Little Albert

Question 1

What was the aim?

Answer 1

1. To investigate whether the fear of white rats can be conditioned into a child
2. Can the fear be generalised to similar objects
3. To see the effects of time on the conditioned stimulus

Question 2

What was the sample?

Answer 2

11 month old male child, stoic from USA.

Question 3

What was the method?

Answer 3

1. At 9 months old little albert was presented with a range of stimuli and only showed fear to the loud bang (UCS).
2. The white rat showed no response (NS).
3. At 11 months when little Albert engaged with the white rat , the metal bar was hit and caused him to show fear, this happened 7 times.
4. After 17 days, they made him interact with a range of stimuli including dogs and rabbits.

Question 4

What were the results?

Answer 4

Watson and Rayner did condition a fear of white rats into Little Albert by classical conditioning.

Question 5

What was the conclusion?

Answer 5

Fears can be generalised to other stimuli which are similar.

Question 6

How is it generalisable ?

Answer 6

One weakness is the sample contained 1, 11 month old stoic male from the USA. This is a weakness because it means we can not generalise the results to older people and females.

Question 7

How is it reliable?

Answer 7

One strength is that it was a standardised procedure because of the neutral stimulus of the white rat, hitting the metal bar.This is a strength because it can easily be repeated which increases the reliability of the findings

However, all children have different neutral stimulus/ unconditioned stimulus so it would be difficult to replicate the exact procedure which reduces the reliability .

Question 8

How is it valid?

Answer 8

One strength is there was a low chance of demand characteristics because the reaction if an 11 month old baby would have been genuine. This is a strength because it means the aim of the study was not worked out which increases the validity of the findings.

However it took place in a lab which means it lacks ecological validity, this means the findings about phobias cannot be applied to real life situations.

Question 9

How is it applicable?

Answer 9

Little Albert helps us to understand phobias are learned so we can use ‘flooding’ to unlearn the phobia

Question 10

How is it Ethical?

Answer 10

• Little Alberts mum gave informed consent
  However the boy has been given a phobia which means there is no protection from harm.