Watson and Rayner (1920): Little Albert (classic study)

Aim

To find out if Classical Conditioning works on humans

Sample

One baby boy, Albert B, aged 9 months at the start of the study and 11 months when the conditioning began.

procedure

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alberts was tested with a white rat and other stimuli to see if he had a fever reaction, neutral stimulus (NS)

albert cried at the sound of an iron bar being banged, he cried showing an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) and the crying was an unconditioned response (UCR).

Albert was then shown the white rat along with the iron bar noise, which caused him to cry. Albert was then presented with the rat alone, he cried, suggesting that the NS is now a conditioned response (CS) and alberts crying is a conditioned response (CR). then they tested him with other similar objects and he also cried to those.

results

after the first trial Albert showed distress

after the second trial he seemed suspicious of the rat

after the third trial Albert cried at the rat

conclusion

that its possible to produce a fear response in a human using the process of classical conditioning

findings

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Session 4&5: Albert still had fears towards the white fluffy object ts, BUT became less extreme when he was in a different environment and after time

Session 2: more cautious towards the rat, NOT reaching out and pulling away when the rat buzzed him. After further conditioning he began to cry and crtied to rapidly crawl away

Session 1: he reacted more to the nose and CRIED

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At baseline testing, Albert displayed NO FEAR of any objects, not in response to the loud noise- he's was scared and his lips trembled (UNCONDITIONED RESPONSE)

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Session 3: Albert reacted to the white furry objects (rate + rabbit) with fear- he cried (CONDITIONED RESPONSE)

He displayed MILD fears towards the dog & none to the other objects