16.09.22 16:43 Classics in the Historyof Psychology-- Watson (1913)
https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Watson/views.htm 1/6
Classics in the History of Psychology
An internet resource developed by
Christopher D. Green
York University, Toronto, Ontario
(Return to Classics Index)
Psychology as the Behaviorist Views it.

John B. Watson (1913).
First published in Psychological Review, 20,
158-177
Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental
branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction
and control
of behavior. Introspection
forms no essential part of its methods, nor is the scientific
value of its data dependent upon the readiness with which they
lend themselves to interpretation in terms of consciousness. The
behaviorist, in his efforts to get a unitary scheme of animal
response, recognizes no
dividing line between man and brute.
The behavior of man, with all of its refinement and complexity,
forms only a part of the behaviorist's total
scheme of investigation.
It has been maintained by its followers generally that
psychology is a study of the science of the phenomena of consciousness.
It has taken as its
problem, on the one hand, the analysis of
complex mental states (or processes) into simple elementary constituents,
and on the other the
construction of complex states when the elementary
constituents are given. The world of physical objects (stimuli,
including here anything which
may excite activity in a receptor),
which forms the total phenomena of the natural scientist, is looked
upon merely as means to an end. That end is
the production of
mental states that may be 'inspected' or 'observed'. The psychological
object of observation in the case of an emotion, for
example,
is the mental state itself. The problem in emotion is the determination
of the number and kind of elementary constituents present, their
loci,
intensity, order of appearance, etc. It is agreed
that introspection is the method par excellence by means
of which mental states may be
manipulated for purposes of psychology.
On this assumption, behavior data (including under this term everything
which goes under the name of
comparative psychology)
have no value per se. They possess significance only in
so far as they may throw light upon conscious states.1
Such data
must have at least an analogical
or indirect reference to belong to the realm of psychology.
Indeed, at times, one finds psychologists who are sceptical of
even this analogical reference. Such scepticism is often shown
by the question which
is put to the student of behavior, 'what
is the bearing of animal work
upon human psychology?' I used to have to study over this question.
Indeed it
always embarrassed me somewhat. I was interested in
my own work and felt that it was important, and yet I could not
trace any close connection
between it and psychology as my questioner
understood psychology. I hope that such a confession will clear
the atmosphere to such an extent that
we will no longer have to
work under false pretences. We must frankly admit that the facts
so important to us which we have been able to glean
from extended
work upon the senses of animals by the behavior method have contributed
only in a fragmentary way to the general theory of human
sense
organ processes, nor have they suggested new points of experimental
attack. The enormous number of experiments which we have carried
out upon learning have likewise contributed little to human psychology.
It seems reasonably clear that some kind of compromise must be
affected:
either psychology must change its viewpoint so as to
take in facts of behavior, whether
or not they have bearings upon the problems of
'consciousness';
or else behavior must stand alone as a wholly separate and independent
science. Should human psychologists fail to look with
favor upon
our overtures and refuse to modify their position, the behaviorists
will be driven to using human beings as subjects and to employ
methods of investigation which are exactly comparable to those
now employed in the animal work.
Any other hypothesis than that which admits the independent value
of behavior material, regardless of any bearing such material
may have upon
consciousness, will inevitably force us to the absurd position
of attempting to construct the conscious content of the
animal whose behavior we
have been studying. On this view, after
having determined our animal's ability to learn, the simplicity
or complexity of its methods of learning, the
effect of past habit
upon present response, the range of stimuli to which it ordinarily
responds, the widened range to which it can respond under
experimental
conditions -- in more general terms, its various problems and
its various ways of solving them -- we should still feel that
the task is
unfinished and that the results are worthless, until
we can interpret them by analogy in the light of consciousness.
Although we have solved our
problem we feel uneasy and unrestful
because of our definition of psychology: we feel forced to say
something about the possible mental processes
of our animal. We
say that, having no eyes, its stream of consciousness cannot contain
brightness and color sensations as we know them -- having
no taste
buds this stream can contain no sensations of sweet, sour, salt
and bitter. But on the other hand, since it does respond to thermal,
tactual
and organic stimuli, its conscious content must be made
up largely of these sensations; and we usually add, to protect
ourselves against the
reproach of being anthropomorphic,
'if it has any consciousness'. Surely this doctrine which calls
for an anological interpretation of all behavior data
may be shown
to be false: the position that the standing of an observation
upon behavior is determined by its fruitfulness in yielding results
which
are interpretable only in the narrow realm of (really human)
consciousness.
