John Broadus Watson Quotes

Two things control men's nature, instinct and experience.

People are incredible creatures of habit.

I think that maybe human beings are conditioned to violence.

I think that man is conditioned to violence.

Habit can overcome anything but instinct, and can greatly modify even that.

Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature.

Habit is stronger than reason.

That human behavior is more influenced by things outside of us than inside. The 'situation' is the external environment. The inner environment is genes, moral history, religious training.

Custom is second nature.

Habit is ten times nature.

Fortunately, most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling from others.

When you start to think about the drives that humans have, I think sometimes we find we are simpler than we thought and more easily manipulated.

Habit is second nature.

When a creature is exposed to violence, it will tend to adapt to that disturbance, so that when the violence ceases or the creature is allowed its freedom, the healthy instinct to flee is hugely diminished, and the creature stays put instead.

Habit is a second nature, or rather, it is 'ten times nature'.

The sentiments of an adult are compounded of a kernel of instinct surrounded by a vast husk of education.

People can get accustomed to anything, right? Habit does things to people.

Okay, okay, okay. I understood that pushing the elevator button over and over again would not make the elevator appear sooner. But I couldn't help myself

I'll be Pavlov, you be the dog.

Man can seldom - very, very, seldom - fight a winning fight against his training; the odds are too heavy.

Conditioning can be not a big heavy thing. (For instance:) I've got a brand new pair of shoes, by mistake you step on it and you make them muddy and dirty, I'm conditioned to go "Hey, what are you doing?" That's my conditioning, I have a response. So, maybe we have to learn to find the pause before we react, because reaction is our conditioning.

One will rarely err if extreme actions be ascribed to vanity, ordinary actions to habit, and mean actions to fear.

Man is made of ordinary things, and habit is his nurse.

Well, you show me the science [that being gay is not a choice] and I'll be persuaded.