Watson and Rayner

Question 1

Methodology

Answer 1

One participant.
Male infant.
9 months.
Not a case study.
The focus was only on Little Albert’s response to conditioning.
(A case study would’ve involved a more in-depth analysis of the individual and aspects of his life.)
Not an experiment.
There’s only one condition.
It’s instead an investigation to determine the effects of certain stimuli.
Watson classed it as an experiment, but it lacks the control we associate with experiments today.
The study could be considered as a controlled observation.
It was filmed on a motion picture camera.

Question 2

Location of observations

Answer 2

In a well-lit dark room where Albert was placed on a mattress on top of a table.
The other environment was a table in the middle of a larger well-lit lecture theatre.

Question 3

Emotional tests findings

Answer 3

Albert showed no fear response to the objects before conditioning.
Hospital attendants and Albert’s mother reported they had never seen him in a state of fear or rage.
He also rarely cried.
The first time the bar was struck behind his head the researchers recorded his response.

Question 3

Emotional tests

Answer 3

Albert was confronted with:
A white rat.
A rabbit.
A dog.
A monkey.
Masks with and without hair.
Cotton wool.
Burning newspapers.
Albert was then tested with a loud sound.
This sound was made by striking a hammer upon a suspended steel bar.
The bar was just over one metre in length and 2cm in diameter.
One experimenter got Albert’s attention while the other used the hammer to strike the bar behind Albert’s head.

Question 4

Session 1 - name

Answer 4

Establishing a conditioned emotional response.

Question 5

Session 1 - age of Albert

Answer 5

11 months and 3 days

Question 6

Session 1

Answer 6

They brought Albert to the “lab” again.
A white rat was presented to him.
Albert then started to reach for it.
At that moment, the bar was struck just behind his head.

Question 7

Session 1 - findings

Answer 7

When the bar was struck, he jumped and fell forward, burying his head on the table where he sat, but didn’t cry.
When the bar was struck a second time he fell forward again, this time whimpering a little.

Question 8

Session 2 - name

Answer 8

Testing the conditioned emotional response.

Question 9

Session 2 - age

Answer 9

11 months and 10 days.

Question 10

Session 2

Answer 10

Albert was shown the rat with no sound.
This was to see if the previous experience affected his behaviour with the rat.
Albert was then exposed 5 times to the “joint stimulation”.
(He was shown the rat, and the loud noise was made behind his head at the same time)

Question 11

Session 2 - findings

Answer 11

Albert didn’t reach for the rat, he just stared at it. When the rat was placed nearer, he reached out carefully towards it but withdrew his hand when the rat started to nuzzle his hand.
Albert’s cautious behaviour was tested by giving him blocks to play with.
He did this happily.
This shows his cautious response was just to the rat.
It also shows that his general emotional response was normal.

Question 12

Session 3 - name

Answer 12

Generalisation

Question 13

Session 3 - age

Answer 13

11 months and 15 days.

Question 14

Session 3 - research question

Answer 14

Whether the learned link between rat and noise would be generalised to other objects.

Question 15

Session 3

Answer 15

Albert was presented with: The rat.
Wooden blocks.
A rabbit.
A dog.
A seal fur coat.
Cotton wool.
John Watson’s hair.

Question 16

Session 3 - findings

Answer 16

Albert played happily with the blocks.
When he was shown the rat, he immediately response with fear, indicating that he retained his conditioned emotional response to the rat.
His response to the rabbit was as extreme as to the rat.
He burst into tears and crawled away.
Neither the dog nor fur coat produced as violent a reaction as the rabbit.
The cotton wool was in a paper package which Albert played with.
He didn’t touch the cotton wool at first but later being less cautious.
Albert played with Watson’s hair, showing no fear response.

Question 17

Session 4 - name

Answer 17

Changing the environment

Question 18

Session 4 - age

Answer 18

11 months and 20 days

Question 19

Session 4

Answer 19

Albert’s conditioned emotional response was “freshened-up” using some “joint stimulation”.
He was taken to a new environment.
It was a large well-lit lecture theatre room with 4 people present.
He was placed on a table in the centre of the room.

Question 20

Session 4 - findings

Answer 20

Albert response to the rat, rabbit and dog were less extreme since being taken to the new environment.
After further “freshening-up” the conditioned fear response was stronger.
Even when the fear response was weak it was noticeably different from his reaction to the building blocks.
He always played with them happily and never whimpered.
This shows a distinct learned response persisted towards the fury objects.

Question 21

Session 5 - name

Answer 21

The effect of time

Question 22

Session 5 - age

Answer 22

12 months and 21 days

Question 23

Session 5

Answer 23

Albert was tested for one last time.
He had been to the lab in the interim, but no emotional tests had been conducted.
Albert was presented with: A Santa Claus mask.
A fur coat.
The rat.
The rabbit.
The dog.
The blocks.

Question 24

Session 5 - findings

Answer 24

Albert responded to the test objects in a clearly different way than to the control objects.
(The blocks)
His reaction to the furry objects wasn’t as extreme as previously but he clearly avoided and whimpered. On occasions he cried.

Question 25

Conclusions

Answer 25

This study demonstrated that a fear response can be created.
Two “joint stimulations” in the first week were sufficient to create the conditioned emotional response.
Just seven “joint stimulations” were given to bring about the complete reaction.
This study also demonstrated that such conditioned responses generalise to similar stimuli.
Albert maintained a fearful response to many different furry objects over the time he was studied.
Watson and Rayner suggested that “it’s probable” that many phobias are acquired in this way.
However, they suspected that the persistence pf early conditioned responses would only be found in people who are “constitutionally inferior”.

