Watson (1878-1958) was heavily influenced by his Russian contemporary Ivan Pavlov, who while adhering to the principles of behaviorism in his research, never labeled himself as a behaviorist. Pavlov pioneered the idea of classical conditioning, in which a an unconditioned stimulus is paired with a neutral stimulus repeatedly, until such time as the the presentation of the unconditioned stimulus alone will illicit the same response as the conditioned stimulus alone. Classical conditioning was seen as a way of observing learning directly, without the need to contemplate the psyche; the fact that consistent changes in behavior could be observed was evidence enough that learning had occurred. Pavlov was able to illicit the salivation reaction in dogs to the sound of a bell chime through the pairing of the sound with the presentation of food. After substantial pairing all that was needed to illicit a salivation response in the dogs was the sound of the bell.
Watson was highly impressed with the findings of Pavlov, and is well known now for controversially performing similar experiments on human infants. His famous little Albert experiment is one such controversial study. In a similar fashion to Pavlov, Watson was able to condition a fear response in the child to a previously neutral stimulus of a white rabbit. The presentation of the rabbit was pair with an unconditioned frightening stimulus of a loud gong sound, and after very few pairings, Watson could illicit a fear response to with by presenting the white rabbit alone. Thus showing that the infant had learned a fear response.
Watson adhered strictly to the doctrine of scientific materialism, and went as far as to say that all cognitive activity could be classified as glandular, muscular, or chemical. He defined thought at "subvocal" activity, and insisted that thought was induced by minute movements of the larynx and vocal cords. Conditioned reflex, according to Watson, is the primary unit of psychological study, and reflexes (conditioned or not) can be classified into three categories: emotion, instinct, and habit. Watson concluded that his systematic approach of conditioning could be equally applied to all areas of psychology and served as a better explanation for all behavior than previous and contemporary competing theories.
BF Skinner, who served to continue the behaviorist trend, would likely equally endorse such claims, however, his view of conditioning was somewhat more complex than Watson's simple pairing of stimulus and response.
The following link is to a work by John Watson called Conditioned Emotional Reactions. It serves to describe the famous Little Albert experiment.
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