Watson & Rayner (1920)

• Behaviourists


  • Argue that the early home life of the child acts as a laboratory in which the child is exposed to a wide range of stimuli that can condition emotional reactions
• If the behaviourist view is correct, the environment should be having an effect on us from birth and shaping our eventual adult personalities
• Watson and Rayner's study(1920)


  1. Can fear of a neutral stimulus be conditioned?

  2. Can the fear be transferred to other animals or objects?

  3. Does this conditioned response change over time?

  4. If the emotional responses have not died out, how might they be removed?
• By choosing a neutral stimulus that the infant showed no innate fear of (a rat), if he developed a fear, they can say it was because of the environment, and not biological predisposition
• Watson and Rayner were investigating classical conditioning only, operant conditioning was discovered and developed by Skinner in the 1950s, many years after this study
• Participant


  • There was only one participant, a baby often referred to as "Little Albert"
  • The baby was described as normal and healthy from birth
• The study took place in a dark room, on a mattress placed on a table
• The study is best described as a controlled observation, as there is only one condition and no independent or dependent variables
• Hospital Environment


  Controlled - less extraneous variables meaning easier replication and is standardised
• All of the steps of the study were recorded using a video camera
• Emotional tests


  Researchers first tested emotional reactions to range of stimuli at 9 months old to find a neutral stimulus
• Finding a negative reaction stimulus


  a loud noise - striking a metal bar with a hammer behind the head, and the sudden removal of support
• 1. Establishing a conditioned emotional response


  age - 11 months and 3 days, infant's emotional responses tested again,

  showed no fear to the rat but as he reached for the rat the metal bar was hit twice

  =findings: when the bar struck Albert jumped and fell forward but didn't cry, second time the same happened but he whimpered
• 2. Testing conditioned emotional response


  age - 11 months & 10 days - again the rat and loud noise were presented together referred to as 'joint stimulation', this was done 5 times

  =findings: repeated 5 times - only started crying the 5th time and crawled away
• 3. Generalisation

  age - 11 months & 15 days - little albert presented with a range of white and fluffy objects to identify an emotional response

  =findings: still showed fear response to rat - which transferred to a rabbit, also showing aversion to a dog as well as cotton balls, a fur coat, a Santa mask and Watson's hair
• 4. Changing the environment


  age 11 months & 20 days - response was 'freshened up' to strengthen the emotional response - environment changed to a large well lit lecture room

  =findings: after 'freshening up' - fear response more severe - in a new environment he still showed a fear but not as strong as he was able to discriminate between the stimuli
• 5. Effect of time


  age - 12 months and 21 days

  =findings: still showed a fear response but not as severe - seemed torn between avoiding the stimuli and the desire to touch it
• Findings

  • emotional tests showed no initial fear to any items
  • Alberts behaviour was different when it came to loud noises - lips puckered and trembled & child cried
• Incidental observations

  • Albert would put his thumb in his mouth when emotionally upset or on the verge of tears
  • His thumb was removed whenever he put it in his mouth - unethical?
• Watson's main conclusion


  Albert had been given a conditioned fear response and fewer "joint stimulations" would have been needed if the sound used had been louder
• Seven joint stimulations were given to bring about the complete reaction
• Watson argued that his study demonstrated "emotional transfer"
• Removal of Conditional Responses


  1. Constantly exposing the child to the feared stimuli (e.g. rats) - aim that the fear response would become "fatigued"

  2. Replacing fear with another emotional response by pairing the feared stimuli with stimulation of the erogenous zones (lips, nipples and sex organs)

  3. Pairing the feared stimuli with pleasant food like candy

  4. Guiding constructive activities, such as encouraging the child to imitate an adult playing with the rat
• Watson claimed that his findings didn't offer any significant points of conflict with Freudian theory
• Watson claimed that Albert's constant thumb sucking indicates that it is a compensatory device used to block out fear, rather than being the expression of a pleasure-seeking principle as Freud suggests
• A behaviourist explanation would be to explain the phobia as being due to a negative experience leading to a conditioned response
• Strengths of the study


  • High level of control in a controlled environment (dark room) allowing extraneous variables to be controlled
  • Increases reliability
  • supports the classical conditioning assumption
  • baseline test done
  • filmed - can increase validity & easy replication for reliability
  • good confidentiality
• Weaknesses of the study


  • Unethical - thumb forcefully removed from his mouth
  • Only one participant, so cannot be generalised - no control group
  • Loses ecological validity due to artificial setting - not generalisable to real life
  • methodological issues
• Mowrer (1947)


  proposed that operant conditioning could explain the maintenance of phobias that have been formed by classical conditioning - known as the Two-Process Theory
• De Nardo et al (1988)


  suggests that people have experienced a traumatic event but haven't has a phobia develop
• Seligman (1970)


  Theory of Biological Preparedness - phobias stem from biological predisposition - something passed down to us - a natural fear people develop anyway
• Ost (1987)


  claimed that it is possible that all phobias do stem from traumatic incidents but they are forgotten
• Watson is justifying the unethical methods by saying that the phobia would have developed anyway once Albert left the sheltered environment however it can be argued it created a phobia for Albert that would not have happened in his everyday life
• Throughout the study, it is clear that Albert experienced a great deal of distress and psychological harm
• These ethical guidelines were not around in Watson's time, so it may not be fair to judge Watson and Rayner by modern standards
• Watson intended to remove the conditioned fear response from Albert after the study, but Albert was removed from the hospital before this could happen
• There are issues with consent and the right to withdraw in this study, as Albert's mother may have felt pressured to agree to his participation even if she had reservations
• While this study had serious ethical issues, it could be argued that it demonstrated how phobias can be learned through classical conditioning, which could be beneficial for understanding and treating phobias
• In the opinion of the author, the benefits of the study may have outweighed the ethical costs, as it was a study that wouldn't be able to be done today
• The confidentiality was well maintained as we don't know who little Albert is even today