Dr. John B. Watson: The Fear Psychologist

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Are rats and spiders actually scary or have you just been conditioned to think so? Aarati tells the story of a controversial psychologist whose "Little Albert" experiment on fear went a bit too far. 

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Episode Transcript

Aarati (00:11):
A warning for our listeners, this story briefly
mentions attempts of suicide.

Arpita (00:16):
Hi, everyone.
And welcome back to the SmartTea Podcast, where we talk about
the lives of scientists andinnovators who shape the world.
How are you, Aarati?
You're not in your regularrecording

Aarati (00:28):
No, I went to visit my friend again, um, down in SoCal,
and she had a conference inVegas, and she was like, you
want to come with me and justlike, hang out in Vegas while
I'm not at the conference?
And I was like, Okay, sure.
So it was like a reallyimpromptu thing.
Luckily, I can work fromanywhere.

(00:49):
So while she was at theconference, I was in the hotel
and just working.
And then when she got off theconference, we just like hung
out.
We went to a women's basketballgame, which was so

Arpita (01:01):
Oh, fun.
That's awesome.

Aarati (01:03):
Amazing.
Like the energy and just like, Idon't really know that much
about basketball.
Like I know enough I know thebasics, but like, even I could
appreciate how athletic thesewomen were and just like the
ball was just flying from personto person.
And sometimes I couldn't evenfollow the ball.
It was just incredible.

(01:24):
And the energy was amazing.
The fans were so into it.
So I had a really good

Arpita (01:29):
That's awesome.
That's so cool.
That sounds amazing.

Aarati (01:33):
How are you?

Arpita (01:35):
I'm tired.
Um, I am getting to the tail endof a year marathon weddings.
Um, all amazing things and sofun, but it's been quite the,
quite the marathon.
Um, we just got back from awedding in Michigan on Saturday
and tomorrow we're flying toSpain.

Aarati (01:57):
Oh my goodness.
That is insane, I can't imaginetraveling that much, and how are
you holding it all together?

Arpita (02:06):
The answer is I'm not.

Aarati (02:09):
Oh my goodness.

Arpita (02:10):
really, really not.
Um, but it's, it's fun.
All fine.
It's going to be so fun.
I was just looking at theweather in Spain and it's going
to be just like low 70s.
So it's not going to be superhot when we went to Italy, which
is albeit different, but stillkind of like Mediterranean
climate.
It was so hot.
It's so hot and I was melting.

(02:32):
And so I'm really, really,really happy to, um, Be going
back to Europe, but thenhopefully it being like a little
cooler and kind of nicer to dosome of the touristy stuff.
So, yeah.

Aarati (02:45):
Here in, in Vegas, it was over a hundred for both the
days that we were there.
So, um,

Arpita (02:51):
can't say Vegas is my favorite place in the world in I
don't like, it's just like hotand kind of gross as a

Aarati (02:58):
We didn't spend that much time downtown, like, in the
Strip.
We basically just, you know,Yeah, we, I actually, like, it
was probably the most boringVegas trip that anyone's ever
taken because literally I justsat in the AC in the hotel for
most of the day just doing workand then just at night we would
go out and do a couple of thingsand by a couple of things, I

(03:20):
mean, we went to restaurants.
and sat outside at night orlike, go to the basketball game,
hung out there, you know, so,um, but other than that, no
gambling, no anything, but yeah,I, I know what you mean.
Even at night after the sun wentdown, it was still like, yep,
we're in the desert, it's still95 degrees out yeah.

(03:42):
But that's so great that you'regoing to Spain.
Have you been to Spain before?

Arpita (03:46):
Nope.
This is my first time in Spain.

Aarati (03:48):
Ooh, exciting.
Where, where exactly in Spainare you going?

Arpita (03:52):
We're going to Barcelona.

Aarati (03:53):
Nice, nice.
I hear that's a beautiful place.

Arpita (03:56):
I'm super excited.
I think it'll be really fun.
And then for the wedding, um,it's just outside of Barcelona,
but it's a small villa thatwe're all staying at.
Um, and then we all get to hangout.
So that'll be really fun.

Aarati (04:06):
Oh, lovely.

Arpita (04:08):
Um, but I'm really excited to hear about today's
story.
It's always fun to be on thelistening end.
Who are we talking about today?

Aarati (04:15):
So today, I wanted to do a story that was kind of spooky
and October y themed because weare getting into that season.
And so after a lot ofresearching, I found this one
guy who, fair warning, is notthe best guy ever in the world.
He's a very controversialfigure, but his story is

(04:38):
fascinating.
So today we will be talkingabout the psychologist John B.
Watson, not to be confused withJohn Watson from the Sherlock
Holmes saga.
Like, they have nothing incommon.
There's no, there's no, um,reference at all to that, so.

(04:59):
Just the same name.

Arpita (05:00):
Yeah, that is where my, where my head went.

Aarati (05:03):
Yes.
Yeah.
I don't think he got any sort ofinspiration from this guy, cause
this guy's honestly, kind ofterrible, but we'll get into
that.
He's a very controversial figurein the field of psychology, but
I think all psychologistsprobably study him, um, because
his experiments were sointeresting, but unethical at

(05:26):
the same time.
Um, But he did a lot of studiesaround the concept of fear and
instilling that emotion inpeople and how we could
condition people to feeldifferent emotions.
But he was particularly focusedon fear, and so I thought that
was very apt for the Octoberspooky season.

Arpita (05:49):
YIckes, I'm already nervous.

Aarati (05:52):
Okay, so let me start the story.
So John Broadus Watson was bornon January 9th, 1879 on a farm
in Travelers Rest, SouthCarolina.
John, by all accounts, did nothave a great childhood.
He was the fourth of sixchildren and his family was
very, very poor.
His father, Pickens ButlerWatson, was

Arpita (06:15):
Pickens!

Aarati (06:17):
Yeah, is that not the most, like, I don't know, like,
when you, when you hear the namePickens, you definitely get an
image, right, in your head.
It's not, it's not a greatimage, um, and like, exactly
what you're imagining when youthink of the name Pickens,
that's what he is.
He's a terrible person.
He had fought for theConfederates during the Civil

(06:37):
War, which is strike one.
Strike two, he was an alcoholicand he had a violent streak and
definitely abused his wife andchildren.

Arpita (06:45):
Okay, yeah, we're painting a picture.

