![]() Years ago, we smiled when we read this single-sentence characterization of standard textbook summaries that rang all too true. Like Freud and Skinner, who also appealed to andĬourted popular opinion, Watson has become a standard figure in the historical myths that populate the media, especially introductory psychology textbooks. Schwartz only repeated an oft-told tale that commonly appears in textbooks, the popular press, and even prestigious journals. Malone, Department of Psychology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee. We found the disturbing excerpt below in Science, written by an author who should know better (Schwartz, 2012).Ĭorresponding Author: John C. 1296)īehaviorism Chapter 1: A Century of Misleading Accounts Incredibly, we just read once again a claim that Watson told us that we can’t study the mind because it “can’t be measured” and that this view prevailed until “mind was restored” by the cognitive revolution. Much of psychology these days is the study of mind, whether in cognitive science, psychological neuroscience, decision science, affective science, or social cognition. Then came the “cognitive revolution.” Investigators discovered that mind could be measured, and psychology was transformed. In addition, it had built into it a focus on behavior-on action. Though it left out much of what is most important about humans, behaviorism made substantial progress. This rather pinched view of what it was possible to study (methodological behaviorism) grew into the view that it was all that was actually worth studying (radical behaviorism), and for almost half a century, that approach to understanding human beings dominated academic psychology. You can’t measure mental life, so study behavior. If you can’t measure it, you can’t study it. We argue to the contrary.Ībout a century ago, psychology caught physics-envy flu, and behaviorism was born. His contributions have been so well documented that one would assume that they must be well understood by behaviorists and nonbehaviorists alike. Add to that the celebratory articles devoted to Watson’s work, most recently published in an issue of the Mexican Journal of Behavior Analysis,1 and it would appear that there is little more to say. Watson and his contribution to modern psychology? Indeed, the collection devoted to Watson edited by Todd and Morris (1994), along with their (1986) discussion of Watson’s pre-1913 research, seems to cover all the bases. Watson, behaviorism, history, mind, embodiment, thinking, Freud, psychoanalysis ![]() Those works develop some important points that are only briefly treated in both editions of Behaviorism. We organize our discussion around specific chapters of the two editions of Behaviorism, but in support of our arguments we include publications of Watson that are less well known. In support of these contentions we examine several aspects of his contributions that warrant clarification, namely, his promotion of applied comparative psychology, his views on the nature of mind, his originality, criticism from and respect afforded by contemporaries, his relation to recent interest in “the embodiment of mind,” his treatment of thinking, and his appreciation of Freud’s work. However, we argue that the former was necessary at the time and that criticism of Watson on the second count only diverts attention from the genuine contributions that he did make. He is still appropriately criticized for his arrogant selfpromotion and especially for his perceived emphasis on a simple S-R reflexology. ![]() Watson during the century since he introduced behaviorism, there remain questions about what he really contributed. MALONEĭespite the attention given John B. WHEN A CLEAR STRONG VOICE WAS NEEDED: A RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW OF WATSON’S (1924/1930) BEHAVIORISM JOHN C. JOURNAL OF THE EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF BEHAVIOR
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