John B. Watson Essay -- Psychology, Behaviorism

John Broadus Watson was a famous American psychologist who lived between 1878 and 1958. He was innate(p) in Greenville, South Carolina to Pickens and Emma Watson and was the fourth of six children. The family was not well gain financially and John did not have an easy childhood. In pique of the poverty that engulfed the family, Johns father turned into an alcoholic who cargond less(prenominal) for his family. However, Emma, Johns mother was a devoted religious womanhood who struggled to take care of her children with less support from her husband. In 1891, Johns father left the family and disappeared after engaging in extra marital affairs with other women. The infidelity strained his marriage with Emma and the relationship with his children. subsequently the disappearance of his father, John became unruly and confused due to the lack of sound parental care of both parents. He became defiant at schoolhouse and did not want to listen to advice from his teachers. He bullied fel low students and was involved in other antisocial demeanours which were quite unacceptable in the school environment, push more he became violent and even rebelled against his mother (Buckley, 1989).Watsons veto status towards education did not last forever and it changed after he was accepted to Furman University where he began his breeding at the age of sixteen in 1894. Johns life started to turn around with his enrollment and the answer of his professor Gordon Moore. He later developed a positive attitude towards schoolman work since he realized that he could at to the lowest degree now contribute to the community regardless of the social class of his family. His academic performance was quite brilliant and he graduated from Furman University with a cut throughs degree in 1899. He later enrolled at... ...ormation is introduced even if the previous(prenominal) pattern of behavior has been already established by reinforcement (Cherry, 2011).In conclusion, the theory of b ehaviorism is based on observable behaviors for easier quantification and data collection. telling techniques such as behavior intervention and discrete trial training originate from this school of thought. The approaches are very essential in altering the maladaptive behaviors in adults and children (Cherry, 2011). Today, conditioning and the use of reward and punishment are used to help people learn accepted behavior and in other cases to help them stop problematic behavior (Coon & Mitterer, 2008). This has made behavior modification and training easy and possible. Therefore, Dr. John Watson played a severe role in the transition of psychology from the work of earlier scholars to the innovational scholars.