Journal oJ rhe Hisrory OJ rhe Behavioral Sciences

Volume I R . July. 1982

THE SELLING OF A PSYCHOLOGIST:

JOHN BROADUS WATSON AND THE APPLICATION OF
BEHAVIORAL TECHNIQUES TO ADVERTISING
KERRY W. BUCKLEY
When Watson joined the J. Walter Thompson Advertising Company after leaving
Johns Hopkins University, he participated in the development of market research
techniques, experiments to determine brand appeal and habit-forming qualities of
cigarettes, and developed various advertising campaigns. He was the organization
man, writing and speaking on the psychology of salesmanship, how to influence
the mind of another, how to fit in successfully with the needs of the organization and
the corporate society it served. In the industrial America of the 1920s. technical
problems had been solved. Human beings were now the only variable in the production and marketing process. Watson offered his behavioral techniques as a means of
providing direct services of social control for an emerging corporate society that
sought stability and predictability.

As 1924 drew to a close, John B. Watson was made a vice-president in the J. Walter
Thompson advertising agency. You place a sort of economic sanction on behaviorism,
wrote E. G. Boring of Harvard, by rising to business heights which must transcend the
attainment of any other psychologist. Watson had good reason to feel satisfaction in
his accomplishment. Only four years earlier the celebrated founder of behaviorism had
been forced to resign from his position in the Psychology Department of Johns Hopkins
University under the cloud of an ugly and very public divorce scandal. When he joined
the Thompson agency in 1920, his reputation as the founder of a science which had as its
object the prediction and control of behavior held an undeniable appeal to advertisers.2
But Watsons successful marketing of psychological expertise did not begin with his venture into advertising. The notion of a psychology whose assumptions and techniques were
as applicable in the marketplace as in the laboratory was part of the very fabric of
behaviorism itself. Psychology as the behaviorist viewed it was from the beginning a psychology of use. In order to characterize the appeal of behaviorism, both within and outside of the profession of psychology, it is revealing to consider the ways in which its
utility was applied by Watson.
Watson was part of a new generation of professionals who came of age around the
turn of the century. This socially mobile group found that the very problems created by
an expanding industrial economy created additional opportunities for those who could
offer solutions to these
When Watson made his behavioral stand public in 1913, he characterized
behaviorism as a science that would be useful to the educator, the physician, the jurist,
and the businessman. By doing so, he appealed to the professional interests of many
psychologists who may have differed with him theoretically. Behaviorism not only
became a new school of psychological theory but also demonstrated the means by which
K E R R YBUCKLEYhas taught in the psychology department of Wellesley College and in the
history departments of the University ofhfassachusetts.Amherst, and the University of Georgia. His
recent dissertation is entitled Behaviorism and the Professionalization of American Psychology: A
Study oJJohn Broadus Watson, 1878-1958. He is currently the recipient of a research anddevelopnient grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for the production o f a documentary
film on the Ige of W . E. B. DuBois. Address communications to 34 Elizabeth St., Northampton, M A
01060, U S A .

201

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K E R R Y W. BUCKLEY

the profession of psychology could respond to the needs of a new corporate order.
Behavioral psychology would work in harmony with the other branches of natural
science in a division of the common labor of establishing efficient control over natural
phenomena and social activity. Watson considered his brand of psychology to be a particularly American product. In a nation that was becoming more centralized, older forms
of social control were seen as sluggish and slow to respond to the accelerating pace of urban life.
Watsons behaviorism helped crystallize fundamental issues that had created a crisis
in psy~hology.~
Psychologists who attempted to establish connections between the realm
qf the mind and the world of experience were caught in a dualism that kept them beyond
the pale of the emerging professional scientific community. There, such metaphysical
concepts as mind and consciousness were considered outside the bounds of scientific
inquiry. Watson resolved this dilemma by restructuring the framework of psychological
investigation within the lines of current scientific assumptions. Behaviorism was
pragmatic in the sense that it insisted that the proper study of psychology was not mind
but behavior and naturalistic in that it was derived directly from animal psychology.
Watson did not separate human beings from the animal kingdom. Behaviorism was
positivistic because Watson would not admit for study anything that could not be
observed and verified from overt behavior. In short, Watson provided psychology with a
theory and a methodology that satisfied the contemporary requirements for achieving
status as a science. But in emphasizing the prediction and control of natural phenomena
(in this case, human behavior) in the interests of efficiency, order, and progress,
behaviorism also satisfied the contemporary requirements for the uses of science.6
Watson believed social control to be the primary area of application for psychology.
Not only were psychologists to predict human behavior, they were also to formulate laws
to enable organized society to control that behavior. The psychologist was the logical
replacement for the clergyman and the politician. Traditional ways of maintaining social
order through the church and the political process had been accomplished mainly by
trial and error. Behaviorism would replace such outmoded methods with techniques
that would increase efficiency by bringing human behavior under scientific control.* The
notion of control is the underlying theme connecting the growth of science, technology,
and the emerging professions with the expansion of a centralized urban society. The shift
of authority and control from older institutions such as the church, the family, and the
local community to a bureaucracy of experts that provided services to corporations,
public institutions, and social agencies gave rise to a demand for methods of behavior
control, to which Watson directed his energies.@
Watson looked to the areas of education, business, and industry as the primary
beneficiaries of his expertise. The application of psychological techniques to pedagogical
method was not new. G. Stanley Hall, William James, and John Dewey had all been interested in the prospects of psychology in the classroom.10 But Watson, himself once a
teacher in rural South Carolina, sought a more comprehensive role for the psychologist
in the developing systems of public education. In 1917, he contributed to a symposium
which presented suggestions of modern science concerning education. Watson argued
that most biological and psychological problems center around processes of growth and
development and emphasize the need for predicting, controlling and regulatlng such
development. The task of the laboratory and the school room, according to Watson,
was to discover what an individual can instinctively do and what he can be trained to do
and then to develop methods that will lead the individual to perform as required by