Aarati (06:48):
Yep.
And Strike 3, when John was 13,Pickens abandoned the family and
ran away to live with a NativeAmerican woman.
Some accounts say two women.
I don't know how that works.
He abandoned his family, andJohn never forgave his father
for walking out on the familyand leaving them even poorer and

(07:10):
worse off than they alreadywere.
His mother, Emma, was completelythe opposite, but also not in a
good way.
She was extremely religious andshe forced her beliefs on her
children.
She had actually named Johnafter a prominent Baptist
minister, because as soon as hewas born, she had dreams about

(07:31):
him becoming a minister whowould go out and preach the
gospel, but she was very harshand forced her strict religious
views on John and his siblings,and surprise, surprise, this
ended up backfiring and, um,having the opposite effect of
what she had hoped.
John ended up becoming anatheist and hating all religions

(07:53):
because of how harsh she was.

Arpita (07:55):
It's like quite the pendulum swing between the two
parents.

Aarati (07:58):
Right?

Arpita (07:59):
just really interesting.
Yeah.

Aarati (08:00):
I'm like, how did they end up together?
Like, this woman who hatesdrinking and, you know, drugs
ended up marrying and having sixchildren with this guy.

Arpita (08:10):
Yeah.
I'm sure it wasn't fully freewill and there surely was not
affection there.

Aarati (08:17):
That's true.
So, John's childhood definitelycaused him a lot of trauma.
Apparently he was scared ofthunderstorms and always had to
sleep with the light on.
After John's father left, hismother, Emma, decided to sell
the farm and move the family toGreenville, South Carolina, so
that the kids could get a bettereducation.

(08:39):
But John didn't do well with themove, because he was seen now as
some dumb country kid, quoteunquote, by all the other
students, and he was bullied forit.
This resulted in him having aton of behavioral problems.
He would talk back to theteachers, he would get into
fights with other students.
And worst of all, he had pickedup on his father's raging

(09:02):
racism, and he started torandomly attack local Black
people.

Arpita (09:08):
YIckes.
Okay.

Aarati (09:09):
Yeah.
It got so bad that in highschool, he was actually arrested
twice, once for fighting andonce for firing a gun in the
middle of the city.

Arpita (09:19):
Oh my God.
Where did he get the gun?
Like he just like, they just hadthem because this is, you know,
the 19th century and this isjust what we do.

Aarati (09:28):
Yeah, basically.
And I'm like, you can tell also,like, how bad it was that he was
arrested in, like, late 1800sfor fighting with Black people
when already racism was, like,at its height, and he still got
arrested.
Like, that tells you how severehis actions were.
It was really, really bad.

Arpita (09:48):
Oh God.
Okay.
So we're not off to a greatstart here.

Aarati (09:51):
No.
Um, somehow, though, he managedto get out of doing any jail
time.
I'm not really sure how.
He also was not a great student.
He didn't really seem to careabout school.
But towards the end of highschool, he wisened up a bit and
realized that if he could get aneducation and become an
academic, he could potentiallyget out of this rural life of

(10:13):
poverty that he had.
So after high school, when hewas trying to get into college,
his grades were still prettyterrible.
So he had to leverage hismother's influence within the
Baptist church to get a spot atthe Furman University, which had
been established by the SouthCarolina Baptist Convention.

Arpita (10:33):
Okay.
So his mom had influence in thisreligious community, so she
could kind of put in a good wordfor him because she was such a
devout.
you know, religious person.
Okay.
And that worked, I

Aarati (10:44):
Apparently.
Yes, apparently it worked and hegot a spot there.

Arpita (10:49):
That doesn't really compute for me.
Like, if your mom is religiousand has good standing in the
church, she's just like, pleaselet my son in.
I know he's a piece of shit, butlike,

Aarati (10:57):
Yeah, I don't know.
I also don't even know how hegot out of doing any jail time,
but like, maybe he's just like areally smooth talker.
I'm not sure, but.

Arpita (11:07):
Not entirely following, but let's keep going.
Yeah.

Aarati (11:10):
Yeah, like, there's a lot of question marks in his
life that I'm like, how didpeople let him in?
Like, I don't understand.
So, yeah, this is one of those.
Like, I don't know how, whosaid, okay, yes, you can come to
our university even though yourgrades are terrible and you've
been arrested twice.
Of course, we'll let you comeinto our you know, devout

(11:31):
Baptist university.
I don't know how that happened,but.
His mom must have been able topull some serious strings.
So, he was just 16 when he wasenrolled.
He did his undergraduate andmaster's degree there and
graduated five years later whenhe was 21.
So, he's also really young to bedoing all this.

Arpita (11:52):
Right.

Aarati (11:53):
After this, he briefly took a job in South Carolina as
a principal of the BatesburgInstitute, which was a tiny one
room school, so not veryprestigious of a position at
all.

Arpita (12:06):
It's kind of funny that there is a principal for a one
room school.
Like if

Aarati (12:09):
Yes,

Arpita (12:10):
and then there's another position that there's a
principal, like how, how wasthere that much work for them to
do?

Aarati (12:16):
I don't know.
But I was, I was also like, youknow, how did he become
principal of an institute?
And then I was like, oh, but itwas tiny.
So, okay, maybe that makessense.
So,

Arpita (12:28):
I mean, marginally, but

Aarati (12:30):
marginally.
I, I do get your point though,like it's, how, how are there
this many positions for a oneroom school?
So, not a prestigious positionat all, but he did take the
position so that he could takecare of his mother, who had
become extremely ill at thispoint.
She died in 1900, and at thatpoint, He realized there was

(12:51):
really no reason for him to stayin South Carolina, that was the
main reason that he had, youknow, taken that position and
stayed there.
So, he decided to continue hiseducation.
He moved to Illinois, and again,see, I don't understand how he's
doing this, but he successfullypetitioned the president of the
University of Chicago to let himjoin their PhD program in

(13:14):
psychology and philosophy.

Arpita (13:16):
What?

Aarati (13:17):
Yes.

Arpita (13:18):
Also, why is he so gung ho about education?
That's my other question, is itdoesn't seem like he has any
sort of precedent for this.
It doesn't really seem like hehad the, you know, framework
from his childhood or modelslike a lot of other people we've
talked about, you know, comefrom very well educated
families.
But what does he seek to gainhere?

