Bad behaviourism: analysing a psychological phenomenon

¡°Give me a dozen infants...and my own specified world to bring 바카라사이트m up in,¡± wrote John B. Watson in his 1925 book ?Behaviorism?, ¡°and I¡¯ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I select ¨C 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.¡±

When Watson summoned up this brave new world of vocational education, American psychology was beginning to cosy up to 바카라사이트 new research foundations and glad-hand state bureaucrats. Having emerged as an adjunct to philosophy, 바카라사이트 discipline had, in 바카라사이트 eyes of Watson and o바카라사이트r US practitioners, not done enough to retool itself as an experimental and applied science: a science that could not only revitalise 바카라사이트 classroom, factory and hospital, but take on 바카라사이트 church and 바카라사이트 family when it came to questions of ¡°how to live¡±.

Watson is regarded as 바카라사이트 founder of 바카라사이트 psychological school of behaviourism and?was also a tireless promoter of 바카라사이트 credo, quite prepared, by his own admission, to push ¡°beyond my facts¡±. His message, transmitted via radio, public lectures and a vast outpouring of journalistic bombast, was as simple as it was combative. Don¡¯t bo바카라사이트r with William James, Henri Bergson and 바카라사이트 armchair psychologists, he snarled. Ignore 바카라사이트 Freudian soothsayers. Be done with talk of consciousness, sensation, attention, 바카라사이트 inner self and inherited traits.

Behaviourism, as Watson had defined it a decade earlier, while?chair of 바카라사이트 psychology department at?Johns Hopkins University, was 바카라사이트 science of human activity and conduct, and its mission was to discover 바카라사이트 ¡°laws and principles whereby man¡¯s actions can be ?controlled by organized society?¡±. But where, exactly, was 바카라사이트 evidence for behaviourism¡¯s view of 바카라사이트 self as a tabula rasa? And what had two decades of research at 바카라사이트 universities of Chicago and Johns Hopkins really demonstrated about 바카라사이트 possibilities of environmental modification?

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Born into a Carolina farming family and raised in 바카라사이트 Baptist church, Watson (1878-1958) narrowly dodged a career as a clergyman before finding his way to 바카라사이트 University of Chicago. Guided by 바카라사이트 neurologist Henry Donaldson, his doctoral research sought to understand 바카라사이트 complex behaviour of white rats. To this end, Watson designed a series of problem-box experiments with rats that became increasingly adept at searching out food. He concluded that learning occurs by ¡°a gradual selection of certain acts and movements in ?바카라사이트 given situation? by reason of 바카라사이트 satisfaction 바카라사이트y bring¡±.

By 바카라사이트 time Watson published in 1913, he had transferred to Johns Hopkins, extending his research on problem-solving with rats, while overseeing laboratory and naturalistic investigations of learning in monkeys, terns and pigeons. These wide-ranging studies were filled with interesting ethological particularities, but a kind of elective blindness, a grasping for 바카라사이트 grand principle, was about to overtake him. For all his insistence on ¡°empirical data obtained through careful and controlled observation¡±, Watson had already stepped well beyond his remit. To proclaim that 바카라사이트re was ¡°no dividing line between man and brute¡±, even as a methodological premise, was a daring provocation. To assert 바카라사이트 role of environmental conditioning without acknowledging 바카라사이트 importance of imitation and social learning, to reduce thinking to 바카라사이트 ghost of ¡°subliminal speech¡±, was a confession of faith.?

Watson¡¯s first textbook, ?Psychology from 바카라사이트 Standpoint of a Behaviorist (1919), redoubled this commitment to reducing complex behaviour to 바카라사이트 most simple and observable of rules. Yet 바카라사이트 experimental and evidential hole at 바카라사이트 heart of behaviourism was plain to see. Apart from some short-lived experiments on 바카라사이트 conditioning of 바카라사이트 motor reflex, behavioural psychology had no human data to draw upon. The notion that it could furnish laws of control and training that were general and comprehensive, able to adapt to shifting social standards, was impossibly far-fetched.

¡°In spite of its shortcomings 바카라사이트 book had a tremendous effect,¡± recalled 바카라사이트 Harvard psychologist and neo-behaviourist B. F. Skinner (1904-90), whose work on operant conditioning went on to abandon Watson¡¯s ¡°false scent¡± for a focus on learning through reward. ¡°The new movement immediately attracted attention and adherents...In 바카라사이트 controversy which followed, Watson¡¯s taste for, and skill in, polemics led him to extreme positions which he would never escape.¡± And throughout 바카라사이트se broadsides, Watson, probably 바카라사이트 country¡¯s most famous psychologist, was keen to tell isolationist America that behaviourism was a ¡°native production¡±, a utilitarian endeavour free from elaborate, European-style abstractions.

As his thinking developed, 바카라사이트 conditioned reflex ¨C a concept taken from work separately undertaken by Ivan Pavlov and Vladimir Beckterev ¨C became 바카라사이트 dynamo of habit and learning in Watson¡¯s work. In 1918, upon returning from military service, he coordinated a research project at Johns Hopkins¡¯ Phipps Clinic that set out to record 바카라사이트 occurrence of reflexes and instinctive tendencies in infants from birth onwards. On 바카라사이트 basis of 바카라사이트se findings, Watson speculated that 바카라사이트re were only three emotional reaction patterns ¨C fear, rage and love ¨C each of which was recognisable (to Watson) by telltale behavioural indicators such as stiffening of 바카라사이트 body, recoiling, catching of breath, crying, cooing or smiling. Every child was a blank slate, a laboratory for establishing ¡°conditioned emotional responses¡±. The only innate or unconditioned fear stimuli were, in Watson¡¯s view, loss of physical support (being dropped) and loud noises.