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209

society. As Watson put it: If it is demanded by society that a given line of conduct is
desirable, the psychologist should be able with some certainty to arrange the situation or
factors which will lead the individual most quickly and with the least expenditure of
effort to perform that task.
Watson lent scientific legitimacy to a growing sentiment among social reformers
and educators that the school should take over functions of socialization formerly
assumed by the family. And Watson went even further. He advocated the funding of an
experimental nursery that would lead to the establishment of infant laboratories in the
public school system. In this way mothers of preschool children could be guided and
warned about the way the children were tending to develop, and could receive expert
guidance and intelligent help. The laboratories would also be used to train teachers in
child behavior. Watson had nothing but contempt for a society which permits them
[teachers] to teach instead of to guide the childs development.* Not only was Watson
emphasizing the role of the school as the agent of social adjustment for the child, but he
was also demonstrating the role of psychology in facilitating that adjustment.
While at Johns Hopkins, Watson looked beyond academia for other opportunities
to apply his psychological techniques. In 1916 Watson wrote that he had enjoyed some
success in negotiating with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and in acting as a consultant for a life insurance firm.lS Watson sought to strengthen psychology within academia
by demonstrating its usefulness to a large and powerful constituency. He also hoped to
bring psychologists skills to the attention of a potential market. Watson took steps to
bring applied psychology into the university curriculum by offering a course on the
Psychology of Advertising. Designed to draw students into the universitys courses in
Business Economics, Watsons course taught future managers the value of applied
psychology and demonstrated to academic officials the ability of psychology to provide
valuable services to the business ~ommunity.~
The United States involvement in World War I provided an environment for the
emergence of a well-defined applied role for psychology. Psychologists gained from the
war a reputation for expertise in personnel management and mental engineering.
Through the Committee on Classification of Personnel in the Army and the institution of
the Army Alpha and Beta intelligence tests, many psychologists saw possibilities in the
large-scale application of psychological skills to problems of personnel management.
Watson was part of the group of psychologists that served on the committee, formed by
the National Research Council. Headed by Walter Dill Scott (the founder of advertising
psychology who was, at the time, affiliated with the Bureau of Salesmanship Research at
the Carnegie Institute of Technology), the committee developed the Army intelligence
tests, as well as personnel classification and training procedure^.'^
The Army intelligence tests had been given wide publicity during the war. Following
the Armistice there was a demand on the part of industry for psychological services. In
response to this demand, Walter Dill Scott along with Watson and other members of the
Committee organized the Scott Company to offer psychological consulting services to
business and industry.lB In 1921, members of this group and other influential psychologists headed by James McKeen Cattell established the Psychological Corporation.
Watson was one of the corporations original founders and served on its board of directors until 1933. Endorsed by the American Psychological Association, the Psychological
Corporation appealed to the professional aspirations of many psychologists. It was
Cattells intention to publicize the achievements of applied psychology and sell those
applied skills to the business and industrial community. Other professional interests

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KERRY W . BUCKLEY

were also at stake. Robert M. Yerkes wrote to Cattell that it is urgently important to do
something to place the control of psycho-technology in the hands of professional psychologists and to insure its staying there.18 The Psychological Corporation appealed to
the desire of business management to make personnel selection and training as efficient
as the industrial machinery had become. Technical problems had been solved; human
beings were now the only uncontrolled variable in the production and marketing process.
Watsons experience as an industrial consultant before World War I, his service on
the Committee on Classification of Personnel in the Army during the war, and his subsequent association with the Scott Company and the Psychological Corporation
provided a context for his enthusiasm about the role of an applied psychology. Especially
after the war, encouragement from the business community was not lacking. The
Western Union Company had called upon Watson to undertake the study and standardization of employees who were not particularly efficient. But Watson was impressed with the success of private consulting firms like the Scott Company and believed
that the expansion of opportunities for psychologists lay along that line. In the spring of
1920 he collaborated with Dr. Edward Magruder, a Baltimore physician, in establishing
an Industrial Service Corporation. Its purpose was to provide services relating to personnel selection and management and to conduct industrial psychological investigations. Watsons object in helping to organize this agency was not only to extend
the influence of the psychologist from the laboratory to the marketplace, but also to
strengthen the position of the applied psychologist within the profession. In return for
Watsons help, Magruder agreed to finance a program at Johns Hopkins for training
Ph.D. men to work in industrial psychology. Watson had long desired such a
program but had despaired over the difficulty of obtaining funding from the university.
Watson was encouraged for his efforts in industrial psychology by Johns Hopkinss
President Frank J. Goodnow, but the university would not commit itself to any support
other than m0ra1.~
Watsons interest in applied psychology was inevitably bound up with his desire for
psychology to achieve independent professional goals. For too long, Watson argued, psychology had been a stepchild of philosophy. In a reply to a query from Bertrand Russell,
Watson made it clear that he was trying to get psychology just as far away from
philosophy as are chemistry and physics. Sharing with Russell points that he had discussed with psychiatrist Adolf Meyer, Watson wrote that:
One of the strongest motives I have had in trying to word a simple uncontroversial
standpoint in psychology is the fact that students entering our field have to be ruined
with logic clipping before they are ca able of doing anything. Many of them become
word artists, logicians, and seu o-philosophers and pseudo-clinical psychologists-they will do anything w ich gives them a chance without being blocked by a
system. This is the reason for the influx into the field of mental tests, trade tests and
the like. But we are using up our reserve material-the world of science goes on and
psychology as a science must keep not only in touch with other sciences but also
work out advances in fields peculiarly its own. Hence if we are to keep our students
we must have a simpler, more matter-of-fact entrance into psychology. If this is not
done now practical and social applications of psycholog will never be forthcoming
for future use. In other words, technical or applie psychology, like applied
chemistry, cannot go on long without research in the laboratory.20

I?)

Thus Watson made clear the connection between the development of psychology as a
science and its uses as a technology. Research was inevitably linked to its application and
Watson hoped that an emphasis on practical technique would attract students and ensure
the expansion of the profession.

WATSON AND ADVERTISING

21 1

By the spring of 1920, Watsons reputation had achieved international recognition.

