The Little Albert experiment was a case study showing empirical evidence of classical conditioning in humans. The study also provides an example of stimulus generalization. It was carried out by John B. Watson and his graduate student, Rosalie Rayner, at Johns Hopkins University. The results were first published in the February 1920 issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology. After observing children in the field, Watson hypothesized that the fearful response of children to loud noises is an innate unconditioned response. He wanted to test the notion that by following the principles of the procedure now known as "classical conditioning", he could use this unconditioned response to condition a child to fear a distinctive stimulus that normally would not be feared by a child (in this case, furry objects). Method Edit The aim of Watson and Rayner was to condition a phobia in an emotionally stable child.[1] For this study they chose a nine-month old infant from a hospital referred to as "Albert" for the experiment.[2] Watson followed the procedures which Pavlov had used in his experiments with dogs.[3] Before the experiment, Albert was given a battery of baseline emotional tests: the infant was exposed, briefly and for the first time, to a white rat, a rabbit, a dog, a monkey, masks (with and without hair), cotton, wool, burning newspapers, and other stimuli. Albert showed no fear of any of these items during the baseline tests. For the experiment proper, Albert was
Part A: The professor was driving to work one day, and another driver ran a red light, then hitting him. After this incident, whether the situation was harmless or not does not matter; as we saw with Watson's study, with little Albert and the white rat/rabbit. (Reference: Watson exposed a child to a series of stimuli with a white rat and a rabbit, then observing the child's reactions. The child initially showed no fear response on either animal. The next time Albert was exposed to the white rat, Watson made a loud noise by hitting a metal pipe with a hammer.
There were two groups in this experiment, the teachers and students. All of the volunteers to the experiments were the teachers and they had some actors play the students. The idea was to punish the students for their wrong answer through a shock treatment (http://nature.berkeley.edu/ucce50/ag-labor/7article/article35.htm 1). Throughout the experiment, they began to realize that the “test subjects”
Inhumane and Strange Obedience, something you should wish for from your dog but not another human being. The shock generator experiment is almost Nazi like. It was not administered properly and most would say dangerous and inhumane. We, people on earth, have been given orders for as long as we can remember, but is it fear that makes us obedient? Mental health and psychical evaluations are needed in an experiment like this for the safety of the subjects and learners involved.
He saw that the more personal, or close, the real participant had to be to the fake one, while they were being shocked, affected the obedience as well. He also noticed that if there were two other fake participants teaching that refused to shock their learners that the real participant would not comply. Finally, he tested the experimenter telling the real patient to shock the learner by telephone, instead of actually being there in person, reduced obedience as well (McLead). The Milgram experiment and the Nuremburg trials can relate extensively to explain how the Holocaust happened the way it did.
For this paper, I chose to write about the Little Albert experiment The overall importance of this study was to discover if a human could be conditioned to develop a bias, fear, or generalized fear of an animal, object, or person based the stimuli placed around the involved person, animal or object. Watson & Rayner (1920) suggested that “in infancy the original emotional reaction patterns are few, consisting so far as observed of fear, rage and love, then there must be some simple method by means of which the range of stimuli which can call out these emotions and their compounds is greatly increased.” This means that before any conditioning occurs, the subject should have a pure response, but after minor and simple experimentation and conditioning,
Stanley Milgram’s Obedience Experiment Sounds of painful scream echoed in the room. People trembled without knowing what to do. The authority just sat there reiterating with his low voice to continue. Ultimately, the cries quiet down and eventually disappeared. In the end, someone was killed.
Another contemporary experiment conducted in 2009 by Jerry Burger, replicated the method of Milgram’s experiment, but instead adjusting the ethical issues that were identified in Milgram’s study. The ways in which Burger’s (2009) study ensured principles like nonmaleficence were not violated included utilising a screening process to exclude participants with any negative mental issues, emphasising multiple times that they could withdraw at any time and still receive remuneration and using a lower set of voltage shocks up to 150V unlike Milgram’s which shocked up to 450 volts (Milgram, 1963). To aid the participants psychological wellbeing, when the experiment had concluded the participant was informed that the person was not actually shocked
Nevertheless, Skinner points out that children learn nothing from the punishment. Instead, they may start to work out how to avoid it (Nolan & Raban, 2015). Another concept is classical conditioning (classical behaviorism) that emphasizes on the relation between stimuli and response. This concept embodies in a famous experiment, in which the food is presented to the dog when the bell rings, and the bell becomes a conditioned stimulus for the dog (Nolan & Raban, 2015). Likewise, if children receive toys in the condition that they behave well, then they will probably repeat this behavior to get the toys.
Introduction There are many ways for people to receive help for problems. Whether they decide to take a spiritual, personal, or professional approach, there are always options! Throughout the United States, there are multiple facilities for a wide array of problems such as drug addiction, schizophrenia, and other behavioral problems people may face. Someone should never be looked down upon for seeking help, but should rather be praised for wanting to take action and wanting help.
In 1920, Watson and Rayner used infant Albert B. “Little Albert” in an unprecedented experiment of conditioned fear (Watson & Rayner, 1920). Little Albert was discharged from the experiment as an infant and his real identity and welfare remained a mystery until Beck, Levinson & Irons published their identity findings in 2009 (Beck, Levinson, & Irons, 2009). According to Beck et al. (2009) , Little Albert (Douglas Merritte), had developed hydrocephalus after the study and died.
Stanley Milgram conducted a study on human obedience to see if an ordinary student would listen to authority, even if it meant inflicting pain on other humans, or listen to their conscience. His trials were set up at Yale and Harvard Universities and at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. College students were assigned a role as a “teacher” and “student”. The “teacher was assigned to read aloud words to the “student” and if the student didn’t get the words right, the teacher was supposed to press a button and give an electric shock to the student. Little did the teacher know the student was actually a hired actor and there were no electric shocks given.
Alex was conditioned to react in a passive manner when confronted with any action that could be considered ultra-violence. Classical conditioning experiments have been performed on humans with a large degree of success. One of the most notable and most controversial classical conditioning experiments done on humans was Watson’s “Little Albert” experiment. This experiment was conducted to test the fear response in humans. The experiment started off by introducing Albert to several animals, a white rat, monkey, bunny and a dog (Creelan).
Behaviorists believe that our responses to environmental stimuli shapes our behaviors. John Watson believed that if he were given infants, then he would be able to make one a thei,
Next, response feedback influences will also impact the occurrence of such behavior in the future. Lastly, it stressed that cognitive functions are important as well. To prove that same behaviors will be learned by individuals following the action of the models and altering their own behaviors, Albert Bandura conducted a famous experiment, known as the Bobo doll experiment in 1961 (McLeod, 2014). Before the experiment, Albert Bandura made 4 predictions. First, children that observed adult acting aggressively will be more likely to act the same.
In 1913, the behaviorist movement began with the studies of John Broadus Watson (1878-1958), a pioneering figure in the development of the psychological school of behaviorism. He published an article entitled ' 'Psychology as the behaviorist views it ' ' in which he had the impression that psychology shouldn 't deal with what the people say that they think or feel, in other words, he reduced and dehumanized the human mind and its consciousness. To put it differently, he asserted a claim that the study of the human mind would be concerned only with people 's actions and behavior. Watson 's work relied upon the experiments of Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936), a Russian Nobel laureate psychologist who had worked on animals ' responses to conditioning. For instance, in his best-known experiment, Pavlov rang a bell and then gave a dog some food.