In the following essay I will be looking into the study conducted by Watson and Rayner (1920) on a small child known as ‘Little Albert’. The experiment was an adaptation of earlier studies on classical conditioning of stimulus response, one most common by Ivan Pavlov, depicting the conditioning of stimulus response in dogs. Watson and Rayner aimed to teach Albert to become fearful of a placid white rat, via the use of stimulus associations, testing Pavlov’s earlier theory of classical conditioning.
In response to the question set, I will go into detail of the study, consisting of the background, main hypotheses, as well the aims, procedure and results gathered from the study; explaining the four research methods chosen to investigate, furthering into the three methods actually tested.
The study by Watson and Rayner was to further the research of Ivan Pavlov. Pavlov was a Russian physiologist whose most famous experiments involved that of animals, specifically the unconditioned and conditioned reflexes of canines, in reference to salivation and conditioned emotional response. Pavlov demonstrated that if a bell was rang each time a dog was fed; ultimately the animal would befall conditioned to salivate at just the sound of the bell, even where food is was no longer present (The Salivation reflex). Watson and Rayner set out to further the research of conditioned stimulus response, with little Albert. ‘These authors without adequate experimental evidence advanced the view that this range was increased by means of conditioned reflex factors.’ (B.Watson, R Rayner , 1920).
Watson and Rayner were interested in finding out about human responses and emotional reactions, based on conditioned responses. With the main hypothesis explai...
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... are transferable. 3) The effects of time on conditioned emotional responses are shown to display a slight decrease in fear and an increase of manipulation, but ultimately the conditioned fear response still lies present.
Works Cited
D. A. Powell, (2004), International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, Pages 11127-11130.
John B.Watson, R Rayner, (February, 1920), Journal of Experimental Psychology, Conditioned Emotional Reactions, Vol. lll, No. i.
Jones, C. M., (1924, 31), A Laboratory Study of Fear: The Case of Peter, Pedagogical Seminary, pp. 308–315.
Nancy Boyd Willey and Malcolm M. Willey, (July, 1924) The American Journal of Sociology, The Conditioned Response and the Consciousness of Kind, Vol.30, No. 1, pp. 22-28
Watson, John B.; R Rayner, (March 2000) Conditioned emotional reactions, American Psychologist, Vol 55(3), 313-317.
Bibliography 3rd edition Psychology (Bernstein-Stewart, Roy, Srull, & Wickens) Houghton Mifflin Company Boston, Massachusetts 1994
Watson, J. B. (1920). Conditioned emotional reactions. The American Psychologist, 55(3), 313-317. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.southuniversity.libproxy.edmc.edu/
We have all heard of Pavlov's Dogs, the experiment where the dogs "drooled" at the sounding of a bell. But, do we know of the details of this infamous experiment? What do we know of the man, beyond that he could ring bells? It is my intention, in this brief dissertation, to shed more light on his life and his experiments.
From an American Psychologist. Vol. 19, pp. 848-852, 1964.
century. In G. A. Kimble & K. Schlesinger (Eds.), Topics in the history of psychology (Vol. 2,
Classical conditioning refers to a type of learning in which a previously neutral stimuli took on the ability to stimulate a conditioned response in an individual (Gormezano & Moore, 1966). To prove that environment was more impactful than genetics, Watson conducted an experiment on an infant, little Albert. Initially, Albert showed little fear towards rats. When Watson repeatedly exposed Albert to the rat accompanied by a loud noise, the latter began to develop fear towards not just the rat but also other furry animals. Watson successfully showed that the acquisition of a phobia can be explained by classical conditioning (Watson & Watson, 1921). Regardless of their genes, the associations of the right stimuli can result in the development of a new behaviour in any individual.
One of the most famous of experiments that illustrates classical conditioning is Pavlov's Dogs. In this experiment, Pavlov sat behind a one-way mirror and controlled the presentation of a bell. The bell was the conditioned stimulus. A conditioned stimulus was an originally neutral stimulus that could eventually produce a desired response when presented alone. Directly after the ringing of the bell, Pavlov gave the dog food. The food was the unconditioned stimulus. This means that the food caused an uncontrollable response whenever it was presented alone. That response would be the salivation of the dog. A tube that was in the dog's mouth then measured the saliva. When the unconditioned stimulus (US) was paired with a conditioned stimulus (CS), it eventually resulted in a conditioned response. Extinction results if there is a decrease in frequency or strength of a learned response due to the failure to continue to pair the US and the CS.
Venn, J. R., & Short, J. G. (1973). Vicarious classical conditioning of emotional responses in nursery school children. Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology, 28(2), 249-255, doi:10.1037/h0035717
The strength of classical conditioning is that it can help to explain all aspects of human behavior. Any of behavior can broke down into stimulus-response association, so that according to the classical conditioning, conditioned stimulus will lead conditioned response to occur, then the scientist can observe and determine the behavior (McLeod, 2014). In the case of Pavlovian conditioning, he found that when the conditioned stimulus (bell) was paired with an unconditioned stimulus (food) was presented to the dog, it would start to salivate. After a number of repeated this procedures, Pavlov tried to ring his bell by its own...
He picked a nine-month-old infant named Albert, to be the key learner in his experiment, which would be later called “The Little Albert Experiment” and be judged for ethical reasons. Initially, Watson showed Albert various stimuli –including but not limited to a white rat, a rabbit and a monkey- and tested his reactions, which were nothing but curiosity and happiness. For the second stage, he paired every stimulus he showed Albert with a loud hammer noise. Little Albert cried in response to the noise and paired the stimulus shown to him with the unpleasant noise in his unconscious mind. He created a conditioned response to the conditioned stimulus, the rat. Months after this experiment, Little Albert came back for the second round and the expected results emerged: he cried when he saw the rat in the absence of the hammer noise. He even cried when he saw things that resembled a rat, which confirms the theory of generalization, along with the theory of classical conditioning. The Little Albert Experiment shows us that the brain works with the information submitted to it and leaves no room to conscious
Simon, J. R. (1969). Reactions towards the source of stimulation. Journal of experimental Psychology, 81, 174-176 .
Jhon B Watson, a behaviorist, conducted an experiment inspired by the Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov to determinate the classical condition in humans. Little Albert experiment was conducted in a 9 month old baby whom a rat is showed to see his r...
Berkowitz, L. & Cotton, J. (1984). Cognitive Dissonance in Selective Exposure. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 17, 357-373.
...nt anxiety. The operant conditioning takes place when the person emits avoidance in the presence of the neutral stimulus, since the stimulus never created the initial anxiety. by escaping the CS and getting an immediate reduction in its fear-eliciting properties, the avoidance response is maintained. Another etiology of phobias is offered by social learning theory, which state that watching parental avoidance strategies learns phobic behaviors. Cognitive theorists emphasize the role played by expectancies in potentially dangerous consequences versus neutral situations. Expectancies acts like a mediator between the two. Avoidance responding is acquired in the presence of the warning sign through cognitive process of comparing expectations for when and when not to respond. In this way an aversive outcome is maintained as a consequence of interacting with anxiety.
R. J. Dolan, Emotion, Cognition, and Behavior, Science 8 November 2002: 298 (5596), 1191-1194. [DOI:10.1126/science.1076358]