Episode Transcript Aarati: 0:11 A warning for our listeners, this story briefly mentions attempts of suicide. Arpita: 0:16 Hi, everyone. And welcome back to the Smart Tea Podcast, where we talk about the lives of scientists and innovators who shape the world. How are you, Aarati? You're not in your regular recording Aarati: 0:28 No, I went to visit my friend again, um, down in SoCal, and she had a conference in Vegas, and she was like, you want to come with me and just like, hang out in Vegas while I'm not at the conference? And I was like, Okay, sure. So it was like a really impromptu thing. Luckily, I can work from anywhere. So while she was at the conference, I was in the hotel and just working. And then when she got off the conference, we just like hung out. We went to a women's basketball game, which was so Arpita: 1:01 Oh, fun. That's awesome. Aarati: 1:03 Amazing. Like the energy and just like, I don't really know that much about basketball. Like I know enough I know the basics, but like, even I could appreciate how athletic these women were and just like the ball was just flying from person to person. And sometimes I couldn't even follow the ball. It was just incredible. And the energy was amazing. The fans were so into it. So I had a really good Arpita: 1:29 That's awesome. That's so cool. That sounds amazing. Aarati: 1:33 How are you? Arpita: 1:35 I'm tired. Um, I am getting to the tail end of a year marathon weddings. Um, all amazing things and so fun, but it's been quite the, quite the marathon. Um, we just got back from a wedding in Michigan on Saturday and tomorrow we're flying to Spain. Aarati: 1:57 Oh my goodness. That is insane, I can't imagine traveling that much, and how are you holding it all together? Arpita: 2:06 The answer is I'm not. Aarati: 2:09 Oh my goodness. Arpita: 2:10 really, really not. Um, but it's, it's fun. All fine. It's going to be so fun. I was just looking at the weather in Spain and it's going to be just like low 70s. So it's not going to be super hot when we went to Italy, which is albeit different, but still kind of like Mediterranean climate. It was so hot. It's so hot and I was melting. And so I'm really, really, really happy to, um, Be going back to Europe, but then hopefully it being like a little cooler and kind of nicer to do some of the touristy stuff. So, yeah. Aarati: 2:45 Here in, in Vegas, it was over a hundred for both the days that we were there. So, um, Arpita: 2:51 can't say Vegas is my favorite place in the world in I don't like, it's just like hot and kind of gross as a Aarati: 2:58 We didn't spend that much time downtown, like, in the Strip. We basically just, you know, Yeah, we, I actually, like, it was probably the most boring Vegas trip that anyone's ever taken because literally I just sat in the AC in the hotel for most of the day just doing work and then just at night we would go out and do a couple of things and by a couple of things, I mean, we went to restaurants. and sat outside at night or like, go to the basketball game, hung out there, you know, so, um, but other than that, no gambling, no anything, but yeah, I, I know what you mean. Even at night after the sun went down, it was still like, yep, we're in the desert, it's still 95 degrees out yeah. But that's so great that you're going to Spain. Have you been to Spain before? Arpita: 3:46 Nope. This is my first time in Spain. Aarati: 3:48 Ooh, exciting. Where, where exactly in Spain are you going? Arpita: 3:52 We're going to Barcelona. Aarati: 3:53 Nice, nice. I hear that's a beautiful place. Arpita: 3:56 I'm super excited. I think it'll be really fun. And then for the wedding, um, it's just outside of Barcelona, but it's a small villa that we're all staying at. Um, and then we all get to hang out. So that'll be really fun. Aarati: 4:06 Oh, lovely. Arpita: 4:08 Um, but I'm really excited to hear about today's story. It's always fun to be on the listening end. Who are we talking about today? Aarati: 4:15 So today, I wanted to do a story that was kind of spooky and October y themed because we are getting into that season. And so after a lot of researching, I found this one guy who, fair warning, is not the best guy ever in the world. He's a very controversial figure, but his story is fascinating. So today we will be talking about the psychologist John B. Watson, not to be confused with John Watson from the Sherlock Holmes saga. Like, they have nothing in common. There's no, there's no, um, reference at all to that, so. Just the same name. Arpita: 5:00 Yeah, that is where my, where my head went. Aarati: 5:03 Yes. Yeah. I don't think he got any sort of inspiration from this guy, cause this guy's honestly, kind of terrible, but we'll get into that. He's a very controversial figure in the field of psychology, but I think all psychologists probably study him, um, because his experiments were so interesting, but unethical at the same time. Um, But he did a lot of studies around the concept of fear and instilling that emotion in people and how we could condition people to feel different emotions. But he was particularly focused on fear, and so I thought that was very apt for the October spooky season. Arpita: 5:49 YIckes, I'm already nervous. Aarati: 5:52 Okay, so let me start the story. So John Broadus Watson was born on January 9th, 1879 on a farm in Travelers Rest, South Carolina. John, by all accounts, did not have a great childhood. He was the fourth of six children and his family was very, very poor. His father, Pickens Butler Watson, was Arpita: 6:15 Pickens! Aarati: 6:17 Yeah, is that not the most, like, I don't know, like, when you, when you hear the name Pickens, you definitely get an image, right, in your head. It's not, it's not a great image, um, and like, exactly what you're imagining when you think of the name Pickens, that's what he is. He's a terrible person. He had fought for the Confederates during the Civil War, which is strike one. Strike two, he was an alcoholic and he had a violent streak and definitely abused his wife and children. Arpita: 6:45 Okay, yeah, we're painting a picture. Aarati: 6:48 Yep. And Strike 3, when John was 13, Pickens abandoned the family and ran away to live with a Native American woman. Some accounts say two women. I don't know how that works. He abandoned his family, and John never forgave his father for walking out on the family and leaving them even poorer and worse off than they already were. His mother, Emma, was completely the opposite, but also not in a good way. She was extremely religious and she