Watson and Rayner - Conditioning of Little Albert.
- Created by: morganrpalm
- Created on: 07-05-17 11:30
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- Watson and Rayner
- Process
- Emotional tests were conducted before hand to test the stability of Little Albert, this was done by presenting Albert with rats, dogs, coats etc
- Stages 1 & 2
- Watson and Rayner established the conditioned fear by striking the bar behind the child head multiple times while he was presented with the stimuli
- Stages 3 & 4
- Watson and Rayner wanted to test the extent of the conditioned fear. They firstly present Albert with different stimuli eg, cotton wool, dogs, fur coat
- They then took Albert to a different environment to test if the fear was still as strong. They took him to a large, dark room .
- Stage 5
- Watson and Rayner brought Albert back after some time to see if the conditioned fear had stood the test of time.
- Findings
- In the Emotional tests Albert was found to have no fears and was a ROBUST child
- Stages 1 & 2
- Albert whimpered and fell forward the first time. The second session left Albert crying and he even tried to crawl away.
- Stages 3 & 4
- Albert was given blocks to calm him down. He cried to most of the stimuli but his reaction wasn't as bad towards cotton wool.
- While in a different eniroment the fear wasn't as bad but it was evident that it was still there
- Stage 5
- When Albert returned it was found that while the fear was no longer as extreme, Albert was still scared of the rat
- Conclusions
- Time will only slightly weaken a conditioned fear
- Fear can infact be conditioned in humans
- Fear can be generalised to similar stimuli
- Evaluation
- Effectiveness?
- Can not be generalised due to such a small sample, only particular to those who share Albert's features.
- High potential for reliability due to standardised process
- Was not under realistic circumstances so may not apply to real life situations
- Ethics?
- Any ethics that were used were just consideration as this was before bps guidelines
- Long term psychological harm caused
- Did Provide Albert with blocks to stabalise him
- No consent from Albert himself as he is under 18
- No right to withdrawal, tried to crawl away but was placed back into situation
- No debrief
- Social implications?
- Lead to systematic desensitization and curing of phobias
- Effectiveness?
- Process
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