His professional and academic position seemed, to the envy of his colleagues, secure
beyond challenge. Jealous of losing Watson to rival institutions, Johns Hopkinss President Goodnow generously increased Watsons salary. Goodnow assured Watson that his
own favorable impression of the behaviorists work was corroborated by the faculty. He
also took pains to convey to Watson that support of the board of trustees as well as the
universal feeling that it would be extremely unfortunate for Johns Hopkins should
Watson decide to accept an offer from another university.21Yet within a few months,
Watson found himself dismissed from academia as the result of a divorce scandal that
received national publicity.22
Watson had no doubt that he could find a job in the business community. It will not
be as bad as raising chickens or cabbages he wrote to his colleague, Adolf Meyer.
Although he insisted that both psychology and the university [could] do without [him],
Watson feared that his influence on the profession would be diminished. I feel that my
work is important for psychology, Watson wrote to Meyer, and that the tiny flame
which I have tried to keep burning for the future of psychology will be snuffed out if I
go-at least for some time. Yet, Watson continued, I shall go into commercial work
wholeheartedly and burn all bridges,zs
Watson turned to his friend, sociologist William I. Thomas (who had himself been
dismissed from the University of Chicago amid charges of sexual impropriety), who introduced Watson to officials of the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency in New
York. The Thompson agency was evidently impressed by Watsons credentials and by
the potential of the application of psychological techniques to the business of selling commodities. Thus, Watsons first success as a salesman was the marketing of his scientific
expertise as a commodity to be consumed by those whose business it was to motivate and
control human behavi~r.~
The creation of a national advertising industry in the 1920s grew as a response to the
development of a system of industrial productionthat was increasingly geared toward the
distribution of goods to a national market. The advertising industry attempted to convince businessmen that it could offer a systematic if not scientific method of efficiently
marketing products. Advertisers looked to science and especially to psychology to
provide techniques that would rationalize the distribution and marketing process.2s In
1921, the National Association of Advertisers had written to applied psychologist Walter
Van Dyke Bingham concerning the possibility of evolving principles applicable to
advertising which could be utilized as a sure guide to success in the making and placing of
advertisements.26 The product that advertisers hoped to sell was a controlled and
predictable body of consumers. In order to produce markets of consumers efficiently,
advertisers endeavored to discover universal principles to explain the motivation behind
consumption. Thus the industry turned to psychologists like Watson who claimed to have
the techniques that could be used to predict and control human behavior. Within the
Thompson agency, Watson served a dual role. Watson was proof to the business community that the Thompson agency was serious in its commitment to find scientific
solutions to marketing problems. In addition, his task as an advertising psychologist was
to develop campaigns of mass appeal that would create reliable markets for goods
created by mass production.
Soon after joining the Thompson organization, Watson was sent to the field for
direct experience in selling the products his company advertised. As he went from one
small store to another selling Yuban coffee, he found his task to be a thankless job. He
admitted that he was shown the door quite frequently, but he found himself to be

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KERRY W. BUCKLEY

learning at a very rapid rate even if in a different scho01.~Upon his return to New
York he set about preparing what he called a life program of experimental work in
advertising.28After living down the stigma of being an academician, Watson wrote
to Bertrand Russell, he hoped to bring his psychological training to bear on problems
connected with markets, salesmanship, public resistances, types of appeals, etc. He
considered himself to be happily at work with a wider latitude for research than he had
had within the university.**In fact, he later reflected, he began to learn that it can be
just as thrilling to watch the growth of a sales curve of a new product as to watch the
learning curve of animals or men.3o
By the spring of 1921, Watson explained to Adolf Meyer that he was concerned with
the problems of scientific and practical control of advertising. He was highly critical of
the terrific waste in the advertising business. No one knows just what appeals to use,
he complained. It is all a matter of instinctivejudgement. Whether I can establish certain principles or not remains to be seen. But advertising offered rich possibilities for
applied psychology. If clients could be persuaded to provide research funds, Watson
looked forward to a time when experimentation can be carried out upon a large scale.
The prospects were endless. He wrote to Meyer: We can do many things which have a
very direct bearing upon human beha~ior.~
Watson discovered that the consumer is to the manufacturer, the department
stores and the advertising agencies, what the green frog is to the physiologist. For the
advertising psychologist the marketplace became the laboratory and the consumer
became the experimental subject. Consumption was buying behavior, and as such it was
an activity that could be controlled. Watson was determined to develop methods to
keep the consumer headed [his] way. . . . Not only did he have to discover the consumers present needs but also to manipulate those needs and to create desires for additional goods and services.32
Watson believed that behaviorism was ideally suited for such a task. Since, for Watson, man was nothing but an organic machine, it ought to be possible to predict that
machines behavior and to control it as we do other machines.99The goal of advertising
was not merely the dissemination of information about given products or services. Its
purpose was the creation of a society of consumers and the control of the activities of
consumption. According to Watson, this could be accomplished by the use of behavioral
techniques to condition emotional responses. To get hold of your consumer, he explained to his advertising colleagues, or better, to make your consumer react, it is only
necessary to confront him with either fundamental or conditioned emotional stimuli. In
order to effectively sell a given product, one did not have to make false claims or resort to
the use of yellow copy. To insure the appropriate reaction from the consumer, Watson
counseled, tell him something that will tie up with fear, something that will stir up a
mild rage, that will call out an affectionate or love response, or strike at a deep psychological or habit need. These secret and hidden springs of action were the powerful genii of psychology, but behavioral techniques were not to be employed randomly in
the hope of hitting upon the right stimulus for the desired response. Watson emphasized
the need to establish consumer reactions under laboratory conditions. Using sample populations of consumers as subjects, advertisers must refine their techniques scientifically,
Watson told his colleagues, until you feel sure that when you go out on the firing line
with your printed message you can aim accurately and with deadly executi~n.~
For Watson and his associates at the J. Walter Thompson Company, behaviorism
seemed to offer the universal key to human motivation. A technique that would enable

