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John B. Watson
(9 Jan 1878 - 25 Sep 1958)
American psychologist who maintained that psychology is essentially the science of stimuli and responses. Learned responses can be acquired by means of conditioning. He denied the existence of any human instincts, inherited capacities or talents, and temperaments. He published Behaviorism, a book designed for the average reader, in 1925.
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Science Quotes by John B. Watson (4 quotes)
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. (1930)
— John B. Watson
Behaviorism (1998), 82.
I would rather see the behavior of one white rat observed carefully from the moment of birth until death than to see a large volume of accurate statistical data on how 2,000 rats learned to open a puzzle box.
— John B. Watson
Introduction to G. V. Hamilton and Kenneth Macgowan, What Is Wrong with Marriage? (1929), xx.
Psychology, as the behaviorist views it, is a purely objective, experimental branch of natural science which needs introspection as little as do the sciences of chemistry and physics. It is granted that the behavior of animals can be investigated without appeal to consciousness. Heretofore the viewpoint has been that such data have value only in so far as they can be interpreted by analogy in terms of consciousness. The position is taken here that the behavior of man and the behavior of animals must be considered in the same plane.
— John B. Watson
In Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It (1913), 176.
We need nothing to explain behavior but the ordinary laws of physics and chemistry. There are many things we cannot explain in behavior just as there are many things we cannot explain in physics and chemistry, but where objectively verifiable experimentation ends, hypothesis, and later theory, begin. But even theories and hypotheses must be couched in terms of what is already known about physical and chemical processes. … The Behaviorist cannot find consciousness in the test-tube of his science.
— John B. Watson
In The Battle Of Behaviorism: An Exposition and an Exposure (1927), 26.
See also:
- 9 Jan - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Watson's birth.
- Behaviorism, by John B Watson. - book suggestion.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
