10 Watson

Question 1

Little Emotional Albert Year

Answer 1

1920

Question 2

Little Emotional Albert Author

Answer 2

Watson

Question 3

Little Emotional Albert Background/Theory (4 things)

Answer 3

(1) In the 1920s, behaviorism began to take hold.
(2) The behaviorists opposed to the psychoanalytic school and proposed that behavior is generated through environmental or situational stimuli.
(3) Watson theorized we learn our emotional reactions by being conditioned to respond emotionally to certain stimuli.
(4) Watson thought that if a stimulus automatically produces a certain emotion in you (such as fear) and that stimulus is repeatedly experienced at the same moment as something else, such as a rat, the rat will become associated in your brain with the fear.

Question 4

Little Emotional Albert Method/Results (6 things)

Answer 4

(1) Watson experimented on an orphaned baby named Albert.
(2) He exposed him to neutral stimuli such as white rabbits, white rats, white cotton, and Santa masks, and the baby did not display fear of the neutral stimuli.
(3) Albert was exposed to a loud noise (unconditioned stimulus) and he became displayed fear.
(4) They then reproduced the loud noise whenever they gave Albert the rat.
(5) Albert started to display fear when exposed to the rat.
(6) They found that he also displayed fear when given the cotton, the rabbits, and any other white fluffy thing.

Question 5

Little Emotional Albert Significance (3 things)

Answer 5

(1) This study succeeded to a large extent in convincing many in the psychological community that emotional behavior could be conditioned through simple stimulus response techniques.
(2) This finding helped, in turn, to launch one of the major schools of thought in psychology: behaviorism.
(3) Their main point was that they had demonstrated with Little Albert that emotional disturbances in adults cannot always be attributed to sexual traumas in childhood, as the Freudian view maintained.

Question 6

Little Emotional Albert Legacy (3 things)

Answer 6

(1) Criticism: This study clearly violated current standards of ethical conduct in research involving humans.
(2) Criticism: Several researchers have criticized Watson’s assumption that these conditioned fears would persist indefinitely.
(3) Research: A recent study of 1700 twins provides compelling evidence that the development of phobias may include a substantial genetic component, so not all fear reactions are conditioned.