Behaviorism In John Watson's The Little Albert Experiment

John Watson brought about a new era and a new zeitgeist. After lecturing his speech entitled “ Psychologist as the Behaviorist Views It” in 1913 at Columbia University, there was an uproar in the psychological field. There were already so many unanswered questions from the previous theorist, that his speech answered answers that others had never thought of. He suggested that psychology was built on the wrong foundation. He stated that the use of archaic methods and inappropriate subject matter was the downfall of psychology. Instead we should focus on making psychology more uniform. The use of medical or scientific terminology and methods seemed to be the beginning, and the use of objective studies led the way. This concept sparked the beginning

In other words, he felt that people’s actions could be changed or influenced by external variables (such as others attitudes, emotional responses, visual stimuli). There were several approaches to behaviorism floating around, however Watson’s approach was unique. He relied heavily on the notion of conditioned responses and objectifiable data. This is shown in his most famous study called the Little Albert Experiment. In the Little Albert Experiment, Watson wanted to prove that reactions can be manipulated or conditioned by an outside stimuli. He believed that most babies and people appealed to three basic emotional reactions: fear, rage, and love. He used a little boy by the name of Albert and a white rat to show people that this was fact. Whenever he presented the rat to Albert at first there was no real response. Then he introduced a noise that was loud and sudden, which evoked a fearful response. He repeated this over and over until he could present the rat without having to make the noise. Showing that the child had conditioned himself to associate the loud sudden noise with the presence of the

This publication went into detail of how parents in that day and time were inevitably destroying their children. They were not giving them the independence to learn and become their own unique person. He invented rules and regulations that if followed were hypothesized to help mold a child into a law-abiding citizen. Some of his rules were strange and unique. One was to never let your child sit on your lap. Do not kiss or hug your child. If your child makes an accomplishment then you are to shake their hand or pat them on the head. Only time you could kiss your child is at night before bed. When this publication was released it was widely sold and used. However, after years of use people started to realize that the use of such methods were dramatic and traumatizing to the child. Even Watson’s own family is a by-product of his theory. His son committed suicide, his grand-daughter did as well, and his great-granddaughter was an alcoholic with suicidal