forced her beliefs on her children. She had actually named John after a prominent Baptist minister, because as soon as he was born, she had dreams about him becoming a minister who would go out and preach the gospel, but she was very harsh and forced her strict religious views on John and his siblings, and surprise, surprise, this ended up backfiring and, um, having the opposite effect of what she had hoped. John ended up becoming an atheist and hating all religions because of how harsh she was. Arpita: 7:55 It's like quite the pendulum swing between the two parents. Aarati: 7:58 Right? Arpita: 7:59 just really interesting. Yeah. Aarati: 8:00 I'm like, how did they end up together? Like, this woman who hates drinking and, you know, drugs ended up marrying and having six children with this guy. Arpita: 8:10 Yeah. I'm sure it wasn't fully free will and there surely was not affection there. Aarati: 8:17 That's true. So, John's childhood definitely caused him a lot of trauma. Apparently he was scared of thunderstorms and always had to sleep with the light on. After John's father left, his mother, Emma, decided to sell the farm and move the family to Greenville, South Carolina, so that the kids could get a better education. But John didn't do well with the move, because he was seen now as some dumb country kid, quote unquote, by all the other students, and he was bullied for it. This resulted in him having a ton of behavioral problems. He would talk back to the teachers, he would get into fights with other students. And worst of all, he had picked up on his father's raging racism, and he started to randomly attack local Black people. Arpita: 9:08 YIckes. Okay. Aarati: 9:09 Yeah. It got so bad that in high school, he was actually arrested twice, once for fighting and once for firing a gun in the middle of the city. Arpita: 9:19 Oh my God. Where did he get the gun? Like he just like, they just had them because this is, you know, the 19th century and this is just what we do. Aarati: 9:28 Yeah, basically. And I'm like, you can tell also, like, how bad it was that he was arrested in, like, late 1800s for fighting with Black people when already racism was, like, at its height, and he still got arrested. Like, that tells you how severe his actions were. It was really, really bad. Arpita: 9:48 Oh God. Okay. So we're not off to a great start here. Aarati: 9:51 No. Um, somehow, though, he managed to get out of doing any jail time. I'm not really sure how. He also was not a great student. He didn't really seem to care about school. But towards the end of high school, he wisened up a bit and realized that if he could get an education and become an academic, he could potentially get out of this rural life of poverty that he had. So after high school, when he was trying to get into college, his grades were still pretty terrible. So he had to leverage his mother's influence within the Baptist church to get a spot at the Furman University, which had been established by the South Carolina Baptist Convention. Arpita: 10:33 Okay. So his mom had influence in this religious community, so she could kind of put in a good word for him because she was such a devout. you know, religious person. Okay. And that worked, I Aarati: 10:44 Apparently. Yes, apparently it worked and he got a spot there. Arpita: 10:49 That doesn't really compute for me. Like, if your mom is religious and has good standing in the church, she's just like, please let my son in. I know he's a piece of shit, but like, Aarati: 10:57 Yeah, I don't know. I also don't even know how he got out of doing any jail time, but like, maybe he's just like a really smooth talker. I'm not sure, but. Arpita: 11:07 Not entirely following, but let's keep going. Yeah. Aarati: 11:10 Yeah, like, there's a lot of question marks in his life that I'm like, how did people let him in? Like, I don't understand. So, yeah, this is one of those. Like, I don't know how, who said, okay, yes, you can come to our university even though your grades are terrible and you've been arrested twice. Of course, we'll let you come into our you know, devout Baptist university. I don't know how that happened, but. His mom must have been able to pull some serious strings. So, he was just 16 when he was enrolled. He did his undergraduate and master's degree there and graduated five years later when he was 21. So, he's also really young to be doing all this. Arpita: 11:52 Right. Aarati: 11:53 After this, he briefly took a job in South Carolina as a principal of the Batesburg Institute, which was a tiny one room school, so not very prestigious of a position at all. Arpita: 12:06 It's kind of funny that there is a principal for a one room school. Like if Aarati: 12:09 Yes, Arpita: 12:10 and then there's another position that there's a principal, like how, how was there that much work for them to do? Aarati: 12:16 I don't know. But I was, I was also like, you know, how did he become principal of an institute? And then I was like, oh, but it was tiny. So, okay, maybe that makes sense. So, Arpita: 12:28 I mean, marginally, but Aarati: 12:30 marginally. I, I do get your point though, like it's, how, how are there this many positions for a one room school? So, not a prestigious position at all, but he did take the position so that he could take care of his mother, who had become extremely ill at this point. She died in 1900, and at that point, He realized there was really no reason for him to stay in South Carolina, that was the main reason that he had, you know, taken that position and stayed there. So, he decided to continue his education. He moved to Illinois, and again, see, I don't understand how he's doing this, but he successfully petitioned the president of the University of Chicago to let him join their PhD program in psychology and philosophy. Arpita: 13:16 What? Aarati: 13:17 Yes. Arpita: 13:18 Also, why is he so gung ho about education? That's my other question, is it doesn't seem like he has any sort of precedent for this. It doesn't really seem like he had the, you know, framework from his childhood or models like a lot of other people we've talked about, you know, come from very well educated families. But what does he seek to gain here? Aarati: 13:39 For some reason, he seemed to think that it was a clear route away from poverty and towards some sort of recognition and prestige, I guess, which, Arpita: 13:51 It's not untrue. Aarati: 13:53 Yes, like, there are definitely more lucrative fields, but I don't know,, maybe for whatever reason, he saw this as the most easy