Analysis Of Watson 's Most Infamous Work Essay

The hypothesis was that through a series of pairings, they could condition a nine-month-old child to develop an irrational fear.” (The 25 most influential) Watson started the experiment by placing a white rat in front of little Albert, who wasn’t afraid of it and every time the rat appeared Watson made a loud striking noise. Eventually, Albert was terrified of the rat and in the end, Albert’s fear spread to other common

Classical Conditioning. Due to Pavlov’s success, Watson was inclined to do his own experimentation. His most famous, yet controversial, being on “Little Albert.” “Albert” was a child conditioned by Watson to be afraid of rats. Essentially, Watson would create a loud, banging noise. This would eventually lead to the fear of not just rats, but all fuzzy animals (John Watson - Little Albert, 2008).

One of the leading discoveries of the 20th century was finding the shape and structure of DNA. James Watson was a co-founder of this incredible discovery which would lead to a vast and diverse new field of study within genetics. His life prior to the discovery is a story all to itself, and the impact he left on science is massive. With the knowledge gained from this revolutionary finding, the future of humanity and life could be secured, in all faces of adversity, and any new frontier we dare to tread upon. With this paper, I would like to pay homage to one of our greatest scientists in history, James Watson.

What is Watson’s Classical Conditioning? Classical Conditioning was found by Dr. Ivan Pavlov. Watson’s research was influenced by Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning Theory. Watson made a research on children’s emotions using the Classical Conditioning model. According to Watson, love, fear, and anger are the three kinds of emotions inherited by humans (Hall 1988). He believed these emotions could be learned through conditioning. He formed his hypothesis and carried out an experiment. John B. Watson’s classical condition experiment was on a child named Little Albert. This experiment was while a child was playing with a rabbit, smashing two bars to make a loud noise behind the child’s head. After hearing the loud noise the child

The second section portrays behaviorist John B. Watson and psychologist Arnold Gesell. In this case, Gesell takes on the “soft” approach with his views that children should be treated gently and softly and treated as equal individuals. Watson, however, took a much different direction with his “hard” views of “conditioning” babies, not cuddling them; that they were merely a product of their reactions to various

Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov had done experiments on dogs showing the conditioning process, but Watson was interested in taking Pavlov’s research to the next level and show that emotional reactions can be classically conditioned in people (Cherry, 2016). They used a nine-month-old baby boy and exposed him to a series of stimuli including a white rat, a rabbit, a monkey, masks and burning newspapers and watched the boys reaction, initially he showed no fear of the objects he was shown (Cherry, 2016). He then decided that he

Little Albert an 11 month old boy was chosen as the participant. Watson identified that a white rat did not provoke any fear response in Albert, so it was a neutral stimulus. Little Albert was then exposed to the white rat, but every time he reached out to touch it Watson would make a loud noise. Albert would get frightened and start to cry. After repeating this several times, Albert started getting frightened just by seeing the rat. Just like the bell in Pavlov's experiment, the white rat had become a conditioned stimulus to Albert. Watson therefore concluded that even complex behaviour such as fear was a learned response.

Pavlov and Watson are both associated with classical conditioning which is when you are taught to act a certain way by association and instruction. We do not use this in practice today but it helps us to understand phobias such as a child being scared of spiders because mummy is and always screams when she sees one.

In an experiment called "Little Albert" by psychologist John B. Watson, an infant named Albert was conditioned to fear white rats. He was repeatedly exposed to white rats and was taught fear response to these furry animals which wouldn’t otherwise occur naturally. Although this wouldn’t have been what Albert wanted to perceive as part of his reality, he became extremely distressed whenever he saw a white rat and it was out of his control to

The classical conditioning model was one of the first theories used to describe phobias. Many years ago, scientists observed that one could willingly elicit a fear response in an animal or human through systematic teaching. For example, if every time a rat is presented with a low buzzing noise, it is electrically shocked, eventually, when it hears the noise alone (with no shock), it will exhibit symptoms of fear. (3) Scientists

TUCSON, Ariz. – Instruments are the first thing to greet a person entering the room. A piano sits by the window, a saxophone close by – and Brice Winston, a jazz musician and educator, sits on the couch, a painting as soulful as the music he plays hanging on the wall behind him.

Albert’s baseline reactions to the stimuli were noted. He showed no fear when presented with a rat, a rabbit, a dog, a monkey, a mask with hair, or cotton wool. When Albert was 11 months old the experiments started.

The Little Albert experiment has become a famous case study that has been discussed by a plethora of professionals in the psychology industry. In 1920, behaviorist John Watson and his assistant Rosalie Rayner began to conduct the first experiment that had been done with a child. Watson and Rayner chose Albert because they thought he was stable; he was accustomed to a hospital environment due to his mother’s career as a wet nurse, he was healthy and showed little emotion. Stability played a major factor in choosing Albert for this case study because Watson wanted to ensure that they would do as little harm as possible with the experiment. The conditioning of Albert began with a series of emotional tests that became part of a routine in which Watson and Rayner were “determining whether fear reactions could be called out by other stimuli than sharp noises and the sudden removal of support” (-----). Watson’s method of choice for this experiment was using principles of classic conditioning to create a stimulus in children that would result in fear. Since Watson wanted to condition Albert, he used a variety of objects that would otherwise not scare him. These objects included white rat, dog, blocks, rabbit, fur coat, wool and a Santa Claus mask.

John B. Watson a behaviorist lived from (1878-1958). Watson grew up in a broken family where is father cheated and eventually left his mother (John B. Watson). Watson modeled his behavior by cheating on his first wife and eventually marrying on of his students (John B. Watson). Watson turned his life back around with the help of one of his teachers named Gordon Moore (John B. Watson). He became interested in the field of psychology as well as animal behavior at the University of Chicago and his career although short lived took off from there (John B. Watson). He is most known for his experiment called Little Albert. Watson theorized that children only have three emotions fear, rage, and love (John B. Watson). He believed that he could get the child to show each of these emotions through controlling their environment (John B. Watson). The theory that Watson was demonstrating was

The salivation was now the conditioned response. The dog learnt the association between the food and the bell and the conditioned response was now the learnt behaviour. Pavlov (1927)Watson and Rayner (1920) extends Pavlov’s study as they wanted to see if it applied to humans as well as animals, they done this with their little albert experiment. Albert was a nine month old infant, he was tested on his reactions to various stimuli, he was shown a white rat, and a rabbit, a monkey and various masks, and he showed no fear to any of these stimuli. They noticed that if a hammer was struck against at steel bar behind his head he would be startled and he would burst into tears. The noise was the unconditioned stimuli and Albert crying was the unconditioned response. When Albert was 11 months old the white rat was presented and seconds later the hammer was struck against the steel bar. This was done repeatedly over the next 7 weeks, making Albert burst into tears. The white rat was the neutral stimuli, when paired with the noise it became the conditioned stimuli. When Albert saw the rat he would show fear and cry. Albert learnt the association between the rat and the noise creating a phobia. Watson and Rayner (1920)