He

proposed

to revolutionize the study of human psychology for it to put it on a firm experimental footing.

Received wisdom took conscious experience to be the very stuff of minds and hence the appropriate object of psychological investigation. -John Watson

The

observable fact that organism man and animal alike, do adjust themselves to the environment.

That certain stimuli lead the organisms to make responses.

doctrine that psychology must be based essentially on data derived from introspection.

Introspection -a reflective looking inward : an examination of one's own thoughts and feelings

Main Idea
The Blank state

Definition
Watson took the view that we enter the world as a blank slate. He thought that instead, psychologists should adopt the scientific method, and study only things that could be directly observed behavior and the environmental conditions

The Behavioral Focus

Main Idea
Environmental determinism

Definition
He thought that all of our behavior was determined by our learning experiences and the environment we are in. Watson believed that the main process by which people learned was conditioning.

Conditioning

PRESUPPOSITIONS OF BEHAVIORISM
Behaviorism

is naturalistic.

PRESUPPOSITIONS OF BEHAVIORISM
Behaviorism

teaches that man is nothing more than machine that responds to conditioning.

PRESUPPOSITIONS OF BEHAVIORISM
Behaviorism

teaches that we are not responsible for our actions.

PRESUPPOSITIONS OF BEHAVIORISM
Behaviorism

is manipulative.