Aarati (13:39):
For some reason, he seemed to think that it was a
clear route away from povertyand towards some sort of
recognition and prestige, Iguess, which,

Arpita (13:51):
It's not untrue.

Aarati (13:53):
Yes, like, there are definitely more lucrative
fields, but I don't know,, maybefor whatever reason, he saw this
as the most easy path to kind ofget out of his terrible life.

Arpita (14:07):
Interesting.
Okay.
So now he's petitioning to getinto a PhD program.

Aarati (14:11):
So he got in, he got into the PhD program at the
University of Chicago, and he'sstudying under Professor John
Dewey.
And he's studying psychology andphilosophy, and he becomes very
interested in Ivan Pavlov'sexperiments on classical
conditioning.
So, these are pretty famous, youknow, uh, the Pavlov's dogs

(14:35):
experiments?
Still very famous today.
Basically, for anyone whodoesn't know, Pavlov trained
dogs to associate the ringing ofa bell with food.
So then, even when there was nofood around, if Pavlov rang the
bell, the dogs would start todrool in anticipation.
So, their mind was conditioned,to create a physiological

(14:59):
response.
And so, John was fascinated bythis, and started his own
experiments on animal behaviorand learning in rats.
His dissertation was titled,Animal Education, an
Experimental Study on thePsychical....

Arpita (15:17):
Cyclical.

Aarati (15:18):
Psychical, Psychical.
No psychical.
Psychic.
Like psychical.

Arpita (15:23):
Oh, I thought you were asking me.

Aarati (15:25):
No, no, no, no.
I'm,

Arpita (15:28):
I'm like, you're still saying it wrong.

Aarati (15:29):
it's It's psychical.
So An Experimental Study on thePsychical Development of the
White Rat Correlated With theGrowth of its Nervous System

Arpita (15:41):
Okay.
What does phychical mean?

Aarati (15:43):
Like relating to psychology?

Arpita (15:46):
The psyche?

Aarati (15:47):
Psyche and the psychology.

Arpita (15:49):
Okay.

Aarati (15:50):
So basically he's studying the psychology of these
rats and also correlating itwith their brain anatomy.
That's basically what that titlemeans.

Arpita (15:59):
Got it.
Okay.

Aarati (16:01):
So in his experiments, he created a scenario in which a
young rat had to figure out apuzzle to get food.
So they either had to pull on astring, which would open a door
or stand on a seesaw to open alatch and then get the food.
And he was watching to see howlong it took them to learn that
that's what you had to do.

Arpita (16:21):
Mm hmm.

Aarati (16:22):
So, some people might think that when the rat figures
it out the first time, they'llbe able to do it again the next
day very easily, and the nextday even more easily.
But John discovered that thatwasn't always the case.
Learning in the rats was a veryuneven process.
So, for example, one rat took 12minutes to figure out the task
on the first day, and then 12minutes again on the second day.

(16:45):
On day three, he was suddenlyable to figure it out in three
minutes.
But then the next time, it tookhim eight minutes.
And then after that, for thenext few days, the rat could do
it in two to three minutes.
And then one day, suddenly,something in the rat's brain
clicked, and they couldconsistently solve the problem
in under 30 seconds.

Arpita (17:03):
Interesting.
Sorry, how many days did you sayit was when it clicked?

Aarati (17:06):
I think he saw that it clicked usually between day 23
and 27, I think.

Arpita (17:13):
I wonder how that compares to a lot of other
behavior studies in rodents thatwe do now, like, the elevated
water maze and, like, the radialarm maze.
Like, there's just so many,behavior and memory type of I
wonder how that compares withhow long it takes.
It actually is kind of like day27 or whatever you said.

Aarati (17:34):
Yeah, it actually takes them a while to figure it out.
Yeah, I don't know.

Arpita (17:38):
I don't know the answer.

Aarati (17:39):
Yeah, I don't know the other, I don't know how long it
takes them to do other tasks.
Um, But what he did learn fromthis process was that learning
isn't linear, like, they don'tjust figure it out once or twice
and then always understand whatto do, but they also don't,
like, figure it out faster everysingle time, necessarily.

Arpita (18:00):
Yeah.

Aarati (18:00):
It's, it's a very jagged process.

Arpita (18:03):
Yeah.
That's interesting.

Aarati (18:05):
And John wrote, quote, it's a pleasure to watch them.
They fly from place to placetrying everything.
So he really enjoyed this.

Arpita (18:14):
And these are wild type, I assume, right?
Like they didn't do any,

Aarati (18:17):
I think so.
Yeah, I didn't say anything

Arpita (18:19):
of genetic variants.
Okay.

Aarati (18:21):
Yeah.
So at the same time, John isstudying the anatomy of the
rat's brain, and he found acorrelation between the rat's
learning abilities and theamount of myelin they had, which
is the fatty substance thatsurrounds your neurons and
protects them.

Arpita (18:36):
That makes sense.

Aarati (18:37):
Yeah.
So this, uh, is really the startof a field of psychology called
behaviorism, which is a study ofhow animals and humans learn and
behave through interactions withtheir environment.
But this is also where John'sthought process starts to
diverge a bit from what most ofthe other people in psychology

(18:57):
at the time thought.
So, as he was going through hisdegree, he really started to
push for psychology to be seenas a purely scientific
discipline that was much moreclosely related to biology and
physics.
John believed that humans werebasically just more complex
animals than rats, so if youwanted to study a human

(19:18):
psychology, then you had toobserve them the same way that
you would a rat.
And John even dropped thephilosophy part of his degree
because he really didn't thinkthat psychology and philosophy
should even necessarily haveanything to do with each other.

Arpita (19:34):
Interesting.
I mean, I never really thoughtabout psychology and philosophy
even being semi related, but nowthat I think about it, it does
make sense, right?
It's, they're definitely cousinsin some ways, like the way we
think and the, I guess moreabout the biology of how we
think.

Aarati (19:53):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so this was.
a very different way of thinkingfrom the other prominent
psychologists of his day andprobably our day as well.
The other psychologists in hisday believed that humans have a
very unique way of thinking thatis different from animals and
that needs to be taken intoaccount.

