Psychology Through the Eyes of a Behaviorist
John B. Watson was the first person to study human emotions systematically. In fact, back in his day, it was very common to think of fear as either a result of faulty reasoning or a form of instinctual reaction (Chance, 2014, 2009). In the first paragraph of “Psychology as the Behaviorist Views it”, Watson immediately points out the universal beliefs of behaviorists. One of the first ones is that psychology, from a behaviorist’s perspective, is a “purely objective experimental branch of natural science” (Watson, 1913). However, Watson makes it clear that he feels psychology has failed to project itself as such due to the false idea that its array of facts are “conscious phenomena” (Kimble and Thompson, 1994) and that introspection is the only straightforward confirmation of these facts. He notes that its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior. He continues to discuss introspection and how it does not form any essential portion of its methods, “nor is the scientific value of its data dependent upon the readiness with which they lend themselves to interpretation in terms of consciousness” (Watson, 1913). In other words, the value of data goes far beyond their interpretations granted by the psychologists who collected said data. Finally, he recognizes the idea that the behavior of man and behavior of animals could and should be considered on the same grounds since they are equivalent as far as the general understanding of behavior is concerned. Watson goes on to talk about how the world of physical objects, or more specifically stimuli, is perceived the means to an end. The end, in this case, is the formulation of mental states that may be ‘inspected’ or ‘observed’ (Watson, 1913). For example, the psychological object of observation in the case of an emotion would be the mental state itself. It was decided that introspection is the method by means of which mental states can be manipulated for psychology purposes. As a follow up on that, behavior data has virtually no value except to shed light upon conscious states. Of course, not all of these conclusions arose out of the blue; Watson and his students performed a variety of groundbreaking experiments. He and graduate student Rosalie Rayner performed intricate studies of fear by testing a number of infants and observing their reactions to fire, dogs, cats, laboratory rats, and other stimuli assumed to be frightening to a child of such a young age. They found no evidence of inherent fear of these objects. However, they did discover that any sudden loud noise acts as an unconditional stimulus for crying and other fearful reactions. The next step was to establish a fear reaction though classical conditioning. They selected a normal, 11-month-old boy named Albert and found no signs of fearing a white rat, a pigeon, a rabbit, a dog, a monkey, cotton wool, or a burning newspaper. The only thing that evoked any fear, once again, was a loud noise. When these two clashed a steel bar with a hammer, Albert immediately jumped. With this loud noise as the unconditional stimulus, Watson and Rayner were eventually able to establish a conditional fear response to the white rat by showing Albert the rat and banging the steel bar with a hammer immediately following. To sum it up, Watson was the one to discover that objects that are paired with certain stimuli are capable of evoking certain emotions in subjects, which he later coined as the term “conditioned emotional responses” …show more content…
I do agree that psychology should be seen as a science, and, therefore, include more empirical data and observations. Psychology plays such an important role in the understanding of the human mind, but if we do not have the proper data to back up its ideas, who’s to say that it is all a figment of our imagination? I also feel that behavior is the result of stimulus and that our responses to stimuli are learned over time through some form of conditioning. The only thing I am still not sure where I stand on is consciousness. I have always grown up with the idea that there is something in our head telling us right from wrong but I also feel that psychology should be viewed as a science, which contradicts consciousness altogether. Hopefully at some point during this course, I am able to decide my position on the
John B. Watson was the first person to study human emotions systematically. In fact, back in his day, it was very common to think of fear as either a result of faulty reasoning or a form of instinctual reaction (Chance, 2014, 2009). In the first paragraph of “Psychology as the Behaviorist Views it”, Watson immediately points out the universal beliefs of behaviorists. One of the first ones is that psychology, from a behaviorist’s perspective, is a “purely objective experimental branch of natural science” (Watson, 1913). However, Watson makes it clear that he feels psychology has failed to project itself as such due to the false idea that its array of facts are “conscious phenomena” (Kimble and Thompson, 1994) and that introspection is the only straightforward confirmation of these facts. He notes that its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior. He continues to discuss introspection and how it does not form any essential portion of its methods, “nor is the scientific value of its data dependent upon the readiness with which they lend themselves to interpretation in terms of consciousness” (Watson, 1913). In other words, the value of data goes far beyond their interpretations granted by the psychologists who collected said data. Finally, he recognizes the idea that the behavior of man and behavior of animals could and should be considered on the same grounds since they are equivalent as far as the general understanding of behavior is concerned. Watson goes on to talk about how the world of physical objects, or more specifically stimuli, is perceived the means to an end. The end, in this case, is the formulation of mental states that may be ‘inspected’ or ‘observed’ (Watson, 1913). For example, the psychological object of observation in the case of an emotion would be the mental state itself. It was decided that introspection is the method by means of which mental states can be manipulated for psychology purposes. As a follow up on that, behavior data has virtually no value except to shed light upon conscious states. Of course, not all of these conclusions arose out of the blue; Watson and his students performed a variety of groundbreaking experiments. He and graduate student Rosalie Rayner performed intricate studies of fear by testing a number of infants and observing their reactions to fire, dogs, cats, laboratory rats, and other stimuli assumed to be frightening to a child of such a young age. They found no evidence of inherent fear of these objects. However, they did discover that any sudden loud noise acts as an unconditional stimulus for crying and other fearful reactions. The next step was to establish a fear reaction though classical conditioning. They selected a normal, 11-month-old boy named Albert and found no signs of fearing a white rat, a pigeon, a rabbit, a dog, a monkey, cotton wool, or a burning newspaper. The only thing that evoked any fear, once again, was a loud noise. When these two clashed a steel bar with a hammer, Albert immediately jumped. With this loud noise as the unconditional stimulus, Watson and Rayner were eventually able to establish a conditional fear response to the white rat by showing Albert the rat and banging the steel bar with a hammer immediately following. To sum it up, Watson was the one to discover that objects that are paired with certain stimuli are capable of evoking certain emotions in subjects, which he later coined as the term “conditioned emotional responses” …show more content…
I do agree that psychology should be seen as a science, and, therefore, include more empirical data and observations. Psychology plays such an important role in the understanding of the human mind, but if we do not have the proper data to back up its ideas, who’s to say that it is all a figment of our imagination? I also feel that behavior is the result of stimulus and that our responses to stimuli are learned over time through some form of conditioning. The only thing I am still not sure where I stand on is consciousness. I have always grown up with the idea that there is something in our head telling us right from wrong but I also feel that psychology should be viewed as a science, which contradicts consciousness altogether. Hopefully at some point during this course, I am able to decide my position on the