John Watson

Inspiration. Although John Watson made tremendous waves in the study of behavioral psychology, he was not the first to explore it. Much of his inspiration was drawn from the ideas of Ivan Pavlov, one of his most known achievements being the conditioning of dogs. In the experiment, Pavlov was testing to see if he could make dogs, which would salivate in the presence of food, salivate over the sound of a bell by ringing it in the once the dogs were to be fed (How to Train a Brain, 2014).

Behaviorism is a scientific approach that humans and animals behavior can be studied and explained through examination, and shows how psychologists view different behaviors. Behaviorisms believes that learners behavior starts shaping through “stimulus – responses” (Behaviorism, 2007), and positive reinforcement (by giving rewards), or negative

In Psychology learning is seen as a change in behaviour caused by an experience. Behaviorism, is seen as a learning theory; an attempt to explain how people or animals learn by studying their behaviour. The Behaviourists Approach has two theories to help explain how we learn, Classical conditioning and operant conditioning. In this task I will attempt to describe and evaluate this approach.

Behaviorism was established to make psychology a respectable science, Sometimes called the “black box” psychology. Behaviourists believe we are all “products of our environment” John Watson, the founder of behaviourism said “Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up and I’ll to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select – doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and even beggarman and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities and race of his ancestors.” (McLeod, 2016) So according to behaviorists, we learn our behavior. Behaviorists are concerned with three types of learning; Classical conditioning, Operant conditioning, and Observational learning

Behaviourism is a psychological approach that emphasis on environmental factors influencing observable human behaviour. This approach consists of two main processes: Classical conditioning which means learning things by associating them with something e.g. if you ate Chinese food before and it made you feel queasy and unwell then the next time you see Chinese food you will associate it to that experience you had before. Operant conditioning which means learning things by positive and negative reinforcement and association e.g. when you do well in school and your parents buy you the game you’ve always wanted (positive reinforcement).

John Watson’s beliefs and teachings are widely used and rejected in many fields of study, business, and life. Though he was a great experiment psychologist, his personality was lacking. Watson’s scientific outlook on human behavior lead to his failed

Behaviorism is the theory that human and animal behavior can be explained in terms of conditioning, without appeal to thoughts or feelings, and that psychological disorders are best

The fundamental assumptions of behaviorism are how behaviorism is influenced, and it also pertains the process of learning. New behavior is learned through classical and operant conditioning. Both classical and operant conditioning can be studied on animals as well as

Watson was one of the most important American Psychologist who structure and brought to light the term behaviorism. He was known as the Father of Behaviorism, because he stated that

Watson was hired as an associate professor of psychology at John Hopkins University. In 1913, Watson delivered a speech called “Psychology as the Behaviorist Views it.” Before Watson had delivered this speech, the field of psychology had many disagreements and questions with very few answers. John proposed behaviorism was the idea of an objective psychology of behavior. Simply being the study of an individual’s actions and the ability to predict and/or control those actions. This then became known as the behaviorists theory. Further, Watson’s view of behaviorism was considered to be radical. During his early years, Watson used animals to study behavior, but he later turned to the study of human behavior and emotion. Additionally, he is famous for his study called “Little Albert” in which he hypothesized children have three basic emotional reactions such as fear, rage, and love. His goal was to prove the reactions could be conditioned in children. To do this, Watson tested his theory by using a boy named Albert where he would repeatedly present Albert with a rat with the combination of a sudden and loud noise to classically condition fear of a white rat. The fear was shown to generalize to other white furry

Behaviorism is a theory mostly developed by B.F. Skinner. Three basic assumptions are held to be true. Learning is manifested by the change in behavior, the environment shapes behavior and the reinforcement essential in explaining the process of learning. For behaviorism learning

Behaviourism showed two main ways that somebody was able to learn. One of them being classical conditioning and the other operant conditioning.

John B. Watson made many contributions to the study of psychology. Especially with his behaviorism school of thought which later became an entire branch of psychology. Watson defined behaviorism as “a natural science approach to psychology that focuses on the study of environmental influences on observable behavior.” (Powell, Symbaluk & Honey, 2008. p. 14). Watson strongly believed this study should be limited to behavior that can be observed since it is the only one hat can be predicted and controlled objectively without any fictitious constrains as those associated with conscious experiences and beliefs. Watson dismisses the usability of the consciousness concept in psychology. Behaviorism scholars are opposed to the idea that a person’s behavior can be studied using thought or even beliefs. These according to them, are fabricated constructs that mislead the human’s understanding of behavior.

John B. Watson’s prestigious career began in 1903 when he learned his doctorate degree in psychology with a minor in philosophy. Soon after Watson was hired as an instructor at the same place he earned his doctorate degree, the University of Chicago (Watson, 1999). A mere year later, Watson was hired as an associate professor of psychology at John Hopkins University. During his time at John Hopkins University, Watson became known as the Founder of Behaviorism (Watson, 1999). In 1915, after a number of lectures, articles, and research conducted, Watson became the President of the American Psychological Association (Watson, 1999).

Behaviourism is the theory that human beings and animals can be conditioned to act a certain way. This started with the observations from Pavlov in 1902, in which he conducted and experiment with a dog. He started his theory from the idea that there are many things a dog does not have to learn.