(20:13):
So, for example, humans have theability to introspect and convey
how they're feeling in and bereasoned with, you can impose
morals and define concepts ofright and wrong in a human,
which you can't really do with arat.
And this also shapes how webehave in society, right?
Like, yes, we do learn from theenvironment we are in and we

(20:35):
react to the environment but ourbehavior is also shaped by what
we think is right to do and whatwe think is morally correct.
And based on how we're feeling.
Um, so these are like much lessmeasurable and observable
things, and majority ofpsychologists were trying to
take these things into accountwhen they were studying the

(20:57):
human brain.
But John was not.
He was very much in the minorityin his opinion that psychology
should just be purelyobservable, like, What is the
action?
What is the reaction?
Just watch the person.
What do they do?
Don't try to think about, like,their thought process, or don't
try to think about, you know,what led them to do this.

Arpita (21:18):
Okay.
It feels very deviant from theway we think about it
scientists, though, because Ifeel like so much of what we do
is trying to do that bit thatyou were just saying that he was
trying to avoid, which is tryingto understand why or understand
the processes or the mechanismor just any of these words that
we use to delve a little bitdeeper.
So that is interesting that hedecided to stray away from that.

Aarati (21:41):
So, part of this also, I think, Is because at the time we
didn't have a way to measuremental activity at all like

Arpita (21:50):
Mm, mm hmm, mm hmm.

Aarati (21:52):
for him the process of thinking and a person being
conscious wasn't something thatcould be measured the way it can
be today.
Today we can like hookelectrodes up to your head and
be like this person is thinkingor we can see different parts of
your brain light up if you're inpain or you're happy that wasn't
possible then so John was like"Mental activity is not

(22:14):
something that is observable,and therefore it should not be
part of the scientific processif you can't observe it."

Arpita (22:19):
Okay, that's reasonable.

Aarati (22:21):
But he was very, very much in the minority in his
opinion on this, and this ledhim to have a ton of anxiety and
have something of a nervousbreakdown because he was afraid
of being ostracized by hispeers.

Arpita (22:35):
Sorry, it's not funny.
It's just like, ironic that he'sa psychologist and really could
use a

Aarati (22:41):
he could use some psychology.
Yeah, he could use some therapy.
Absolutely.

Arpita (22:45):
definitely use some talk therapy.
I know he's not a talktherapist, but that's funny.

Aarati (22:50):
Yeah.
No, absolutely.
I agree.
Um, but John graduates with hisPh.
D.
when he's only 25 years old,which, even then is very young
to have a doctorate.

Arpita (23:02):
That feels like a red flag.
Why are they handing thesedegrees out?

Aarati (23:05):
And especially to someone who has so many red
flags himself.

Arpita (23:09):
This is all a red flag.
Someone getting their PhD inthree years is a red flag to me.
That's fake.
What did you do?

Aarati (23:15):
That's too fast.

Arpita (23:17):
Too fast.
It's too fast.

Aarati (23:19):
Absolutely.

Arpita (23:19):
I'm here for graduating early, but I can't believe that
you did anything of substance inthree years.

Aarati (23:26):
I know.
It's crazy.
I don't know how he's flyingthrough things so fast.
So he sets up a lab at theUniversity of Chicago and he
gets some students.
One of these students is namedMary Ickes, and she is the
sister of a prominentpolitician, Harold L.
Ickes, who, by the way, laterbecomes FDR's Secretary of

(23:48):
State.
So, very prominent family.
John fell in love with her,whichfrom an ethical standpoint isn't
great, because he Basically,yeah, he fell in love with one
of his students.
It's not good.
Also, Mary's family was verywealthy, and they didn't think
that John with his meageracademic salary was good enough
for her.

Arpita (24:09):
Kind of fair.
Yeah

Aarati (24:10):
Yeah I related too.

Arpita (24:12):
Pretty, pretty, pretty valid actually.

Aarati (24:15):
Yeah, that hasn't changed much.

Arpita (24:17):
No, no, no.

Aarati (24:18):
But despite everyone's objections, when John proposed,
Mary said yes.
They got married, and had twochildren, whom they also named
John and Mary, which I justthought was hilarious.

Arpita (24:32):
Shut up.
That is so stupid.
What?

Aarati (24:36):
know.
I'm like, why would you do that?

Arpita (24:40):
That is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard.
Also, like, is that iconic ordumb?
I can't even decide.

Aarati (24:46):
I don't even know, but apparently the younger Mary, the
daughter, thought it was stupid.
So she started going by the namePolly, because I'm sure that got
confusing really fast.

Arpita (24:57):
Okay.
Yeah, that's another yeah, like,what do they refer to each other
as?

Aarati (25:01):
I just thought that was hilarious.
A couple of years later, Johnlanded a position as a professor
of psychology at John Hopkins,so the family left Chicago and
moved to Baltimore.
Again, here we go with his,like, amazing, I don't know,
getting into positions heshouldn't be getting into.
He wound up in almostimmediately becoming the head of

(25:22):
the psychology departmentbecause the previous head of the
department, James Baldwin, wascaught in a raid at a brothel
and was forced to resign.

Arpita (25:31):
And he was the top pick?

Aarati (25:32):
Apparently! I'm just like, I don't understand.
So he's now like chair of thedepartment at like probably 30.

Arpita (25:42):
Well, good for him, I guess.
And this also could have beenmaybe his wife's family's
influence, right?
He is now part of like a veryprominent family.
And so now he is maybe the toppick relative to some other
people.
I don't know.
I'm just hypothesizing.

Aarati (25:57):
Good point.
I, I would be so pissed if I wasin that department, though.
Like, really, you're gettingthis guy who is, like, 28 years
old Are you serious?

Arpita (26:09):
That would be tough.

Aarati (26:11):
Okay, so for the next several years, things were
stable, but the family was farfrom perfect.
In an interview with thepsychologist and author David
Cohen, John's daughter, Polly,said that neither her mother or
her father showed the childrenmuch affection.
They weren't abused or neglectedin the traditional sense, but

(26:33):
John and Mary also didn't givetheir kids any hugs or kisses or
any kind of emotional support.
So for Mary, the mother, thatjust kind of seemed to be her
natural approach to motherhood.
But from John's side, it mayhave had something to do with
his growing thoughts on thegoals of psychology and how

(26:55):
psychologists should studypeople.

Arpita (26:58):
In having this kind of detached mentality?

