Alas poor John, born too soon. Now-a-days when the word came out we give him a parade!
-----Original Message----- From: Mike Palij [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wed 7/23/2008 3:56 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Cc: Mike Palij Subject: Re: [tips] What was Watson fired for? (Was: Profs who marry students) On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:02:07 -0700, William Scott wrote: >Chris, I be not Chris, but I may provide some info. >I heard the "real" reason was the sex research. Please inform. See Bemjamin, L.T., Witaker, J.L., Ramsey, R.M., & Zeve, D.R. (2007) John B. Watson's alleged sex research: An appraisal of the evidence. American Psychologist, 62(2), 131-129. Watson was fired because of an unpleasant divorce proceeding that resulted from an affair with his graduate assistant Rosalie Rayner. As Benjamin et al state: |Johns Hopkins University president Frank Goodnow, who worried that |he might lose his psychology superstar to a rival university, gave Watson |a 50% raise in salary and told Watson how pleased he was with his work |(Pauly, 1979). Only a few months later, however, Watson's world was |turned upside down. He was on the losing end of a scandalous divorce |that garnered newspaper coverage across the United States, including |publication of excerpts of his love letters to the "other woman." The scandal |was so great that Goodnow saw no other recourse than to demand Watson's |resignation, an action approved by the senior faculty at Johns Hopkins |(Buckley, 1989; Pauly, 1979). However, there is no conclusive evidence that Watson ever conducted sex research (with or without Rayner). The article provides more detail about how the sex research story originated and what evidence there is that is consistent with it. Which is to say, not much. However, lest we forget, James Mark Baldwin, the chair of the psychology department at Johns Hopkins who brought in Watson, was also involved in a sex scandel. Quoting Benjamin et al: |Watson was hired at Johns Hopkins in 1908, and the following year |he was made chair of the Philosophy and Psychology Department and |editor of the journal Psychological Review. Both of those jobs had |belonged to James Mark Baldwin (1861-1934), also a native of |South Carolina, who had eagerly sought to bring Watson from the |University of Chicago to Johns Hopkins and doubled his salary to do so. |But the following year Baldwin was dismissed because of a sex scandal. |He had been caught in a police raid on a Baltimore house of prostitution |but had managed to suppress the story. When he sought a school board |position in 1909, however, the local press released the story, forcing |the Johns Hopkins president and board of trustees to demand Baldwin's |resignation (Buckley, 1989). And some students think that experimental psychologists are so nerdy. :-) -Mike Palij New York University [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>> "Christopher D. Green" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 07/23/08 9:30 AM >>> Gaft, Sam wrote: > Heart Breaking. Perhaps it's time to retire all of my favorites are being > disproved. The falsity of multiple personality, The murder of Kitty and now > Zimbardo. I mean how can you teach if your :stories: keep getting disproved. > But thanks for the quick response. > And John Watson was not fired from Johns Hopkins for doing sex research, while we're at it. --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
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