Waston More Detail Flashcards
Aims
To determine whether fear responds to a rat, could be classically conditioned by pairing a rat with a loud noise
To determine whether a conditioned fear would transferred to a condition stimulus that is similar
To determine the effect of time on a learned fear
To investigate how fears can be removed
Sample
He was a nine month infant referred to as little Albert. He was healthy and calm and lived at the Children’s Hospital, where his mother worked as a nurse.
What was the method ?
It was a three month long. It didn’t study in a controlled condition, which is a lab. The behavior was filmed and qualitative data was gathered in a diary.
What was the neutral stimulus?
White rat, rabbit, dog monkey, masks with and without hair, cotton one and burning newspaper
What was the unconditioned stimulus?
Loud noise which was made by hitting a steel bar with a hammer
Prior to the conditioning what happened?
He was shown in the nutrient stimulus. His reaction was normal until the stimulus was introduced. He then was started his lips trembled and cried
At 11 months three days
He was showing the wrath and as he reached towards the steel bar was hit with the hammer he flinched, hit his face and gave a distressed whimper
At 11 months 10 days
Albert was curious of, but not scared of the rat. He played happily with the blocks. The researchers repeated the pairing of the rat and the loud noise five times.
After the third pairing
Albert whimpered at the sight of the rat after the second pairing he rapidly crawled away when he saw the rat
Why was the boy given building block?
Albert was given the building blocks after each child to tighten him down
At 11 months 15 days
Albert was shown the rat, a rabbit, a dog, a fur coat, cotton worm and a white hair on Santa Claus mask and fear was shown towards all three animals the dog triggered less fear than the rabbit
He then continue playing with the blocks, but it was so distressed by the white fluffy items, including Watson’s own hair, which was white
At 11 months 20 days
Albert seemed less scared when the rat but fear quickly following the loud noise when tested in a different room he stay short with fear, but was less intense
At 12 months 21 days
Albert was still few fell of the white fluffy stimulus. His mother was due consent and the researchers did not attempt to reverse the fear.
Conclusion
Concluded it is possible to learn fear to a previously neutral stimulus. They suggested that many phobias are conditioned. Emotional reactions learned in childhood.
Are there by direct association or through transfer of a similar stimulus?
Two strength
One strength is that the city was long. It would an ad was able to observe multiple occasions within a three month period. Collecting data at multiple times the researchers were able to observe the way his fear increased and decreased overtime. This is important as they had only observed this twice before and after conditioning, they might have missed important findings about learned fear
A further strength is that the collection of quality of data is in-depth and important. The researchers made detailed obligations of his behavior, describing exactly what he did how and when with notes about the modernly improvement and facial expressions which were taken from the video recording.
Weaknesses
The study was in a laboratory, setting or ad were observed in the environment, which have become a familiar to him over the three months as a child’s fury. Actions are likely to be greater in a unfamiliar environment with people they do not know compared to how they would respond in a familiar environment, they suggest that the findings may act ecological validity, although they did change the room and obtained a similar reaction.
Another weakness is that it was only conducted on one individual child although Watson and Reiner said that at this time the charge was genuinely unemotional as as possible that he developed a fear more readily than any other child might have done for example, Alexandra and Wallace provide a detailed review of success differences in the first year suggesting that female infants may have behaved differently in the study. This is important as it means that the finding should’ve been generalizable to only men and cannot be generalizable to different ages and genders.
