The Little Albert Experiment By John B. Watson

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 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

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

Classical conditioning is a type of associative learning which occurs when two stimuli are paired together repetitively and therefore become associated with each other eventually producing the same response. Classical conditioning was developed from the findings of Ivan Pavlov to account for associations between neutral stimuli and reflexive behavior such as salivation. Pavlov (1927) accidently discovered that dogs began to salivate before they had tasted their food. To support his theory, he carried out experiments using dogs which involved measuring the amount of saliva they produced. In his experiments, food started off as an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) which produced salivation, an unconditioned response (UCR). They are both unconditioned as they occur naturally without being learned. The dogs were presented with a bell (NS), this provided no salivation. The bell and food were presented together and after many trails an

Inspired by the work of Ivan Pavlov, Watson conducted his own experiment, with the help of his assistant Rosalie Rayner, to show classical conditioning in humans. Watson and Rayner wanted to show that the principles of classical conditioning could be applied to emotions, such as fear. Watson believed that when children reacted to loud noises, it was because of fear, and that this fear was an unconditioned reflex.

During his experiments Watson used animals and not human subjects. He believed he could get the same results from animals that others did using humans. Traditional behaviorism identifies two basic types of conditioning. Classic conditioning is defined by the repeated exposure of an unconditioned stimulus that elicits an unconditioned response and a neutral stimulus. The developed neutral stimulus can develop the same response as the unconditioned stimulus. B.F. Skinner developed the more radical approach of Operant conditioning. Operant conditioning results when a behavior is followed by reinforcement or punishment (Burger, 2010).

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.

Douglas Merritte, better known as Little Albert was 9 months when he participated in a study along with John Watson. Watson exposed Little Albert to a white rat and furry objects, who before not feared rats and furry objects. As he played with the rat, Watson made a loud noise with a hammer. After numerous of trials, Watson introduced the rat and the furry objects to Little Albert who began to cry in fear of the loud noise. When the rate and furry objects were placed in front of Albert he cried, although there was no noise. Something that was first enjoyment to him has become fear to him. The bad thing about this experiment is that Watson created a child with a previously nonexistent fear. It has been said that Douglas known as Little Albert

In 1903 a Russian physiologist by the name of Ivan Pavlov first developed an experiential model of learning called Classical Conditioning (Lautenheiser 1999). An example if Classical Conditioning would be ringing a bell when it is time for your pet to eat. The pet hears the bell and over time is conditioned that when the bell rings its dinner time thus begins to salivate, and eventually learns to be conditioned to responding to the bell in a specific manner. The bases was that neutral stimulus would be put together with an excitatory one and over time the neutral stimulus would, at some point down the line elicit the response that was associated with the original unlearned response. Pavlov later added an element known as the nonexcitatory, conditioned stimulus which is but together with an unconditioned stimulus (Lautenheiser 1999).

The Little Albert experiment is seen as very unethical now, but in 1920 helped out psychologist. It was run by John B. Watson and one of his students, Rosalie Rayner. At the John Hopkins University, Watson and Rayner’s goal was to condition certain phobias into a perfectly normal child. Watson was testing Pavlov’s theory on humans, not dogs. They chose a nine month old baby who they called “Albert,” or “Little Albert.”

Food was the unconditioned stimulus, the bell was the conditioned stimulus, and salivation was the conditioned response. Pavlov’s work showed that the conditioned response could be reduced or eliminated by presenting the conditioned stimulus without the unconditioned stimulus. Generally this required several pairings or a pairing for an extended period of time to be successful. This process is called extinction. John Watson, in his famous Little Albert experiment, was able to build on Pavlov’s work when he conditioned a young child to fear a white rat using a loud noise. Joseph Wolpe studied Watson’s work. Wolpe was able to reduce fear in cats by feeding them in various feeding situations (Abramowitz, Deacon, & Whiteside, 2010). He created a hierarchy of feared situations for the cats. He began by feeding the cats in the least threatening situation and gradually was able to move to the most threatening situation (Abramowitz, Deacon, & Whiteside, 2010). He noticed that the cats became

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.

Ivan Pavlov was a theorist of classical conditioning (behaviorism). He believed that behavior can be learned. His experiment involved dogs who usually salivated at seeing food, and then by the end of the experiment the dogs learned to salivate at the sound of a bell. Pavlov’s experiment reinforced the reoccurring of one occasion in the expectancy of another. This experiment and conclusion happens through a preconditioned phase (how the person or animal acts initially), the condition phase (how the person or animal acts to the neutral stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus), and the post conditioned phase (how the person or animal acts to the conditioned stimulus).

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