path to kind of get out of his terrible life. Arpita: 14:07 Interesting. Okay. So now he's petitioning to get into a PhD program. Aarati: 14:11 So he got in, he got into the PhD program at the University of Chicago, and he's studying under Professor John Dewey. And he's studying psychology and philosophy, and he becomes very interested in Ivan Pavlov's experiments on classical conditioning. So, these are pretty famous, you know, uh, the Pavlov's dogs experiments? Still very famous today. Basically, for anyone who doesn't know, Pavlov trained dogs to associate the ringing of a bell with food. So then, even when there was no food around, if Pavlov rang the bell, the dogs would start to drool in anticipation. So, their mind was conditioned, to create a physiological response. And so, John was fascinated by this, and started his own experiments on animal behavior and learning in rats. His dissertation was titled, Animal Education, an Experimental Study on the Psychical.... Arpita: 15:17 Cyclical. Aarati: 15:18 Psychical, Psychical. No psychical. Psychic. Like psychical. Arpita: 15:23 Oh, I thought you were asking me. Aarati: 15:25 No, no, no, no. I'm, Arpita: 15:28 I'm like, you're still saying it wrong. Aarati: 15:29 it's It's psychical. So An Experimental Study on the Psychical Development of the White Rat Correlated With the Growth of its Nervous System Arpita: 15:41 Okay. What does phychical mean? Aarati: 15:43 Like relating to psychology? Arpita: 15:46 The psyche? Aarati: 15:47 Psyche and the psychology. Arpita: 15:49 Okay. Aarati: 15:50 So basically he's studying the psychology of these rats and also correlating it with their brain anatomy. That's basically what that title means. Arpita: 15:59 Got it. Okay. Aarati: 16:01 So in his experiments, he created a scenario in which a young rat had to figure out a puzzle to get food. So they either had to pull on a string, which would open a door or stand on a seesaw to open a latch and then get the food. And he was watching to see how long it took them to learn that that's what you had to do. Arpita: 16:21 Mm hmm. Aarati: 16:22 So, some people might think that when the rat figures it out the first time, they'll be able to do it again the next day very easily, and the next day even more easily. But John discovered that that wasn't always the case. Learning in the rats was a very uneven process. So, for example, one rat took 12 minutes to figure out the task on the first day, and then 12 minutes again on the second day. On day three, he was suddenly able to figure it out in three minutes. But then the next time, it took him eight minutes. And then after that, for the next few days, the rat could do it in two to three minutes. And then one day, suddenly, something in the rat's brain clicked, and they could consistently solve the problem in under 30 seconds. Arpita: 17:03 Interesting. Sorry, how many days did you say it was when it clicked? Aarati: 17:06 I think he saw that it clicked usually between day 23 and 27, I think. Arpita: 17:13 I wonder how that compares to a lot of other behavior studies in rodents that we do now, like, the elevated water maze and, like, the radial arm maze. Like, there's just so many, behavior and memory type of I wonder how that compares with how long it takes. It actually is kind of like day 27 or whatever you said. Aarati: 17:34 Yeah, it actually takes them a while to figure it out. Yeah, I don't know. Arpita: 17:38 I don't know the answer. Aarati: 17:39 Yeah, I don't know the other, I don't know how long it takes them to do other tasks. Um, But what he did learn from this process was that learning isn't linear, like, they don't just figure it out once or twice and then always understand what to do, but they also don't, like, figure it out faster every single time, necessarily. Arpita: 18:00 Yeah. Aarati: 18:00 It's, it's a very jagged process. Arpita: 18:03 Yeah. That's interesting. Aarati: 18:05 And John wrote, quote, it's a pleasure to watch them. They fly from place to place trying everything. So he really enjoyed this. Arpita: 18:14 And these are wild type, I assume, right? Like they didn't do any, Aarati: 18:17 I think so. Yeah, I didn't say anything Arpita: 18:19 of genetic variants. Okay. Aarati: 18:21 Yeah. So at the same time, John is studying the anatomy of the rat's brain, and he found a correlation between the rat's learning abilities and the amount of myelin they had, which is the fatty substance that surrounds your neurons and protects them. Arpita: 18:36 That makes sense. Aarati: 18:37 Yeah. So this, uh, is really the start of a field of psychology called behaviorism, which is a study of how animals and humans learn and behave through interactions with their environment. But this is also where John's thought process starts to diverge a bit from what most of the other people in psychology at the time thought. So, as he was going through his degree, he really started to push for psychology to be seen as a purely scientific discipline that was much more closely related to biology and physics. John believed that humans were basically just more complex animals than rats, so if you wanted to study a human psychology, then you had to observe them the same way that you would a rat. And John even dropped the philosophy part of his degree because he really didn't think that psychology and philosophy should even necessarily have anything to do with each other. Arpita: 19:34 Interesting. I mean, I never really thought about psychology and philosophy even being semi related, but now that I think about it, it does make sense, right? It's, they're definitely cousins in some ways, like the way we think and the, I guess more about the biology of how we think. Aarati: 19:53 Yeah. Yeah. And so this was. a very different way of thinking from the other prominent psychologists of his day and probably our day as well. The other psychologists in his day believed that humans have a very unique way of thinking that is different from animals and that needs to be taken into account. So, for example, humans have the ability to introspect and convey how they're feeling in and be reasoned with, you can impose morals and define concepts of right and wrong in a human, which you can't really do with a rat. And this also shapes how we behave in society, right? Like, yes, we do learn from the environment we are in and we react to the environment but our behavior is also shaped by what we think is right to do and what we think is morally correct. And based on how we're feeling. Um, so these are like much less measurable