Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist PDF
Preview Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist
P S Y C H O L O GY FROM THE STANDPOINT OF A BEHAVIORIST P S Y C H O L O GY F R OM T HE S T A N D P O I NT OF A BEHAVIORIST BY J O HN B. W A T S ON FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY, THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY; EDITOR, JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY; LECTURER, PSYCHOLOGY NEW SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH SECOND EDITION PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS PHILADELPHIA, V. S. A. TO J. McKEEN CATTELL AND ADOLF MEYER P R E F A CE TO S E C O ND E D I T I ON PRINCIPAL CHANGES IN TEXT The present volume introduces many changes in text and many additions. The first nine pages are entirely new. The section on Vision, from pages 86 to 128, are entirely new and prepared by a specialist in vision, Professor H. M. Johnson, of the Ohio State University. Considerable new material (pages 208 to 212) is given in the chapter on Glands. The author's Johns Hopkins experiments in the conditioned emotional reaction will be found on pages 233 to 236. The gist of the whole paper on thinking as expressed at the meeting of the International Congress of Philosophy and Psychology will be found on pages 346 to 356. Since 1919, when this book was first published, behaviorism has been passing through an emotional and logical evaluation. Whether it is to become a dominant system of psychology or to remain merely a methodological approach is still not decided. The strong reaction for and against behaviorism points to the fact that psychological students are restless. Nor will they lie down and sleep, nor turn to the doings of other things until their trial and error wanderings bring an adjusting formulation. Most of the younger psychologists realize that some such formulation as behaviorism is the only road leading to science. Functional psychology cannot help. It died of its own half- heartedness before behaviorism was born. Freudianism cannot help. Where it is more than a technique it is an emotional de fense of a hero. It can never'serve as a support for a scientific formulation. Hence behaviorism must be looked upon as the rough scientific clay which all must shape or else rest content with the deistic idol already fashioned; and worshipped by structural psychology. The form of behaviorism the present author has stood for is now suffering a most serious set-back at the hands of those who are structuralists at heart, yet who profess to be behaviorists- viii PREFACE and since behaviorism has become " respectable " many who know little of its tenets claim to believe in it. Such half-way behaviorism and such half-way behaviorists must necessarily do harm to the movement because, unless its tenets are kept dis tinct, its terms will become cluttered-up, meaningless and ob scure. This is what has happened to functional psychology. If behaviorism is ever to stand for anything (even a distinct method), it must make a clean break with the whole concept of consciousness. Such a clean break is possible because the meta physical premises of behaviorism are different from those of structural psychology. Behaviorism is founded upon natural science; structural psychology is based upon a crude dualism, the roots of which extend far back into theological mysticism. Prof. K. S. Lashley's brilliant formulation (Psychological Review, July, 1923) of behavioristic contentions shows that any student loathe to give up " consciousness " with all of its past complications should find happier sailing on some other craft. Since the origin of behaviorism is now under discussion, the preface to the 1924 edition may fitly carry a word about the author's connection with the behavioristic approach. His researches in animal psychology, stimulated first by Lloyd Morgan's work and then, more powerfully, by Thorndike led him to his first conversational formulation in 1903. This formula tion was not encouraged. He was told that it would work for animals, but not for human beings. The author's first public expression was in the form of a lecture before the Psychology Department of Yale University in 1908. The sentiment there likewise was against it. It was called psychology at a descrip tive level; and the conviction was expressed that psychology could never be satisfied with anything short of '' explanation ''! How a parallelistie psychology could be explanatory was not brought out! The author then let his formulation rest until called upon to give a course of public lectures at Columbia in the fall of 1912. The paper published in the Psychological Review in March, PREFACE ix 1913—'' Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist ''— gave a part of the first of these lectures. As a result of these lectures the author was challenged to cope with image and affec tion. This he attempted to do before the Psychological Semi nary of Columbia University in April, 1913. The paper— " Images and Affection in Behavior "—summarizes the result of this attempt. The next systematic attempt at a non-Qontroversial formu lation is to be seen in the 1919 edition of this book. The chapter on thinking became the subject of dis cussion at the British International Congress of Phil osophy and Psychology held at Cambridge in 1920. The author's paper—" Is Thinking Merely the Action of Language Mechanism"—published in the October, 1920, number of the British Journal of Psychology, attempted to give clearer expression to his views on thinking than was done in the 1919 book. The only attempt the author has made to sketch a genetic experimental program which would justify be haviorism as a method, is published in The Scientific Monthly, December, 1921 (in collaboration with Rosalie Rayner Watson) —" Studies in Infant Psychology." Although Professor Knight Dunlap cannot be accused of favoring a systematic behaviorism, nevertheless his treatment of the " image " (destructive as it is of the "centrally aroused sensation ") was a primary factor in the formulation of the author's paper " Image and Affection in Behavior ". The author wishes to express his deep obligation to the firm of J. B. Lippincott Company for long-continued patience in meeting his wishes as to reprintings, textual changes and the like. Malba, Long Island, New York, January 1, 1924
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