Design This experiment was designed around a little boy named Albert B, but is however known popularly today as Little Albert. When Albert was around nine months, Watson and Rayner exposed this child to certain objects known as neutral stimuli. These include a white rat, a rabbit, a monkey, masks and burning newspapers. When albert’s reactions were initially observed, he showed didn’t show any fear to the objects that were shown and playfully reacted to some. When Albert was exposed to the rat a second time, Watson associated a large bang with a hammer (which scared kids).
After a couple of tests Albert started to show signs of fear and began crying when the rat was presented to him without any sound. There are three terms related to classical conditioning namely, unconditioned stimulus, conditioned stimulus and conditioned response. In order to proceed we must know about them briefly. The unconditioned stimulus (US) is one that unconditionally, naturally, and
They started conditioning by showing Albert a white rat. Every time Albert went to touch the rat they struck a steel bar and hammer behind him to produce a a loud noise, which would elicit a fear response in Albert. After conditioning when Albert was presented with the white rat. alone he would produce a fear response to the rat. The in-dependant variable in the experiment is the white fluffy things used, for example, White rat.
He was placed in a room with a white rat and showed no fear. In a trial later, Watson and Rayner made the loud noise using the hammer and steel bar every time Albert attempted to touch the rat. This noise made Albert scared and emotional. When the next trial took place they placed Albert in the room with only the rat and no sounds yet Albert responded to this with fear and always tried to move away in tears. 20 days later the same experiment took place with a rabbit, which purposely was not white like the rat yet he still had the same reactions towards it as he did with the white rat.
Then in 1921, John Watson had expanded Pavlov’s research and began to study humans, his first testing was the little Albert experiment. Watson’s purpose of the Little Albert experiment was to see if he could condition the infant to fear an animal. Classical conditioning is considered to be an automatic or reflexive form of learning. Classical Conditioning can be defined as a learning technique that takes place when two stimuli are continuously placed together causing a response which originally bought about the following stimulus is ultimately drawn out due to the initial stimulus (Olson, Hergenhahn, 2013). There are four elements that are associated with classical conditioning.
In the experiment Watson took a nine month old boy, named Albert, and exposed him to a white rat. At first Albert wasn’t afraid of the rat, but after a while every time Albert would touch the rat Watson would make a loud noise behind his back. Albert cried as he heard the noise, this happened several times. The next day when Watson placed the white rat in front of Albert, he cried and crawled away. Albert had associated the white rat
The scenario will be explained and a chart will be complied that will demonstrate how classical conditioning applies to this scenario. Classical Conditioning Theory Ivan Petrovich Pavlov is the founder of the classical conditioning theory. Pavlov, a Russian psychologist was studying the secretion of stomach acids and salivation of dogs when they were presented with different kinds and different amounts of food (Feldman, 2010). While doing so, Pavlov noticed that the amount of salivation would often increase when the dogs had not eaten any food. The mere presence of the person who supplied the food or the footsteps of that person would stimulate the dogs and more stomach acid would be produced (Feldman, 2010).
Watson (1878-1958). Watson was responsible for developing the behaviorism school of thought. Behaviorism is a school of psychology that deals with observable behavior and ignores the subjective aspects of human activity involved. Watson was amazed with the work of Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936). Pavlov was a Russian physiologist, who studied conditioning.
Skinner Article BEH/225 Christina LakeMan January 31, 2013 Skinner Article Skinner's contributions to psychology are vast, Skinner‘s theories explored ways that we learn and process stimuli in the environment. Through his research, Skinner discovered operant conditioning, which indicated that behavior, could be controlled by influence such as, punishments and rewards in the environment. His entire system revolved around operant conditioning, which has been defined as the modification of behavior by making the presence or absence of rewards or punishment contingent on behavior, also known as instrumental learning. “Operant conditioning has been widely applied in clinical settings (i.e.,
Watson and Rayner were radical behaviourists who believed that all behaviour was learned exclusively through interaction with the environment, and furthermore that the environment could shape, through classical and operant conditioning, any individual into becoming anything. In 1920 they had the opportunity to experiment on an infant called Little Albert, and were able to show how an abnormal phobia could be learned by simple association. Little Albert was described as a happy and inquisitive child who was scared of very little. He was even happy to play with a pet white rat, however one thing that he was scared of was sudden loud noises. Watson & Rayner (1920) allowed Little Albert to play with the white rat and then at the same time made a loud metallic bang.