John B Watson And Little Albert Experiment

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).

What do Psychologists’, little boys, a hammer, and rabbits have in common? Sounds a tab bit disturbing, but in the world of psychology experiments were absolutely necessary to prove the theory. Everyone has a fear, but the question is, how did that fear come to be? Can you cure fear? These are some of the questions that John B. Watson and Mary Cover Jones hope to answer

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

Behaviourists regard behaviour as a response to a stimulus; pioneering the belief that internal cognitive processes are unnecessary when explaining behaviour. This view is supported by the behaviourist John Locke who proposed that children are born as ‘blank slates’ (‘tabula rasa’) whereby children are shaped by experience (Neaum, 2010). The behaviourist approach assumes that the process of learning is the same in all species; therefore concluding that human and animals learn in similar ways. Early behaviourists include Edward Thorndike, Edward Tolman and Edwin Guthrie conducted experiments on animals, under carefully observed conditions (Collin, 2011). However the three theorists, most associated with behaviourism are: Ivan Pavlov, John Watson and B.F. Skinner. These theorists identified two types of associative learning: classical and operant conditioning; these methods underpin the behaviourist perspective.

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.

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

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.

There are countless scenarios in which a young child could develop a classically conditioned fear of bugs. The most well-known example of instilling an emotional response in a child via classical conditioning is the Little Albert experiment. This experiment was Conducted by John B. Watson and his graduate student Rosalie Rayner, and the results were published in the February 1920 issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology. The study used a subject named Albert who was around 9 months old. They exposed him to various unconditioned stimuli such as a monkey, masks, a white rat, etc. They observed his reactions, then the next time Albert saw the rat, they added a loud noise that caused the child to cry. After numerous times of the rat being shown with

Behaviourist’s such as Skinner (1957) and Watson (1920) supported the environmentalist approach, Skinner instilled certain behaviours into a pigeon through operant conditioning, and he used punishment and reinforcement. He then practiced this method on humans; his book, Verbal Behaviour, explained the acquisition of language. Watson established his ‘Little Albert Experiment’, he showed how phobias may be attained by classical conditioning (Davenport, 1992,

According to the famous “Rats maze” experiment, Watson began by challenging the underlying assumption of instinct (Berntson and Cacioppo, 2000). Watson and Morgan (1917) are considered to be

Rosalie Rayner Watson was John Watson’s second wife. She assisted her husband in the development of applied behavioral psychology. Not only did she co-author the seminal paper on conditioned emotional reactions, she also assisted Watson in preparing the most popular child care book of the time (Duke, 1989). For these reasons she can be recognized as a woman who has made significant contributions to the field of psychology. Her background, theoretical perspectives, and contributions to the field of psychology have made her stand out above the crowd.

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.

Little Albert was a classical conditioning experiment. He was used to prove that humans can be classically conditioned. In 1920, John B. Watson performed his experiment after being fascinated by “The bell experiment” performed by Ivan Pavlov. John took a nine-month-old child and began his experiment. Literature Review John B. Watson was a professor at John Hopkins.

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