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213

advertisers to influence and shape mass markets over a wide geographical distribution
was considered to be essential for continued industrial expansion. Although Watson admitted that he was troubled by the lack of individuality in the emerging mass society, his
qualms did not prevent him from exploiting the situation. In fact, he said, as an advertising man I rejoice; my bread and butter depend on it. It was the universality of human
response that made behaviorism possible and its application to advertising highly
desirable. After all, Watson pointed out, it is the emotional factor in our lives that
touches off and activates our social behavior whether it is buying a cannon, a sword or a
plowshare-and love, fear and rage are the same in Italy, Abyssinia and Canada.s6
The visibility of Watsons brand of psychology within the advertising community
reflected a fundamental shift in the conception and development of sales campaigns. Until approximately 1910, the dominant attitude among advertisers was one that considered
consumers to be motivated by reason or common sense. Advertisements were designed
to educate or inform the public about the usefulness of a given product. Only a small
minority of advertisers argued that efforts should be made to persuade and to create
desires for new products. There was general agreement, however, that advertising was a
combination of chance and shrewd guesses; advertisers considered the creation of a
science of advertising unlikely. Although Walter Dill Scott introduced a text on The
Theory of Advertising (Boston: Small, Maynard) in 1903, professionals considered it
scientific only in the sense that it classified the rule-of-thumb procedures that had long
been in use among advertisers. Yet Scott argued that the law of suggestion could be
employed to motivate consumers and, in 1908, his Psychology of Advertising (Boston:
Small, Maynard) discussed the importance of emotion and sympathy in influencing
the consumers suggestibility to advertising copy. Scott was representative of a growing
tendency to regard advertising not as information for a rational consumer but as a
method of persuading a nonrational public based on the scientific application of psychological
After 1910, the accent on persuasion rather than information came to dominance
within the advertising industry. In an urban-industrial economy based not on scarcity but
on constantly expanding production, competition shifted from an emphasis on competing products to an emphasis on competing desires. Not only did brands of similar
products compete for markets, but advertisers vied to persuade consumers of the
desirability of automobiles, for example, over the competing desires for electric
appliances or vacation trips. Within this context, the use of applied psychology in advertising began to grow and the behavioristic viewpoint offered to provide further
refinements in sales techniques.
Behaviorism represented a departure from earlier notions of advertising psychology
that emphasized an appeal to distinct desires and hence distinct mental categories. The
behavioral approach ignored questions of the rationality or irrationality of mind and
emphasized instead the malleability of human behavior. Behaviorism was not simply a
psychological theory with vague applications to advertising. It was the science of
behavior itself, and its methodology aimed at nothing less than a comprehensive control
of human a ~ t i o n . ~
I n 1932, Henry C. Link (who later became Secretary of the Psychological Corporation) published The New Psychology of Selling and Advertising, which included an introduction by Watson. Link noted that a revolution had occurred in the method of distributing goods. The consolidation of manufacturing industries and retail outlets indicated by the growth of chain stores had the effect of eliminating the middleman (the

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K E K K Y W. B U C K L E Y

small, independent retail outlet) and had opened up vast markets for the distribution of
consumer goods. Advertisers had been concerned with overcoming sales resistance, but
Link saw the emergence of an advertising psychology that was concerned with the
avoidance of sales resistance altogether. With an integrated system of production and
distribution, psychologists could help manufacturers discover and sell articles to which
there will be the least resistance and help advertisers crystallize the latest wants of consumers into active demand. In his introduction to Links book, Watson described the
extent to which psychology had become established in advertising. Although academic
psychology continued to be relevant to those interested in its application, psychology had
moved out of the laboratory and into the marketplace. Market research had become an
integral part of advertising campaigns and advertisers had instituted their own
laboratory studies to test consumer reactions. The science of advertising was the
psychology of selling and advertising had become scientific in the extent to which it
had adopted psychological method^.^'
Psychologists who had established the Psychological Corporation in the hope of attracting business interest organized a Division of Market and Advertising Research in
anticipation of corporate demand. In 1934, the Division of Market and Advertising
Research had ranked behind the other divisions in the percentage of the Corporations
total profit. But by the next year it had overtaken the lead from the Testing Division and
by 1936 its percentage of profit was almost twice that of test
As the depressed
economy began to approach 1929 levels of prosperity, corporate interests began to shift
from problems of production to problems of marketing and distribution. Henry C. Link,
who then headed the division, demonstrated that the major problems of selling and
advertising demanded consumer studies in the marketplace. . . . Each purchase was
seen as a sample of buying behavior of psychological, social and economic
significance. The issues addressed by Link were considered by corporation officials to
go to the very heart of most psychological theory and require the best that psychologists
have to offer in the way of techniques and ingenuity of their attack. The Corporations
viewpoint was graphically made by its Secretary, Paul S. Achilles: What makes a
million cash registers clatter cheerfully, and what would be the consequences if they
ceased? To scorn such problems is to play the ostrich in a society whose betterment
depends on scientific effort to solve them.O
Under Links direction, the Marketing and Advertising Division developed a series
of programs designed to measure consumer trends and public opinion. The
Psychological Sales Barometer was created to determine the effectiveness of advertising campaigns for specific lines of products. Based on four thousand individual interviews at two-month intervals in forty-seven locations across the country, these reports
were issued on a regular basis to those corporations subscribing to the service.
Demographic information was an important part of Watsons strategy as he
attempted to translate behavioral methodology into sales techniques in the development
of advertising campaigns. The platform that Watson developed for Johnson and Johnsons Baby Powder serves as a good example of his approach. Watson intended his campaign to appeal to young middle-class mothers who were expecting their first child. The
campaign was carefully designed for a demographic cross-section that was selected on
the basis of class and race. Blacks were immediately eliminated as being a decidedly
questionable market, and in conducting market surveys, the field investigators did not
visit slum districts. Watson clearly intended to draw his market from the young, white,
upwardly mobile middle class. In presenting his sales proposal, Watson made it clear
that the advertising agency should attempt to sell several ideas about the product rather

