How do you think modern psychologists would respond to Jastrow's (1935) assessment of J. B. Watson's work?
The way modern psychologists would respond to Jastrow’s assessment of J.B. Watson’s work depends on the psychological school of thought they subscribe to. Those who subscribe to Watson’s behaviourist school of thought would oppose the criticism levelled against Watson’s work by Jastrow by citing evidence which supports Watson’s assertions ( Jastrow, 1935 ). For example, proponents of Watson’s behaviourist theory would cite how twins raised in different environments would behave differently even though they have the same genetic makeup.
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However, those psychologists who subscribe to a different school of thought would support Jastrow’s criticism of Watson’s work ( Jastrow, 1935) . For example, proponents of social cognitive theories would support Jastrow’s criticism since for these psychologists, how an individual develops their personality is dependent on their thinking processes and how they perceive their social world.
Raven paradox
The Raven paradox is a treatise by Carl Hempel, a German philosopher which indicates that there are flaws in established processes of generalization, falsifiability, and inductive reasoning (Watson, 1913 ) . In this treatise, Carl uses the example of ravens where a scientist, having observed that each raven he has seen is black, and thereby concludes that all ravens are black. Carl continues that using inductive reasoning, it can be stated everything which is not black is not a raven. When the same process is applied on sighting a green apple, it can be stated that since the apple is green, it cannot be a raven (Watson, 1913). This results in a paradox since information about ravens is gained by looking at an apple. This paradox is important for behaviourism in the field of psychology because it helps psychologists to learn how generalizations are made using unsubstantiated information thereby resulting in formulation of wrong theories.
References
Jastrow, J. (1935). Has psychology failed? American Scholar , 4 (3), 261-269
Watson, J.B. (1913). Pyschology as the behaviourist views it. Psychological Review , 20 , 158-177