Aarati (27:01):
Yeah, just like observe, observe.
So, in 1913, John published anarticle called Psychology as the
Behaviorist Views It.
And this was regarded as kind ofa manifesto in which he outlines
his ideas about behaviorism.
He writes, quote,"Psychology asthe behaviorist views it is a

(27:23):
purely objective experimentalbranch of natural science.
Its theoretical goal is theprediction and control of
behavior.
Introspection forms no essentialpart of its methods, nor is the
scientific value of its datadependent on the readiness with
which they lend themselves tointerpretation in terms of
consciousness.

(27:43):
The behaviorist, in his effortsto get a unitary scheme of
animal response, recognizes nodividing line between man and
brute.
The behavior of man, with all ofits refinement and complexity,
forms only a part of thebehaviorist's total scheme of
investigation." End quote.

Arpita (28:01):
What?,

Aarati (28:02):
Let me, put that into layman's terms.
So, he's basically reallyemphasizing objectification and
observing behavior with the goalof being able to predict and
control a person's behavior.
So, he believes thatpsychologists should focus on

(28:22):
what actions and reactions aperson is making and not trying
to understand their thoughts.
So, really treating them like ananimal.
There's no dividing line betweenman brute, so you shouldn't try
to understand what they'rethinking, because you can't
understand what a rat isthinking.
Same way, don't try tounderstand what the human is
thinking.
Like, very much.

(28:42):
Don't try to study theirconsciousness.
Just take into account thingsthat you can directly observe
and measure.
That's it.

Arpita (28:50):
Got it.
Mm

Aarati (28:50):
So that's why we're kind of maybe getting some insight
into how John may have beenraising his kids, right?
Like, hmm.
just observe.
And I thought this was evenfurther underlined when we get a
quote from John describing hisdaughter Polly as quote,"more
fun to the square inch than allthe frogs and rats in creation."

Arpita (29:11):
What does that mean?

Aarati (29:12):
That to me sounded like "Great.
I'm more fun to look at thanyour lab animals.
Like, I'm a more interestingexperiment than your experiments
in your lab.
Thanks, I guess?"

Arpita (29:23):
Oh, dear.

Aarati (29:24):
You know?

Arpita (29:25):
This is not going well.
This is...

Aarati (29:28):
Like, how, how would you feel if your dad said, like,
you're more fun than the frogsand rats that I look at in lab?
great, thanks.

Arpita (29:36):
It is crazy that he's interpreting every aspect of his
life as an experiment.

Aarati (29:41):
Yes, very much so.
He also, though, really wantedto make psychology something
useful and practical.
And when World War I starts,John is initially really excited
because he thinks he finally hasa chance to do that.
As a psychologist, he was sentto Europe and tasked with
creating aptitude tests forairmen to help with personnel
selection.

(30:01):
However, he became extremelyfrustrated when he learned that
a large number of the airmen hewanted to study were killed in
battle.
And he was like, I went throughall of these air raids and
bombings for nothing, which Iwas like, what a terrible way to
look at the war.
Like that's all of this loss oflife and you're just thinking...

Arpita (30:20):
...about your experiments.

Aarati (30:22):
Yeah.
Like, Oh great.
All my test subjects died.
Like that's terrible.

Arpita (30:28):
Yeah, this guy's not awesome.

Aarati (30:30):
Yeah.
He's really, really not great.
He came away very unimpressedwith the military, especially
again, because he's a ragingracist and he was, Really upset
that black people were allowedto serve and even become
officers.
And he expressed his opinion soloudly that he was almost court
martialed for, you know,expressing views against the

(30:53):
military.

Arpita (30:54):
Oh my God.

Aarati (30:56):
Like, that's how terrible this guy is.

Arpita (30:58):
That feels hard to do.
Okay.

Aarati (31:00):
Like that's how bad you have to be, but again, he
wasn't.
He got out of it, I guess.
He's fine.
So, by 1920, John had becomevery interested in the idea of
conditioning emotionalresponses.
So this is where we're gettinginto the fear experiments.
So, similar to how Pavlovconditioned his dogs to have a

(31:23):
physiological response when herang a bell because they were
anticipating food, John wonderedif he could condition people to
have an emotional response thesame way.
I have to say his theory isinteresting to think about.
So his theory was that, most ofthe emotions people feel are
conditioned in the first place.

(31:43):
We weren't born feeling certainways about certain things, so
he's saying, for example, if youthink about something that
scares you, like maybe a spideror a rat, are you scared of it
because spiders and rats areinherently scary?
Or are you scared of it becausesince we were babies, we've
watched other people be scaredof them, and then we learned how

(32:05):
that this is a scary thing andso we should be scared of it
too?

Arpita (32:08):
Sure.
That's, that's a reasonablehypothesis.

Aarati (32:11):
Yeah, and so that's his theory.
His theory is that we, weweren't born scared of these
things.
We learn to be scared of them.
So, to test this, he and one ofhis graduate students, Rosalie
Rayner, conducted one ofpsychology's most controversial
experiments called the LittleAlbert Experiment.

Arpita (32:30):
Oh yeah.

Aarati (32:32):
Have you learned about this?

Arpita (32:32):
I've heard of this.
This is so sad, but continue.

Aarati (32:36):
So there is footage of this experiment taking place, by
the way, if anyone wants to goand look at it.
But basically they took a ninemonth old boy who they nicknamed
Little Albert and they askedwhether they could condition him
to show fear.
So they first showed LittleAlbert a bunch of different
animals and objects.
And they presented him one byone with things like fire

(32:58):
burning in a little tray, or amonkey, or a dog, or a rabbit,
and a white rat, and they notedthat he wasn't afraid of any of
it.
Next, they showed Little Albertthe white rat again, and every
time he reached out and tried totouch the rat, they hit an iron
rod really loudly nearby.
And this noise freaked LittleAlbert out, and he started

(33:20):
crying.
So, they repeated this everytime he tried to reach for the
rat, and after a while, everytime they showed him the rat,
even when they didn't make theloud noise, little Albert
started crying and trying to getaway from the rat.
So, they had successfullyconditioned little Albert to
show fear.

Arpita (33:41):
These are really sad.
These are, I mean, they're kindof funny because he's this like
chonky little baby

Aarati (33:47):
Yes.

Arpita (33:48):
Just crying and it's so sad.

