John B. Watson
John Broadus Watson ( January 9, 1878 * near Greenville, South Carolina, † September 25, 1958 in New York City ) was an American psychologist who established the psychological school of behaviorism.
Life
Watson was awarded the 1908 professor of experimental and comparative psychology and at the same time the management of the psychological laboratories transferred to Johns Hopkins University, a position he held until 1920. In 1920 he lost his professorship because of a relationship with an employee, which had become public until 1945 and then worked in advertising psychology.
Work
Watson transferred the stimulus-response model of behavior control and the principle of classical conditioning (after Ivan Petrovich Pavlov ) of animal psychology to the psychology of the people, especially in the infant research. Pavlov was always, if a dog was fed, a bell sound. After some time the dog already responded only to ring with the secretion of saliva, which otherwise always went hand in hand with feeding. The instinctive, unconditional reflex ( salivation during feeding) connects to the repeated presentation of that stimulus that triggers the conditioned reflex ( food), with a neutral stimulus (bell ) to a conditioned reflex ( salivation when ringing). Watson presented now by analogy, a little boy repeated a white rat ( neutral stimulus ), always in connection with a terrifying loud hammer ( fright as unconditioned reflex ) when the boy touched the rat ( Little Albert experiment in 1920). In the wake of the conditioned reflex of horror arose only at the sight of the white rat, without hammer blow.
Watson was of the opinion that any behavior based on stimulus-response links; whereas the pragmatism ( John Dewey ) and the Sozialbehaviorismus ( George Herbert Mead ) vehemently objected.
Watson's views on education
" Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select - doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant -chief and, yes, even beggar- man and thief, Regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. I am going beyond my facts and I admit it, but so have the advocates of the contrary and theyhave been doing it for many Thousands of years. "
Up to what brutal consequence of his views went in early childhood education, is from the 1928 published work " Psychological Care of Infant and Child " clearly. Watson asked, the child should be deprived of a mother's love, even before it is seven years old. Because a mother's love 'm supposed to be the child dependent and prevents it from taking over the world. In his view, restrict excessive caresses a psychological growth and hinder future chances of success.
No mother should take her child on her lap. The toilet training should be completed in eight months. Watson propagated a special structure on which the child was strapped behind closed doors, until it had mastered his digestion. It should also be evil, too much to get used to people familiar. The mothers may well be changed. The child should be left alone as much as possible.
Against this back then very popular views of American behaviorism is first turned very successfully Arnold Gesell his book Infant and Child in the Culture of Today by 1943. He represented in the view that the conflict between nature and culture by the excessive zeal of parents and counselors had been exacerbated unnecessarily. 1946 followed Benjamin Spock with his highly successful work Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care In it, he clearly turned against the school of Watson and called for a general relaxation of discipline.
Works
- Behaviorism. Klotz, Frankfurt / M. 2000, ISBN 3-88074-206-5
- Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist. Routledge, London 1980, ISBN 0-904014-44-4 (Reprint of the edition Philadelphia 1919)
- Psychological Care of Infant and Child. W. W. Norton, New York 1928