This emphasis upon analogy in psychology has led the behaviorist
somewhat afield. Not being willing to throw off the yoke of consciousness
he
feels impelled to make a place in the scheme of behavior where
the rise of consciousness can be determined. This point has been
a shifting one. A
few years ago certain animals were supposed
to possess 'associative memory',
while certain others were supposed to lack it. One meets this
search for the origin of consciousness under a good many disguises.
Some of our texts state that consciousness arises at the moment
when reflex
and instinctive activities fail properly to conserve
the organism. A perfectly adjusted organism would be lacking in
consciousness. On the other
hand whenever we find the presence
of diffuse activity which results in habit formation, we are justified
in assuming consciousness. I must confess



16.09.22 16:43 Classics in the Historyof Psychology-- Watson (1913)
https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Watson/views.htm 2/6
that these arguments
had weight with me when I began the study of behavior. I fear
that a good many of us are still viewing behavior problems with
something like this in mind. More than one student in behavior
has attempted to frame criteria of the psychic
-- to devise a set of objective,
structural and functional criteria
which, when applied in the particular instance, will enable us
to decide whether such and such responses are
positively conscious,
merely indicative of consciousness, or whether they are purely
'physiological'. Such problems as these can no longer satisfy
behavior men. It would be better to give up the province altogether
and admit frankly that the study of the behavior of animals has
no justification,
than to admit that our search is of such a 'will
o' the wisp' character. One can assume either the presence or
the absence of consciousness
anywhere in the phylogenetic scale
without affecting the problems of behavior by one jot or one tittle;
and without influencing in any way the mode
of experimental attack
upon them. On the other hand, I cannot for one moment assume that
the paramecium responds
to light; that the rat learns a
problem more quickly by working
at the task five times a day than once a day, or that the human
child exhibits plateaux in his learning curves.
These are questions
which vitally concern behavior and which must be decided by direct
observation under experimental conditions.
This attempt to reason by analogy from human conscious processes
to the conscious processes in animals, and vice versa:
to make
consciousness, as the human being knows it, the center
of reference of all behavior, forces us into a situation similar
to that which existed in biology
in Darwin's
time. The whole Darwinian movement was judged by the bearing it
had upon the origin and development of the human race.
Expeditions
were undertaken to collect material which would establish the
position that the rise of the human race was a perfectly natural
phenomenon and not an act of special creation. Variations were
carefully sought along with the evidence for the heaping up effect
and the weeding
out effect of selection; for in these and the
other Darwinian mechanisms were to be found factors sufficiently
complex to account for the origin and
race differentiation of
man. The wealth of material collected at this time was considered
valuable largely in so far as it tended to develop the
concept
of evolution in man. It is strange that this situation should
have remained the dominant one in biology for so many years. The
moment
zoology undertook the experimental study of evolution and
descent, the situation immediately changed. Man ceased to be the
center of reference. I
doubt if any experimental biologist today,
unless actually engaged in the problem of race differentiation
in man, tries to interpret his findings in terms
of human evolution,
or ever refers to it in his thinking. He gathers his data from
the study of many species of plants and animals and tries to work
out the laws of inheritance in the particular type upon which
he is conducting experiments. Naturally, he follows the progress
of the work upon race
differentiation in man and in the descent
of man, but he looks upon these as special topics, equal in importance
with his own yet ones in which his
interests will never be vitally
engaged. It is not fair to say that all of his work is directed
toward human evolution or that it must be interpreted in
terms
of human evolution. He does not have to dismiss certain of his
facts on the inheritance of coat color in mice because, forsooth,
they have little
bearing upon the differentiation of the genus homo
into separate races, or upon the descent of the genus homo
from some more primitive stock.
In psychology we are still in that stage of development where
we feel that we must select our material. We have a general place
of discard for
processes, which we anathematize so far as their
value for psychology is concerned by saying, 'this is a reflex';
'that is a purely physiological fact
which has nothing to do with
psychology'. We are not interested (as psychologists) in getting
all of the processes of adjustment which the animal as
a whole
employs, and in finding how these various responses are associated,
and how they fall apart, thus working out a systematic scheme
for the
prediction and control of response in general. Unless
our observed facts are indicative of consciousness, we have no
use for them, and unless our
apparatus and method are designed
to throw such facts into relief, they are thought of in just as
disparaging a way. I shall always remember the
remark one distinguished
psychologist made as he looked over the color apparatus designed
for testing the responses of animals to monochromatic
light in
the attic at Johns Hopkins. It
was this: 'And they call this psychology!'
