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-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. I am going beyond my facts and I admit it, but so have the advocates of the contrary and they have been doing it for many thousands of years.
John B. Watson
This statement expresses John Watson's belief that environment was everything in human development. He was saying could take any (essentially normal) baby and determine who and what that child would become--provided that he was able to have complete control over all elements of that child's environment.
Do you agree or disagree with Watson's idea that if it were possible (legal, ethical, etc.) to have complete control over all aspects of an infant's environment, you really could raise any child to enter whatever profession you chose for him or her?
This is going to be a discussion board topic. One thing I'd like you to start to think about is how one might go about Watson's unlikely experiment. If you wanted to raise a child to be a doctor--or a thief--what kind of environment would you set up? Think about things that might be done at the family level, choice of school, wider community and role models, and anything else you think might shape a child's destiny.
