Rosalie Rayner continued her education at Vassar College in New York, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1919.

Rayner and Watson aimed to make family life reflect an empirical environment, based on the belief that behaviors were not hardwired at birth, but instead were acquired through conditioning.

The basis of their study was conditioning a 9-month old baby, referred to as "Albert", to fear a white rat, which had previously been a neutral stimulus.

Textbooks often claim that the fear was generalized to other white, furry stimuli, such as fur coats, rabbits, and a Santa Claus mask, but the rabbit was brown and the strength and duration of the fear do not seem impressive in retrospect (and to careful viewers of the film that Watson made).

[1] Recently, University of New Hampshire psychologist and historian Ben Harris revealed another article by Rosalie Rayner Watson that shows her view of marriage and the family, which some might say presents a feminist analysis.

[7] Rayner's collaboration with Watson developed into an affair, which resulted in him divorcing his previous wife, Mary Ickes.

[1] Due to the scandal, and Watson's refusal to send Rayner abroad until the uproar cooled down, he was forced to leave academia.

[1] After Watson was fired from Johns Hopkins University in 1920, rumors began to circulate that there was a reason for the termination besides the scandal.

[4] This theory was publicized by psychologist James V. McConnell, who did not believe that Watson's divorce from Ickes was significant enough to warrant a dismissal.

[4] James stated that his father's principles on behaviorism in their strict parenting practices inhibited his and his brother's ability to effectively deal with human emotion, adding that it undermined their self-esteem later in life.