I do not wish unduly to criticize psychology. It has failed
signally, I believe, during the fifty-odd years of its existence
as an experimental discipline to
make its place in the world as
an undisputed natural science. Psychology, as it is generally
thought of, has something esoteric in its methods. If you
fail
to reproduce my findings, it is not due to some fault in your
apparatus or in the control of your stimulus, but it is due to
the fact that your
introspection is untrained.2
The attack is made upon the observer and
not upon the experimental setting. In physics and in chemistry
the attack is
made upon the experimental conditions. The apparatus
was not sensitive enough, impure chemicals were used, etc. In
these sciences a better
technique will give reproducible results.
Psychology is otherwise. if you can't observe 3-9 states of clearness
in attention, your introspection is poor.
if, on the other hand,
a feeling seems reasonably clear to you, your introspection is
again faulty. You are seeing too much. Feelings are never clear.
The time seems to have come when psychology must discard all reference
to consciousness; when it need no longer delude itself into thinking
that it
is making mental states the object of observation. We
have become so enmeshed in speculative questions concerning the
elements of mind, the
nature of conscious content (for example,
imageless thought, attitudes,
and Bewusstseinslage, etc.) that
I, as an experimental student, feel that
something is wrong
with our premises and the types of problems which develop from
them. There is no longer any guarantee that we all mean the
same
thing when we use the terms now current in psychology. Take the
case of sensation. A sensation is defined in terms of its attributes.
One
psychologist will state with readiness that the attributes
of a visual sensation are quality, extension, duration,
and intensity. Another will add
clearness. Still another
that of order. I doubt if any one psychologist can draw
up a set of statements describing what he means by sensation which
will be agreed to by three other psychologists of different training.
Turn for a moment to the question of the number of isolable sensations.
Is there
an extremely large number of color sensations -- or only
four, red, green, yellow and blue? Again, yellow, while psychologically
simple, can be
obtained by superimposing red and green spectral
rays upon the same diffusing surface! If, on the other hand, we
say that every just noticeable
difference in the spectrum is a
simple sensation, and that every just noticeable increase in the
white value of a given colour gives simple sensations,
we are
forced to admit that the number is so large and the conditions
for obtaining them so complex that the concept of sensation is
unusable, either
for the purpose of analysis or that of synthesis.
Titchener, who has fought
the most valiant fight in this country for a psychology based
upon
introspection, feels that these differences of opinion as
to the number of sensations and their attributes; as to whether
there are relations (in the
sense of elements) and on the many
others which seem to be fundamental in every attempt at analysis,
are perfectly natural in the present
undeveloped state of psychology.
While it is admitted that every growing science is full of unanswered
questions, surely only those who are
wedded to the system as we
now have it, who have fought and suffered for it, can confidently
believe that there will ever be any greater uniformity
than there
is now in the answers we have to such questions. I firmly believe
that two hundred years from now, unless the introspective method
is
discarded, psychology will still be divided on the question
as to whether auditory sensations have the quality of 'extension',
whether intensity is an
attribute which can be applied to color,
whether there is a difference in 'texture' between image and sensation
and upon many hundreds of others of
like character.
16.09.22 16:43 Classics in the Historyof Psychology-- Watson (1913)
https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Watson/views.htm 3/6
The condition in regard to other mental processes is just as chaotic.
Can image type be experimentally tested and verified? Are recondite
thought
processes dependent mechanically upon imagery at all?
Are psychologists agreed upon what feeling is? One states that
feelings are attitudes.
Another finds them to be groups of organic
sensations possessing a certain solidarity. Still another and
larger group finds them to be new elements
correlative with and
ranking equally with sensations.
My psychological quarrel is not with the systematic and structural
psychologist alone. The last fifteen years have seen the growth
of what is called
functional psychology.
This type of psychology decries the use of elements in the static
sense of the structuralists. It throws emphasis upon the
biological
significance of conscious processes instead of upon the analysis
of conscious states into introspectively isolable elements. I
have done my
best to understand the difference between functional
psychology and structural psychology. Instead of clarity, confusion
grows upon me. The terms
sensation, perception, affection, emotion,
volition are used as much by the functionalist as by the structuralist.
The addition of the word 'process'
('mental act as a whole', and
like terms are frequently met) after each serves in some way to
remove the corpse of content' and to leave 'function' in
its
stead. Surely if these concepts are elusive when looked at from
a content standpoint, they are still more deceptive when viewed
from the angle
of function, and especially so when function is
obtained by the introspection method. It is rather interesting
that no functional psychologist has
carefully distinguished between
'perception' (and this is true of the other psychological terms
as well) as employed by the systematist, and
cperceptual process'
as used in functional psychology. It seems illogical and hardly
fair to criticize the psychology which the systematist gives us,
and then to utilize his terms without carefully showing the changes
in meaning which are to be attached to them. I was greatly surprised
some time
ago when I opened Pillsbury's
book and saw psychology defined as the 'science of behavior'.
