Watson was born in South Carolina to a poor, dysfunctional family where his mother desired for him to become a minister. He was never a very good student but somehow eventually made his way into Furman University through connections made by his mother. His professor at Furman, Gordon Moore first failed him, but eventually helped him achieve attendance at the University of Chicago where he met his wife, Mary Ickes and received his PhD.

          During his career, He helped popularize Behaviorism in the U.S. and became a popular publisher. He became employed at John Hopkins University, but was fired after an affair with his graduate student, Rosalie Rayner, was discovered. He divorced Ickes, married Rayner, and was employed at J. Walter Thomas advertising.

          He is mainly recognized for his highly controversial “Little Albert” experiment where he and Rayner conditioned a 9month old child to fear a white rat by repeatedly pairing the white rat with a loud, disturbing noise in the background. They were also able to show that this fear was generalized to other white, furry objects. The ethics of the experiment are very much criticized today, especially because the child's fear was never known to be deconditioned.

          One of his quotes sums up his beliefs about the power of Behaviorism "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 and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors.”