and observable things, and majority of psychologists were trying to take these things into account when they were studying the human brain. But John was not. He was very much in the minority in his opinion that psychology should just be purely observable, like, What is the action? What is the reaction? Just watch the person. What do they do? Don't try to think about, like, their thought process, or don't try to think about, you know, what led them to do this. Arpita: 21:18 Okay. It feels very deviant from the way we think about it scientists, though, because I feel like so much of what we do is trying to do that bit that you were just saying that he was trying to avoid, which is trying to understand why or understand the processes or the mechanism or just any of these words that we use to delve a little bit deeper. So that is interesting that he decided to stray away from that. Aarati: 21:41 So, part of this also, I think, Is because at the time we didn't have a way to measure mental activity at all like Arpita: 21:50 Mm, mm hmm, mm hmm. Aarati: 21:52 for him the process of thinking and a person being conscious wasn't something that could be measured the way it can be today. Today we can like hook electrodes up to your head and be like this person is thinking or we can see different parts of your brain light up if you're in pain or you're happy that wasn't possible then so John was like"Mental activity is not something that is observable, and therefore it should not be part of the scientific process if you can't observe it." Arpita: 22:19 Okay, that's reasonable. Aarati: 22:21 But he was very, very much in the minority in his opinion on this, and this led him to have a ton of anxiety and have something of a nervous breakdown because he was afraid of being ostracized by his peers. Arpita: 22:35 Sorry, it's not funny. It's just like, ironic that he's a psychologist and really could use a Aarati: 22:41 he could use some psychology. Yeah, he could use some therapy. Absolutely. Arpita: 22:45 definitely use some talk therapy. I know he's not a talk therapist, but that's funny. Aarati: 22:50 Yeah. No, absolutely. I agree. Um, but John graduates with his Ph. D. when he's only 25 years old, which, even then is very young to have a doctorate. Arpita: 23:02 That feels like a red flag. Why are they handing these degrees out? Aarati: 23:05 And especially to someone who has so many red flags himself. Arpita: 23:09 This is all a red flag. Someone getting their PhD in three years is a red flag to me. That's fake. What did you do? Aarati: 23:15 That's too fast. Arpita: 23:17 Too fast. It's too fast. Aarati: 23:19 Absolutely. Arpita: 23:19 I'm here for graduating early, but I can't believe that you did anything of substance in three years. Aarati: 23:26 I know. It's crazy. I don't know how he's flying through things so fast. So he sets up a lab at the University of Chicago and he gets some students. One of these students is named Mary Ickes, and she is the sister of a prominent politician, Harold L. Ickes, who, by the way, later becomes FDR's Secretary of State. So, very prominent family. John fell in love with her,which from an ethical standpoint isn't great, because he Basically, yeah, he fell in love with one of his students. It's not good. Also, Mary's family was very wealthy, and they didn't think that John with his meager academic salary was good enough for her. Arpita: 24:09 Kind of fair. Yeah Aarati: 24:10 Yeah I related too. Arpita: 24:12 Pretty, pretty, pretty valid actually. Aarati: 24:15 Yeah, that hasn't changed much. Arpita: 24:17 No, no, no. Aarati: 24:18 But despite everyone's objections, when John proposed, Mary said yes. They got married, and had two children, whom they also named John and Mary, which I just thought was hilarious. Arpita: 24:32 Shut up. That is so stupid. What? Aarati: 24:36 know. I'm like, why would you do that? Arpita: 24:40 That is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. Also, like, is that iconic or dumb? I can't even decide. Aarati: 24:46 I don't even know, but apparently the younger Mary, the daughter, thought it was stupid. So she started going by the name Polly, because I'm sure that got confusing really fast. Arpita: 24:57 Okay. Yeah, that's another yeah, like, what do they refer to each other as? Aarati: 25:01 I just thought that was hilarious. A couple of years later, John landed a position as a professor of psychology at John Hopkins, so the family left Chicago and moved to Baltimore. Again, here we go with his, like, amazing, I don't know, getting into positions he shouldn't be getting into. He wound up in almost immediately becoming the head of the psychology department because the previous head of the department, James Baldwin, was caught in a raid at a brothel and was forced to resign. Arpita: 25:31 And he was the top pick? Aarati: 25:32 Apparently! I'm just like, I don't understand. So he's now like chair of the department at like probably 30. Arpita: 25:42 Well, good for him, I guess. And this also could have been maybe his wife's family's influence, right? He is now part of like a very prominent family. And so now he is maybe the top pick relative to some other people. I don't know. I'm just hypothesizing. Aarati: 25:57 Good point. I, I would be so pissed if I was in that department, though. Like, really, you're getting this guy who is, like, 28 years old Are you serious? Arpita: 26:09 That would be tough. Aarati: 26:11 Okay, so for the next several years, things were stable, but the family was far from perfect. In an interview with the psychologist and author David Cohen, John's daughter, Polly, said that neither her mother or her father showed the children much affection. They weren't abused or neglected in the traditional sense, but John and Mary also didn't give their kids any hugs or kisses or any kind of emotional support. So for Mary, the mother, that just kind of seemed to be her natural approach to motherhood. But from John's side, it may have had something to do with his growing thoughts on the goals of psychology and how psychologists should study people. Arpita: 26:58 In having this kind of detached mentality? Aarati: 27:01 Yeah, just like observe, observe. So, in 1913, John published an article called Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It. And this was regarded as kind of a manifesto in which he outlines his ideas about behaviorism. He writes, quote,"Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior. Introspection forms no essential part of its methods, nor is the scientific