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215

than merely to publicize the product itself: for example, its purity and cleanliness,
the dangers of infection to infants, and the desirability of using baby powder frequently.
In this way Watson hoped to stimulate an anxiety or fear response on the part of the
young mothers by creating doubts as to their competence in dealing with questions of infant hygiene. Watson reinforced the implications of his message with the use of
testimony by medical experts. This served the dual purpose of testifying to the scientific standards of the product as well as appropriating authority on infant care and
hygiene from the family to experts. Without the child care resources of the extended
family, the mobile nuclear family was asked to rely upon scientific opinion in the care
and feeding of the young. Methods of child care that had passed from one generation to
another were dismissed as old-fashioned or unscientific. Advertisers were in the vanguard
of mobilizing popular opinion in support of the reliance upon expert advice in areas once
dominated by folk wisdom or traditi~n.~
In his popular book on child care published in 1928, Watson minimized the value of
parental affection in preparing children to take their place in the industrial world. According to Watson, the demands of a mobile society made it less. . . expedient to bring
up a child in accordance with the fixed molds that our parents imposed upon us. He encouraged the development of children who, almost from birth, [are] relatively independent of the family situation. Children must learn, wrote Watson, that in the commercial
and industrial world, there is no one there to baby US."^' The modern child would soon
learn that real authority lay not in the family but in the marketplace and in its supporting
social institutions. Success depended upon internalizing the values of the corporate order
and, according to advertisers, upon the ability to maintain a high level of consumption
based not upon need but on a desire to emulate the style of living exemplified by mass
advertising.
It was the promotion of style rather than substance that Watson emphasized in the
marketing of products. In the case of automobiles, Watson reasoned that since all
models were mechanically similar and served the same function, the basis for sales
should be a constantly changing design and style that appeared to the wish fulfillment of
the consumer. The introduction of style into product design created a superficial impression of novelty that rendered products unfashionable or obsolete before the end of
their serviceable life. In the mid-1930s the Research Director of General Motors stated
the case clearly: The whole object of research is to keep everyone reasonably dissatisfied
with what he has in order to keep the factory busy in making new things.*u
Watson emphasized that advertisers must always keep in mind that they were selling
more than a product. There were idea[s] to sell-prestige to sell-economy to
sell-quality to sell, etc. It is never so much as dry, solid or liquid matter.4oThus, many
of Watsons newspaper and radio campaigns were designed to sell products indirectly, if
not covertly. This was accomplished by the use of what seemed to be informative news
articles and radio broadcasts which were actually intended to disseminate information
that related directly to a line of products. In one newspaper article, Watson discussed the
beneficial effects of coffee as a stimulant that increased mental *efficiency.47
In another
case, a radio broadcast sponsored by Pebeco toothpaste featured Watson in a seemingly
scientific discussion of salivary glands and their function in digesting food. Watson did
not fail to stress the importance of brushing the teeth to stimulate gland activity. But
listeners who responded to an offer of additional information received a circular and
samples of the sponsors product. In both instances, Watsons scientific credentials
were emphasized to give weight and authority to his message.

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KERRY W. BUCKLEY

Another technique employed by Watson to lend authority to sales campaigns was

the use of testimonial advertising. Testimonials had long been used by manufacturers of
patent medicines but were generally held in low esteem by most advertisers. But by the
1920s, the successful use of testimonials called for a re-evaluation by the industry. The J.
Walter Thompson agency was the leader in the large-scale use of testimonial advertising.
Under Watsons direction, the services of such notables as Queen Marie of Rumania and
Mrs. Marshall Field were enlisted to endorse the cosmetic qualities of Ponds Cold
C ~ e a m . Some
~
advertisers protested that the use of paid testimonials endangered the
reputation of the industry. But J. Walter Thompsons President, Stanley Resor, defended
the practice. Testimonials were directed not to a select audience, he explained, but to the
mass market, The target of the advertiser was the tabloid reader who lived vicariously
through the public personalities that were manufactured specifically for the readers consumption. Hero worship he argued, was a social fact. According to Resor, people
are eternally searching for authority. . . . This sense of inferiority on the part of the
masses was a fact that no successful editor dares to ignore. . . .50
Watsons successful use of the direct testimonial linked the product with an appeal
to authority or a desire for emulation; but he also used what he described as indirect
testimonials. This method employed symbols to stimulate those responses of fear, rage,
and love which Watson held to be the fundamental elements of all emotional reactions.
Watson had found that brand appeal depended on factors other than usefulness or
product reliability. Mass production rendered many competing products indistinguishable in quality and function. In one carefully controlled experiment funded by
the Thompson agency, Watson found that smokers with definite brand preferences could
not distinguish one brand of cigarettes from another.l This reinforced Watsons conviction that the marketing of goods depended not upon an appeal to reason but upon the
stimulation of desire, or as a contemporary critic of Watsons put it, upon the fixation
of systematized illusions in the minds of the public necessary to the use and wont of an
acquisitive
An example of Watsons use of the indirect testimonial is an ad campaign that he
developed for Pebeco toothpaste. Watson presented the image of a seductively dressed
young woman smoking a cigarette. The ad encouraged women to smoke as long as
Pebeco toothpaste was used regularly. Smoking was depicted as an act of independence
and assertiveness for women; the ad encouraged the young to flout the older generations
social restrictions. Poise, attractiveness, and self-fulfillment were equated with the consumption of products. The ad associated cigarettes with sexuality and seduction and
raised fears that attractiveness might be diminished by the effects of smoking on the
breath and teeth. Toothpaste was promoted not as a contribution to health and hygiene
but as a means of heightening the sexual attraction to the user. Consumers were buying
not merely toothpaste, they were buying sex appeal. In this sense, commodities
themselves became e r ~ t i c i z e d . ~ ~
Watson reigned as the chief showpiece of the Thompson agency. Beyond
wrought-iron bars of Spanish grillwork, Watsons lavish executive suite afforded a view
of crowds of people far below as they made their way along Lexington Avenue toward
the maze of streets in downtown Manhattan. From those heights, the prospects of
applied psychology must have appeared bright indeed.54I believe you will be happier in
business, he wrote to Robert Yerkes. I did not think that I would be, he continued,
but now I would not go back for the world. . . . But Watson continued to consult with
his former academic colleagues on advertising research projects and looked to them to
provide young Ph.D.s as recruits in the growing army of market r e s e a r c h e r ~ . ~ ~

