4.3.1 Watson and Rayner little albert

Question 1

What was the aim of the study

Answer 1

John Watson and Rosalie Rayner wanted to see if they could condition a phobic response to a white rat in an infant. They wanted to see if a child could learn to be afraid of a previously neutral stimulus.

Question 2

What was the procedure of the little albert study

Answer 2

Using a single case experiment, Watson and Rayner selected one child. The infant was chosen for unemotional character. They initially tested the baby with several animals:a dog, a mask, white rat, a rabbit and a cotton wool.
Albert did not respond to any of the stimuli apart from when a hammer struck a pole to create a loud sound. They then showed the white rat at the same time as the sound was created, this meant Albert associated the horrible sound that scared him with the white rat, thus he began to fear the white rat. They repeated the sound with the appearance of the white rat many times to imprint the fear into the baby’s mind.

Question 3

What was the results of little albert study

Answer 3

The study confirmed that a phobia of an object that was not previously feared could be learned. The baby cried and whimpered when the rat was shown. This suggests that NS is now a conditioned stimulus and Alberts crying is a conditioned response.

Question 4

What was the conclusion of the watson and rayner study

Answer 4

Watson & Rayner concluded that they had successfully conditioned Albert to fear the white rat and that his fear response generalised to other white, furry things (with a stronger response the more closely they resembled the rat) and transferred to other situations.

Question 5

Evaluate the study

Answer 5

GENERALISABILITY - Bad as it was done on one young child

RELIABILITY - good due to standardised procedure and filming of it so reduce bias

APPLICATION - Great as it has helped in treating phobias e.g.flooding and systematic desentisisation