value of its data dependent on the readiness with which they lend themselves to interpretation in terms of consciousness. The behaviorist, in his efforts to get a unitary scheme of animal response, recognizes no dividing line between man and brute. The behavior of man, with all of its refinement and complexity, forms only a part of the behaviorist's total scheme of investigation." End quote. Arpita: 28:01 What?, Aarati: 28:02 Let me, put that into layman's terms. So, he's basically really emphasizing objectification and observing behavior with the goal of being able to predict and control a person's behavior. So, he believes that psychologists should focus on what actions and reactions a person is making and not trying to understand their thoughts. So, really treating them like an animal. There's no dividing line between man brute, so you shouldn't try to understand what they're thinking, because you can't understand what a rat is thinking. Same way, don't try to understand what the human is thinking. Like, very much. Don't try to study their consciousness. Just take into account things that you can directly observe and measure. That's it. Arpita: 28:50 Got it. Mm Aarati: 28:50 So that's why we're kind of maybe getting some insight into how John may have been raising his kids, right? Like, hmm. just observe. And I thought this was even further underlined when we get a quote from John describing his daughter Polly as quote,"more fun to the square inch than all the frogs and rats in creation." Arpita: 29:11 What does that mean? Aarati: 29:12 That to me sounded like"Great. I'm more fun to look at than your lab animals. Like, I'm a more interesting experiment than your experiments in your lab. Thanks, I guess?" Arpita: 29:23 Oh, dear. Aarati: 29:24 You know? Arpita: 29:25 This is not going well. This is... Aarati: 29:28 Like, how, how would you feel if your dad said, like, you're more fun than the frogs and rats that I look at in lab? great, thanks. Arpita: 29:36 It is crazy that he's interpreting every aspect of his life as an experiment. Aarati: 29:41 Yes, very much so. He also, though, really wanted to make psychology something useful and practical. And when World War I starts, John is initially really excited because he thinks he finally has a chance to do that. As a psychologist, he was sent to Europe and tasked with creating aptitude tests for airmen to help with personnel selection. However, he became extremely frustrated when he learned that a large number of the airmen he wanted to study were killed in battle. And he was like, I went through all of these air raids and bombings for nothing, which I was like, what a terrible way to look at the war. Like that's all of this loss of life and you're just thinking... Arpita: 30:20 ...about your experiments. Aarati: 30:22 Yeah. Like, Oh great. All my test subjects died. Like that's terrible. Arpita: 30:28 Yeah, this guy's not awesome. Aarati: 30:30 Yeah. He's really, really not great. He came away very unimpressed with the military, especially again, because he's a raging racist and he was, Really upset that black people were allowed to serve and even become officers. And he expressed his opinion so loudly that he was almost court martialed for, you know, expressing views against the military. Arpita: 30:54 Oh my God. Aarati: 30:56 Like, that's how terrible this guy is. Arpita: 30:58 That feels hard to do. Okay. Aarati: 31:00 Like that's how bad you have to be, but again, he wasn't. He got out of it, I guess. He's fine. So, by 1920, John had become very interested in the idea of conditioning emotional responses. So this is where we're getting into the fear experiments. So, similar to how Pavlov conditioned his dogs to have a physiological response when he rang a bell because they were anticipating food, John wondered if he could condition people to have an emotional response the same way. I have to say his theory is interesting to think about. So his theory was that, most of the emotions people feel are conditioned in the first place. We weren't born feeling certain ways about certain things, so he's saying, for example, if you think about something that scares you, like maybe a spider or a rat, are you scared of it because spiders and rats are inherently scary? Or are you scared of it because since we were babies, we've watched other people be scared of them, and then we learned how that this is a scary thing and so we should be scared of it too? Arpita: 32:08 Sure. That's, that's a reasonable hypothesis. Aarati: 32:11 Yeah, and so that's his theory. His theory is that we, we weren't born scared of these things. We learn to be scared of them. So, to test this, he and one of his graduate students, Rosalie Rayner, conducted one of psychology's most controversial experiments called the Little Albert Experiment. Arpita: 32:30 Oh yeah. Aarati: 32:32 Have you learned about this? Arpita: 32:32 I've heard of this. This is so sad, but continue. Aarati: 32:36 So there is footage of this experiment taking place, by the way, if anyone wants to go and look at it. But basically they took a nine month old boy who they nicknamed Little Albert and they asked whether they could condition him to show fear. So they first showed Little Albert a bunch of different animals and objects. And they presented him one by one with things like fire burning in a little tray, or a monkey, or a dog, or a rabbit, and a white rat, and they noted that he wasn't afraid of any of it. Next, they showed Little Albert the white rat again, and every time he reached out and tried to touch the rat, they hit an iron rod really loudly nearby. And this noise freaked Little Albert out, and he started crying. So, they repeated this every time he tried to reach for the rat, and after a while, every time they showed him the rat, even when they didn't make the loud noise, little Albert started crying and trying to get away from the rat. So, they had successfully conditioned little Albert to show fear. Arpita: 33:41 These are really sad. These are, I mean, they're kind of funny because he's this like chonky little baby Aarati: 33:47 Yes. Arpita: 33:48 Just crying and it's so sad. Aarati: 33:51 He is. But the other interesting thing that they found in this experiment was that when they showed Little Albert other objects like the rabbit or a fur coat that had similar characteristics to the rat because it was like furry or it was small, that also made Little Albert start to cry and try to get away. So not only had Little Albert been conditioned to show fear, but that fear