Please take a sentence from Watson and break it down into an easier form and then post here. Let me know if you have any questions.
Thanks,
--Dr. M
Watson Breakdown
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"It seems reasonably clear that some kind of compromise must be affected: either psychology must change its viewpoint so as to take in facts of behavior, whether or not they have bearings upon the problems of 'consciousness'; or else behavior must stand alone as a wholly separate and independent science." This statement by Watson may be rather clear, but I think it was one of the most blunt and honest opinions he shares in this paper. Throughout this work he is arguing, using numerous point, that psychology must focus soley on what can be seen. Things such as memory and thought must be left out. He even says later on that by not looking at psychology this way, we would be put us in an "absurd position". He argues against anthropomorphism because animals cannot be viewed as having observable conscious states. Anything that cannot be viewed in other animals cannot be generalized to humans. This in a sense makes internal states rather useless to researchers. At least this is how Watson sees it. He believes that as long as we have focus put on anything internal, then psychology is not a proper science. We most focus purely on what we see. Behaviorism is the only true method. The above sentence shows just how sure of himself he was. I dare say Watson was a little on the arrogant side, but his ideas were very important to future works and studies.
I do not wish unduly to criticize psychology. It has failed signally, I believe, during the fifty-odd years of its existence as an experimental discipline to make its place in the world as an undisputed natural science. Psychology, as it is generally thought of, has something esoteric in its methods. If you fail to reproduce my findings, it is not due to some fault in your apparatus or in the control of your stimulus, but it is due to the fact that your introspection is untrained.2 The attack is made upon the observer and not upon the experimental setting. In physics and in chemistry the attack is made upon the experimental conditions. The apparatus was not sensitive enough, impure chemicals were used, etc. In these sciences a better technique will give reproducible results. Psychology is otherwise. if you can't observe 3-9 states of clearness in attention, your introspection is poor. if, on the other hand, a feeling seems reasonably clear to you, your introspection is again faulty. You are seeing too much. Feelings are never clear.
Watson talks about how over the existence of psych as an experimental discipline, it has failed to make an impact for everyday life. He talked about how it was only for people who had special interests and knowledge. He also stated that if you cannot replicate his findings, it is because your introspection is untrained. He makes this claim to blame the observer, not the experiment. He then goes on to state if yo have too hard of a time observing something, or things are observed easily, you introspection is also poor.
A few key words from that paragraph were: esoteric-understood by or meant for only the select few who have special knowledge or interests, and introspection-observation or examination of one’s own mental and emotional state, mental processes; the act of looking within oneself.
"If you fail to reproduce my findings, it is not due to some fault in your apparatus or in the control of your stimulus, but it is due to the fact that your introspection is untrained."
I felt confused to what "introspection is untrained" meant so I decided to explore of what it meant.
The glossary states that the reference is to the many disputes between various German schools of introspective psychology over whether new findings were true discoveries or artifacts of poorly trained introspectors."
Watson says that if you can't observe 3-9 states of clearness in attention, your introspection is poor. If a feeling seems reasonably clear to you, your introspection is again faulty. You are seeing too much. Feelings are never clear. I think Watson is upset over findings of introspection by other German schools. He obviously did not give thought to what the circumstances were when introspection took place. Each individual interprets and describes events differently. If it wasn't the way Watson saw it, then it was wrong. If he did not like the way it sounded, it was wrong. If Watson's findings could not be replicated, it is because your "introspection is untrained." He blames the observer, not the experiment. Under certain circumstances, it could have been the observers fault, but then again it isn't ALWAYS the observers fault.
But on the other hand, since it does respond to thermal, tactual and organic stimuli, its conscious content must be made up largely of these sensations; and we usually add, to protect ourselves against reproach of being anthropomorphic, ‘if it has any consciousness’.
After reading this particular sentence I was a bit confused. I felt they gave more information than was needed. I also wasn’t sure of the definition of anthropomorphic.
Because it responds to certain stimuli it must be familiar with the presented stimuli. In order to protect ourselves from saying an animal has human characteristics we say, ‘can an animal be conscious’.
"We must Frankly admit that the facts so important to us which we have been able to glean from extended work upon the senses of animals by the behavior method have contributed only in fragmentary way to the general theory of human sense organ processes, nor have they suggested new points of experimental attack."
