Watson and Rayner Flashcards
What was the aim of the study?
- Aimed to demonstrate that classical conditioning could be use to create a fear response in a child to an innocuous stimulus.
- To find out if a fear response can be conditioned into a 9 month old baby boy
- To see if the fear response will be generalised to other animals and objects.
- How long the conditioning lasts.
What was the experiment design?
- a lab experiment
- repeated measures design
What was the sample like?
- a male infant aged nine months at the study
- opportunity sample
What can we say about the participant?
- He was judged to be particularly emotionally stable, he seemed healthy and quite fearless
- He had been reared in a hospital environment because his mother was nurse in a children’s home.
- Albert’s mother was a wet nurse at the hospital and was made one dollar for participating.
- He was aged 9 months at the start of the study and 11 months at the end of the study.
What happened before the conditioning?
At 9 months, Albert was assessed on his responses to a number of objects including a rabbit, cotton wool, white rat etc
- permanent record of Albert’s reactions to these objects and situations has been preserved in a motion picture study
- he showed no fear
- in fact he wanted to play with the rat
- the rat was a neutral stimulus because it did not produce a fear response
- researchers checked the fear response by banging a an iron rod against his head, they repeated this three times to ensure it was a fear response
Albert cried at a loud noise - this shows the noise was a UCS and the crying was an UCR/
What happened during conditoning?
- Two months later, Albert was 11 months old
- He was presented with a white rat, when we went to reach for it, the researchers struck a four foot metal bar just behind his ear, making a loud noise and frightening Albert.
- The procedure was repeated five times in one week, twice more 17 days later.
- One week after the pairing, Albert was presented with the rat without noise
- He was given wooden blocks to play with after to see if it was the rate or general upset
- in the remainder of the tests, the blocks were frequently to quiet him and to test his general emotional state
- they always removed from sight when the process of conditioning was under way.
- Two weeks later they found that the fear response was weakening, so they renewed it, by repeating the process, but not using as many trials.
What were the results? - PAIRING OF THE RAT AND BANG
- PAIRING OF THE RAT AND BANG - By the 7th pairing Albert cried as soon as the rat was presented, showing some rather fearful distress, jumping violently and sticking his face into the mattress.
What were the results? - RAT ALONE
- RAT ALONE - Rat presented alone, Albert whimpered and leaned away. The rat was paired with the noise again 2 more times. By now, Albert cried and immediately and turned away away to crawl away from the rat.
What were the results? - RABBIT - BEFORE THE AGE OF ONE
Leaned away, bursts into tears
What were the results? - DOG - BEFORE THE AGE OF ONE
- Better reaction than to rabbit, tried to crawl away, only cried as fog approached his head
What were the results? - FUR COAT - BEFORE THE AGE OF ONE
- Got upset as coat brought closer got more upset
What were the results? - SANTA MASK - BEFORE THE AGE OF ONE
- Cried and leaned away, flapping his hands
What was the conclusion?
- There was not much chance to correct little Albert’s phobia
- Conditioned responses tend to decline with time - extinction
- Later stages, Albert started taking a interest in the rabbit
Did Watson and Rayner uses classical conditioning to remove the conditioned responses?
- no, because Albert’s mother moved away and took Albert with her so the experiment ended
