John WatsonBy: Samantha Montross

The beginning

• John Watson was born in 1878 in Greenville, South Carolina.

• John’s father was a terrible influence on him, he had affairs and he drank.

• His mother was a strong Christian lady, who wanted John to be the same way.

• When John was thirteen his father left, leaving John and his siblings with his mother.

• This had a big impact on Watson’s teenage years he started rebelling and had little respect for others.

College life

• Watson attended Furman University at the age of sixteen and it took him five years to get his Masters degree.

• He furthered his education at the University of Chicago.• While in Chicago he majored in psychology and

neurology. With a minor in physiology.

Marriage life

• Watson married Mary Ickes while he attended the University of Chicago.

• They had two children John and Mary.• After seeing his father have affairs with other women

Watson started doing the same.• Mary found a love note from Rosalie Rayner and had to

choose who he wanted to stay with. • He divorced Mary and stayed with Rosalie. • Eventually Rosalie and John got married and had two

children of their own, James and William.

Work for Watson

• Watson worked at the University of Chicago after graduating.

• The relationship with one of his students made it so that he could no longer work at the University.

• They moved to New York where Watson started working for an advertising business.

• He eventually became the Vice President• His interest in careers switched to advertising, but he still

made time to research behaviorism.

Behaviorism

• Watson studied Behaviorism and started a new way to look at how to understand the psychological way of looking at peoples behaviors.

• He made a study called “The Little Albert Experiment”, where he took a little boy and a rat. Every time the rat came out Watson would make a loud noise to scare the child and make the instinct of being scared of rats.

• Watson believed that children only had three major behaviors: rage, love, and fear.