Question

What were the criticisms of Watson's behaviorism as espoused by McDougall and Lashley? Years later, what did McDougall say about the lasting effect of behaviorism and the American people?

Answer 1

As per criticisms of Watson’s behaviorism, consciousness has little or no relevance when analyzing a subject form psychological point of view and that study of behavior is important. For Watson, it didn’t make sense to study and analyze what’s going on in the minds of non-humans who cannot even confirm whether the assumptions are true or false. He also didn’t like the idea of using human subjects for psychological researches and chose animals for his studies of behaviorism.   McDougall and Karl Lashley, in one way or the other, agreed to Watson in that mere introspection and consciousness can not provide reliable results and that study of human/ animal behavior can reveal more. McDougall too believed that behavior needed attention and went a step ahead by conveying that psychology should focus exclusively on behavior and that traditional subject matter i.e. mind is forbidden now.

In the year Watson declared that introspection should be completely eliminated from psychology. Psychologists could stick to the scientific research methods that included study of things that could be measured and observed. This way; scientist will have a better control over human behavior.

McDougall’s definition of psychology suggests that it is the science of behavior. According to McDougall, mental events could be studied in an objective manner by observing their impact on behavior. This implies instinctual motives stimulate behavior which is also goal directed. He believed that behavior is triggered by instinctual energy and instincts motivate the subjects to act the way they do.
While McDougall human instincts motivated all behaviors, Watson completely denied. While Watson didn’t approve of reinforcement in learning, McDougall strongly supported reinforcement as the process of need reduction that is central to learning.

Karl Lashely upheld the mechanistic tradition of psychology and advocated the behaviorism of Watson. He researched the cortical basis of learning and discrimination by studying the measurement of behavior prior to and post a specific, induced, carefully quantified brain damage in rats.