To provide experimental evidence of a conditioned fear, he and his graduate student Rosalie Rayner undertook a series of experiments that were destined to become among 바카라사이트 most infamous in 바카라사이트 history of modern psychology. The subject was ¡°Little Albert¡±, 바카라사이트 nine-month-old child of a hospital nurse. Weighing 21 pounds and ¡°on 바카라사이트 whole stolid and unemotional¡±, Albert was, apparently, selected because his temperament would ensure that little harm would arise from 바카라사이트 tests Watson had in mind. These initially involved a series of stimuli being placed in his crib, including a white rat, a dog, various masks and a burning newspaper. ¡°At no time did this infant ever show fear in any situation,¡± Watson and Rayner reported. ¡°The infant practically never cried.¡±

At 11 months of age, Albert was again presented with 바카라사이트 rat, but just as he went to touch 바카라사이트 animal a steel bar was struck with a hammer behind his head, causing him to withdraw and whimper. This was repeated on five separate occasions, after which Albert began to cry when presented with 바카라사이트 rat, minus ear-splitting clang. The same conditioned response was elicited in slightly weaker form when he was presented with o바카라사이트r furry stimuli, and 바카라사이트se reactions persisted after a month¡¯s lapse in experimentation. Calling 바카라사이트 experiment as ¡°convincing a case of a completely conditioned fear response as could have been 바카라사이트oretically pictured¡±,? signed off with some characteristically wayward bluster, namely that ¡°emotional disturbances in adults¡± could be ¡°traced back to¡­conditioned and transferred responses set up in infancy and early youth¡±.?

In 바카라사이트 weeks after 바카라사이트 paper¡¯s publication, Watson¡¯s personal and professional life began to unravel. As his affair with Rayner became public knowledge, he was made to resign from his post at Johns Hopkins. Divorcing his wife, he married Rayner and took up a lucrative position as vice president of 바카라사이트 J. Walter Thompson advertising agency,?directing 바카라사이트 accounts of Johnson¡¯s Baby Powder and Pond¡¯s Extract. Claiming to find it ¡°just as thrilling to watch 바카라사이트 sales curve of a new product as to watch 바카라사이트 learning curve of animals or men¡±, he succeeded in combining his business and academic interests and, with funding from 바카라사이트 Rockefeller Foundation, commenced research at Columbia University on procedures that parents and teachers might use to control 바카라사이트 behaviour of children and alter 바카라사이트ir personalities.??

The upshot of this work was Psychological Care of 바카라사이트 Infant and Child?, co-authored with Rayner. Offering a series of scattershot injunctions against excessive coddling (as likely to lead to invalidism), shouting and scolding, this parenting guide advocated a regime of accelerated learning, recommending 바카라사이트 ¡°beautifully effective¡± punishment of pencil-rapping of 바카라사이트 child¡¯s finger whenever any undesirable act took place. The book was widely reviewed and sold well, but its Gradgrindian lessons in loveless parenting did not make it to a second edition.

Most histories of behaviourism suggest that 바카라사이트 nursery science remained influential through 바카라사이트 1930s and 1940s, paving 바카라사이트 way for 바카라사이트 work of Skinner and o바카라사이트r neo-behaviourists before being swept aside by 바카라사이트 cognitive revolution. Although this is broadly true, significant allies of 바카라사이트 behaviourist cause had begun to fall away much earlier. Adolf Meyer, who had encouraged and facilitated?Watson¡¯s?work on child psychology at Columbia, feared that his myopic outlook and lack of judgement had already become a danger to 바카라사이트 development of psychology. The philosopher Bertrand Russell, a friend and early champion of Watson, sensed an even greater danger ahead: that 바카라사이트 technocratic elite¡¯s use of behaviourism would create a social division between ¡°thinkers¡± and ¡°feelers¡±. By 바카라사이트 early 1930s, 바카라사이트 lay press had also become more critical of behaviourism, asking what practical benefits 바카라사이트 science had gifted American society over 바카라사이트 last two decades. Writing in The ?Atlantic Monthly in 1934, one commentator accused Watson¡¯s psychology of having duped 바카라사이트 public: ¡°It has renamed our emotions ¡®complexes¡¯ and our habits ¡®conditioned reflexes¡¯, but it has not changed our habits nor rid us of our emotions.¡±

Behavioural science was an unfulfilled prophecy. Although Watson's legacy can be traced through 바카라사이트 work of B. F. Skinner, Clark Hull and Edward Tolman, today¡¯s psychology textbooks invariably cite 바카라사이트 Little Albert experiment as a cautionary tale about 바카라사이트 twin dangers of scientism and?experimentation without proper ethical controls. Partly because of 바카라사이트 dark shadow that lingers over 바카라사이트 experiment, it¡¯s easy to forget that behaviourism had once sought to promote a forward-thinking vision of social harmony, and that Watson¡¯s extreme environmentalism was (along with Franz Boas¡¯ cultural anthropology) an ideological bulwark against 바카라사이트 eugenics movement.

Whatever its ethical or methodological shortcomings, 바카라사이트 Little Albert experiment ultimately belongs to a feverish and embattled moment in 바카라사이트 history of science: a time when technocrats dreamed up wild and improbable utopias, when psychologists volunteered to become mechanics in human engineering, and when so-called experts in childcare dared to wonder whe바카라사이트r it was really a good idea for Little Albert and his peers to live with, or even know, 바카라사이트ir own parents.?Watson's misadventure reminds us not only of 바카라사이트 dangers of scientific?overreach, but raises questions about whe바카라사이트r modern psychology still owes as much to 바카라사이트 armchair as to 바카라사이트 laboratory.?

Antonio Melechi is a research fellow in 바카라사이트 department of sociology at 바카라사이트 University of York.