Download john watson - BDoughertyAmSchool


Complete name: John Broadus
Watson

Birth: in Travelers Rest, South
Carolina, on January 9, 1878, into
a very poor family.

Watson was the fourth of six
children.

Mother: Emma Kesiah (Roe)
Watson

Father: Pickens Butler Watson



Watson grew up in Greenville, South Carolina and
went to Furman University there.
He entered college at the age of 16 and when he
was 21, he left with a masters degree.
In 1958 at age 80, shortly after receiving a citation
from the American Psychological Association for
his contributions to psychology, he died.
This is a photo of the house in which Watson lived as a child. The house is still in
existence, about 5 minutes north of Furman off of SC highway 276.
John Watson and Rosalie Rayner

In 1913, Watson published the article
"Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It" —
sometimes called "The Behaviorist
Manifesto". In this article, Watson mainly
explains the characteristics of his new
philosophy known as “behaviorism”.

Watson stopped writing for popular
audiences in 1936, and retired from
advertising at about age 65.

His wife, Rosalie Rayner died in 1935 at the
age of 36. Many people say that Watson
lived in a farm with a female companion
until his death.

Rumored to be a heavy drinker, Watson
gave up alcohol on the advice of a close
friend and was able to have good, healthy
life until his last day.


The combined influence of Dewey,
Angell, Donaldson and Loeb led
Watson to develop a highly
descriptive, objective approach to the
analysis of behavior that he would
later call "behaviorism."
The reflex studies of the russian
psychologists, Ivan Mikhailovich
Sechenov and Vladimir Bekhterev
were particularly very influential in
Watson’s works.
Ivan Mikhailovich
Sechenov
John Dewey
Watson’s work was based on the experiments of Ivan
Pavlov, who had studied animals’ responses to
conditioning.
 He became interested in the work of Ivan Pavlov and
included a brief summary of Pavlov’s works in his major
works.
 Pavlov believed, as Watson was later to emphasize, that
humans react to stimuli in the same way.

Ivan Pavlov

Behaviorism is associated today with
the name of B.F. Skinner, who made
his reputation by testing Watson’s
theories in the laboratory.

His studies led him to reject Watson’s
almost exclusive emphasis on
reflexes and conditioning.

Skinner developed the theory of
“operant conditioning.”
B. F. Skinner

“Definition: Behaviorism is a theory of
animal and human learning that only
focuses on objectively observable
behaviors and discounts mental
activities. Behavior theorists define
learning as nothing more than the
acquisition of new behavior.” (1)

There are two types of coditioning:
 Classic conditioning occurs when a
natural reflex responds to a
stimulus.
 Operant conditioning occurs when a
response to a stimulus is reinforced.
Behaviorism is Biult

Discovered by Russian, Ivan Pavlov.

It is a learning process that occurs through the
association between environmental stimulus and a
naturally ocuuring stimulus.

Steps in Classical Conditioning:
 Neutral stimulus
 Unconditioned stimulus
 Unconditioned response
 Conditioned stimulus
 Conditioned response

It is a method of learning that occurs through rewards and
punishments.

Rewards cause an increase in behaviour, while punishment
decrease the behaviour.

Aspects in Operant Conditioning:
 Positive Reinforcer
 Negative Reinforcer
 Positive Punishment
 Negative Punishment

There is Continuous or
Partial Reinforcement.

Critics to behaviorism:
1.
“Behaviorism does not account for all kinds of learning, since
it disregards the activities of the mind.
2.
Behaviorism does not explain some learning–such as the
recognition of new language patterns by young children–for
which there is no reinforcement mechanism.
3.
Research has shown that animals adapt their reinforced
patterns to new information. For instance, a rat can shift its
behavior to respond to changes in the layout of a maze it had
previously mastered through reinforcements.” (1)

How Behaviorism Impacts
Learning:
 it relies only on observable behavior and
describes several universal laws of
behavior.
 Its positive and negative reinforcement
techniques can be very effective (animals
& humans)
 Behaviorism often is used by teachers,
who reward or punish student behaviors.
 “Therapeutic techniques such as
behavioral modification and token
economies are often utilized to help
children learn new skills and overcome
maladaptive behaviors, while conditioning
is used in many situations ranging from
parenting to education.” (2)

In 1913, he published his first famous
article, “Psychology as a Behaviorist
Views It,” were he explained his
beliefs that psychology was a science
of human behavior.

He publicated, Behavior: An
Introduction to Comparative
Psychology, in 1914, were he
explains his belief in the importance
of using animal subjects to study
reflexes activated by heredity.

Another important publication by John
Watson was Psychology from the
Standpoint of a Behaviorist, in 1919.

“In 1920, John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner performed a
conditioning experiment on an infant by the name of Albert B. He
was given a white rat and his reaction was noted to be playful.
He had no fear of the white rat and was even comfortable picking
the rodent up while playing with it.

The next time the rat was given to Albert, he did exactly the
same thing. This time, the psychologists made a loud noise using
a metal pipe and a hammer. The noise was so sudden and loud
that it made little Albert cry. They did the same thing mutliple
times. Finally, when they gave Albert the rat without the noise,
the child would cry at the mere sight of the animal.” (3)

“Next, they introduced a white rabbit and as soon as Albert saw
the animal, he began to cry. They gave him a Santa Claus mask
which also made him cry. Little Albert was conditioned to cry at
the sight of the white rat, but in the process, he made the
connection to anything that was white and furry would lead to a
loud noise.”(3)

This experiment proofs the Behaviorism theory and shows that
people could be conditioned to fear something and they can
even end generalizing the object.
NS
UCS
UCR
White Rat
Bang
Crying
CS
CR
White Rat
Crying

1st Basic Assumption of
Learning:
 All behavior is learned through
experiences and by interaction
with the environment.
 The learning perspective is
nurture.

Summary of theory:
 To see of you can condition
someone to fear an object and to
see if stimulus generalization
would occur.
Fear the Rat

Sumary of Work:
 Watson presented little albert
with a simple white rat and he
showed no fear. He then
presented the rat with a strong
bang that made him cry. The
continuous use of this bang
made littl albert condition the
banging to the rat.

Methodology:
 Experimental test

Ethics:
 Unethical because they made a
baby feel fear.
 There was no parental concent.
 Ther was no desintetization
after the experiment.

Strenght:
 He was showed for the first time to the different
objects and showed no fear to them.

Limitations:
 All testing was discontinued for 31 days
 Nothing is known of Albert’s later life.

It is a deterministic experiment.

It is non-reductionist because you take into consideration the
biological and environmental factors.

“Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own
specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any
one at random and train him to become any type of 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 of
the contrary and they have been doing it for many thousands of
years. [Behaviorism (1930), p. 82]” (4)
Give me a dozen
healthy …
Original Video
Home-made video
(Jose Miguel & Jean Pierre in 10th grade)
1.
http://www.funderstanding.com/content/behaviorism
2.
http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/psychistory_
3.htm
3.
http://www.betterlucktomorrow.com/character_sites/steve/Little%20
Albert.htm
4.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Watson
5.
http://facweb.furman.edu/~einstein/watson/watson2.htm
6.
http://psychology.about.com/b/2008/02/09/257235.htm
7.
http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2543/Watson-John-B1878-1958.html
8.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDoCsIgIEdA
9.
http://www.brynmawr.edu/Acads/Psych/rwozniak/watson.html