Watson and the Devil

5 Commentsby   |  10.25.10  |  The Schools of Psychology (Part IV)

Little Albert Song

My favorite part of this section was looking at the personal life of the psychologist and seeing how it may have affected the ideas that they formed. I think one where there is a strong connection is Watson. The book talked about how his mother was very religious and that the nurse that she employed to care for Watson would tell him that the devil lurked in the dark. The nurse’s story said that if Watson were to go out walking during the night, the devil would come out of the darkness and take him off to Hell. To Watson’s mother this was fine because it was good to be scared of the devil. This was terrifying for Watson and resulted in a life-long phobia of the dark. While he admitted that this phobia lead to a study of instinctual fear of the dark in children, I think it can also be seen in his study of Little Albert. Just like Albert associated a loud noise with the rabbit, Watson associated the devil with the dark. Above is a video about Little Albert. I was actually looking for a video of something else and came across this gem. Give it a listen.

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5 Comments

  1. Amy McCarty
    10:37 am, 10.25.10

    I have been struck all semester by two observations. The first closely matches your observation – that a lot of psychologists were deeply influenced by their childhoods which in turn influenced their work. Another observation is that many philosophers and early psychologists seemed to suffer from some sort of mental illness (including depression) themselves.

  2. Michelle Nix
    11:06 am, 10.25.10

    It is amazing how the way some of these psychologists were raised affect their studies later in life. It just really reminds me of how influential our environment can be on the way we think. I like the connection you made between Watson’s fear of the dark and the experiment with Little Albert. It is interesting to think that in the case of Albert, they were able to take something that was not a fear of his and make him afraid. Again, it is a reminder of how much our environment affects us.

  3. Jonathan Sanders
    12:18 pm, 10.25.10

    I love this story of how his mother involuntarily caused Watson to develop a phobia of the dark. I am a firm believer that our environment affects us far more than our genetics, not to say that genetics have no play in our personality etc, but environment is often not given enough credit.

  4. Stephanie Bell
    1:40 pm, 10.25.10

    I think that all fears are learned. I used to be the most fearless person when I was little. And I hung out with guys most of the time and so I loved bugs and everything, but when I started hanging out with stereotypical girls I learned to be afraid of bugs. Then I realized that I really didn’t have a reason to be afraid. So I think if parents don’t make kids afraid, their friends will.

  5. Michael Bartholomew
    1:42 pm, 10.25.10

    I didn’t have a chance to go over the song, but I wonder how much of our “childhood” phobias are the result of association and conditioning. The fear of the dark seems instinctual, even before conditioning comes into play, and makes me question if we need to be conditioned to fear it. Or do we simply fear what we can’t see, what isn’t there? I always found more frightening not the thought of what was waiting for me, but more the fear of the unknown, dealing with something I can’t be sure of.

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