A still more recent text states that psychology is the
'science
of mental behavior'. When I saw these promising statements I thought,
now surely we will have texts based upon different lines. After
a
few pages the science of behavior is dropped and one finds the
conventional treatment of sensation, perception, imagery, etc.,
along with certain
shifts in emphasis and additional facts which
serve to give the author's personal imprint.
One of the difficulties in the way of a consistent functional
psychology is the parallelistic hypothesis.
If the functionalist attempts to express his
formulations in terms
which make mental states really appear to function, to play some
active role in the world of adjustment, he almost inevitably
lapses
into terms which are connotative of interaction.
When taxed with this he replies that it is more convenient to
do so and that he does it to
avoid the circumlocution and clumsiness
which are inherent in any thoroughgoing parallelism.3
As a matter of fact I believe the functionalist
actually
thinks in terms of interaction and resorts to parallelism
only when forced to give expression to his views. I feel that
behaviorism is the only
consistent and logical functionalism.
In it one avoids both the Scylla of parallelism and the Charybdis
of interaction. Those time-honored relics of
philosophical speculation
need trouble the student of behavior as little as they trouble
the student of physics. The consideration of the mind-body
problem
affects neither the type of problem selected nor the formulation
of the solution of that problem. I can state my position here
no better than
by saying that I should like to bring my students
up in the same ignorance of such hypotheses as one finds among
the students of other branches of
science.
This leads me to the point where I should like to make the argument
constructive. I believe we can write a psychology, define it as
Pillsbury, and
never go back
upon our definition: never use the terms consciousness, mental
states, mind, content, introspectively verifiable, imagery, and
the like.
I believe that we can do it in a few years without running
into the absurd terminology of Beer, Bethe, Von Uexküll, Nuel,
and that of the so-called
objective schools generally. It can
be done in terms of stimulus and response, in terms of
habit formation, habit integrations and the like.
Furthermore,
I believe that it is really worth while to make this attempt now.
The psychology which I should attempt to build up would take as
a starting point, first, the observable fact that organisms, man
and animal alike,
do adjust themselves to their environment by
means of hereditary and habit equipments. These adjustments may
be very adequate or they may be
so inadequate that the organism
barely maintains its existence; secondly, that certain stimuli
lead the organisms to make the responses. In a system
of psychology
completely worked out, given the response the stimuli can be predicted;
given the stimuli the response can be predicted. Such a set
of
statements is crass and raw in the extreme, as all such generalizations
must be. Yet they are hardly more raw and less realizable than
the ones
which appear in the psychology texts of the day. I possibly
might illustrate my point better by choosing an everyday problem
which anyone is likely
to meet in the course of his work. Some
time ago I was called upon to make a study of certain species
of birds. Until I went to Tortugas
I had
never seen these birds alive. When I reached there I found
the animals doing certain things: some of the acts seemed to work
peculiarly well in such
an environment, while others seemed to
be unsuited to their type of life. I first studied the responses
of the group as a whole and later those of
individuals. In order
to understand more thoroughly the relation between what was habit
and what was hereditary in these responses, I took the
young birds
and reared them. In this way I was able to study the order of
appearance of hereditary adjustments and their complexity, and
later the
beginnings of habit formation. My efforts in determining
the stimuli which called forth such adjustments were crude indeed.
Consequently my
attempts to control behavior and to produce responses
at will did not meet with much success. Their food and water,
sex and other social relations,
light and temperature conditions
were all beyond control in a field study. I did find it possible
to control their reactions in a measure by using the
nest and
egg (or young) as stimuli. It is not necessary in this
paper to develop further how such a study should be carried out
and how work of this
kind must be supplemented by carefully controlled
laboratory experiments. Had I been called upon to examine the
natives of some of the
Australian tribes, I should have gone about
my task in the same way. I should have found the problem more
difficult: the types of responses called
forth by physical stimuli
would have been more varied, and the number of effective stimuli
larger. I should have had to determine the social setting
of their
lives in a far more careful way. These savages would be more influenced
by the responses of each other than was the case with the birds.
Furthermore, habits would have been more complex and the influences
of past habits upon the present responses would have appeared
more
clearly. Finally, if I had been called upon to work out the
psychology of the educated European, my problem would have required
several lifetimes.
