John Broadus Watson's Process Of Classical Conditioning

John Broadus Watson was an American psychologist as well as a radical environmental determinist. He believed that humans could be “conditioned” like training animals. Watson promoted a upcoming change in psychology through a behaviourist approach. Based on Pavlov’s observations ,Watson proposed that the process of classical conditioning could explain all aspects of human psychology. Watson whole heartedly denied the existence of the mind and consciousness. According to Watson different experiences of learning were the cause of individual differences in behaviour. Watson famously said “Give me twelve 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 a doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant, chief, and yes, even beggarman and thief regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and raced of his …show more content…
Conditioning occurs when people are aware of the relation between the conditioned stimulus (CS) and the unconditioned stimulus (UCS). This is done by simply linking the two stimuli together to then produce a newly learned response in animals. In the famous and ethically dubious experiment Watson and Rayner (1920) showed that classical conditioning applied to the human species as well. There are only three stages of the classical conditioning process. At each stage the stimuli and the responses are given specific scientific terms: Before conditioning, During conditioning and After conditioning.
Before conditioning the unconditioned stimulus (US) produces an unconditioned response (UDR) in an organism. So basically this would mean that a stimulus in a particular provided environment has produced a behaviour/response which is unlearned/unconditioned and therefore would be a natural response that has not been taught at