Aarati (33:51):
He is.
But the other interesting thingthat they found in this
experiment was that when theyshowed Little Albert other
objects like the rabbit or a furcoat that had similar
characteristics to the ratbecause it was like furry or it
was small, that also made LittleAlbert start to cry and try to
get away.

(34:11):
So not only had Little Albertbeen conditioned to show fear,
but that fear response had alsobecome generalized.
But the main reason thisexperiment is so controversial
is because John neverdeconditioned Little Albert.
He basically just made him feelafraid of random little fuzzy
things and then sent him backout into the world.

Arpita (34:33):
Yeah.

Aarati (34:34):
Yeah.
So, not great.
I will note that he did developa method for deconditioning that
he used on other children thathe did experiments on, but not
Little Albert, so that's whythis experiment is so infamous.

Arpita (34:49):
Yeah.

Aarati (34:50):
Unfortunately, we're not sure what the long term effects
this experiment had on LittleAlbert, because they kind of
lost track of him.
In 2009, some historians foundrecords of a child named Douglas
Merritte, who they think wasLittle Albert.
Douglas died when he was sixyears old from congenital

(35:11):
hydrocephalus, and some peoplewho have analyzed the film of
the original experiment say thatthe baby in the film does show
signs of having a disability, sothat throws a even more, like,
unethical wood this fire.

Arpita (35:27):
Oh, interesting.

Aarati (35:29):
Mm hmm.
But to John, this proved that achild's development is based
solely on the environment theyare raised in.
So, in his opinion, things likeintelligence and personality
were all based on how the childwas raised.
And he famously said, quote,"Give me a dozen healthy
infants, well formed and in myown specified world to bring

(35:51):
them up in, and I'll guaranteeto take anyone at random and
train him to become any type ofspecialist I might select.
Doctor, lawyer, artist, merchantchief, and yes, even beggar man
and thief, regardless of histalents, penchants, tendencies,
abilities, vocations, and raceof his ancestors, end quote.

Arpita (36:11):
I think this also makes sense with his own ambitions,
right?
Is he from this very small town,uneducated parents, et cetera,
et cetera, decided that he coulddo his own thing regardless of
what his whole history and hisbackground and his upbringing
was.
So it does also fit into hisbigger story.
In addition to the fact that hesays that, you know, nature is

(36:34):
nothing and it's all nurture.

Aarati (36:35):
Yes, like, there are today even examples of people
who you think, oh, they've beengiven the world, they were born
with a silver spoon in theirmouth, and then what did they do
with it?
They squandered it.
And there are examples of peoplewho really came from nothing, or
had a really hard, you know,upbringing and then it's like,
oh, my gosh, their CEO or theirpresident or their whatever, you
know, so, um, we see examples ofthat all the time.

(36:59):
So I'm sure that that was verymuch like just lending credence
to his theory.
So, while all this is happening,remember Rosalie Rayner?
She was the 21 year old graduatestudent that's helping John with
his experiments.
So, turns out John was having anaffair with her.

Arpita (37:20):
Sure, of course he was.

Aarati (37:21):
YeAh, because he's not a great person.
And evidently he didn't hide ittoo well because his wife Mary
started to suspect something.
So, one day, for some reason,they're all at Rosalie's house
having dinner, and Marypretended she had a headache and
left the table saying she neededto go lie down.
Instead, she snuck intoRosalie's room and found a

(37:43):
packet of very explicit loveletters from John to Rosalie.
In one now infamous letter, hewrote, quote,"I know every cell
I have is yours, individuallyand collectively."

Arpita (37:59):
Oh Christ.

Aarati (38:00):
Yeah.
So,

Arpita (38:02):
Well, he's delightful.

Aarati (38:03):
I know.
So Mary blew up, of course, andinitiated a divorce.
This divorce turned into a hugepublic scandal.
Mary was from a prominentfamily, remember?
Her brother was a well knownpolitician in FDR's cabinet.
And Rosalie is also from apretty well off business family

(38:24):
in Baltimore, who had donatedthousands of dollars to John
Hopkins Research.

Arpita (38:29):
Interesting.
Okay.
So this definitely addsadditional color.

Aarati (38:34):
Yeah.
So this divorce becomes likefront page news.
People, like, for real, like,this is so fascinating to the
people.
Um, people today compare it toTiger Woods scandal.

Arpita (38:49):
Oh, okay.
This is funny too, because hewanted to be prominent and
famous and he did get famous,except maybe not in the way he
was hoping.

Aarati (38:57):
Yeah, for real.
So, papers were printing thelove letters, and rumors even
began to circulate that John andRosalie had been conducting
sexual experiments in the lab byhooking themselves up to the
equipment and then monitoringtheir physiological and
behavioral responses.
These rumors were ultimatelydebunked, but the scandal was

(39:19):
still so big that John Hopkinsultimately fired John because,
if nothing else, he had had anaffair with his own student.
So.

Arpita (39:27):
A hundred percent.

Aarati (39:29):
I feel like, finally, he got some sort of comeuppance,
like, he's finally fired fromhis position, like, you finally
crossed a line, we can't havethat.
So, in 1921, the divorce betweenJohn and Mary is finalized, and
John marries Rosalie.
They moved to Connecticut andJohn got a job at an advertising

(39:52):
agency, J.
Walter Thompson.
He started out as a door to doorsalesman and working behind a
grocery counter and this gavehim direct interactions with
customers and using hispsychologist training, he
realized that there was a betterway to sell people stuff.
So instead of using facts, hestarted advertising by trying to

(40:12):
hook into some emotion.
Which is, like, very much whathe was doing with his
experiments.

Arpita (40:18):
So we've fully pivoted from the fact that he has a PhD.
He's academic.

Aarati (40:23):
He's not an academic, but we haven't quite fully
pivoted yet.
You will see.

Arpita (40:27):
Sure, sure.
But he's no longer working inOkay.

Aarati (40:31):
Yeah, no longer has an academic position, so he really
do experiments anymore.
Um, so now he is in anadvertising agency, but he
hasn't fully given up onpsychology yet.
see.
So he's starting to advertise byhooking into some emotion that
people have.
So for example, toothpaste hadalways been sold with the strong

(40:54):
message of keeping your mouthhealthy and hygienic.
But John changed that message tobe more along the lines of women
who smoke cigarettes, which wasat the time seen as very
sophisticated and sexy.
Um, they can still havebeautiful white teeth if they
use this toothpaste.
And so.
hmm.
You know, it's like hooking intothat sex appeal that

(41:16):
desirability, um, for certainproducts like baby powder, he
leaned into a mother's fear thattheir baby could get an
infection unless they use thispure and clean baby powder.

