Editing John B. Watson (section)

== Use of children ==
=== "Little Albert" experiment (1920) ===
One might consider the experiment Watson and his assistant [[Rosalie Rayner]] carried out in 1920 to be one of the most controversial in psychology. It has become immortalized in introductory psychology textbooks as the [[Little Albert experiment]]. The goal of the experiment was to show how principles of, at the time recently discovered, [[classical conditioning]] could be applied to condition fear of a white rat into "Little Albert", a 9-month-old boy. Watson and Rayner conditioned "Little Albert" by clanging an iron rod when a white rat was presented. First, they presented to the boy a white rat and observed that he was not afraid of it. Second, they presented him with a white rat and then clanged an iron rod. "Little Albert" responded by crying. This second presentation was repeated several times. Finally, Watson and Rayner presented the white rat by itself and the boy showed fear. Later, in an attempt to see if the fear transferred to other objects, Watson presented Albert with a rabbit, a dog, and a fur coat. He cried at the sight of all of them.<ref name=":9">{{cite journal|last1=Watson|first1=John B.|last2=Rayner Watson|first2=Rosalie|year=1921|title=Studies in Infant Psychology|journal=The Scientific Monthly|volume=13|issue=6|pages=493–515|bibcode=1921SciMo..13..493W}}</ref> This study demonstrated how emotions could become conditioned responses.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Watson|first1=J. B.|last2=Rayner|first2=R.|year=1920|title=Conditioned emotional reactions|url=https://zenodo.org/record/1429108|journal=Journal of Experimental Psychology|volume=3|pages=1–14|doi=10.1037/h0069608|hdl=21.11116/0000-0001-9171-B|hdl-access=free}}</ref> As the story of "Little Albert" has made the rounds, inaccuracies and inconsistencies have crept in, some of them even due to Watson himself.{{Citation needed|date=January 2012}} Analyses of Watson's film footage of Albert suggest that the infant was mentally and developmentally disabled.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Irons|first1=Gary|s2cid=23547614|year=2012|title=Little Albert: A Neurologically Impaired Child|journal=History of Psychology|volume=15|issue=4|pages=302–327|doi=10.1037/a0026720|pmid=23397921}}</ref> An ethical problem of this study is that Watson and Rayner did not uncondition "Little Albert".<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Harris|first1=B|s2cid=53390421|year=1979|title=Whatever happened to Little Albert?.|journal=American Psychologist|volume=34|issue=2|pages=151–160|doi=10.1037/0003-066x.34.2.151}}</ref>

In 2009, Beck and Levinson found records of a child, Douglas Merritte, who seemed to have been Little Albert. They found that he had died from congenital [[hydrocephalus]] at the age of 6. Thus, it cannot be concluded to what extent this study had an effect on Little Albert's life.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Beck|first1=H. P.|last2=Levinson|first2=S.|last3=Irons|first3=G.|year=2009|title=Finding Little Albert: A journey to John B. Watson's infant laboratory|url=http://libres.uncg.edu/ir/asu/f/Beck_Hall_2009_Finding_Little_Albert.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://libres.uncg.edu/ir/asu/f/Beck_Hall_2009_Finding_Little_Albert.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live|journal=American Psychologist|volume=64|issue=7|pages=605–614|doi=10.1037/a0017234|pmid=19824748}}</ref> On January 25, 2012, Tom Bartlett of ''[[The Chronicle of Higher Education]]'' published a report that questions whether John Watson knew of cognitive abnormalities in Little Albert that would greatly skew the results of the experiment.<ref>{{cite web|title=A New Twist in the Sad Saga of Little Albert – Percolator – The Chronicle of higher educacionalismo|url=http://chronicle.com/blogs/percolator/a-new-twist-in-the-sad-saga-of-little-albert/28423|last=Basken|first=Paul|date=January 25, 2012|publisher=Chronicle.com|access-date=October 21, 2012}}</ref> In 2014, however, the journals that initially endorsed Beck and Fridlund's claims about Albert and Watson (the ''[[American Psychologist]]'' and ''[[History of Psychology (journal)|History of Psychology]]'') published articles debunking those claims.<ref>Powell. R. A., N. Digdon, B. Harris, and C. Smithson. 2014. "Correcting the record on Watson, Rayner and Little Albert: Albert Barger as 'Psychology's lost boy'." ''[[American Psychologist]]''.</ref><ref>Digdon, N., R. A. Powell, and B. Harris. 2014. "Little Albert's alleged neurological impairment: Watson, Rayner and historical revision." ''[[History of Psychology (journal)|History of Psychology]]''.</ref>

