John B. Watson was born in 1878 in a rural community outside Greenville, South Carolina, where he attended the local country schools near his parents' farm.
Watson received his Ph.D. in experimental psychology at the University of Chicago in 1903. His research was on the sensory cues used by rats in learning to run through a maze. The founder of behaviorism who established psychology's goal as the prediction and control of behavior. In his final position, he denied the existence of mental events and concluded that instincts play no role in human behavior. On the mind-body problem, Watson finally became a physical monist, believing that thought is nothing but implicit muscle movement.
Watson was the driving force for the school of behaviorism, and his approach can be seen in a popular quote: "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 beggarman and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors" (1924, page 82). In 1921 Watson entered the business world and soon became vice president of an advertising agency. He married his former laboratory assistant and continued to write popular articles on psychology for some time. He died in 1958 at the age of 80.
Other definition:
John B. Watson (1878-1958) refers to the founder of the school of Psychology called Behaviorism which is the study of overt behavior rather than of mental processes.
Watson believed that infants' minds were essentially "blank slates" and argued that learning determines what people will become. Likewise, Watson assumed that with the correct techniques, anything could be learned by almost anyone. Therefore, in Watson's view, experiences was just about all that matters in determining the course of development. John B. Watson 's view that a science or theory of development must study observable behavior only and investigate relationships between stimuli and responses. Behaviorism is a theoretical approach that seeks to explain behavior in terms of learning principles, without reference to inner states, thoughts, or feelings.
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