response had also become generalized. But the main reason this experiment is so controversial is because John never deconditioned Little Albert. He basically just made him feel afraid of random little fuzzy things and then sent him back out into the world. Arpita: 34:33 Yeah. Aarati: 34:34 Yeah. So, not great. I will note that he did develop a method for deconditioning that he used on other children that he did experiments on, but not Little Albert, so that's why this experiment is so infamous. Arpita: 34:49 Yeah. Aarati: 34:50 Unfortunately, we're not sure what the long term effects this experiment had on Little Albert, because they kind of lost track of him. In 2009, some historians found records of a child named Douglas Merritte, who they think was Little Albert. Douglas died when he was six years old from congenital hydrocephalus, and some people who have analyzed the film of the original experiment say that the baby in the film does show signs of having a disability, so that throws a even more, like, unethical wood this fire. Arpita: 35:27 Oh, interesting. Aarati: 35:29 Mm hmm. But to John, this proved that a child's development is based solely on the environment they are raised in. So, in his opinion, things like intelligence and personality were all based on how the child was raised. And he famously said, quote,"Give me a dozen healthy infants, well formed and in my own specified world to bring them up in, and I'll guarantee to take anyone at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select. Doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant chief, and yes, even beggar man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors, end quote. Arpita: 36:11 I think this also makes sense with his own ambitions, right? Is he from this very small town, uneducated parents, et cetera, et cetera, decided that he could do his own thing regardless of what his whole history and his background and his upbringing was. So it does also fit into his bigger story. In addition to the fact that he says that, you know, nature is nothing and it's all nurture. Aarati: 36:35 Yes, like, there are today even examples of people who you think, oh, they've been given the world, they were born with a silver spoon in their mouth, and then what did they do with it? They squandered it. And there are examples of people who really came from nothing, or had a really hard, you know, upbringing and then it's like, oh, my gosh, their CEO or their president or their whatever, you know, so, um, we see examples of that all the time. So I'm sure that that was very much like just lending credence to his theory. So, while all this is happening, remember Rosalie Rayner? She was the 21 year old graduate student that's helping John with his experiments. So, turns out John was having an affair with her. Arpita: 37:20 Sure, of course he was. Aarati: 37:21 YeAh, because he's not a great person. And evidently he didn't hide it too well because his wife Mary started to suspect something. So, one day, for some reason, they're all at Rosalie's house having dinner, and Mary pretended she had a headache and left the table saying she needed to go lie down. Instead, she snuck into Rosalie's room and found a packet of very explicit love letters from John to Rosalie. In one now infamous letter, he wrote, quote,"I know every cell I have is yours, individually and collectively." Arpita: 37:59 Oh Christ. Aarati: 38:00 Yeah. So, Arpita: 38:02 Well, he's delightful. Aarati: 38:03 I know. So Mary blew up, of course, and initiated a divorce. This divorce turned into a huge public scandal. Mary was from a prominent family, remember? Her brother was a well known politician in FDR's cabinet. And Rosalie is also from a pretty well off business family in Baltimore, who had donated thousands of dollars to John Hopkins Research. Arpita: 38:29 Interesting. Okay. So this definitely adds additional color. Aarati: 38:34 Yeah. So this divorce becomes like front page news. People, like, for real, like, this is so fascinating to the people. Um, people today compare it to Tiger Woods scandal. Arpita: 38:49 Oh, okay. This is funny too, because he wanted to be prominent and famous and he did get famous, except maybe not in the way he was hoping. Aarati: 38:57 Yeah, for real. So, papers were printing the love letters, and rumors even began to circulate that John and Rosalie had been conducting sexual experiments in the lab by hooking themselves up to the equipment and then monitoring their physiological and behavioral responses. These rumors were ultimately debunked, but the scandal was still so big that John Hopkins ultimately fired John because, if nothing else, he had had an affair with his own student. So. Arpita: 39:27 A hundred percent. Aarati: 39:29 I feel like, finally, he got some sort of comeuppance, like, he's finally fired from his position, like, you finally crossed a line, we can't have that. So, in 1921, the divorce between John and Mary is finalized, and John marries Rosalie. They moved to Connecticut and John got a job at an advertising agency, J. Walter Thompson. He started out as a door to door salesman and working behind a grocery counter and this gave him direct interactions with customers and using his psychologist training, he realized that there was a better way to sell people stuff. So instead of using facts, he started advertising by trying to hook into some emotion. Which is, like, very much what he was doing with his experiments. Arpita: 40:18 So we've fully pivoted from the fact that he has a PhD. He's academic. Aarati: 40:23 He's not an academic, but we haven't quite fully pivoted yet. You will see. Arpita: 40:27 Sure, sure. But he's no longer working in Okay. Aarati: 40:31 Yeah, no longer has an academic position, so he really do experiments anymore. Um, so now he is in an advertising agency, but he hasn't fully given up on psychology yet. see. So he's starting to advertise by hooking into some emotion that people have. So for example, toothpaste had always been sold with the strong message of keeping your mouth healthy and hygienic. But John changed that message to be more along the lines of women who smoke cigarettes, which was at the time seen as very sophisticated and sexy. Um, they can still have beautiful white teeth if they use this toothpaste. And so. hmm. You know, it's like hooking into that sex appeal that desirability, um, for certain products like baby powder, he leaned into a mother's fear that their baby could get an infection unless they use this pure and clean baby powder. Arpita: 