What Became of John Watson?

 

Little Albert is possibly one of the most famous children in Psychology and is studied by almost all Psychology students.

Hall writes:

In the winter of 1919/20, Watson and his graduate assistant, Rosalie Alberta Rayner, attempted to condition a baby boy, Albert B., to fear a white laboratory rat. They later reported that the child’s fear generalised to other furry objects.

 This, in essence, is the basics of the story of Little Albert. The rest is history.

In time the story of what happened to Albert became myth. Recently researchers discovered what really happened to Little Albert (see Hall 2011). Yet people rarely ever ask what happened to John Watson, the man behind the Little Albert experiments.

Harzem (2001) writes that following an affair with Rayner, whom he later married, Watson left behind academia to pursue a successful career in advertising. However Rayner died in 1935 and Watson never recovered from his loss and slipped into depression. He passed away in 1958.

References:


Harzem, P. (2001). Watson, John Broadus (1878–1958) International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 16389-16391 DOI: 10.1016/B0-08-043076-7/00347-8