Give Me a Dozen Healthy Infants… Watson (1930)

Give Me a Dozen Healthy Infants… Watson (1930) stated the following Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one 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… (p. 82). Watson, J. B. (1930). Behaviorism (Revised edition). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Imagine the following: This morning, you discovered a baby left in a basket on your doorstep. For your assigned baby, select one of the Big Five or HEXACO traits and discuss how you could use behaviorist principles to “engineer” the infant’s personality. In your discussion, indicate why you think these principles could successfully shape the child’s personality and identify the types of problems you might expect with this approach. Then, comment on one other student’s post, noting one idea about or one problem with his or her approach.