Both J.B. Watson and Abraham Maslow were important contributors in the field of behaviorism. Behaviorism, as psychologist perceives it, is the scientific study of behavior. They wanted to create an experiment that would allow them to understand humans’ potential which they possess in their environment. People have a tendency to behave in different ways due to the environment which he/she is currently apart of at the moment. By doing these experiments, Watson and Maslow would discover how manipulation and certain needs could affect one’s environment or how they analyze life. Abraham Maslow’s main goal was to discover why happy individuals were happy in their life, which is a form of self-actualization. In his “hierarchy of needs,” Abraham separated individuals’ needs into the following categories or levels: physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. After testing the experiment, …show more content…
Watson believed a child’s environment plays a significant role in his/her life because it allows them to establish different behaviors. In his experiment, he wanted to test the reaction of a child while manipulating the environment. As an infant, the baby has three emotional reactions, such as love, fear, and rage. Watson designed a technique which authorized him to control a human’s emotions, which eventually lead him to the “Little Albert Theory.” In this experiment, Watson showed baby Albert an image of a white, furry object. He found out it did not produce a negative reaction. However, when Watson showed the image to the child again, he paired it with a loud noise. This elicited fear, which triggered a new reaction. When Watson presented the image to the baby again, he realized the reaction from Albert was fear. By doing this experiment, it demonstrated that complex behaviors could be learned through the manipulation of one’s
Abraham Maslow was an American theorist that was one of the advocates of humanistic psychology. He believed that self-actualization is “a situation that exists when a person is acting in accordance with his or her full potential” (Hergenhahn & Olson, 2011). I will illustrate the key concepts of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs of humans, research the methodologies of his concept, and address how self-actualization has conceptualized on this type of personality development. His contribution
Abraham Maslow focused on human experience, problems, potentials, and ideals. Throughout his study of Humanism, he created what is known as the “Hierarchy of Human Needs.” This hierarchy places the needs of humans in an ordered fashion based on their level of importance. At the bottom of the pyramid is a person’s physiological needs, then their safety needs, sense of love and belonging, self-esteem, and then at the final tier of the hierarchy is self-actualization. Maslow claimed
In 1913 Watson gave a lecture called “Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It”. It was in this speech that Watson proposed the idea of an objective psychology of behavior called “behaviorism”. John saw psychology as the study of people’s actions and their ability to predict and control their actions. This became known as the behaviorist’s theory. During the next few years, different ideas about behaviorism was studied. (Muskingum.edu) Behaviorism came to be widely accepted among psychologists and the general public, becoming a popular field of study in the 1920’s through the 1960’s. It was a huge contradiction to the views of the eugenics movement, which claimed that heredity was the primary force determining a person’s potential and behavior. Behaviorism, with its promise of the possibility of change, and even improvement. (A science Odyssey, published by
Everyone has certain needs that must be met in order to live a happy and fulfilling life. These needs are divided into three specific types which are physical, psychological, and social needs. Abraham Maslow, an expert in human behavior, along with Carl Rogers used these three general types to develop a larger hierarchy of human needs for self-actualization. Even though there is discontentment or unending needs of a person, one 's needs must be satisfied in order for him or her to be happy. People whose needs were met are particularly in good mental health but if a need fails to be met then pathological effects may ensue.
The Little Albert experiment has become a famous case study that has been discussed by a plethora of professionals in the psychology industry. In 1920, behaviorist John Watson and his assistant Rosalie Rayner began to conduct the first experiment that had been done with a child. Watson and Rayner chose Albert because they thought he was stable; he was accustomed to a hospital environment due to his mother’s career as a wet nurse, he was healthy and showed little emotion. Stability played a major factor in choosing Albert for this case study because Watson wanted to ensure that they would do as little harm as possible with the experiment. The conditioning of Albert began with a series of emotional tests that became part of a routine in which Watson and Rayner were “determining whether fear reactions could be called out by other stimuli than sharp noises and the sudden removal of support” (-----). Watson’s method of choice for this experiment was using principles of classic conditioning to create a stimulus in children that would result in fear. Since Watson wanted to condition Albert, he used a variety of objects that would otherwise not scare him. These objects included white rat, dog, blocks, rabbit, fur coat, wool and a Santa Claus mask.
Psychologist Abraham Maslow created Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, a list of necessary needs in order to live with healthy mental. The levels are physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization. Physiological deals with survival needs which include food, shelter, and water. Safety is the need to be secure from danger, a shelter or safe environment. Love is the is need for affection and belongingness, friends and family. Esteem is the personal worth, success and achievements. Self-actualization is actualizing one’s potential and what you are capable of. According to Maslow, the most important level is physiological and is needed for survival.