41:28 Mm hmm. Aarati: 41:29 He also revived the practice of using testimonials as a tool and even got Queen Marie of Romania to endorse Pond's face cream when she was visiting the US. And obviously she was seen as this very glamorous royal figure, so that was like, hugely appealing. Arpita: 41:46 These feel like all the things that you would think about for advertising, like talking about someone's emotion, getting a celebrity spokesperson and sponsorship, and, you know, if so and so celebrity is using X product, then I want it too. This feels, it's interesting because right now we think about it as just so routine. Aarati: 42:04 Yeah, that's advertising. But he's like, really laying the groundwork for all of this. Like, he really changed the face of advertising. Which I feel like is almost a side note when you read about his history, because so much of it is focused on his work with Little Albert and the psychology. Um, His advertising career and how much he did for the world of advertising is almost like an asterisk. One other interesting thing I saw was that he was credited with popularizing the idea of having a coffee break during work as part of a campaign for Maxwell House Coffee. So, I was like, I did not know that wasn't a thing. Arpita: 42:42 Yeah, I didn't realize that wasn't a thing either. People just had one cup in the morning, and then they never thought about it again? Aarati: 42:49 I guess so, and I can totally imagine him leaning into this idea of like, you're tired, you're stressed, like these are the emotions you're feeling around like two or three o'clock in the afternoon. Have coffee break. Feel better. Arpita: 43:03 So weird. Okay. Aarati: 43:05 So in less than two years, John had moved up to vice president of the company. So again, just skyrocketing. However, he still continued his experimentation in psychology, but unfortunately, since he didn't have an academic lab to do this, he used his own children that he had with Rosalie. Arpita: 43:25 Oh there's more kid's now? S Aarati: 43:27 Yeah, he had two sons, William and James. So, in 1928, John published a book with Rosalie's help called, Psychological Care of Infant and Child, in which they described how they believed children should be brought up. A lot of this book was anecdotal observations that they had made when they were raising William and James. They asserted that children should not be given too much love and affection because it, quote,"prolonged the period of infancy." Instead, parents should treat their kids with respect, but emotional detachment, because that's how they will be treated as adults by the rest of the world. Arpita: 44:08 And this is how a generation of millennials are Aarati: 44:13 Yes. Arpita: 44:14 having to fix all of the emotional damage that was created by the boomers. Aarati: 44:21 I mean, kind of. So this became really popular. Like, interestingly, this is where the cry it out method of sleep training for babies was first proposed. So maybe you've heard of this. Like, John wrote in his book that after one final check to make sure the baby was comfortable safe and the lights were out, the parents should just close the door and not come back until the next morning. And he wrote,"if he howls, let him howl. A week of this regime will give you an orderly bedtime. And so the idea is to teach the baby to self soothe and go back to sleep by themselves. And people still use that today. But he also made some really wild assertions in this book. Like he believed that everyone in the world should stop having babies for 20 years or so, so that we could gather data on the children we already have and develop an efficient child rearing process. He thought breastfeeding should be eliminated, and instead children should be rotated among parents every four weeks until they reach adulthood. Arpita: 45:22 Wait, wait, wait. Like, rotate to get breast milk from different moms? Aarati: 45:26 No, no, just like, don't breastfeed at all. No breastfeeding from anybody. They should all just be bottle fed, I guess. Arpita: 45:33 And then what's the rotating? Aarati: 45:35 In addition, like after the baby is born, every four weeks, you should just, give them to different parents, um, until they've reached adulthood, so that they never get attached to any one particular set of parents. Arpita: 45:47 Oh my god, that is horrific. Aarati: 45:50 I know, right? Like, it's off I'm just like, what are you talking about? That would be terrible. Arpita: 45:57 This is how you get chronic abandonment issues Aarati: 46:00 Yes. Arpita: 46:00 among other things. Aarati: 46:02 Oh, 100%. He was also a proponent of eugenics, or the idea that we can condition out unwanted traits in children. Arpita: 46:11 Sure, of course. Let's throw that in. Aarati: 46:14 And one more thing, he's completely in favor of child labor, which I was like, of course he is. Arpita: 46:19 Of course he is. Okay. Aarati: 46:21 Of course. Arpita: 46:22 I feel like nothing is going to really phase me at this point. Aarati: 46:25 So despite his very controversial history and outlooks, John became kind of the first pop psychologist to really go mainstream. His book became a big hit and sold over a hundred thousand copies just a few months after its release. And other psychologists were even recommending the book to new parents. And so, While there are definitely some interesting and even good pieces of advice in there, I would say didn't pan out so well for a lot of people, including his own kids. Arpita: 46:58 Yeah, that is understandable. Can't imagine any of the things that he's proposed are going well for anybody. Aarati: 47:04 No, and especially his own kids who I'm sure he probably st stuck very religiously or, you know, very adamantly to his own protocol. Arpita: 47:12 Yeah, definitely. Aarati: 47:14 So, John's first son, who is also named John, remember, had headaches and stomach ulcers throughout his life and died early due to bleeding ulcers when he was in his 50s. Arpita: 47:25 From stress, probably? Aarati: 47:27 I can only imagine it must be from stress. And absolutely no sympathy for that. Like, Arpita: 47:35 He probably himself. Aarati: 47:36 Get over it. Yeah. Arpita: 47:37 Yeah. Aarati: 47:38 It's all in your head. Get over it. I'm not helping you with this stress. What stress? Polly developed a drinking problem and attempted suicide multiple times. William and James from his marriage with Rosalie also both attempted suicide. Arpita: 47:53 Oh my god. Aarati: 47:55 I know. It's, it's terrible. Arpita: 47:59 I mean, probably