==== Deconditioning ====
Because "Little Albert" was taken out of town, Watson did not have the time to decondition the child. This obviously has ethical implications, but Watson did put in place a method for deconditioning fears. He worked with a colleague, Mary Cover Jones, on a set of procedures aimed at eliminating the fears of another little boy, Peter. Peter seemed to fear white rats and rabbits. Watson and Jones put Peter in his highchair and gave him a nice afternoon snack. At the same time a white rabbit in a cage was put in a distance that did not seem to disturb the child. The next day the rabbit was put slightly closer until Peter showed signs of slight disturbance. This treatment was repeated days after days until Peter could serenely eat his snack with the rabbit being right next to him. Peter was even able to play with the rabbit afterwards. This form of [[behavior modification]] is a technique today called [[systematic desensitization]].<ref name="crain2010" />

==== Limitations of the conditioning paradigm ====
The conditioning paradigm has certain limitations. Researchers have had a hard time conditioning infants that are just a few months old. This might be because they have not yet developed what Piaget calls "primary circular reactions". Because they cannot coordinate sensory motor actions they cannot learn to make different associations between their motoric behaviors and the environment. Another limitation concerns the kind of conditioned stimuli humans can learn. When researchers attempt to condition children to fear things such as curtains or wooden blocks they have had great difficulty. Humans may be "innately disposed to fear certain stimuli."<ref name="crain2010" />

=== ''Psychological Care of Infant and Child'' (1928) ===
The 20th century marked the formation of qualitative distinctions between children and adults.<ref name="Houk">{{cite web|title='Psychological Care of Infant and Child': A Reflection of Its Author and His Times|url=http://www.mathcs.duq.edu/~packer/DevPsych/Houk2000.html|author=Houk, Suzanne|year=2002|website=Duquesne Mathematics|publisher=Duquesne University|orig-date=2000|access-date=May 16, 2020|archive-date=September 26, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180926145608/http://www.mathcs.duq.edu/~packer/DevPsych/Houk2000.html}}</ref> In 1928, Watson wrote the book ''Psychological Care of Infant and Child'' with help from [[Rosalie Rayner]], his assistant and wife. In it, Watson explains that [[Behaviorism|behaviorists]] were starting to believe psychological care and analysis were required for infants and children.<ref name="WJB">Watson, John B. 1928. ''Psychological Care of Infant and Child''. New York: [[W. W. Norton & Company|W. W. Norton Company]].</ref> All of Watson's exclamations were due to his belief that children should be treated as a young adult. As such, he warns against the inevitable dangers of a mother providing too much love and affection, because love—along with everything else understood by the behaviorist perspective—Watson argues, is conditioned. He uses invalidism to support his warning, contending that, since society does not overly comfort children as they become young adults in the real world, parents should not set up these unrealistic expectations. Moreover, he disapproves of [[thumb sucking]], [[masturbation]], [[homosexuality]], and encourages parents to be honest with their children about sex.<ref>"Watson, John Broadus." Pp. 662–63 in ''The Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology'' (2nd ed.), edited by [[Bonnie Strickland|B. Strickland]]. Detroit: [[Gale (publisher)|Gale]]. 2001.</ref> He would reason such views by saying that "all of the weaknesses, reserves, fears, cautions, and inferiorities of our parents are stamped into us with sledge hammer blows,"<ref name=":3" /> inferring that emotional disabilities were the result of personal treatment, not inheritance.<ref name=":3" />

Watson deemed his slogan to be "''not more babies but better brought up babies''," in support of the 'nurture' side of the '[[Nature versus nurture|nature vs nurture]]' debate, claiming that the world would benefit from extinguishing pregnancies for 20 years while enough data was gathered to ensure an efficient [[Parenting|child-rearing]] process. Further emphasizing nurture, Watson argued that nothing is instinctual, but rather everything is built into a child through the interaction with their environment. Parents, therefore, hold complete responsibility as they choose what environment to allow their child to develop in.<ref name="WJB" />

