Behavioral Manifesto According to John Broadus Watson
This article is a behavioral manifesto by John Broadus Watson that he published in 1913. A fundamental article in the history of psychology, since it makes an important reflection not only to temporary psychology, but also temporary behaviorism also.
John b. Watson (1878) born in South Carolina, was examined at the University of Chicago where he obtained the first doctorate title in Psychology. He is mainly recognized for being the creator of behaviorism, which is based on the observation of the behavior of a being through a series of studies where the relationship between stimuli responses is carried out. In one of his best known works, in the behavior, words cited by himself can be highlighted by implying his position regarding human behavior: “Give me a dozen healthy, well -trained children, so that I educate them, and I commit myself to Choose one of them randomly and train it to become a specialist of any kind that I can choose -Medical, lawyer, artist, businessman and even beggar or thief- dispensing with his talent, inclinations, tendencies, skills, vocations and race of their ancestors ". Other of his important works were: "Animal Education", "Behavior, an introduction to shared psychology", "the psychological care of the little child".
The purpose of the article was for psychology to become a natural science, so behaviorism should be classified as a path for it. In order for science to have a consistent and valid meaning, he proposed that the data and principles caused by natural science be applied, in solving social problems in humans.
According to the behaviorist, psychology is an objective and experimental branch of natural science, without any need for introspection, that is, that person does not need to acquire knowledge that they can obtain from their own mental states, or in other words, "" Look at its interior ”, since it is proven that in the case of animals, their behavior can be investigated without resorting to consciousness.
Watson also considered that the behavior of animals and the behavior of man must be the same. However, this idea of his was criticized, since they considered an "insult" or something unacceptable that would be measured equally, to animals. For this same reason, he was called in a derogatory way to behaviorism, thus concepting a psychology for rats, not to mention that they declared psychology, simplistic, mechanistic and elementaryist.
Anyway, Watson never deny the existence of consciousness, moreover, he considered behavior and consciousness equally, therefore rejection and deconsidero the mentalist term as a method of introspection when analyzing whether something was psychological or not.
However, returning to the introspection of living beings, it does not occur in all cases; Regarding the behavior of amoebas, for example, they have value for themselves without reference to the behavior of the animal or man.
In this regard, amoebas form a study separation that must be analyzed in terms of the laws found in biology studies, so the conclusions reached may not be otherwise than that.
In this way, such data will only be valid in the event that they can be identified by analogy in terms of consciousness.
It can be said that consciousness is the key or tool with which all scientists work. The fact that scientists correctly or not use the tool today is a problem for philosophy, therefore for psychology is irrelevant.
Therefore, by eliminating situations of consciousness, it causes the suppression that exists among psychology the other sciences.
According to Watson’s point of view, he considers behaviorism rather as a philosophy of science; And he also comes to consider the possibility that psychology is a science with its methods and objectives.
In relation to structuralism and phenomenology, at the time of the end of the XLX century and early twentie. In order to carry out a possible study about this, it should be analyzed by a special method that would lead to introspection.
Now, Watson criticized the introspection method as a determinant to analyze consciousness, since the data obtained from said method were not reliable. This is because the individual who is responsible for analyzing introspection is the same individual who must be analyzed. In other words, introspection as I have said before, is based on self-reflection, on analyzing its own conscience, so, it can only analyze the consciousness itself. "The observer subject is at the same time the observed subject", then the results were not reliable.
One of the ideas that Watson makes clear, is that the lack of objectivity, that is, the absence of facts and logic, is the cause of the weakness of the introspective technique. This is due to the clear position of Watson when he affirms decisively, that psychology was considered as something hidden from the senses and science and that it will only be noticeable by those people who understand it. Therefore, the error of failing in the method is not due to problems of the body system, but for lack of self-realization training; being more precise, the introspection of said person is not exercised.
Watson was in favor of declaring psychology as a science, thus linking to structuralism. I wanted it to be implied that the actions carried out, that is, that our behavior was the response to the material acts in reality, so it gave rise to the idea that "the internal is the cause of the external", this It is, what we do through our actions, will have greater influence and will be the determinant to what happens publicly.
His ideas were criticized, they considered themselves naive and with lack of data and facts. Among them, the radical idea of the equal classification of the human and animals and the new birth of considering psychology as a science, were the causes.
However, this was changing. One of Watson’s important achievements was the achievement he achieved, when psychology was considered as a science, and the latter, is something that should be based on the experience and observations of the facts.
Certain psychologists affirmed that his theories were consistent, discovering that in order to analyze the answers, it had to be through stimuli and responses, so it was ended by concluding that psychology should be behavioral.
In short, psychology, is the science of behavior.
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