had these like horrific you know, childhood traumas, basically, that were inflicted upon them systemically, which is, how do you get over that? And then, of course, there was no, you know, treatment is like not even the right word. There was really no sympathy or understanding for it either. So, of course, I mean, this is horrible, but it doesn't surprise me. Aarati: 48:22 Yeah. So, William did end up dying from his attempt at the age of 40. And his brother, James, said that his father's methods of child rearing made them unable to deal with human emotion and that it undermined their self esteem. So, exactly what you were saying. Like, Yeah, big yikes. So, one silver lining is that Polly's daughter, so now this is John's granddaughter, Mariette Hartley, she became an actress, and she set up the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in 1987. And she directly cited all of the psychological distress that her family had gone through as being due to her grandfathers, attempts at child rearing. Arpita: 49:10 This feels like pretty sound evidence against his ideas. Aarati: 49:13 Yes, absolutely. And John himself also realized this. He expressed regret later in life about having written his book on child rearing, admitting that he didn't think he should have, because he hadn't actually known enough about the subject to have done so. Like, no kidding. Arpita: 49:34 No shit. Aarati: 49:35 Rosalie also died very young as well, at the age of 36, from an illness. Either dysentery or pneumonia, a few different sources say different things, so I'm not sure. But her death really affected John. He never got remarried, and she was kind of like the more social, exciting person in their marriage. And without her, John became more and more of a recluse. He ended up retiring from advertising in 1948. And from then on, he just kind of became a hermit. And he started working on a farm, like working with animals and planting crops and things like and just becoming really into that, not talking to anybody. Arpita: 50:23 Really, really ran with the, the saying, touch grass. He was like, okay, I'm gonna legitimately go touch some grass now. Aarati: 50:31 Yes. Yes. he also burned most of his notes on psychology and research, so we probably don't even know the half of what he was working on. Arpita: 50:42 Yeah. I mean, it would be very interesting from a, his scientific historical perspective, but I kind of don't even blame him. This is like, know, the version of deleting your browser history, but like a way crazier version, you know, you're like, okay, well, I realized that I'm a piece of shit and I've been done all like, yeah, who hasn't deleted their browser history? It's like... Aarati: 51:02 Yeah. Arpita: 51:05 It's definitely not on this scale, you know? Aarati: 51:08 Oh yeah, 100%. Like, I'm glad he did though, kind of, because, I don't know if he was coming at it from the best angle. Arpita: 51:16 Yeah, Aarati: 51:18 So, despite this, his contributions to psychology were not forgotten. Despite all the controversy, he is credited with creating the field of behaviorism, which is still around today and is a very important part of psychology. But I will say, PART of psychology, not, you know, like... Arpita: 51:37 It's totality Aarati: 51:38 Yeah. In 1957 the American Psychological Association awarded him with a gold medal. Arpita: 51:47 Okay. Aarati: 51:48 Yeah, so that was about it. Arpita: 51:50 Okay, that's good. I was really worried this was going to end with a paragraph of all his accolades the way a lot of other episodes do, and I was going to be genuinely concerned. Aarati: 52:00 And I think I read also that he didn't even want to go accept the medal he was just so reclusive and so shaken at this point, I think, in his beliefs that he was like, I don't deserve this, like, I'm not gonna come to an awards ceremony and talk, no, no thank you. Arpita: 52:16 This of makes me feel bad for him now is that he did really come full circle where he sort of realized the error of his ways and, you know, he'd also had his good share of childhood trauma. So it's like, not to excuse his behavior, but it did come from a place of he was also pretty messed up in the head. So I do feel sort of bad for him. Aarati: 52:36 Yeah, I think so. I was like, I think when three out of your four children attempt suicide, that's probably a big wake up call that you were not the world's greatest parent. So, Arpita: 52:51 Yeah, that's a that's 75 percent failure rate. Aarati: 52:54 Yeah. And one died from stress. So, yeah, Arpita: 52:58 Oh, that's true. That's true. That's... I forgot about that one. Aarati: 53:01 Not great. Arpita: 53:02 Not great. Aarati: 53:04 So John died at the age of 80 on September 25th, 1958 at his home and he was buried at Willowbrook Cemetery in Westport, Connecticut. And that is his story. That is the story of probably one of psychology's most infamous, contributors, Arpita: 53:24 Yeah, wow, that's super interesting story. I feel like the only more controversial psychology experiment I can think of is the Stanford prison experiment, which was a whole other thing, and maybe we should tackle that in a different episode, but, Aarati: 53:37 Yeah, so, when I was researching, like, oh, who do I want to do, because it's October, and I was looking up, like, all these scientists, or, like, all these experiments, a lot of them got really dark, and I was don't want go that dark. This was, this was bad, but it was manageable. Some of them, I was like, okay, we're not getting into Nazi territory, and, Yeah, no thank you. I'm not doing that right now. Arpita: 54:03 Like some real eugenics experiments, you know, and like, yeah, that's that's not good. Aarati: 54:08 Yeah. But as soon as I read that his father, Pickens, ran off with two Native American women, I was like, we have to do this story. what is happening to this person? So, I hope it kicks off October, you know, in kind of spooky, fearful way a little bit, um, not get too dark. Arpita: 54:28 Can't get any better than a fear psychologist, so. Awesome. I loved it. Great episode. Aarati: 54:34 Thank you. Arpita: 54:36 Thanks for listening. If you have a suggestion for a story we should cover or thoughts you want to share about an episode, reach out to us at smarttpodcast. com. You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at smarttpodcast and listen to us on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a rating or comment. It really helps us grow. New episodes are released every other Wednesday. See you next time.