In this experiment, a previously unafraid baby was conditioned to become afraid of a rat. Over the next few weeks and months, Little Albert was observed and ten days after conditioning his fear of the rat was much less marked.
This dying out of a learned response is called extinction. However, even after a full month, it was still evident, and the association could be renewed by repeating the original procedure a few times. Unfortunately, Albert's mother withdrew him from the experiment the day the last tests were made, and Watson and Rayner were unable to conduct further experiments to reverse the condition response.
The cognitive approach criticizes the behavioral model as it does not take mental processes into account. They argue that the thinking processes that occur between a stimulus and a response are responsible for the feeling component of the response.
Ignoring the role of cognition is problematic, as irrational thinking appears to be a key feature of phobias. Tomarken et al. The phobics tended to overestimate the number of snake images presented. McLeod, S. Pavlov's dogs. Simply Psychology. Harris, B. Whatever happened to little Albert? American psychologist, 34 2 , Albert had demonstrated that he was also afraid of a white rabbit, white a dog, and a white fur coat.
This study was significant in understanding the process of conditioning. Skinner was one of the most influential of American psychologists. A behaviorist, he developed the theory of operant conditioning — the idea that behavior is determined by its consequences, be they reinforcements or punishments, which make it more or less likely that the behavior will occur again. Skinner was an American psychologist best-known for his influence on behaviorism. All human action, he instead believed, was the direct result of conditioning.
A Skinner Box is a often small chamber that is used to conduct operant conditioning research with animals. Within the chamber, there is usually a lever for rats or a key for pigeons that an individual animal can operate to obtain a food or water within the chamber as a reinforcer.
Gaming has changed. Psychologist B. Watson offered her a dollar to allow her son to be the subject of his experiments in classical conditioning. Through these experiments, Little Albert was exposed to and conditioned to fear certain things. Initially he was presented with various neutral stimuli, including a rabbit, a dog, a monkey, masks, cotton wool, and a white rat.
He was not afraid of any of these things. Then Watson, with the help of Rayner, conditioned Little Albert to associate these stimuli with an emotion—fear. Little Albert was frightened by the sound—demonstrating a reflexive fear of sudden loud noises—and began to cry. Watson repeatedly paired the loud sound with the white rat. Soon Little Albert became frightened by the white rat alone.
Days later, Little Albert demonstrated stimulus generalization—he became afraid of other furry things: a rabbit, a furry coat, and even a Santa Claus mask [link]. Watson had succeeded in conditioning a fear response in Little Albert, thus demonstrating that emotions could become conditioned responses. However, there is no evidence that Little Albert experienced phobias in later years.
Based on what you see, would you come to the same conclusions as the researchers? Advertising executives are pros at applying the principles of associative learning. Think about the car commercials you have seen on television. Many of them feature an attractive model. By associating the model with the car being advertised, you come to see the car as being desirable Cialdini, You may be asking yourself, does this advertising technique actually work? According to Cialdini , men who viewed a car commercial that included an attractive model later rated the car as being faster, more appealing, and better designed than did men who viewed an advertisement for the same car minus the model.
Have you ever noticed how quickly advertisers cancel contracts with a famous athlete following a scandal? As far as the advertiser is concerned, that athlete is no longer associated with positive feelings; therefore, the athlete cannot be used as an unconditioned stimulus to condition the public to associate positive feelings the unconditioned response with their product the conditioned stimulus. Now that you are aware of how associative learning works, see if you can find examples of these types of advertisements on television, in magazines, or on the Internet.
His experiments explored the type of associative learning we now call classical conditioning. In classical conditioning, organisms learn to associate events that repeatedly happen together, and researchers study how a reflexive response to a stimulus can be mapped to a different stimulus—by training an association between the two stimuli.
He tested humans by conditioning fear in an infant known as Little Albert. His findings suggest that classical conditioning can explain how some fears develop. Explain how the processes of stimulus generalization and stimulus discrimination are considered opposites. Can you think of an example in your life of how classical conditioning has produced a positive emotional response, such as happiness or excitement?
How about a negative emotional response, such as fear, anxiety, or anger? In stimulus generalization, an organism responds to new stimuli that are similar to the original conditioned stimulus. For example, a dog barks when the doorbell rings. He then barks when the oven timer dings because it sounds very similar to the doorbell. On the other hand, stimulus discrimination occurs when an organism learns a response to a specific stimulus, but does not respond the same way to new stimuli that are similar.
In this case, the dog would bark when he hears the doorbell, but he would not bark when he hears the oven timer ding because they sound different; the dog is able to distinguish between the two sounds. This occurs through the process of acquisition. A human or an animal learns to connect a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus. During the acquisition phase, the neutral stimulus begins to elicit the conditioned response.
The neutral stimulus is becoming the conditioned stimulus. At the end of the acquisition phase, learning has occurred and the neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus capable of eliciting the conditioned response by itself.
Skip to main content. Chapter 5 — Learning. The story does not have a happy ending, however. Douglas died at the age of six on May 10, , of hydrocephalus a build-up of fluid in his brain , which he had suffered from since birth. In , Beck and Alan J. Fridlund reported that Douglas was not the healthy, normal child Watson described in his experiment.
These findings not only cast a shadow over Watson's legacy, but they also deepened the ethical and moral issues of this well-known experiment. In , doubt was cast over Beck and Fridlund's findings when researchers presented evidence that a boy by the name of William Barger was the real Little Albert. While his first name was William, he was known his entire life by his middle name, Albert.
While experts continue to debate the true identity of the boy at the center of Watson's experiment, there is little doubt that Little Albert left a lasting impression on the field of psychology. Ever wonder what your personality type means?
Sign up to find out more in our Healthy Mind newsletter. Finding Little Albert: a journey to John B. Watson's infant laboratory. Am Psychol. Van Meurs B. Behav Res Ther. Little Albert: A neurologically impaired child. Hist Psychol. Powell RA. Your Privacy Rights. To change or withdraw your consent choices for VerywellMind.
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