B. F. Watson Research Paper

John Broadus Watson was an American psychologist who established the psychological school of behaviorism. Watson promoted a change in psychology through his address Psychology as the Behaviorist Views it, which was given at Columbia University in 1913. Through his behaviorist approach, Watson researched on animal behavior, child rearing, and advertising. He also, conducted the controversial "Little Albert" experiment and the Kerplunk experiment. Watson became popular for the use of the scientific theory with behaviorism. B.F. Skinner was born in Pennsylvania in 1904, psychologist B.F. Skinner started working on ideas of human behavior after earning his doctorate from Harvard. Skinner's works included The Behavior of Organisms and a novel based on his theories Walden Two. He explored behaviorism in relation to society in later books, including Beyond Freedom and Human Dignity. Skinner is best known for developing the theory of behaviorism, and for his utopian novel Walden Two. Skinner later died in Massachusetts in 1990. Behaviorism, Watson believed, was the science of observable behavior. Only behavior that could be observed, recorded and measured for any real value for the study of humans or animals. Watson's thinking was significantly influenced by the earlier classical conditioning experiments of Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov. …show more content…
If the consequences are bad, there is a high chance the action will not be repeated; if the consequences are good, the actions that led to it being repeated become more unlikely to happen again. Skinner called this the principle of reinforcement. To strengthen the behavior, Skinner used operant conditioning, and he viewed the rate of responses to be the most helpful measure of response strength. To study operant conditioning in more depth, he made the operant conditioning chamber, also known as the Skinner