Classic Study Flashcards
What is the classic study in learning psychology
Watson and Rayner (1920)
Watson and Rayner (1920) aim
To see if classical conditions principles could work on humans
Specifically to see if fear could be conditioned in an 11 months old baby
And if it could be deconditioned (never got here though)
Why was it a useful aim to consider w&r (1920)
Furthers our understanding of how we acquire behaviours such as fears and potentially identify a basis of how we can remove undesirable fears for treatments
However,
Never got to the decondition bit
Who was w&r (1920) pp and why was he chosen
At the start a 9 month old baby called Little Albert, when testing began he was 11 months old
Volunteered by his mum
Chosen as he rarely elicited the fear response
What did they identify as a neutral stimulus
White rat
What did they identify as a UCS that caused a UCR of fear
Loud bang behind his head
What was the procedure
Process of association and the conditioning process
Next three times Albert shown white rat, when he reached out to it loud bang
Then a week later the same process was repeated
Then he was shown the white rat without a bang
What were w&r (1920) findings
After association Albert was afraid of white rat
Stimulus generalisation - fear of stuff other than original conditioned stimulus - such as white cotton and santa mask
What do w&r (1920) findings suggest
That humans can acquire behaviours such as fear via classical conditioning
Generalisability of w&r (1920)
Low,
Only 1 pp
Must repeat on a larger scale to improve generalisability
Reliability of w&r (1920)
Standardised procedure
Set events set order
Easily repeatable
Highly reliable
Applicability of w&r (1920)
High,
Lead to the development of treatments based on classical conditioning principles to help those with irrational behaviours
Validity of w&r (1920)
Low,
Wasn’t in natural environment of play area/hospital may not have been natural behaviour
High, we can assume as a child, Albert was not showing demand characteristics though and so it’s likely the results had at least a degree of validity
Ethics of w&r (1920)
Clearly wrong
Even though ethical guidelines weren’t developed completely then
Wrong on a moral level, had they been able to decondition Albert (Mum pulled him out of the study) would’ve sexually stimulated him
