Watson + Rayner - Conditioned Emotional Response

• Methodology

  • Controlled observation at Johns Hopkins university in a well-lit dark room
  • Sample: One boy named 'Little Albert' - aged 8 months 26 days at start of study
• Procedure + Findings

  Procedures: responses recorded with motion picture camera

  Procedure - Emotional tests:

  • reactions tested to various objects e.g. dog, white rat, rabbit mask, burning newspaper, monkey, cotton wool
  • loud noise made by hitting a steel bar with a hammer

  Findings - Emotional test:

  • no fear - LA was a calm and even tempered baby
  • started violently, arms raised and start to cry
• Procedure + Findings - Session 1 : Establishing conditioned response

  Aged 11 months and 3 days

  Procedure:

  • 1st time - white rat presented + bar struck when LA reached for it
  • 2nd time - joint stimulation ( rat and sound presented together )

  Finding:

  • A jumped and fell forward
  • fell forward and began to whimper/cry
• Procedure + Findings - Session 2 : Testing conditioned emotional response

  Aged 11 months and 10 days

  Procedure:

  • shown a rat with no noise
  • shown wooden blocks to play with ( control object )
  • 5 more joint stimulation ( rat + noise )

  Finding:

  • stared, reached carefully, withdrew when rat started to nuzzle hand
  • played happily with control objects
  • more distressed each, cried + quickly crawled away
• Procedure + Findings - Session 3 : Generalised

  Aged 11 months and 15 days

  Procedure:

  • presented with - rat, wooden blocks, rabbit, dog, cotton wool, fur coat, John Watson's hair

  Findings:

  • rat = fear = CR
  • rabbit = fear = crawled away ( generalisation of fear )
  • dog + fur coat = less extreme fear
  • JW hair = negative reaction
  • cotton wool = some fear
• Procedure + Findings - Session 4 : Changing environment

  Aged 11 months and 20 days

  Procedure:

  • moved to large well-lit lecture room, 4 people present, placed on a table in centre of room
  • conditioned emotion response was 'freshened up' with more joint stimulation

  Findings:

  • less extreme fear than before to the rat, rabbit and dog - still shows a learned response as there was still no fear shown to wooden blocks
  • after the CR was 'freshened up', fear response was stronger
• Procedure + Findings - Session 5 : The effect of time

  Aged 1 year, 21 days

  Procedures:

  • Santa mask, fur coat, rat, rabbit, dog, blocks

  Findings:

  • furry objects = fear response although '' a certain loss in the intensity of the reaction ''
  • wooden blocks = no fear
• Conclusions

  • Concluded phobias in adults cannot be traced back to unconscious mind as Greud argued, instead likely phobias are conditioned emotional response, just 7 joint stimulations can create CR
  • Study demonstrated learned responses do generalise to other objects, A maintained a fearful response to many furry objects over period of time
  • Howcere, suspected that the persistence of CR's would only be found in people who are ''constitutionally inferior'' ( people who are not very robust )