O impacto da obra de j. B. Watson na psicologia norte americana (1903-1923): citações a outros autores como parâmetros quantitativos de comparação

Abstract

In the historiography of psychology, the impact of J. B. Watson's work is a topic that has generated discussion and research, some of which use bibliometric analysis as method. These studies, however, do not adopt comparative parameters that may indicate more precisely the impact degree of the author's work. This research seeks to fill this gap through two comparative bibliometric studies between citations to Watson's work and citations to other relevant psychologists from the early twentieth century: Edward B. Titchener, Edward Thorndike, William James, James R. Angell, Harvey A. Carr and John Dewey. The first study is a comparative bibliometric analysis between citations to Watson, Titchener, Thorndike and James in five important American journals, from 1903 to 1923 - a decade before and a decade after the publication of Behaviorist Manifesto (1913). The second study is an extension of the first, adding three authors to its search scope - Angell, Carr and Dewey - and three other relevant periodics from that period. The research's results indicate that, although it can not properly be taken as a revolutionary landmark, Watson’s work had, in the first decade after the publication of the Behaviorist Manifesto, an impact similar to Dewey's, Titchener's structuralism and Thornsdike's associationism, greater than Angell's and Carr's functionalism, although still distant from James’s influence.