Watson and Rayner - Little Albert - Classic Study Flashcards
what type of conditioning did they use on little albert?
classical conditioning
behaviourism
the idea that all behaviour is learned
aims
to demonstrate that classical conditioning could be used to create a fear response in a child to an innocuous stimulus
that human behaviour could be accounted for by the process of classical conditioning
innocuous stimulus
a stimulus which we would not normally expect to frighten someone
what were the 3 main research questions?
to find out if a fear response can be conditioned into a 9 month old baby
to see if the fear response will be generalised to other animals and objects
how long the conditioning lasts
what type of experimental design was used
repeated measures
how old was albert when the experiment started
9 months
where had albert lived for most of his life?
a hospital
what was albert assessed on before conditioning
his responses to a number of objects
e.g. rabbit, burning newspaper, monkey, white rat
he never showed fear in any of the situations
how did the conditioning occur?
when albert was shown the rat again and as he reached for it a loud noise was created by a steel bar being struck
when this was done for a second time, albert started to cry (fear response induced)
what was his fear response like 2 weeks after conditioning?
it was weakening
how many times was the procedure repeated
7 times in total
5 times a week later
2 times more 17 days later
was alberts fear generalised?
tested using different stimuli
e.g. rabbits,, fur coat, santa mask
Albert was scared of these items
what other item was albert given to play with
wooden blocks
why was albert given wooden blocks to play with
to see whether the fear had been transferred to the room
to ensure that it was the rat that had elicited the fear response
Conclusions
it is possible to artificially induce emotional responses by classical conditioning
generalisation
low in generalisation
young child - findings cannot be generalised to an adult
Albert had been reared in a hospital since birth - unnatural setting which the majority of the population aren’t raised in
he had never been seen to show fear or rage - unusual for a child - he may have responded differently to the experiment
reliability
high in reliability
standardised procedure - high control over extraneous variables - allows replicability
experiment has never been replicated so it is unsure if results are reliable
test - retest reliability
albert was tested after some time to see if the results were the same
application to real life
we can understand how phobias development - this can be incorporated into the treatment of phobias through SD
SD created after finding sound C.C.can cause phobias
ecological validity
low ecological validity
results cannot be generalised to other settings that aren’t a laboratory
the laboratory is an unnatural situation which does not reflect everyday life
internal validity
strict control variables - albert had no prior learning due to his age that could have influenced his fear response
how was careful measurement of the DV conducted - internal validity
video footage and verification sought to accurately identify the fear responses in albert
ethical issues
albert was conditioned to be scared of numerous white furry stimuli
there is no evidence that they tried not to upset the infant too much during the study
this goes against modern day guidelines of protection from harm during psychological research
Cosh’s (2012) research paper
suggests albnert has hydrocephalus from birth
questions the credibility of the research
impacts generalisability
hydrocephalus
too much fluid in the brain
speech problems, learning difficulties, short attention span