In this sentence Watson is just stating that we have done a lot of work with animals to find out patterns of behavior but to this point it has barely added to our knowledge of human behavior, nor has it given us any new ideas of how to go about testing behavior in a more precise manner.
"The time seems to have come when psychology must discard all reference to consciousness; when it need no longer delude itself into thinking that it is making mental states the object of observation. We have become so enmeshed in speculative questions concerning the elements of mind, the nature of conscious content that I, as an experiemental student, feel that something is wrong with our premises and the types of problems which develop from them. There is no longer any guarantee that we all mean the same thing when we use the terms now current in psychology.
In this paragraph, Watson asserts that the focus of psychology is meandering away from what the true definition of what psychology is. He believed consciousness to be a gray area in which psychological research did not belong, and would rather focus on clearly observable behaviors. This paragraph makes clear that Watson was a firm behaviorist and absolutely detested the direction that psychology was headed at the time, rather than observing and studying mental states, he believe psychology should only study behavior.
“Some of our texts state that consciousness arises at the moment when reflex and instinctive activities fail properly to conserve the organism. A perfectly adjusted organism would be lacking in consciousness. On the other hand whenever we find the presence of diffuse activity which results in habit formation, we are justified in assuming consciousness.”
Through much of this article Watson discusses the idea of consciousness and its role in behavioral psychology. A big debate in psychology is whether animals possess conscious thoughts equal to that of human. If not, it is impossible to experiment with animals and apply those findings to humans. As he says in the article, many psychologists tried to devise a method of determining whether certain animals possessed consciousness. As stated in the quote, it was determined that if an animal simply reacted to a stimulus in a reflexive pattern, then it was not using consciousness. However, if the animal behaves in a way that is unexpected and abnormal, it is thought that it is using a conscious process to guide its actions. In my opinion, this scheme of determining consciousness is very far-fetched and hardly applicable. We are often, even as humans, conditioned to react to certain stimuli in various ways – either with fear, love, sadness, etc. Often, our condition reaction is so imbedded in our behavior that, when we react, it may appear almost as a reflex though consciously we are aware of our feelings and our reasoning for our actions. We have no way of knowing whether animals are simply reacting to a stimulus in a way that they have been conditioned to react since a young age.
This is part of the reason why I don't especially enjoy reading Watson. He was great and made large steps for science, but I found him to be too closed minded. I do understand the importance of being able to observe behaviors. This is what allows you to explain and bring in cause and effect, but I think it also leaves out too much of the behind the scenes aspects of the human condition. He claims psychology should have a set of standards and rules. I agree, but I do not feel it is meant to be as closed as he proposed. We are still young in our exploration and development of psychology, but I feel we are on the right track. We DO examine behavior in great depth as well as keeping psychological happenings involved as well. Some argue, those following Watson's ideas being a few, that by including mental/internal processes as being more like philosophy, but I feel you cannot truly understand behavior until you understand motive and emotion.
I think you are exactly right with the your statement about Watson. There would always be away that you are wrong as long as you disagreed with his exact idea of what was correct psychology. In that respect he reminds me of Wundt and Titchener. Although he disagrees with their actual method, his way of viewing psychological methods is quite similar. Wundt always believed that if things weren't done his exact way then they were incorrect or in some way biased or misguided. He even said that he would teach you how to do it correctly. Watson put a lot on external processes and of course behavior. Like you said, this makes him quite different from other schools of psychology.
"This attempt to reason by analogy from human conscious processes to the conscious processes in animals, and vice versa: to make consciousness, as the human being knows it, the center of reference of all behavior, forces us into a situation similar to that which existed in biology in Darwin's time."
This is such a jumbled mess of words. But if you break it down, the quintessence of Watson's entire speech is found in this sentence.
Watson is chiding those who believe that consciousness is the center of all psychology. He states that we cannot make assumptions that animals have a conscious thought process the same as humans. Thus, we can not use, with merit, conscious thoughts to determine laws of psychology.
He relates this to Darwin's time in that Darwin defied the set of norms, which began a debate that slowly left the biological community astray from their main purpose.
Watson wishes his audience to study observable behaviors, things that can be scientifically studied. Only in this way can we draw real conclusions in the psychological realm.