WATSON AND ADVERTISING

217

In addition to the development of advertising campaigns, Watson sought to expand

his own role of applied psychologist within the business community. He contributed to
the training of salesmen in his own and in his clients companies. He also argued that
behavioral psychology could be useful as a tool in personnel management.66 Watson
maintained that tests could be devised that would measure the performance of office
workers. These tests would serve two purposes. By plotting a curve of office production,
employees work output could be measured and controlled. A method of measuring the
productivity of individual employees would also retard the emergence of any group
solidarity among office workers that might limit production and management control.
Watson argued for a role for psychologists within the management structure itself.
Heretofore psychologists had acted chiefly as consultants in the preparation of personnel
selection tests. For Watson, these tests were useful only as a rough screening device. As a
behaviorist, Watson believed it possible to devise managerial techniques that would
produce efficient, well-controlled labor from a random selection of workers. A psychologist on the staff of a business organization could standardize the production of
office work and assign it to employees in units so that work efficiency could be measured.
In words reminiscent of efficiency engineer Frederick W. Taylor, Watson argued for the
extension of scientific management from the shop floor to the office. [Tlhe main
problem to be solved in the office, Watson wrote, is the problem which has already
been solved in the factory, or is in the process of being solved there. It is the problem of
getting units of work comparable with the piece work of the fa~tory.~
Watson was not
content with the control of work flow and office routine but insisted that successful
management depended on the ability to motivate broad patterns of behavior. Traits considered essential for the successful bureaucrat were neatness, loyalty, subordination, a
passive temperament, and compatibility with co-workers.S8The psychologists task was
to enable management to create the organizational man who identified his wishes with
those of the bureaucratic hierarchy and who subordinated his life goals to the demands of
the corporate order.
During the 1920s and 1930s Watson increasingly turned his efforts toward spreading
the behaviorist faith to a mass audience. Through an enormous output of books,
magazine articles, and radio broadcasts he was able to establish himself as the public
spokesman for the profession of psychology and as an expert on subjects ranging from
child rearing to economics. In effect, Watson became the first pop psychologist to the
rapidly expanding middle class, assuming the role once held by the minister in a more
rurally based society. I n this sense, his writings were designed not only to inform, but to
persuade. His vision of a behavioristic future implied a faith in the blessings of a
technocratic society with its values of order and efficiency.
Not long after Watsons promotion to Vice-president in the Thompson agency,
culture critic Stuart Chase wrote in a review of Watsons Behaviorism that . . . one
stands for an instant blinded with a great hope.60Watsons promise of a psychology of
use was not mere hucksterism but part of the progressive dream. It spoke to an era when
science was to become a new religion and the scientific method was to create a binding
faith for its practitioners.61
Behaviorism was, above all, a radical environmentalism, a faith in the ability to
make and shape ones own world, free from the authority of tradition and the dead hand
of the past. A nation of villagers had found themselves in a society that had rapidly
become urbanized and industrialized. Rapid change was the order of the day and the
happiness or misery of humankind depended on its willingness to bring the process of

218

KERRY W. BUCKLEY

change under control. But Watsons insistence that the nature of human behavior was
reducible to a set of unambiguous facts appealed to both reformers and reactionaries. If
behaviorism represented the freedom to remake the individual, it also posed the
possibility of directing human activity into predetermined channels. It was the latter
aspect of behaviorism that Watson chose to emphasize. For, as envisioned by Watson,
behaviorism was to serve the authority of those who desired a stable and predictable
social order.
NOTES
1. E. G. Boring to John B. Watson, 20 January 1925, E. G . Boring Papers, Harvard University Archives,
Cambridge, Massachusetts. Cited hereafter as Boring Papers. See also: E. B. Titchener to Watson, 17 January
1925, E. B. Titchener Papers, Cornell University Archives, Ithaca, New York; and Robert M. Yerkes to Watson, 23 January 1925, Robert M. Yerkes Papers, Yale University Medical Library, New Haven, Connecticut.
Cited hereafter as Yerkes Papers.
2. John B. Watson, Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It, Psychological Review 20 (1913): 158.
3. For a study of the growth of new professions and social mobility in the nineteenth century, see Burton
Bledstein, The Culture of Professionalism: The Middle Class and the Development of Higher Education in
America (New York: Norton, 1976). A study of the growth of psychology as a profession after 1920 can be
found in Donald S. Napoli, The Architects of Adjustment: The History of the Psychological Profession in the
UniredStates (Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat, 1980). Napoli argues that it was their contribution to World
War I1 that finally secured for applied psychologists the professional recognition for which they had been striving.
4. Watson, Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It, pp. 168-169.
5. Three studies of Watson and behaviorism offer valuable insights into the social and intellectual context of
the development of psychology. A study of the advent of behaviorism in light of Thomas Kuhns theory of
scientific revolutions can be found in John C. Burnham, On the Origins of Behaviorism, Journal of the
History of the BehavioralSciences 4 (1968): 143-151. The most thoughtful and complete study to date of the institutional and professional foundations of behaviorism is John M. ODonnell, The Origins of Behaviorism:
American Psychology, 1870- 1920 (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1979). A useful analysis of Watsons published writings and their effect on that of his contemporaries is Lucille T.Birnbaum, Behaviorism:
John Broadus Watson and American Social Thought, 1913-1933 (Ph.D. diss., University of California,
Berkeley, 1964). In addition, David CohensJohn B. Watson. The Founder of Behaviorism: A Biography (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979) should be noted. However, it suffers from serious flaws of historical inaccuracy and journalistic hyperbole.
6. The argument has been made that, despite its sensational impact, few psychologists were willing to accept
Watsonian behaviorism wholeheartedly. (See Franz Samelson, The Struggle for Scientific Authority: The
Reception of Watsons Behaviorism, 1913-1920, Journa! of the History of the BehavioralSciences 17 [1981]:
399-425.) Many contemporaries, however, were still able to call themselves behaviorists without embracing
all of Watsons claims. Bertrand Russell, for instance, argued that behaviorism was first of all a method in
psychology and only derivatively a psychological theory. He found it possible to accept the former without
accepting the latter. See Bertrand Russell, An Essay on Behaviorism: A Defense of the Theory that
Psychologists Should Observe Impulses Rather than Speculate Upon the Unconscious, Vanity Fair 21 (1923):
47, 96, 98. For Russell, Watsons rejection of introspection was essentially a rejection of unobservables and
was characteristic of the growing positivist trend within the physical sciences. See also Brian D. MacKenzie,
Behaviorism and the Limits of Scientific Method (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977).
7. John B. Watson, Psychology from thesiandpoint of a Behaviorist (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1919), pp. I 2, 4.
8. Ibid., p. vii.

