John B. Watson: the life and work of the behavioral psychologist.

We review the contributions and ideas of one of the most important psychologists in history.

John B. WatsonWatson, along with Ivan Pavlov, was one of the most important figures in the field of classical conditioning and was key to the later development of Operant Conditioning, which became famous thanks to B.F. Skinner. Both classical conditioning and Operant or Instrumental conditioning are part of behaviorismone of the most prominent currents in psychology.

Although classical conditioning was born thanks to the experiments of the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov, who was interested in salivation reflexes in dogs, Watson introduced it in the United States where it had a great impact on the American educational system.

Biography of John Broadus Watson

John Broadus Watson was born in Greenville (South Carolina, United States) in 1878 and died in New York in 1958.

He studied at the University of Chicago and graduated in 1903. He wrote many scientific articles, one of the first called "Animal education: an experimental study of the psychical development of a white rat in correlation with the growth of its nervous system". In this article he describes the relationship between brain myelination and learning ability in rodents..

Watson worked at John Hopkins University for 14 years, and there he conducted a large number of experiments on avian learning. In 1920 he left his job at the University because of rumors about a romantic relationship with his assistant Rosalie Reyner, with whom he performed his famous experiment with "little Albert". Then went on to work as a psychologist at Thompson, and became interested in the field of advertising..

One of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century.

As a professor of psychology at John Hopkins University (USA) between 1908 and 1920, Watson was considered one of the most influential and decisive figures of the past century. was considered one of the most influential and decisive figures of the last century.. His work is studied today in all faculties of psychology around the globe, and is one of the bases of learning and treatment of some psychopathologies such as phobias. Therefore, his conclusions cannot be missing in any introductory book on psychology.

Although his career as an academic was short, his legacy has been much debated for almost a century. Watson helped to define the study of behavior and psychology as a scienceand emphasized the importance of learning and the influence of context on the development of human beings.

Watson popularized Behaviorism

He was a radical behaviorist, an anti-mentalist, and, as such, criticized Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis, since he claimed that the study of consciousness and introspection had no place in psychology as a science. According to Watson, psychology only made sense through observable and measurable behavior.Therefore, his experiments were conducted in the laboratory, where he could manipulate the environment and control the behavior of his subjects.

The objective of behaviorism is to make psychology a natural science, and therefore, it must have methods that allow observing, measuring and predicting variables. John B. Watson will always be remembered as the person who coined and popularized behaviorism through his publications and research.

Classical conditioning

Watson's contributions to behaviorism to behaviorism are due to his experiments in classical conditioning.A type of learning that involves automatic or reflex responses and is characterized by the creation of a connection between a new stimulus and an existing reflex. That is to say, it is a type of learning according to which a neutral stimulus, which does not provoke a response, becomes able to provoke a response thanks to the associative connection of this stimulus with the stimulus that normally provokes such a response.

John Watson was inspired by the research of the Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov, but, in addition, he thought that classical conditioning also explained learning in humans.. It was clear to Watson that emotions were also learned through conditioned association, so that differences in behavior among humans were caused by the different experiences that each one had.

• If you want to know more about classical conditioning and Ivan Pavlov's experiments, we invite you to read our article: "Classical conditioning and its most important experiments".

The experiment with "little Albert"

To test his hypothesis that emotions could be learned by conditioned association, Watson used an 11-month-old boy named Albert as an experimental subject.. It should be mentioned that this study could not be carried out today because it violated scientific ethics.

Albert was brought to the laboratory where he was presented with a white rat. When the little boy approached to touch it, Watson hit a metal bar with a hammer. As a consequence of the strong blow, the baby became upset and, out of fear, began to cry. Watson repeated this process half a dozen times, and observed that the baby was very upset, after several trials, little Albert was frightened simply by the sight of the white rat.. Albert had learned that every time the rat appeared, the hammer would hit the metal board. In other words, he anticipated the strong blow.

Here is a video so that you can visualize the experiment:

Now, when the EN (white rat) is presented on several occasions together with the EI (hammer blow) that provokes an RI (fear), the EN (white rat) becomes a Conditioned Stimulus (CS). Then, the presence of the CE (i.e., the white rat) elicits a Conditioned Response (CR). The Conditioned Response is equal to the RI (feeling of fear).

Classical conditioning and phobias

This is the most frequent mechanism of acquisition of phobias.A strong irrational fear that some people suffer as a consequence of associating negative experiences to the presence of something (flying in an airplane, spiders, clowns, among many others).