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BEFORE CONDITIONING: NOISE (UCS) → FEAR
CONDITIONING: WHITE RAT (CS) + NOISE (UCS) → FEAR
AFTER CONDITIONING: WHITE RAT (CS) → FEAR (CR)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hBfnXACsOI (6:21)
John B Watson known for establishing the behavior School of Psychology, carried out one of the most influential psychology studies in the 1920s that would later on be something that would never be forgotten. (0:00 – 0:18)
Classical conditioning, first experimented by Ivan Pavlov, was used on a dog, when an unconditional stimulus was used to produce an unconditional response. And a conditioned stimulus was used to produce a condition response. This was later on extended by Watson in his demonstration of the little Albert experiment. (0:19 – 0:40)
In Watson’s experiment, a little baby Albert was used to be conditioned. He was born to a woman who was a nurse in the Harriet Lane home of invalid children. Although raised in a hospital environment, Albert developed normally and was very stable. Ivan Pavlob was indeed able to condition the dog. Could Watson now do the same thing in humans? Now to the actual experiment itself. (0:40 – 1:12)
First off, Watson presented little Albert objects that he was not afraid of. Objects that Albert initially liked. These included (1:13 – 1:22)
- Fire (1:23 – 1:35)
- A monkey (1:36 -1:55)
- A dog (1:56 – 2:10)
- A rabbit (2:11 – 2:28) And finally
- A white rat (2:29 – 2:40)
Albert, in particular, liked the white rat. From all these clips, notice Albert’ss positive reaction. (2:29= 2:40)
And now comes to conditioning… To start off the conditioning, when Albert reached to touch the rat, a loud bar was struck whenever Albert reached for the rat. Here, Albert first off fell forward, and was startled, but he did not cry yet. But he reached for it for a second time and heard it and then he started to cry. (2:41 – 3:03)
Watson had indeed conditioned at fear response in little Albert. Albert was then shown a rabbit. He immediately cried and got as far away as possible from it. Then a dog was also crowded Albert did not cry right away and cautious and it only when the dog came right up to his head that he began to cry and tried to get away from him. After this a seal for coat was brought in Albert turned away from it and was agitated (2:41 – 3:39)
Then Watson used a Santa Claus mask in which invoked an even more negative response by Baby Albert. From the previous experience, from the white rat, little Albert suddenly became afraid of familiar objects that had the same characteristics as a white rat. This phenomenon was known as generalization. (3:40 – 4:06)
Watson then wanted to test whether the reaction would carry over in a different setting. The previous tests were done in a small dark room. But now he was brought into a larger room. He was presented with the same objects but did not show strong symptoms of withdrawal until, the objects were paired with a loud noise. (4:07 – 4:29)
Watson now wanted to see if fear could remain in Albert over a period of time. So Albert was brought home and returned in one month. When he returned he was tested with the same objects and paired the same loud noises. Albert indeed showed the same strong signs withdrawal. Watson once again prove that he could condition fear into baby Albert. Watson concluded that phobias were most likely conditioned responses. (4:30 – 4:58)
The Little Albert study is extremely important in psychology and other disciplines. It has inspired other important researchers of the past and continues to impact the direction of the psychological investigation today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMnhyGozLyE (3:26)
In the early part of the 20th century of the 20th century, psychologist John Watson and Rosalie Rayner set out to teach a baby boy called little Albert to fear white rats using the principle of classical conditioning. This is a film of their work. The film shows several phases of their study. First, as you see here, the investigators demonstrated that prior to conditioning, little Albert had no fears of any animals including of course white rats. (0:36)
Video of experiments with no audio (0:37 – 1:39)
Watson and Raynor then soughtt to teach Albert to fear white rats through classical conditioning. In the conditioning phase of the study, which was not filmed, the investigators struck a steel bar with a hammer whenever Albert reached for a rat, making a very loud noise that greatly upset and frightened Albert. After six such pairings of the loud noise in the rat it was believed that the boy had been conditioned to fear white rats. That is, Albert was now expected to react fearfully to white rats whether the rats were paired with loud noises or not. (1:40 – 2:13)
In this next film sequence, we see Albert interacting with a white rat after the conditioning process. The investigators believed that the child’s reaction during this trial demonstrated his newly acquired fear of white rats.
Finally, the investigators expected that little Albert’s conditioned fear of white rats would generalize to stimuli that was similar in key ways to a white rat. In this film segment they were trying to demonstrate the child now also reacted fearfully to similar objects such as a rabbit, a dog, a furry object, and a white mask worn by Watson himself. (2:14 – 2:56)