But in the one I have at my disposal I should
have followed the same general line of attack. In the main, my
desire in all such work is to gain an
accurate knowledge of adjustments
and the stimuli calling them forth. My final reason for this is
to learn general and particular methods by which I
may control
behavior. My goal is not 'the description and explanation of states
of consciousness as such', nor that of obtaining such proficiency
in
mental gymnastics that I can immediately lay hold of a state
of consciousness and say, 'this, as a whole, consists of gray
sensation number 350, Of
such and such extent, occurring in conjunction
with the sensation of cold of a certain intensity; one of pressure
of a certain intensity and extent,' and
so on ad infinitum.
If psychology would follow the plan I suggest, the educator,
the physician, the jurist and the business man could utilize our
data
in a practical way, as soon as we are able, experimentally,
to obtain them. Those who have occasion to apply psychological
principles practically
16.09.22 16:43 Classics in the Historyof Psychology-- Watson (1913)
https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Watson/views.htm 4/6
would find no need to complain as they
do at the present time. Ask any physician or jurist today whether
scientific psychology plays a practical
part in his daily routine
and you will hear him deny that the psychology of the laboratories
finds a place in his scheme of work. I think the criticism is
extremely just. One of the earliest conditions which made me dissatisfied
with psychology was the feeling that there was no realm of application
for
the principles which were being worked out in content terms.
What gives me hope that the behaviorist's position is a defensible
one is the fact that those branches of psychology which have already
partially
withdrawn from the parent, experimental psychology,
and which are consequently less dependent upon introspection are
today in a most flourishing
condition. Experimental pedagogy,
the psychology of drugs, the psychology of advertising, legal
psychology, the psychology of tests, and
psychopathology are all
vigorous growths. These are sometimes wrongly called 'practical'
or 'applied' psychology. Surely there was never a worse
misnomer.
In the future there may grow up vocational bureaus which really
apply psychology. At present these fields are truly scientific
and are in
search of broad generalizations which will lead to
the control of human behavior. For example, we find out by experimentation
whether a series of
stanzas may be acquired more readily if the
whole is learned at once, or whether it is more advantageous to
learn each stanza separately and then
pass to the succeeding.
We do not attempt to apply our findings. The application of this
principle is purely voluntary on the part of the teacher. In
the
psychology of drugs we may show the effect upon behavior of certain
doses of caffeine. We may reach the conclusion that caffeine has
a good
effect upon the speed and accuracy of work. But these are
general principles. We leave it to the individual as to whether
the results of our tests
shall be applied or not. Again, in legal
testimony, we test the effects of recency upon the reliability
of a witness's report. We test the accuracy of the
report with
respect to moving objects, stationary objects, color, etc. It
depends upon the judicial machinery of the country to decide whether
these
facts are ever to be applied. For a 'pure' psychologist
to say that he is not interested in the questions raised in these
divisions of the science because
they relate indirectly to the
application of psychology shows, in the first place, that he fails
to understand the scientific aim
in such problems, and
secondly, that he is not interested in a
psychology which concerns itself with human life. The only fault
I have to find with these disciplines is that
much of their material
is stated in terms of introspection, whereas a statement in terms
of objective results would be far more valuable. There is no
reason
why appeal should ever be made to consciousness in any of them.
Or why introspective data should ever be sought during the
experimentation,
or published in the results. In experimental pedagogy especially
one can see the desirability of keeping all of the results on
a purely
objective plane. If this is done, work there on the human
being will be comparable directly with the work upon animals.
For example, at Hopkins,
Mr. Ulrich
has obtained certain results upon the distribution of effort in
learning -- using rats as subjects. He is prepared to give comparative
results
upon the effect of having an animal work at the problem
once per day, three times per day, and five times per day. Whether
it is advisable to have
the animal learn only one problem at a
time or to learn three abreast. We need to have similar experiments
made upon man, but we care as little
about his 'conscious processes'
during the conduct of the experiment as we care about such processes
in the rats.
I am more interested at the present moment in trying to show the
necessity for maintaining uniformity in experimental procedure
and in the method
of stating results in both human and animal
work, than in developing any ideas I may have upon the changes
which are certain to come in the scope
of human psychology. Let
us consider for a moment the subject of the range of stimuli to
which animals respond. I shall speak first of the work
upon vision
in animals. We put our animal in a situation where he will respond
(or learn to respond) to one of two monochromatic lights. We feed
him at the one (positive) and punish him at the other (negative).
In a short time the animal learns to go to the light at which
he is fed. At this point
questions arise which I may phrase in
two ways: I may choose the psychological way and say 'does the
animal see these two lights as I do, i.e., as
two distinct
colors, or does he see them as two grays differing in brightness,
as does the totally color blind?' Phrased by the behaviorist,
it would
read as follows: 'Is my animal responding upon the basis
of the difference in intensity between the two stimuli, or upon
the difference in
wavelengths?' He nowhere thinks of the animal's
response in terms of his own experiences of colors and grays.
He wishes to establish the fact
whether wave-length is a factor
in that animal's adjustment.4 If
so, what wave-lengths are effective and what differences in wave-length
must be
maintained in the different regions to afford bases for
differential responses? If wave-length is not a factor in adjustment
he wishes to know what
difference in intensity will serve as a
basis for response, and whether that same difference will suffice
throughout the spectrum. Furthermore, he
wishes to test whether
the animal can respond to wavelengths which do not affect the
human eye. He is as much interested in comparing the rat's
spectrum
with that of the chick as in comparing it with man's. The point
of view when the various sets of comparisons are made does not
change in
the slightest.
However we phrase the question to ourselves, we take our animal
after the association has been formed and then introduce certain
control
experiments which enable us to return answers to the questions
just raised. But there is just as keen a desire on our part to
test man under the same
conditions, and to state the results in
both cases in common terms.
The man and the animal should be placed as nearly as possible
under the same experimental conditions. Instead of feeding or
punishing the human
subject, we should ask him to respond by setting
a second apparatus until standard and control offered no basis
for a differential response. Do I
lay myself open to the charge
here that I am using introspection? My reply is not at all; that
while I might very well feed my human subject for a
right choice
and punish him for a wrong one and thus produce the response if
the subject could give it, there is no need of going to extremes
even
on the platform I suggest. But be it understood that I am
merely using this second method as an abridged behavior method.5
We can go just as far
and reach just as dependable
results by the longer method as by the abridged. In many cases
the direct and typically human method cannot be
safely used. Suppose,
for example, that I doubt the accuracy of the setting of the control
instrument, in the above experiment, as I am very likely to
do
if I suspect a defect in vision? It is hopeless for me to get
his introspective report. He will say: 'There is no difference
in sensation, both are reds,
identical in quality.' But suppose
I confront him with the standard and the control and so arrange
conditions that he is punished if he responds to the
'control'
but not with the standard. I interchange the positions of the
standard and the control at will and force him to attempt to differentiate
the one
from the other. If he can learn to make the adjustment
even after a large number of trials it is evident that the two
stimuli do afford the basis for a
differential response. Such
a method may sound nonsensical, but I firmly believe we will have
to resort increasingly to just such method where we
have reason
to distrust the language method.
There is hardly a problem in human vision which is not also a
problem in animal vision: I mention the limits of the spectrum,
threshold values,
absolute and relative,
flicker, Talbot's law, Weber's law,
field of vision, the Purkinje phenomenon,
etc. Every one is capable of being worked out
by behavior methods.
Many of them are being worked out at the present time.
16.09.22 16:43 Classics in the Historyof Psychology-- Watson (1913)
https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Watson/views.htm 5/6
I feel that all the work upon the senses can be consistently carried
forward along the lines I have suggested here for vision. Our
results will, in the
end, give an excellent picture of what each
organ stands for in the way of function. The anatomist and the
physiologist may take our data and show,
on the one hand, the
structures which are responsible for these responses, and, on
the other, the physics-chemical relations which are necessarily
involved (physiological chemistry of nerve and muscle) in these
and other reactions.
The situation in regard to the study of memory is hardly different.
Nearly all of the memory methods in actual use in the laboratory
today yield the
type of results I am arguing for. A certain series
of nonsense syllables or other
material is presented to the human subject. What should receive
the
emphasis are the rapidity of the habit formation, the errors,
peculiarities in the form of the curve, the persistence of the
habit so formed, the relation
of such habits to those formed when
more complex material is used, etc. Now such results are taken
down with the subject's introspection. The
experiments are made
for the purpose of discussing the mental machinery6
involved in learning, in recall, recollection
and forgetting, and not for the
purpose of seeking the human being's
way of shaping his responses to meet the problems in the terribly
complex environment into which he is
thrown, nor for that of showing
the similarities and differences between man's methods and those
of other animals.
The situation is somewhat different when we come to a study of
the more complex forms of behavior, such as imagination, judgment,
reasoning,
and conception. At present the only statements we have
of them are in content terms.7 Our
minds have been so warped by the fifty-odd years
which have been
devoted to the study of states of consciousness that we can envisage
these problems only in one way. We should meet the
situation squarely
and say that we are not able to carry forward investigations along
all of these lines by the behavior methods which are in use at
the present time. In extenuation I should like to call attention
to the paragraph above where I made the point that the introspective
method itself has
reached a cul-de-sac with respect to
them. The topics have become so threadbare from much handling
that they may well be put away for a time.
