Bonus: Annie reads aloud John B. Watson's 1913 essay "Psychology As The Behaviorist Views it"
Summary: <p>Professor John B. Watson's 1913 essay argues that psychology should be studied from a behavioral perspective, echoes some of the same conversations that are had today between dog trainers who are approach dog training as a science and those who approach dog training by making assumptions about dogs' internal feelings and motivations. </p> <p><a href="http://anniegrossman.com/watsonessay">Read "Psychology As The Behaviorist Views it" in full at http://anniegrossman.com/watsonessay</a></p> <p>Thoughts on this? Join the conversation by downloading the <a href="http://schoolforthedogs.com/community">School For The Dogs Community app</a></p> <p>find it <a href="http://schoolforthedogs.com/app">in iTunes: http://schoolforthedogs.com/app</a></p> <p>find it <a href="http://schoolforthedogs.com/play">in the Play store: http://schoolforthedogs.com/play</a></p> <p>---<br> Transcript:</p> <p>[Intro]</p> <p>Annie:</p> <p>Happy Monday morning humans. I am going to take advantage of this quiet moment in my home. Quiet because my daughter’s wonderful babysitter has brought her to the playground. <a href="http://anniegrossman.com/watsonessay">To share with you an essay I just looked up that I actually have not read in several years, but I remember it left quite an impression on me when I did read it.</a></p> <p>It’s from Psychological Review from 1913 by John B. Watson. I looked this up because I am working on some of the lectures that are going with our online professional course, which, I’m just finishing up these lectures. And I did a lecture on the history of dog training, and the history of dog training and both in universities and in pop culture, I guess is the best way to describe what the lecture is.</p> <p>And I mentioned Skinner and said something about how Skinner was influenced by the work of Ivan Pavlov and John B. Watson. Both of whom were mostly working in the very early 1900s. And I kind of just started looking up stuff about John B. Watson. Again, I got on kind of a Watson kick a few years ago. I read part of his biography, which I’d actually like to look at again. I think Watson has probably due his own episode at some point, and is widely considered the OG daddy of the field of behavioral science as I understand it.</p> <p>Briefly put, he was a psychology professor, I think at Johns Hopkins. His most famous experiment was most likely the baby Albert experiment, where he showed you could condition a child to be scared of all things fuzzy, like rabbits and that kind of thing, by pairing similar fuzzy furry things with a loud scary noise. It’s pretty cruel and weird considering his research subject was a non-verbal 18 month old boy named little Albert. But still interesting as it certainly relates to so much dog training where we see dogs become conditioned to fear seemingly random things.</p> <p>And he ended up leaving academics, I think because of some sort of affair he had with a student. And he ended up at the famous ad agency, J Walter Thompson, where he used what he had studied and learned about human behavior in order to manipulate humans into buying things. He is credited with having popularized the idea of a coffee break, giving people a built-in reason in their day to stop and go drink and buy coffee. So if you are a big coffee drinker, as I am, you might just have John B. Watson to thank for your very stained teeth.</p> <p>Full Transcript available at <a href="https://www.schoolforthedogs.com/podcasts/episode-126-bonus-annie-reads-aloud-john-b-watsons-1913-essay-psychology-as-the-behaviorist-views-it/">SchoolfortheDogs.com/Podcast</a></p>