Arpita (41:28):
Mm hmm.

Aarati (41:29):
He also revived the practice of using testimonials
as a tool and even got QueenMarie of Romania to endorse
Pond's face cream when she wasvisiting the US.
And obviously she was seen asthis very glamorous royal
figure, so that was like, hugelyappealing.

Arpita (41:46):
These feel like all the things that you would think
about for advertising, liketalking about someone's emotion,
getting a celebrity spokespersonand sponsorship, and, you know,
if so and so celebrity is usingX product, then I want it too.
This feels, it's interestingbecause right now we think about
it as just so routine.

Aarati (42:04):
Yeah, that's advertising.
But he's like, really laying thegroundwork for all of this.
Like, he really changed the faceof advertising.
Which I feel like is almost aside note when you read about
his history, because so much ofit is focused on his work with
Little Albert and thepsychology.
Um, His advertising career andhow much he did for the world of

(42:25):
advertising is almost like anasterisk.
One other interesting thing Isaw was that he was credited
with popularizing the idea ofhaving a coffee break during
work as part of a campaign forMaxwell House Coffee.
So, I was like, I did not knowthat wasn't a thing.

Arpita (42:42):
Yeah, I didn't realize that wasn't a thing either.
People just had one cup in themorning, and then they never
thought about it again?

Aarati (42:49):
I guess so, and I can totally imagine him leaning into
this idea of like, you're tired,you're stressed, like these are
the emotions you're feelingaround like two or three o'clock
in the afternoon.
Have coffee break.
Feel better.

Arpita (43:03):
So weird.
Okay.

Aarati (43:05):
So in less than two years, John had moved up to vice
president of the company.
So again, just skyrocketing.
However, he still continued hisexperimentation in psychology,
but unfortunately, since hedidn't have an academic lab to
do this, he used his ownchildren that he had with

(43:25):
Rosalie.

Arpita (43:25):
Oh there's more kid's now?
S

Aarati (43:27):
Yeah, he had two sons, William and James.
So, in 1928, John published abook with Rosalie's help called,
Psychological Care of Infant andChild, in which they described
how they believed childrenshould be brought up.
A lot of this book was anecdotalobservations that they had made
when they were raising Williamand James.

(43:50):
They asserted that childrenshould not be given too much
love and affection because it,quote,"prolonged the period of
infancy." Instead, parentsshould treat their kids with
respect, but emotionaldetachment, because that's how
they will be treated as adultsby the rest of the world.

Arpita (44:08):
And this is how a generation of millennials are

Aarati (44:13):
Yes.

Arpita (44:14):
having to fix all of the emotional damage that was
created by the boomers.

Aarati (44:21):
I mean, kind of.
So this became really popular.
Like, interestingly, this iswhere the cry it out method of
sleep training for babies wasfirst proposed.
So maybe you've heard of this.
Like, John wrote in his bookthat after one final check to
make sure the baby wascomfortable safe and the lights
were out, the parents shouldjust close the door and not come
back until the next morning.

(44:43):
And he wrote,"if he howls, lethim howl.
A week of this regime will giveyou an orderly bedtime.
And so the idea is to teach thebaby to self soothe and go back
to sleep by themselves.
And people still use that today.
But he also made some reallywild assertions in this book.
Like he believed that everyonein the world should stop having

(45:05):
babies for 20 years or so, sothat we could gather data on the
children we already have anddevelop an efficient child
rearing process.
He thought breastfeeding shouldbe eliminated, and instead
children should be rotated amongparents every four weeks until
they reach adulthood.

Arpita (45:22):
Wait, wait, wait.
Like, rotate to get breast milkfrom different moms?

Aarati (45:26):
No, no, just like, don't breastfeed at all.
No breastfeeding from anybody.
They should all just be bottlefed, I guess.

Arpita (45:33):
And then what's the rotating?

Aarati (45:35):
In addition, like after the baby is born, every four
weeks, you should just, givethem to different parents, um,
until they've reached adulthood,so that they never get attached
to any one particular set ofparents.

Arpita (45:47):
Oh my god, that is horrific.

Aarati (45:50):
I know, right?
Like, it's off I'm just like,what are you talking about?
That would be terrible.

Arpita (45:57):
This is how you get chronic abandonment issues

Aarati (46:00):
Yes.

Arpita (46:00):
among other things.

Aarati (46:02):
Oh, 100%.
He was also a proponent ofeugenics, or the idea that we
can condition out unwantedtraits in children.

Arpita (46:11):
Sure, of course.
Let's throw that in.

Aarati (46:14):
And one more thing, he's completely in favor of child
labor, which I was like, ofcourse he is.

Arpita (46:19):
Of course he is.
Okay.

Aarati (46:21):
Of course.

Arpita (46:22):
I feel like nothing is going to really phase me at this
point.

Aarati (46:25):
So despite his very controversial history and
outlooks, John became kind ofthe first pop psychologist to
really go mainstream.
His book became a big hit andsold over a hundred thousand
copies just a few months afterits release.
And other psychologists wereeven recommending the book to
new parents.
And so, While there aredefinitely some interesting and

(46:48):
even good pieces of advice inthere, I would say didn't pan
out so well for a lot of people,including his own kids.

Arpita (46:58):
Yeah, that is understandable.
Can't imagine any of the thingsthat he's proposed are going
well for anybody.

Aarati (47:04):
No, and especially his own kids who I'm sure he
probably st stuck veryreligiously or, you know, very
adamantly to his own protocol.

Arpita (47:12):
Yeah, definitely.

Aarati (47:14):
So, John's first son, who is also named John,
remember, had headaches andstomach ulcers throughout his
life and died early due tobleeding ulcers when he was in
his 50s.

Arpita (47:25):
From stress, probably?

Aarati (47:27):
I can only imagine it must be from stress.
And absolutely no sympathy forthat.
Like,

Arpita (47:35):
He probably himself.

Aarati (47:36):
Get over it.
Yeah.

Arpita (47:37):
Yeah.

Aarati (47:38):
It's all in your head.
Get over it.
I'm not helping you with thisstress.
What stress?
Polly developed a drinkingproblem and attempted suicide
multiple times.
William and James from hismarriage with Rosalie also both
attempted suicide.

