Little Albert

• Aim:

  Watson and Rayner wanted to show that fear could be learned in a child through classical conditioning
• Method:

  The study was conducted on baby Albert. They gave the child animals such as a white rabbit to look at and hit an iron bar behind his head with a hammer to make an unpleasant noise causing him to become frightened and cry
• Results:

  The child learned to associate fear with the rat. This effect generalised to other small fluffy animals learning occurred by an association being formed between two things
• Unethical because a baby was deliberately made to cry