Question 26

Controlled study

Answer 26

The study of Albert was carefully devised and run under controlled conditions.
The study was conducted in a “lab” of sorts (the dark room) where extraneous variables could be controlled.
All of these controls enable us to conclude that the observed effects were due to the conditioning rather than other sources.

Question 27

Other controls in place

Answer 27

There was a baseline condition where his pre-manipulation behaviour was established to show that he wasn’t a fearful child.
During the trials there was a control condition (the building blocks) which showed that Albert’s fearful responses were exclusively to furry objects.
Films were used to record Albert’s behaviour so that the findings can be confirmed by others.

Question 28

Sample

Answer 28

It was the researchers’ intention to eventually study more than one participant.
However, their dismissal from the University meant they couldn’t do this.
Therefore, any conclusions must be drawn from this one case.
Watson and Rayner describe Albert as “an extremely phlegmatic type”.
(Calm and even-tempered)
They suggest that, had he been emotionally unstable, he might’ve responded with even greater fear and the conditioned response might’ve persisted even longer.
Without any comparisons it’s difficult to know whether the observed responses are unique to this individual or not.

Question 29

The Freudian position

Answer 29

In the 1920s, Freudian explanations were favoured in psychology and Watson and Rayner addressed these.
They noted that Albert often started sucking his thumb when scared.
(This was possibly a form of sexual stimulation)
Watson and Rayner therefore suggested that Freud may’ve been wrong in presuming that such stimulation is pleasure seeking.
Instead, it may be a form of compensation to block fear.
Watson and Rayner describe a scene in the future where Albert, now in his 20s, might seek help from a Freudian therapist for a phobia of furry objects.
Such a therapist will analyse Albert’s fear of a seal skin coat and might propose that Albert had tried to play with the pubic hair of his mother and was scolded violently for it.
This scolding would cause Albert to push the memory into his unconscious mind, where it would continue to exert an effect – leading to a phobia of furry objects.
Watson and Rayner suppose that a fear could actually be conditioned by the experience with a mother’s pubic hair rather than the mistaken Freudian interpretation of what happened.

Question 30

Creating fear

Answer 30

Watson and Rayner were unsure whether they had created excessive fear in Albert.
Early in their article they say:
“We felt that we could do him relatively little harm in the studies.
”Later they say:
“In order not to disturb the child too seriously no further tests were given for one week.”
Psychologists determine what’s ethical or not by considering whether a research participant is experiencing distress greater than they would in everyday life.
Watson and Rayner comforted themselves by saying:
“Such attachments would arise anyway as soon as the child left the sheltered environment of the nursery for the rough and tumble of the home.”
They felt what Albert experienced in their study was fairly normal – but life in the hospital protected him.

Question 31

Psychological harm

Answer 31

In addition to the risk of harm caused by creating fear in a young child, Watson and Rayner made the experience worse.
They noted that one of Albert’s responses, when frightened, was to start sucking his thumb.
This had the effect of calming Albert down – but it also meant that it reduced the effect of the loud noise on conditioning Albert.
Therefore, in order to observe the full effects of the fearful stimuli, they had to remove his thumb from his mouth so the conditioned response could be obtained.
(They wanted to make sure he really was scared)

Question 32

Lasting effects

Answer 32

Watson and Rayner did intend to remove Albert’s learned conditioned responses.
However, Albert was suddenly removed from the hospital so this couldn’t be done.
Watson and Rayner believed that the responses they created would be likely to persist indefinitely in the home environment, unless an accidental method for removing them was hit upon.
(They knew he would continue to fear furry objects)
They should’ve anticipated this issue at the beginning of the study and ensured that procedures were put in place to prevent the situation happening.
The child’s mother should’ve been fully informed of the procedures and the anticipated long-term consequences.

Question 33

Two-process theory

Answer 33

One of the criticisms of classical conditioning as an explanation for phobias is that it can’t explain how they persist.
Watson and Rayner talk about “freshening-up” Albert’s conditioned response after a week.
(When Albert didn’t experience the rat and loud noise together the conditioned response lessened)
If classical conditioning had been involved it must disappear over time.

Question 34

O.H. Mowrer (1947)

Answer 34

Explained why the conditioned response doesn’t disappear.
In his two-process model the first stage is classical conditioning and the second stage operant conditioning occurs. Classical conditioning explains how phobias are acquired, and operant conditioning explains how they’re maintained.
Once a fear is learned an individual will avoid the situation producing the fear.
The avoidance of the phobic stimulus reduces fear is therefore reinforcing.
This is an example of negative reinforcement. The fact that no anxiety is experienced from this avoidance behaviour is positively reinforcing.
This reinforcement maintains the avoidance response.

Question 35

Ost (1987)

Answer 35

Not all phobias are preceded by a conditioning episode – though it’s possible that such traumatic incidents did happen but have since been forgotten.

Question 36

Di Nardo et al (1988)

Answer 36

Some people who have experienced a traumatic incident don’t develop a phobia.

Question 37

Seligman (1970)

Answer 37

One alternative explanation is biological preparedness.
Seligman argued that animals, including humans, are genetically programmed to rapidly learn an association between certain stimuli and fear.
These stimuli are referred to as ancient fears.
(Things that would’ve been dangerous in our evolutionary past)
It’s adaptive to rapidly learn to avoid such stimuli.