Arpita (47:53):
Oh my god.

Aarati (47:55):
I know.
It's, it's terrible.

Arpita (47:59):
I mean,, probably had these like horrific you know,
childhood traumas, basically,that were inflicted upon them
systemically, which is, how doyou get over that?
And then, of course, there wasno, you know, treatment is like
not even the right word.
There was really no sympathy orunderstanding for it either.
So, of course, I mean, this ishorrible, but it doesn't

(48:21):
surprise me.

Aarati (48:22):
Yeah.
So, William did end up dyingfrom his attempt at the age of
40.
And his brother, James, saidthat his father's methods of
child rearing made them unableto deal with human emotion and
that it undermined their selfesteem.
So, exactly what you weresaying.
Like, Yeah, big yikes.

(48:44):
So, one silver lining is thatPolly's daughter, so now this is
John's granddaughter, MarietteHartley, she became an actress,
and she set up the AmericanFoundation for Suicide
Prevention in 1987.
And she directly cited all ofthe psychological distress that

(49:04):
her family had gone through asbeing due to her grandfathers,
attempts at child rearing.

Arpita (49:10):
This feels like pretty sound evidence against his
ideas.

Aarati (49:13):
Yes, absolutely.
And John himself also realizedthis.
He expressed regret later inlife about having written his
book on child rearing, admittingthat he didn't think he should
have, because he hadn't actuallyknown enough about the subject
to have done so.
Like, no kidding.

Arpita (49:34):
No shit.

Aarati (49:35):
Rosalie also died very young as well, at the age of 36,
from an illness.
Either dysentery or pneumonia, afew different sources say
different things, so I'm notsure.
But her death really affectedJohn.
He never got remarried, and shewas kind of like the more
social, exciting person in theirmarriage.

(49:59):
And without her, John becamemore and more of a recluse.
He ended up retiring fromadvertising in 1948.
And from then on, he just kindof became a hermit.
And he started working on afarm, like working with animals
and planting crops and thingslike and just becoming really

(50:20):
into that, not talking toanybody.

Arpita (50:23):
Really, really ran with the, the saying, touch grass.
He was like, okay, I'm gonnalegitimately go touch some grass
now.

Aarati (50:31):
Yes.
Yes.
he also burned most of his noteson psychology and research, so
we probably don't even know thehalf of what he was working on.

Arpita (50:42):
Yeah.
I mean, it would be veryinteresting from a, his
scientific historicalperspective, but I kind of don't
even blame him.
This is like, know, the versionof deleting your browser
history, but like a way crazierversion, you know, you're like,
okay, well, I realized that I'ma piece of shit and I've been
done all like, yeah, who hasn'tdeleted their browser history?
It's like...

Aarati (51:02):
Yeah.

Arpita (51:05):
It's definitely not on this scale, you know?

Aarati (51:08):
Oh yeah, 100%.
Like, I'm glad he did though,kind of, because, I don't know
if he was coming at it from thebest angle.

Arpita (51:16):
Yeah,

Aarati (51:18):
So, despite this, his contributions to psychology were
not forgotten.
Despite all the controversy, heis credited with creating the
field of behaviorism, which isstill around today and is a very
important part of psychology.
But I will say, PART ofpsychology, not, you know,
like...

Arpita (51:37):
It's totality

Aarati (51:38):
Yeah.
In 1957 the AmericanPsychological Association
awarded him with a gold medal.

Arpita (51:47):
Okay.

Aarati (51:48):
Yeah, so that was about it.

Arpita (51:50):
Okay, that's good.
I was really worried this wasgoing to end with a paragraph of
all his accolades the way a lotof other episodes do, and I was
going to be genuinely concerned.

Aarati (52:00):
And I think I read also that he didn't even want to go
accept the medal he was just soreclusive and so shaken at this
point, I think, in his beliefsthat he was like, I don't
deserve this, like, I'm notgonna come to an awards ceremony
and talk, no, no thank you.

Arpita (52:16):
This of makes me feel bad for him now is that he did
really come full circle where hesort of realized the error of
his ways and, you know, he'dalso had his good share of
childhood trauma.
So it's like, not to excuse hisbehavior, but it did come from a
place of he was also prettymessed up in the head.
So I do feel sort of bad forhim.

Aarati (52:36):
Yeah, I think so.
I was like, I think when threeout of your four children
attempt suicide, that's probablya big wake up call that you were
not the world's greatest parent.
So,

Arpita (52:51):
Yeah, that's a that's 75 percent failure rate.

Aarati (52:54):
Yeah.
And one died from stress.
So, yeah,

Arpita (52:58):
Oh, that's true.
That's true.
That's...
I forgot about that one.

Aarati (53:01):
Not great.

Arpita (53:02):
Not great.

Aarati (53:04):
So John died at the age of 80 on September 25th, 1958 at
his home and he was buried atWillowbrook Cemetery in
Westport, Connecticut.
And that is his story.
That is the story of probablyone of psychology's most
infamous, contributors,

Arpita (53:24):
Yeah, wow, that's super interesting story.
I feel like the only morecontroversial psychology
experiment I can think of is theStanford prison experiment,
which was a whole other thing,and maybe we should tackle that
in a different episode, but,

Aarati (53:37):
Yeah, so, when I was researching, like, oh, who do I
want to do, because it'sOctober, and I was looking up,
like, all these scientists, or,like, all these experiments, a
lot of them got really dark, andI was don't want go that dark.
This was, this was bad, but itwas manageable.
Some of them, I was like, okay,we're not getting into Nazi

(53:58):
territory, and, Yeah, no thankyou.
I'm not doing that right now.

Arpita (54:03):
Like some real eugenics experiments, you know, and like,
yeah, that's that's not good.

Aarati (54:08):
Yeah.
But as soon as I read that hisfather, Pickens, ran off with
two Native American women, I waslike, we have to do this story.
what is happening to thisperson?
So, I hope it kicks off October,you know, in kind of spooky,
fearful way a little bit, um,not get too dark.

Arpita (54:28):
Can't get any better than a fear psychologist, so.
Awesome.
I loved it.
Great episode.

Aarati (54:34):
Thank you.

Arpita (54:36):
Thanks for listening.
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(54:57):
See you next time.