Mechanical Man: John B. Watson And The Beginnings Of Behaviorism

This book is the definitive biography of the most influential American psychologist of his generation. As the founder of behaviorism, John Broadus Watson exerted a powerful influence on the development of American experimental psychology. By the age of 36, he was president of the American Psychological Association and head of the psychology department at Johns Hopkins University. But his dramatic dismissal from academic life in 1920 propelled him into the very center of the Jazz Age - Madison Avenue. As an advertising executive, Watson brought his psychological expertise to bear on the marketplace. As a popularizer of psychology, he made behaviorism a household word. Through books, magazine articles, newspaper stories, and radio broadcasts, he established himself as an expert on subjects ranging from child rearing to economics.


This book is the definitive biography of the most influential American psychologist of his generation. Drawing upon a vast store of hitherto unpublished correspondence, interviews, and exhaustive research in more than 30 archival collections, Mechanical Man is the most authoritative full-length biography of Watson to be published to date. This carefully documented study provides a degree of accuracy unattained in previous accounts of Watson's life and work. Moreover, it places the development of behaviorism and Watson's career within the context of American social and cultural history.