Psychology

The major obstacle in recognizing psychology as a legitimate field of study was the abstract nature of human thought. To gain acceptance within the scientific community, psychologists had to employ scientific methods, including observation and experimentation, to...

The impetus for the most US behaviorist movement was neither American nor psychologist. Ivan Pavlov was a Russian physiologist researching the salivating response to stimuli. The dogs in his experiment salivated when presented with stimuli such as food, but he noticed...

Edward Thorndike, an American psychologist, was a pioneer of experimental behaviorism. He broke new ground in designing devices such as puzzle boxes to study animal behavior. In these studies, he followed in Pavlov’s footsteps but interpreted the principle of...

Thorndike‘s experiments provided a base structure for almost all subsequent behaviorism experiments. The model of administering an experimental subject with a particular stimulus or task under controlled circumstances came to be known as instrumental conditioning — as...

In 1905, Thorndike formalized the findings from his experiments into what we know today as The Law of Effect. This states that behavior that results in a pleasant outcome is more likely to be repeated, whereas behavior that leads to an unpleasant outcome is less...

In 1913 John B Watson, chair of the Psychology Department at Johns Hopkins University, presented a lecture that became known in history books as the ‘Behaviorist Manifesto’, in which he advocated abandoning ‘All Talk Of Mental States’ and proposed that the only...

John B. Watson's most famous record of experiments took place in 1920, testing whether classical conditioning could be used on children to produce an emotional response through neutral stimulus by misplacing distress from two different stimuli. Albert B., a healthy...

At the time of Watson's advocacy of behavioral psychology, many of his companions were supporting the idea of genetics. Watsons, however, opposed the notion, coming down firmly on the 'nurture' side of the nature versus nurture argument. Human behavior, he asserted,...

Shortly after Little Albert’s experiment, Watson was forced out of his academic post when it became known he was having an affair with his assistant, Rosalind Rayner. He took work in advertising, where his understanding of psychology led to a highly successful career....

Although Watson is often regarded as the founder of behaviorism, his contributions to psychology are highly debated. Animal experimentation on human subjects, and the infamous Little Albert experiment, in particular, raises many ethical questions. Not much was done to...