preview

John B. Watson 's Theory Of Psychology

Decent Essays
Open Document

John B. Watson was a great American psychologist whose theories, publications, and experiments had an enduring influence on psychology. Possibly his biggest contributions to psychology were his theory of behaviorism and his experiment on Little Albert. Though Watson’s experiments were extremely unethical and behaviorism doesn’t account for biological psychology, Watson was an extremely remarkable psychologist because of his principal of behaviorism and his findings on classical conditioning.
Background
John Broadus Watson was born on January 8, 1878 in Travelers Rest, South Carolina. Watson’s family was heavily religious, however, he grew up to be openly against religion (Good Therapy). He was a very troubled young adult, who ran into trouble with law enforcement multiple times, and also did poorly academically (Good Therapy). He went to Furman University in South Carolina, and turned his academic life around (Good Therapy). By the age of 21, he graduated with a masters degree (Good Therapy). He then enrolled in a graduate program at the University of Chicago, and after presenting his thesis continued after graduating as a professor (Good Therapy). He then accepted a professor position at Johns Hopkins University, where he was later fired due to an affair with one of his students, Rosalie Rayner (Good Therapy). Despite this, he served as the president of the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1915 and was honored by the APA with a gold medal shortly before his death

Get Access