Though having researched many topics throughout career, child-rearing became Watson's most prized interest. His book would be extremely popular, having sold 100,000 copies after just a few months of release. Many critics were surprised to see even his contemporaries come to accept his views.<ref name="HBR+W">Hergenhahn, B. R. (2005). ''An Introduction to the History of Psychology''. Wadsworth: Cengage Learning</ref> His emphasis on [[child development]] started to become a new phenomenon and would influence some of his successors, though the field had already been delved into by psychologists prior to Watson. [[G. Stanley Hall]], for instance, became very well known for his 1904 book ''Adolescence''. Hall's beliefs differed from Watson's behaviorism, as the former believed that one's behavior is mostly shaped by heredity and genetically predetermined factors, especially during childhood. His most famous concept,  the ''storm and stress theory'', normalized [[adolescents]]' tendency to act out with conflicting mood swings.<ref>Santrock, J. W. 2008. ''Adolescence''. New York: [[McGraw-Hill Education|McGraw-Hill]].</ref>

Although he wrote extensively on child-rearing, including in ''Psychological Care of Infant and Child'', as well as in many popular magazines, Watson later regretted having written in the area altogether, conceding that he "did not know enough" to do a good job.{{citation needed|date=October 2023}}

==== Criticism ====
Critics determined that Watson's ideas mainly stemmed from his beliefs.<ref name="HBR+W" /> How much Rosalie Rayner agreed with her husband's child-rearing ideas has also been an important question, as she later penned an article entitled "I am a Mother of Behaviorist Sons", <ref>Watson, R. R. (1930). I am the mother of a behaviorist’s sons. Parent’s Magazine & Better Family Living, 5(12), 16-18, 67-68.</ref> in which she wrote about the future of their family.<ref>Harris, B. 2014. "Rosalie Rayner, Feminist?" ''Revista de Historia de la Psicología'' 35:61–69.</ref>

R. Dale Nance (1970) worried that Watson's personal indiscretions and difficult upbringings could have affected his views while writing his book. This would include having been raised on a poor farm in South Carolina and having various family troubles, such as abandonment by his father.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Nance|first1=R. D.|year=1970|title=G. Stanley Hall and John B. Watson as child psychologists|journal=Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences|volume=6|issue=4|pages=303–16|doi=10.1002/1520-6696(197010)6:4<303::aid-jhbs2300060402>3.0.co;2-m|pmid=11609658}}</ref> Suzanne Houk (2000) shared similar concerns while analyzing Watson's hope for a businesslike and casual relationship between a mother and her child.<ref name="Houk" /> Houk points out that Watson only shifted his focus to child-rearing when he was fired from [[Johns Hopkins University]] due to his affair with Rayner.<ref name="Houk" /> Laura E. Berk (2008) similarly examines the roots of the beliefs that Watson came to honor, noting the [[Little Albert experiment]] as the inspiration of Watson's emphasis on environmental factors.<ref name=":10">Berk, Laura E. 2008. ''Infants and Children: Prenatal Through Middle Childhood''. IL: [[Pearson Education]].</ref> Little Albert did not fear the rat and white rabbit until he was conditioned to do so. From this experiment, Watson concluded that parents can shape a child's behavior and development simply by a scheming control of all stimulus-response associations.<ref name=":10" />

Watson's advice to treat children with respect but relative [[emotional detachment]], has been strongly criticized. J. M. O'Donnell (1985) deems Watson's views as radical calculations. This discontent stems partly from Watsons' description of a 'happy child', whereby a child can only cry when in physical pain, can occupy himself through his problem-solving abilities, and whereby the child strays from asking questions.<ref>O'Donnell, J. M. 1985. ''The Origins of Behaviorism.'' New York: [[New York University Press]].</ref> Other critics were more wary of Watson's new interest and success in child psychology.{{citation needed|date=August 2020}}

=== "Twelve infants" ===
Watson has been misquoted in regards to the following passage, which is often presented out of context and with the last sentence omitted, making his position appear more radical than it actually was: 
{{Blockquote|text=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. I am going beyond my facts and I admit it, but so have the advocates of the contrary and they have been doing it for many thousands of years.|author=|title=''Behaviorism'' (2009) [1958], p. 82|source=}}
In Watson's ''Behaviorism'', the sentence is provided in the context of an extended argument against [[eugenics]]. That Watson did not hold a radical [[Environmentalism (psychology)|environmentalist]] position may be seen in his earlier writing in which his "starting point" for a science of behavior was "the observable fact that organisms, man and animal alike, do adjust themselves to their environment by means of hereditary and habit equipments."<ref name="Watson" /> Nevertheless, Watson recognized the importance of nurture in the [[nature versus nurture]] discussion which was often neglected by his eugenic contemporaries.<ref name="Hothersall" />