9. A suggestive essay on the relation of behaviorism to urban growth is David Bakan, Behaviorism and
American Urbanization, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 2 (1966): 5-28.
10. See Dorothy Ross, G. Stanley Hall: The Psychologist as Prophet (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1972). pp. 105-107; William James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology, Atlantic Monthly 83 (1899): 155-162;
and John Dewey, Psychology and Social Practice, Science 1 I (1900): 321-333.
I I . John B. Watson, Practical and Theoretical Problems in Instinct and Habit, in Herbert Spencer Jennings et al. Suggestions of Modern Science Concerning Education (New York: Macmillan, 1917), pp. 53-55.
Also participating in the symposium were biologist Herbert Spencer Jennings, sociologist William I. Thomas,
and psychiatrist Adolf Meyer.
12. Ibid., pp. 77-82.

WATSON AND ADVERTISING

219

13. Watson to Yerkes, 31 March 1916; I April 1916, Yerkes Papers.

14. Watson to Jacob H. Hollander, 21 March 1917; Hollander to Watson, 22 March 1917; Hollander to Watson, 18 April 1917, John B. Watson Correspondence, Special Collections, Milton S. Eisenhower Library,
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland.
15. A complete treatment of the role of psychologists in World War I is found in Thomas Camfield,
Psychologists at War: The History of American Psychology and the First World War (Ph.D. diss., University of Texas, Austin, 1969). A history of the work of Scotts Committee on the Classification of Personnel in
the Army can be found in Leonard W. Ferguson, The Heritage of Industrial Psychology (Hartford, Conn.:
Finlay, 1962). Studies of intelligence testing in the Army include Daniel J. Kelves, Testing the Armys
Intelligence: Psychologists and the Military in World War I, JournalofAmerican History 55 (1968): 565-581;
as well as Franz Samelson, World War I Intelligence Testing and the Development of Psychology, Journal
of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 13 (1977): 274-282.
16. Information concerning the Scott Company can be found in Leonard W. Ferguson, Industrial
Psychology and Labor, in Walter Van Dyke Bingham Memorial Program, ed. Von Haller Gilmer
(Pittsburgh: Carnegie Institute of Technology, 1962), pp. 15-21. See also Loren Baritz, The Servants of Power:
A History of the Use of Social Science in American Industry (New York: Wiley, 1960), pp. 51-54; and David
F. Noble, America by Design: Science, Technology and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism (New York: Knopf,
1977), pp. 295-302.
17. Michael M. Sokal, The Origins of the Psychological Corporation, Journal of the History of the
Behavioral Sciences 17 (1981): 54-67.
18. Yerkes to Cattell, 29 March 1921, James McKeen Cattell Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of
Congress, Washington, D.C. Cited hereafter as Cattell Papers.
19. Watson to Frank J. Goodnow, 30 March 1920; Goodnow to Watson, 31 March 1920, The Ferdinand
Hamburger, Jr. Archives of the Johns Hopkins University, Office of the President, Series # I 15 (Department of
Psychology). Cited hereafter as Hamburger Archives. Events that led to Watsons dismissal began soon after
the above exchange with President Goodnow; presumably, Watson did not follow through with plans he had
worked out with Magruder.
20. Watson to Bertrand Russell, 21 February 1919, Bertrand Russell Papers, Mills Memorial Library,
McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Cited hereafter as Russell Papers. Enclosed with this letter
is a six-page typescript of topics discussed by Watson in one of his staff meetings with Adolf Meyer.
21. Goodnow to Watson, 18 March 1920, Hamburger Archives.
22. It is ironic that in the midst of conducting the classic experiment in conditioning and controlling
emotional responses (John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner, Conditioned Emotional Reactions, Journal of
Experimental Psychology 3 [ 19201: 1-14), the behaviorist became romantically involved with his graduate student and co-worker in the investigation, Rosalie Rayner. It was characteristic of Watson to be at once capable
of sustained, concentrated, controlled behavior and impulsive, spontaneous outbursts of emotion. But, at least
in this case, his defiance of community mores as well as the influence of the powerful Rayner family had disastrous consequences for Watson. An account of the circumstances surrounding Watsons dismissal can be
found in Kerry W. Buckley, Behaviorism and the Professionalization of American Psychology: A Study of
John Broadus Watson, 1878-1958 (Ph.D. diss., University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1982).
23. Watson to Meyer, 13 August 1920, Adolf Meyer Papers, John Broadus Watson Correspondence Series I,
Unit 3974, Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. Cited
hereafter as Meyer Papers.
24. John B. Watson in The History of Psychology in Autobiography, vol. 3, ed. Carl Murchison (Worcester,
Mass.: Clark University Press, 1936), p. 279. Thomas had been approached earlier by the Thompson agency
concerning a study of the psychology of appeal. Although he was willing to put Watson in contact with the
agency, he had serious misgivings about advertising in general. See William I. Thomas to Ethel Sturges
Dummer, 3 May 1920, Ethel Sturges Dummer Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, Cambridge,
Massachusetts. For information concerning Thomass dismissal from the University of Chicago, see Morris
Janowitzs introduction to William I. Thomas, On Social Organization and Social Personality (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1966), pp. xiv-xv.
25. Stuart Ewen, Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1977), pp. 32-33. For a history of psychology in advertising prior to 1920, see David
P. Kuna, The Psychology of Advertising, 1896-1916 (Ph.D. diss., University of New Hampshire, 1976). See
also Otis Pease, The Responsib es of American Advertising: Private Conirol and Public Influence. 19201940 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1958); and A. Michal McMahon, An American Courtship:
Psychologists and Advertising Theory in the Progressive Era, American Studies 13 (1972): 5-18.
26. Association of National Advertisers, Inc., Committee on Research to Bingham, 24 October 1921, Walter
Van Dyke Bingham Papers, Hunt Library, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Cited
hereafter as Bingham Papers.
27. Watson to Mildred V. Bennett, 20 January 1921, John 8. Watson file, J. Walter Thompson Company
Archives, New York. Cited hereafter as Thompson Archives.

