touched a soul, or seen one in a test tube, or has in any way come into relationship with it as he has with the other objects of his daily experience .... The behaviorist asks: Why don't we make what we can observe the real field of psychology? Let us limit ourselves to things that can be observed, and formulate laws concerning only those things. Now what can we observe? We can observe behavior - what the organism does or says. And let us point out at once: that saying is doing - that is, behaving.... The rule, or measuring rod, which the behaviorist puts in front of him always is: Can I describe this bit of behavior I see in terms of "stimulus and response"? By stimulus we mean any object in the general environment or any change in the tissues themselves due to the physiological condition of the animal, such as the change we get when we keep an animal from sex activity, when we keep it from feeding, when we keep it from building a nest. By response we mean anything the animal does - such as turning toward or away from a light, jumping at a sound, and more highly organized activities such as building a skyscraper, drawing plans, having babies, writing books, and the like .... The interest of the behaviorist in man's doings is more than the interest of the spectator - he wants to control man's reactions as physical scientists want to control and manipulate other natural phenomena. It is the business of behavioristic psychology to be able to predict and to control human activity .... Why do people behave as they do - how can I, as a behaviorist, working in the interests of science, get individuals to behave differently today from the way they acted yesterday? How far can we modify behavior by training (conditioning)? These are some of the major problems of behavioristic psychology.” http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=00A0FC-.November 2002

13. Bibliography • http://alpha.furman.edu/~einstein/watson/watson1.htm- • This site was helpful because it gave a formal picture of Watson. • http://alpha.furman.edu/~einstein/watson/watson4.htm- • This site was helpful because it gave pictures and information about Watson at John Hopkins. • http://alpha.furman.edu/~einstein/watson/watson8.htm- • This site was helpful because it gave pictures of what Watson was remembered for. • http://www.sntp.net/behaviorism.htm- • This site further explained Watson’s theory. • http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=00A0FC- • This site was helpful because it provided a previous interview. • www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/an13wa.html- • This site was helpful because it gave steps for Watson’s “Little Albert” experiment. • The GHS Wall of Fame plaque