Genie The Wild Child Analysis

One of the oldest debates in the history of Psychology is about Nature versus Nurture. Today, we know that both play a significant role in human’s life. Some people believe that it is genes which affects our way of life and some people believes that it is none other but our environment that greatly influences our lifestyle and some believe that both has tremendous impact on one’s way of life. Indeed in certain cases both our nature (our genes) and our environment roughly play an equal role in human life.

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.

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).

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.

      The theoretical proposition of this study is that one’s emotions can come from an external or an internal situation which creates a certain emotion for example afraidness. If this emotion is felt more than one time occurring at the same moment as something else for example seeing a spider or snake , the spider or snake will therefore will become connected with being afraid in your brain. This example is very similar to the one Watson used, which was rats he then said that us as humans were “not born to fear rats.” In fact, he said we learned this fear “through conditioning.” This led to one of Watson 's most famed experience that included the subject “Little Albert B.” It is clear the aspect of human behavior in which Watson was interested in is a person’s emotions.

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

The child interpreted the sound of the hammer hitting the steel bar in coincidence with the visualization of the white rat. Even in nine months the child had been programmed by repeatedly hitting the bar and visual stimulation of contact with the white rat, had now become an unconditioned stimulus response by automatically changing physical and emotional outcomes from the child (Porter, B., 2013).

Theoretical Propositions: The question of why people are who they are and why they behave the in the way that they do was asked. The researchers wanted to understand if people develop into who they are primarily from factors in the environment or because of there genetic makeup. In the second half of the 20th century most psychologists agreed in the theory of behaviorism, human behavior is caused only by factors in the environment. This study would answer the common “nurture vs nature” question that many people still ask today.

After several combined events of the white rat and the loud noise, Watson and Rayner also tested if other furry animals such as a rabbit and a dog also elicited a fear response. They discovered that in fact, they did. Even a fur coat, cotton, and a Santa Claus mask caused “Little Albert” distress. This study revealed that if a child is conditioned to be afraid of an animal, this fear can shift to other animals without the distinct conditioning for each animal (Jones, 1960). This concept is known as generalization, which is the

The study that John Watson is best known for was that of Little Albert. In this study, Watson and his assistant placed an infant, baby Albert, in a room along with a white rat. At first, Albert attempted to reach out toward the rat as it moved around him however soon after Watson slammed together two steel pipes creating a noise loud enough to scare Albert. After this initial scare, the pipes were hit together each time Albert would reach for the rat eventually resulting in his complete fear of the rat and anything that resembled it (Watson & Rayner, 1920). It was in this study that Watson was using a strategy of conditioning that would pair Albert with an unconditioned stimulus and then conditioning him to become fearful of this stimulus. Do to his research in the field, Watson became known as the founder of behaviorism.

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.

For the second stage, a white rat was used as Watson’s CS, the CS must be a neutral stimulus that initially has no effect on the UR. Little Albert showed no phobia towards the rat before conditioning occurred. By pairing the US with the CS, the infant learned to associate the loud noise of the hammer and metal bar with the white rat. After strengthening the association between the US and the CS by repetition, Little Albert eventually became fearful and upset when only presented with the once neutral stimulus, the white rat. This response was the CR which marked the completion of step three. Little Albert was now afraid of the white rat because it triggered his fear of the loud noise. Classical conditioning can be used to prove many forms of behavior between subjects when looking at the the right unconditioned/ conditioned stimuli and unconditioned/ conditioned responses. The theory of classical conditioning can be used to explain the development of distrust and trust issues in the relationships between people.

Behaviourists regard behaviour has a response and stimulus which is determined by the environment one lives in. With this reductionist idea, it is therefore easy for behaviourists to control experiments. Behaviourists carry out experiments with control over variables, precise measurements objectivity and observability, resulting in very reliable results. However, some critics may argue that behaviour is studied under artificial conditions which do not match real life environments, resulting in low ecological validity. Furthermore, another strength of this approach is that all three of its theories, classical conditioning, operant conditioning and social learning theory have succeeded when applied to its studies. For instance, classical conditioning is when new behaviours maybe acquired through association between an environmental stimulus and a neutral stimulus. An example of this is Watson’s little Albert experiment (1920) where the neutral stimulus (white rat) and