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K E R R Y W. B U C K L E Y

28. Watson to Bingham, 16 April 1921, Bingham Papers.

29. Watson to Russell, 1 1 October 1921, Russell Papers.
30. Watson, in Autobiography, p. 280.
31. Watson to Meyer, 9 April 1921, Meyer Papers.
32. John B. Watson, The Ideal Executive, speech given to Macys graduating class of young executives, 20
April 1922, typescript contained in the John Broadus Watson Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of
Congress, Washington, D.C. Cited hereafter as Watson Papers.
33. John B. Watson, Influencing the Mind of Another, speech delivered to the Montreal Advertising Club,
26 September 1935, and reprinted by the J. Walter Thompson Company. Copy contained in Watson Papers.
34. John B. Watson, Dissecting the Consumer: An Application of Psychology to Advertising, undated
typescript, pp. 14, 19, Watson Papers.
35. Watson, Influencing the Mind of Another.
36. Merle Curti, The Changing Concept of Human Nature in the Literature of American Advertising,
Business History Review 41 (1967): 337-345; David P. Kuna, The Concept of Suggestion in the Early History
of Advertising Psychology, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences I2 (1976): 350-351.
37. Curti, The Changing Concept of Human Nature, pp. 345-353. In an interview three years before his
death, Watson recalled to John C. Burnham that it was not until the 1940s that the advertising industry a s a
whole became receptive to the suggestions of psychologists (Pease, Responsibilities, p. 17111). Otis Pease,
however, set the widespread acceptance of psychology by advertising as beginning with the Depression (Pease,
Responsibilities, p. 170), while Merle Curti maintained that the estimation of psychologys effectiveness grew
among advertisers during the 1920s and was established as the dominant viewpoint by 1930 (Curti, The
Changing Concept of Human Nature, p. 353). The J. Walter Thompson Company was certainly an industry
leader in employing Watson in 1920. Watsons high visibility and success with that firm, no doubt, was a significant factor in convincing other advertisers to follow Thompsons example.
38.
... Henry C. Link, The New Psychology of Selling and Advertising (New York: Macmillan, 1932). pp. viix111.

39. Report of the Treasurer of the Psychological Corporation for the Year 1936, Cattell Papers.
40. Paul S.Achilles, The Role of the Psychological Corporation in Applied Psychology, American Journal
of Psychology 50 (1937): 243.
41. Henry C. Link, A New Method for Testing Advertising and a Psychological Sales Barometer,Journal
of Applied Psychology 18 (1934): 1-26.
42. John B. Watson, What, To Whom, When, Where, How are We Selling? typescript of a speech
delivered to the J. Walter Thompson Company class in advertising, 14 October 1924, Thompson Archives.
43. John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner Watson, Psychological Care of Infant and Child (New York: Norton, 1928). pp. 186, 77.
44. Dr. John B. Watson Favors Testimonial Advertising, The American Press (November, 1928). p. 14,
newspaper clipping contained in Watson Papers.
45. James Rorty, Our Masters Voice: Advertising (New York: John Day, 1934), p. 233.
46. John B. Watson, Newspapers and How to Advertise in Them, undated typescript, Watson Papers.
47. Believes Coffee Only Beneficial Stimulant, Baltimore Sun,3 May 1927.
48. John B. Watson, Advertising by Radio, J. Walter Thompson Company News Bulletin no. 98 (1923):
11-16.
49. Testimonial Advertising.
50. Pease, Responsibilities, pp. 51-56.
5 I . John B. Watson, What Cigarettes Are You Smoking and Why?, J . Walter Thompson Company News
Bulletin no. 88 (1922): 1-15. This was the beginning of the now familiar blindfold test in which a clients
product is pitted against brand X.See Watsons obituary in The Marketing and Social Research Newsletter
of the Psychological Corporation (Summer, 1959): 3-4.
52. Rorty. Our Musters Voice, p. 242.
53. Testimonial Advertising. See also Howard Gadlin, Private Lives and Public Order: A Critical View of
the History of Intimate Relations in the U.S., The Mussachuserts Review 17 (1976), p. 324.
54. Kenneth Macgowan, The Adventure of the Behaviorist, The New Yorker (6 October 1928). p. 30.
55. Watson to Yerkes, 2 May 1923, Yerkes Papers. See also Watson to Boring, 28 September 1936 and 24
November 1937; Boring to Watson, 30 September 1936, 5 October 1936, and 27 November 1937, Boring
Papers.
56. John B. Watson, Behaviorist Psychology Applied to Selling, The Red Barrel 23 (1934): 20-21.
57. John B. Watson, The Possibilities and Limitations of Psychology in the Office (unpublished typescript
of an address given before the National Association of Managers, Washington, D.C., I8 May 1922), pp. 9-12.
Thompson Archives.

WATSON AND ADVERTISING

22 I

Watson, The Ideal Executive.

Lucille T. Birnbaum, Behaviorism in the 1920s, American Quarterly 7 (1955): 15-30.
Stuart Chase, review of Behaviorism by John B. Watson, New York Herald Tribune, 21 June 1925, p. 5.
Ironically, Chase later became an outspoken critic of advertising and a leading consumer advocate. See Pease,
Responsibifities, pp. 98-99.
61. For a discussion of social control as a factor linking the growth of psychology and the progressive movement, see John C. Burnham, Psychiatry, Psychology and the Progressive Movement, American Quarferly
58.
59.
60.

12 (1960): 457-465.