What, then, was the appropriate subject matter for psychology? Watson ’s
answer was overt behavior —that which can be observed, predicted, and even-
tually controlled by scientists. We should appreciate just how much of psy-
chology Watson was ready to jettison in his quest. Emotions, thoughts,
expectancies, values, reasoning, insight, the unconscious, and the like were of
interest to behaviorists only if they could be defined in terms of observable
behaviors. Thus, according to Watson, thinking was simply a variant of ver-
bal behavior, a “subvocal speech, ”as evidenced by the small vocal-cord
movements he claimed accompanied it.
John B. Watson
1878 –1958
As a child growing up in
Greenville, South Carolina,John Broadus Watsonexhibited two characteristicsthat would later come to
shape his career —he was a
fighter, and he was a
builder. He once wrote that his favorite activity inelementary school was fighting with classmates “until
one or the other drew blood. ”But by age 12 he had
also become something of a master carpenter. Later,during his first few years as a psychology professor,he built his own 10-room house virtually by himself.
Watson ’s lack of enthusiasm for contemporary
standards also surfaced early. In grammar school, “I
was lazy, somewhat insubordinate, and, so far as I
know, I never made above a passing grade. ”He also
found that “little of my college life interested me. …I
was unsocial and had few close friends ”(1936, p. 271).
Watson bragged about being the only student to passthe Greek exam his senior year at Furman University.His secret was to cram the entire day before the test,powered only by a quart of Coca-Cola. “Today,” he
reported years later, “…I couldn ’t to save my life
write the Greek alphabet or conjugate a verb ”(1936,
p. 272).
Watson began his doctoral work in philosophy at
the University of Chicago (in part because Princetonrequired a reading knowledge of Greek). He soonswitched to psychology, where, unlike his classmates,he preferred working with rats instead of humans.“Can’ t I find out by watching their behavior, ”he
asked, “everything the other students are finding out? ”
(1936, p. 276).
Watson joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins
University in 1908, where he began his quest to
replace the psychology of the day with his newbehavioral approach. His views received a surprisinglywarm welcome from many scholars and academics,and in 1912 he was invited to give a series of publiclectures on his theory at Columbia University. Hepublished an influential paper, “Psychology as the
Behaviorist Views It, ”in 1913 and his first book in
1914. Within a few years, behaviorism swept over thediscipline. Watson was elected president of theAmerican Psychological Association in 1915. Watsonthe fighter had taken on contemporary psychology
and won, whereas Watson the builder had constructedan approach to understanding human behavior thatwould change the discipline of psychology for decades
to come.
But his academic career was cut short in 1920.
Watson suddenly divorced his wife of 17 years and
married Rosalie Rayner, the research assistant withwhom he had conducted the Little Albert experiments.The scandal that surrounded these actions forcedWatson out of an intolerant Johns Hopkins andinto the business world, where he eventually settledinto a successful career in advertising. After writing a
few popular articles and a book in 1925, Watson
severed his ties with psychology while still in his late40s. Several decades later, the foundation he built forthe behavioral approach to personality still stands.
Underwood & Underwood/Bettmann/CORBIS342 CHAPTER 13 The Behavioral/Social Learning Approach