At about this same time, other researchers were beginning to study the
basic processes of conditioning, or learning. Watson embraced these princi-
ples as the key to understanding human behavior. Like Watson, these re-
searchers focused their efforts on predicting overt behaviors without
introducing inner mental states to explain their findings. The famous Russian
physiologist Ivan Pavlov demonstrated that animals could be made to re-
spond to stimuli in their environment by pairing these stimuli with events
that already elicited a response. This process soon became known as classical
conditioning. At the same time, other psychologists were exploring what to-
day is known as operant conditioning. For example, Edward Thorndike
found that animals were less likely to repeat behaviors that met with negativeconsequences than were animals given no punishment.
This work convinced Watson that a few key conditioning principles
would suffice to explain almost any human behavior. Personality, accordingto Watson, was “the end product of our habit systems. ”In other words,
over the course of our lives we are conditioned to respond to certain stimuli
in more or less predictable ways. You might have been conditioned by par-ents and teachers to respond to challenges with increased effort. Someone
else might have learned to give up or try something new. Because each of us
has a unique history of experiences that shaped our characteristic responses
to stimuli, each adult has a slightly different personality.
Watson had tremendous faith in the power of conditioning. His most out-
rageous claim, which he admitted went “beyond my facts, ”was that given
enough control over the environment, psychologists could mold a child into
whatever kind of adult they wanted. “Give me a dozen healthy infants, well
formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in, ”he wrote. “I’ll
guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of spe-
cialist I might select —doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant —chief, and yes, even
beggarman and thief ”(1924/1970, p. 104). This he promised regardless of
the child ’s inherited abilities, intelligence, or ancestry. Although somewhat
frightening in its implications for controlling human behavior, this type of
thinking found a receptive audience among Americans who believed in the tra-dition of equal opportunity for all regardless of background or social class.
Watson’ s legacy was extended by the career of another influential psy-
chologist, B. F. Skinner. Skinner, who identified his particular brand of be-haviorism as radical behaviorism, took a small step away from the more
extreme position Watson advocated. He did not deny the existence ofthoughts and inner experiences. Rather, Skinner challenged the extent towhich we are able to observe the inner causes of our own behavior. Suppose
you are typically uncomfortable at social events. As you prepare for a party
one evening, you begin to feel nervous. It ’s going to be a big party, and you
don’t think you will know very many people. At the last minute, your anxiety
becomes intense and you decide to stay home. Why did you skip the party?Most people would answer that they avoided the party because they felt anx-ious. But Skinner (1974) argued that behavior does not change because you
feel anxious. Rather, in this example, the decision to skip the party and theanxiety are both conditioned reactions to the situation.Behaviorism 343