I nil professorship and a laboratory in 1908.
In I 913, he wrote an article called Psychology as a llehaviorist Views It* for Psychological Review. Here, lie outlined the behaviorist program. This was followed It) I In- following year by the book Behaviorism: An In-
Ii "<l ii< l ion to comparative Psychology. In this book, he
i"i lied the study of rats as a useful model for human
ll< Ii i lor. Until then, rat research was not thought of as
I!< oil for understanding human beings. And, by
IU1 ■ hi hnd absorbed Pavlov and Bekhterev's work on
Iii id reflexes, and incorporated that into his
Linlmv loi ill, package.
in I'M v. he was drafted into the army, where he served '"■iii I'll'' In that year, he came out with the book Psy-
2. The law of effect. When an association is followed by a satisfying state of affairs*, the connection is strengthened. And, likewise, when an association is followed by an unsatisfying state of affairs, it is weakened. Except for the mentalistic language (satisfying* is not behavioral), it is the same thing as Skinner's operant
Conditioning.
In 1929, his research led him to abandon all of the above except what we would now call reinforcement (the first half of law 2).
He is also known for his study of transfer of training. It was believed back then (and is still often believed) that studying difficult subjects even if you would never use them was good for you because it strengthened* your mind, sort of like exercise strengthens your muscles. It was used back then to justify making kids learn Latin, just like it is used today to justify making kids learn calculus. He found, however, that it was only the similarity of the second subject to the first that leads to improved learning in the second subject. So Latin may help you learn Italian, or algebra may help you learn calculus, but Latin won't help you learn calculus, or the other way around.
John Broadus Watson
John Watson was born January 9,1878 in a small town outside Greenville, South Carolina. He was brought up on a farm by a fundamentalist mother and a carousing father. When John was 12, they moved into the town of Greenville, but a year later his father left the family. John became a troublemaker and barely passed in school.
At 16, he began attending Furman University, also in Greenville, and he graduated at 22 with a Masters degree. He then went on to the University of Chicago to study under John Dewey. He found Dewey incomprehensible* and switched his interests from philosophy to psychology and neurophysiology. Dirt poor, he worked his way through graduate school by waiting tables, sweeping the psych lab, and feeding the rats.
In 1902 he suffered from a nervous breakdown* which had been a long time coming. He had suffered from an intense fear of the dark since childhood due to stories he had heard in childhood about the devil doing his work in the night and this grew into depression.
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Nevertheless, after some rest, he finished his PhD the following year, got an assistantship with his professor, the respected functionalist James Angell, and married a student in his intro psych class, Mary Ickes. They would go on to have two children. (The actress Mariette Hartley is his granddaughter.)
The following year, he was made an instructor. He developed a well-run animal lab where he worked with i ate, monkeys, and terns. Johns Hopkins offered him a lull professorship and a laboratory in 1908.
In 1913, he wrote an article called Psychology as a l li lia viorist Views It for Psychological Review. Here, in' outlined the behaviorist program. This was followed I'l i he following year by the book Behaviorism: An In-IioiIik lion to comparative Psychology. In this book, he lh',1 the study of rats as a useful model for human!" I' i lor. Until then, rat research was not thought of as I lien n I, for understanding human beings. And, by IUI ■ in [nl absorbed Pavlov and Bekhterev's work on mil I lon^d i ell exes, and incorporated that into his
1 > 11■ i ■ it package.
In ) I 7, ho was drafted into the army, where he served IIII111 l'U). I n that year, he came out with the book Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist basically an expansion of his original article.
At this time, he expanded his lab work to include human infants. His best known experiment was conducted in 1920 with the help of his lab assistant Rosalie Rayner. Little Albert B, an 11 month old child, was conditioned to fear a white rat by pairing it with a loud noise. His fear quickly generalized to white rabbits, fur coats, and even cotton. Later, a three year old Peter was de-condi-tioned by pairing his fear of white rabbits with milk and cookies and other positive things gradually.
He soon found himself working for the V. Walter Thompson advertising agency. He worked in a great variety of positions within the company, and was made vice president in 1924. By all standards of the time, he was very successful and quite rich. He increased sales of such items as Pond's cold cream, Maxwell House coffee, and Johnson's baby powder, and is thought to have invented the slogan LSMFT Lucky Strikes Means Fine Tobacco.
He published his book Behaviorism, designed for the average reader, in 1925, and revised it in 1930. This was his final statement of his position:
Psychology according to Watson is essentially the science of stimuli and responses. We begin with reflexes and, by means of conditioning, acquire learned responses. Brain processes are unimportant (he called the. brain a mystery box). Emotions are bodily responses to stimuli. Thought is subvocal speech. Consciousness is nothing at all.
Most importantly, he denied the existence of any human instincts, inherited capacities or talents, and temperaments. This radical environmentalism is reflected in what is perhaps his best known quote:
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*. (In Behaviorism, 1930) In addition to writing popular articles for McCall's, Harper's, Collier's and other magazines, he published Psychological Care of the Infant and Child in 1928. Among other things, he saw parents as more likely than not to ruin their child's healthy development, and argued particularly against too much hugging and other demonstrations of affection.
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In 1936, he was hired as vice-president of another agency, William Esty and Company. He devoted himself to business until he retired ten years later. He died in New York City on September 25, 1958.
Clark Hull
Clark Leonard Hull was born May 24, 1884 near Akron, New York, to a poor, rural family. His was edu-cjtttnd in a one-room school house and even taught there year, when he was only 17. While a student, he had a lininli with death from typhoid fever.
I In wont on to Alma College in Michigan to study mining JUiglnoering. He worked for a mining company for two ! I im when he developed polio. This forced him to lyult Cor ix I ohm strenuous career. For two years, he was in (inipul of the school he had gone to as a child ttMWi im ndit lug of two rooms. He read William James and ■hvimI up his money to go to the University of Michigan.
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Unit 4
After graduating, he taught for a while, then went on the the University of Wisconsin. He got his PhD there in 1918, and stayed to teach until 1929. This was where his ideas on a behavioristic psychology were formed.
In 1929, he became a professor of psychology at Yale. In 1936, he was elected president of the . He published his masterwork, Principles of Behavior, in 1943. In 1948, he had a massive heart attack. Nevertheless, he managed to finish a second book, A Behavior System, in that same year. He died of a second heart attack May 10, 1952.
Hull's theory is characterized by very strict operation-alization of variables and a notoriously mathematical presentation. Here are the variables Hull looked at when conditioning rats:
Independent variables: S, the physical stimulus.