As our methods become
better developed it will be possible to undertake investigations
of more and more complex forms of behavior. Problems
which are
now laid aside will again become imperative, but they can be viewed
as they arise from a new angle and in more concrete settings.
Will there be left over in psychology a world of pure psychics,
to use Yerkes' term? I confess
I do not know. The plans which I most favor for
psychology lead
practically to the ignoring of consciousness in the sense that
that term is used by psychologists today. I have virtually denied
that
this realm of psychics is open to experimental investigation.
I don't wish to go further into the problem at present because
it leads inevitably over
into metaphysics. If you will grant the
behaviorist the right to use consciousness in the same way that
other natural scientists employ it - that is,
without making consciousness
a special object of observation - you have granted all that my
thesis requires.
In concluding, I suppose I must confess to a deep bias on these
questions. I have devoted nearly twelve years to experimentation
on animals. It is
natural that such a one should drift into a
theoretical position which is in harmony with his experimental
work. Possibly I have put up a straw man
and have been fighting
that. There may be no absolute lack of harmony between the position
outlined here and that of functional psychology. I am
inclined
to think, however, that the two positions cannot be easily harmonized.
Certainly the position I advocate is weak enough at present and
can
be attacked from many standpoints. Yet when all this is admitted
I still feel that the considerations which I have urged should
have a wide influence
upon the type of psychology which is to
be developed in the future. What we need to do is to start work
upon psychology, making behavior, not
consciousness, the
objective point of our attack. Certainly there are enough problems
in the control of behavior to keep us all working many
lifetimes
without ever allowing us time to think of consciousness an sich.
Once launched in the undertaking, we will find ourselves in
a short time as
far divorced from an introspective psychology
as the psychology of the present time is divorced from faculty
psychology.
Summary
1. Human psychology has failed to make good its claim as a natural
science. Due to a mistaken notion that its fields of facts are
conscious
phenomena and that introspection is the only direct
method of ascertaining these facts, it has enmeshed itself in
a series of speculative questions
which, while fundamental to
its present tenets, are not open to experimental treatment. In
the pursuit of answers to these questions, it has become
further
and further divorced from contact with problems which vitally
concern human interest.
2. 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
on the same plane; as being equally essential to a general
understanding
of behavior. It can dispense with consciousness in a psychological
sense. The separate observation of 'states of consciousness',
is,
on this assumption, no more a part of the task of the psychologist
than of the physicist. We might call this the return to a non-reflective
and nave use
of consciousness. In this sense consciousness may
be said to be the instrument or tool with which all scientists
work. Whether or not the tool is
properly used at present by scientists
is a problem for philosophy and not for psychology.
3. From the viewpoint here suggested the facts on the behavior
of amoebæ have value in and for themselves without reference to
the behavior of
man. In biology studies on race differentiation
and inheritance in amœbæ form a separate division of
study which must be evaluated in terms of the
laws found there.
The conclusions so reached may not hold in any other form. Regardless
of the possible lack of generality, such studies must be
made
if evolution as a whole is ever to be regulated and controlled.
Similarly the laws of behavior in amœbæ, the range
of responses, and the
determination of effective stimuli, of habit
formation, persistency of habits, interference and reinforcement
of habits, must be determined and
evaluated in and for themselves,
regardless of their generality, or of their bearing upon such
laws in other forms, if the phenomena of behavior are
ever to
be brought within the sphere of scientific control.
4. This suggested elimination of states of consciousness as proper
objects of investigation in themselves will remove the barrier
from psychology
which exists between it and the other sciences.
The findings of psychology become the functional correlates of
structure and lend themselves to
explanation in physico-chemical
terms.
16.09.22 16:43 Classics in the Historyof Psychology-- Watson (1913)
https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Watson/views.htm 6/6
5. Psychology as behavior will, after all, have to neglect but
few of the really essential problems with which psychology as
an introspective science
now concerns itself. In all probability
even this residue of problems may be phrased in such a way that
refined methods in behavior (which certainly
must come) will lead
to their solution.
References
1 That is, either directly upon the conscious
state of the observer or indirectly upon the conscious state of
the experimenter.
2 In this connection I call attention to the
controversy now on between the adherents and the opposers of imageless
thought. The 'types of reactors'
(sensory and motor) were also
matters of bitter dispute. The complication experiment was the
source of another war of words concerning the
accuracy of the
opponents' introspection.
