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John B. Watson

People register: Enactment 1878-1958 drafted certainty: documented

The stage is conditioned. Watson founded behaviorism, ran the Little Albert study with Rosalie Rayner, and — after a 1920 scandal ended his academic career — carried conditioning into advertising at J. Walter Thompson.12

Documented core

Psychological Care of Infant and Child (1928) states the program in the author’s own words: “not more babies but better brought up babies”, and an ideal child who “has no great attachments to any place or person”. Engineered detachment, named by the architect as a design goal. He is more damning unparaphrased than any critic could make him.

Edges

  • influenced → The Managed Child (same-field): conditioning as the second move of the enactment rail.
  • member-of → J. Walter Thompson (worked-off): the conditioning method crosses from the nursery into the manufacture of consumer demand.

Role in the thesis

Thesis A, documented and primary-sourced, with no esoteric input. The card claims only what the book says; it does not assert that Watson’s program was universally adopted.

  1. John B. Watson, Psychological Care of Infant and Child (New York: W. W. Norton, 1928) — 'not more babies but better brought up babies'; the ideal child 'has no great attachments to any place or person' ↩︎

  2. Watson & Rosalie Rayner, 'Conditioned Emotional Reactions' (1920) — the Little Albert study ↩︎

Edges — what this node connects to. Hover (or tap) to preview each.