After Watson’s experiments in 1919, it was thought for a long time
that the infant was endowed by nature with three specific emotions: rage, fear,
and affection. Watson found that restriction of a child’s bodily movements, as
by holding his arms or legs firmly, aroused a reaction which he called rage.
Similarly, he observed that falling and loud noise induced fear. Pleasant
stroking of certain parts of the body, he stated, brought a response not unlike
that accompanying
In one experiment, for example, motion pictures were taken of the
children stimulated in the Watson’s manner. When the film was cut so that the
responses were separated from the stimuli, a group of psychologists was not
able to match them properly. It is possible that adults read their own
responses into emotional reactions of infants.
Heredity may give the new-born babe only a generalized capacity for
responding emotionally against responding annoyance of one kind or another. The
specific emotions come later. Even by the Watson’s formula it is clear that the
infant has little in the way of emotional behavior. He learns to be afraid of
few things or of many things, to respond angrily to many or few different
situations, but the organization of emotional expression is quite rudimentary
in the new-born child.