3 My colleague, Professor H. C. Warren, by
whose advice this article was offered to the Review, believes
that the parallelist can avoid the
interaction terminology completely
by exercising a little care.
4 He would have exactly the same attitude
as if he were conducting an experiment to show whether an ant
would crawl over a pencil laid across
the trail or go round it.
5 I should prefer to look upon this abbreviated
method, where the human subject is told in words, for example,
to equate two stimuli; or to state in
words whether a given stimulus
is present or absent, etc., as the language method in behavior.
It in no way changes the status of experimentation.
The method
becomes possible merely by virtue of the fact that in the particular
case the experimenter and his animal have systems of abbreviations
or shorthand behavior signs (language), any one of which may stand
for a habit belonging to the repertoire both of the experimenter
and his subject.
To make the data obtained by the language method
virtually the whole of behavior -- or to attempt to mould all
of the data obtained by other
methods in terms of the one which
has by all odds the most limited range -- is putting the cart
before the horse with a vengeance.
6 They are often undertaken apparently for
the purpose of making crude pictures of what must or must not
go on in the nervous system.
7 There is need of questioning more and more
the existence of what psychology calls imagery. Until a few years
ago I thought that centrally
aroused visual sensations were as
clear as those peripherally aroused. I had never accredited myself
with any other kind. However, closer
examination leads me to deny
in my own case the presence of imagery in the Galtonian sense.
The whole doctrine of the centrally aroused image is,
I believe,
at present, on a very insecure foundation. Angell as well as Fernald
reach the conclusion that an objective determination of image
type is
impossible. It would be an interesting confirmation of
their experimental work if we should find by degrees that we have
been mistaken in building
up this enormous structure of the centrally
aroused sensation (or image).
The hypothesis that all of the so-called 'higher thought' processes
go on in terms of faint reinstatements of the original muscular
act (including
speech here) and that these are integrated into
systems which respond in serial order (associative mechanisms)
is, I believe, a tenable one. It makes
reflective processes as
mechanical as habit. The scheme of habit which James long ago
described - where each return or afferent current releases
the
next appropriate motor discharge - is as true for ,thought processes'
as for overt muscular acts. Paucity of 'imagery' would be the
rule. In other
words, wherever there are thought processes there
are faint contractions of the systems of musculature involved
in the overt exercise of the
customary act, and especially in
the still finer systems of musculature involved in speech. If
this is true, and I do not see how it can be gainsaid,
imagery
becomes a mental luxury (even if it really exists) without any
functional significance whatever. If experimental procedure justifies
this
hypothesis, we shall have at hand tangible phenomena which
may be studied as behavior material. I should say that the day
when we can study
reflective processes by such methods is about
as far off as the day when we can tell by physicochemical methods
the difference in the structure and
arrangement of molecules between
living protoplasm and inorganic substances. The solutions of both
problems await the advent of methods and
apparatus.
[After writing this paper I heard the addresses of Professors
Thorndike and Angell, at the Cleveland meeting of the American
Psychological
Association. I hope to have the opportunity to discuss
them at another time. I must even here attempt to answer one question
raised by Thorndike.
Thorndike [...] casts suspicions upon ideo-motor action. If by
ideo-motor action he means just that and would not include sensori-motor
action in
his general denunciation, I heartily agree with him.
I should throw out imagery altogether and attempt to show that
practically all natural thought
goes on in terms of sensori-motor
processes in the larynx (but not in terms of 'imageless thought')
which rarely come to consciousness in any
person who has not groped
for imagery in the psychological laboratory. This easily explains
why so many of the welleducated laity know nothing of
imagery.
I doubt if Thorndike conceives of the matter in this way. He and
Woodworth seem to have neglected the speech mechanisms.
It has been shown that improvement in habit comes unconsciously.
The first we know of it is when it is achieved -- when it becomes
an object. I
believe that 'consciousness' has just as little to
do with improvement in thought processes. Since, according
to my view, thought processes are
really motor habits in the larynx,
improvements, short cuts, changes, etc., in these habits are brought
about in the same way that such changes are
produced in other
motor habits. This view carries with it the implication that there
are no reflective processes (centrally initiated processes): The
individual is always examining objects, in the one
case objects in the now accepted sense, in the other their substitutes,
viz., the movements in the
speech musculature. From this it follows
that there is no theoretical limitation of the behavior method.
There remains, to be sure, the practical
difficulty, which may
never be overcome, of examining speech movements in the way that
general bodily behavior may be examined.]
(Return to Menu)