Organizing for the kingdom of behavior: Academic battles and organizational policies in the twenties

Abstract

Although John B. Watson had been forced out of academia by 1920, the first half of the next decade saw an intense battle over his attempts to redefine the subject matter and the goal of psychology. No clear victor emerged in the academic discipline, while part of the lay public responded enthusiastically to Watson's rhetoric. In the meantime, academics and foundations, especially the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial under Beardsley Ruml, began to reshape the social sciences into “big science” concerned with behavior and social control, although the label “behavioral sciences” would not be invented for another thirty years.