One of the most
famous psychological experiments carried out in the core of the behaviorism
school of thought is THE LITTLE ALBERT EXPERIMENT by John B. Watson and his
student Rosalie Rayner. Prior to this experiment Russian psychologist Ivan
Pavlov carried out an experiment to demonstrate the process of conditioning
using dogs. J.B. Watson was interested in taking Ivan Pavlov research further
to demonstrate that emotional reaction in humans could be classically
condition.
The
little Albert experiment simply show case to us how the principle of classical
conditioning can be used to condition an emotional response in humans by simply
paring a neutral stimulus which is white rat in this case with an unconditional stimulus which is in this
case a loud noise that was created by striking a metal pipe.
The
participant in the little Albert experiment was a child that Watson and called Albert B, whom the experiment was named after. At about the age of nine
month Watson and Rayner exposed the child to various stimuli which include
white rat, monkey, burning newspaper and mask. Albert did not exhibit any fear
towards any of the object which he was shown by Watson and Rayner.
On
the next presentation of the stimuli(white rat) to Albert, Watson made a loud noise
by strucking a metal pipe with a hammer.
Naturally Albert began to cry on hearing the loud noise made by Watson. After
Watson and Rayner has repeatedly associate the white rat with the loud noise, Albert simply began to cry after seeing the white rat. The instant the rat was
shown to Albert, he began to cry almost instantaneously turn shortly to the
left and fell on his left side raise himself with all force and began or crawl
away.
Critiques of the
little Albert experiment
Although
the little Albert experiment seems to be one of the most famous experiment in
the field of psychology and is included in virtually all the introductory
psychology courses, it has also widely receive critiques due to several
reasons.
1.
Lack of objectivity: Watson and Rayner rely on their subjective interpretation
of Albert reaction instead of developing
an objective way of evaluating Albert reactions. Also the design of the
experiment and the process were not carefully conducted.
2.
The experiment raised many ethical issues; if it
was to be conducted in recent times it will be totally unethical to do so.
Author: Awujoola Olaoluwa
credits: credits goes to Kendra Cherry, psychology.about.com as a huge amount of quote use in this article was from her work.
photo credits: migna.ir
Support Us
credits: credits goes to Kendra Cherry, psychology.about.com as a huge amount of quote use in this article was from her work.
photo credits: migna.ir
0 comments: