John Broadus Watson

1878-1958

American psychologist whose work involving the experimental study of the relations between environmental events and human behavior became the dominant psychology in the United States in the 1920s and 30s.

Watson's first major published work, Behavior: An Introduction to Comparative Psychology, argued forcefully for the use of animals in psychological study. Watson established a laboratory for comparative, or animal, psychology at Johns Hopkins University in 1908.