The study that John Watson is best known for was that of Little Albert. In this study, Watson and his assistant placed an infant, baby Albert, in a room along with a white rat. At first, Albert attempted to reach out toward the rat as it moved around him however soon after Watson slammed together two steel pipes creating a noise loud enough to scare Albert. After this initial scare, the pipes were hit together each time Albert would reach for the rat eventually resulting in his complete fear of the rat and anything that resembled it (Watson & Rayner, 1920). It was in this study that Watson was using a strategy of conditioning that would pair Albert with an unconditioned stimulus and then conditioning him to become fearful of this stimulus. Do to his research in the field, Watson became known as the founder of behaviorism.
THe Behavioral perspective believes that our behavior is the result of the environment we are in. Behaviorists believe that psychologists should rely on the stimuli in the environment and our response to the stimuli. There perspective was that our behaviors are the result of our upbringing and environment. The behavioral perspective works on the molecular level to understand an individual 's behavior. They developed research generated evidence. John Watson was the founder of American behaviorism. Watson advocated that psychology is a science and it should be limited to observable, measurable behaviors. Watson studied babies and how they learned everything from their environment. He advocated that nurture was stronger than nature. Watson was famous for his experiment with Baby Albert and a white rat. Baby Albert did not fear the white at at first but began to fear it once it was associated with a loud sound. Watson proved through his experiments that parents should take
“Why don’t we make what can be observed the real field of psychology” (Watson, 1929). Watson (1878-1958) was born into a poor family in South Carolina. His mother was a religious woman, and his father drank a lot and had multiple affairs (Watson, 1999). Watson himself married twice, having two children in each marriage. He didn’t seem to have good relationships with his children – it is said that one of the main reasons for this may be because he used his children throughout his research. He studied in the University of Chicago where he later became known as the founder of Behaviourism. He wrote an essay in 1914 titled “Psychology as the Behaviourist views it” where he stated that behaviourism is an objective experimental branch of natural science (Watson, 1914). Behaviourism is a theory of learning that argues that all behaviours are acquired through conditioning (Carver & Scheier, 2012). Behaviourists believe
Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov had done experiments on dogs showing the conditioning process, but Watson was interested in taking Pavlov’s research to the next level and show that emotional reactions can be classically conditioned in people (Cherry, 2016). They used a nine-month-old baby boy and exposed him to a series of stimuli including a white rat, a rabbit, a monkey, masks and burning newspapers and watched the boys reaction, initially he showed no fear of the objects he was shown (Cherry, 2016). He then decided that he
Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist and at the forefront of the humanist movement in psychology, proposed a theory concerning basic human motivations that are based upon a hierarchy of needs. (Boeree 1998, 2006) Often described or pictured as a pyramid, basic physiological drives like thirst, hunger and sleep, as well as the need for safety, shelter and some feeling of security are the motivational needs that occupy the bottom tiers of the pyramid.. They provide the foundation for higher levels of needs to become present and available that the individual is aroused or driven to attain. Once those physiological and safety needs are met then the individual looks to love and be loved, to belong
Behaviorism is “the view that psychology should be an objective science that studies behavior without reference to mental processes” (Myers, 2011, p. 6). John Watson believed that science is based upon observation. Therefore, Watson developed behaviorism based upon the idea that while you cannot observe a feeling or thought of a person, you can observe their reactions
Psychologist Abraham H. Maslow is the developer of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The theory covers human behavior in terms of basic requirements for survival and growth (Cengage, 2002). The theory was developed in the early 1960’s. During this time psychology was taken over by two different views. One side was the human behavior and the other one was the behaviorist. Maslow explained that psychoanalysts had not accomplished the task to consider the behavior of healthy humans. He also mentioned that many subjective experiences that related with human behaviors were being ignored by behaviorist. In the beginning Maslow examined motivations and experience of many healthy individuals. He recognized that there are many requirements in this theory that are important for human survival and to help motivate individuals. He conceptualized different human needs as a pyramid with five levels in
With these few thoughts in mind Abraham Maslow made up a hierarchy of needs. (Boeree, Page 2) The hierarchy of needs has five levels: the bottom one is Physiological Needs, the next one up is Safety needs, the next one is Belonging needs, the next one is Esteem Needs and finally the last one is Self-actualization needs. As Maslow thought he “saw human beings needs arranged like a ladder”, the most basic needs at the bottom and at the top the need to fulfill yourself. (pbs.org, Page 1) Below is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Behaviorism is the scientific approach to psychology that is distinguished by logical-theoretical emphasis as is seeks to develop reasons for behavior (Moore, 2013). The theory of Behaviorism was developed by John B. Watson and B. F. Skinner. Uniquely, this theory states that personality is plastic and can be shaped by the environment or situational influences. Another difference from previous thoughts is