John B. Watson
Made behavior the whole subject.
The founder of behaviorism, who argued psychology should study only what can be observed: behavior itself.
Give me a dozen healthy infants and my own world to bring them up in, and I’ll shape them as I choose.
Who they were
John B. Watson issued a manifesto that redrew the field: psychology should abandon introspection and the unobservable mind, and study behavior as objectively as any natural science. Bold and provocative, he held that experience, not heredity, shapes us — famously claiming he could train any healthy infant into any profession. His stance set the agenda that Skinner and others would carry forward.
Famous books
What they left on the shelf
Terms they cared about
Ideas worth knowing
The approach they founded
Behavioral Therapy
Change what you do, and feeling follows. Habits reshaped through reinforcement and practice.
Questions in their spirit
What they’d ask you
Sit with one. Answer online, or in the app.
Carry the idea forward
Watson — What they’d ask you
Psipas asks you one small, honest question at a time — and builds the picture from your answers.