Classic Study - Watson and Rayner - Little Albert

• Watson and Rayner - Little Albert - Aim

  To explore how classical conditioning could be used to create a phobia in humans using CC principles.
• Watson and Rayner - Little Albert - Procedure - Baseline Testing

  • researchers tested hitting a suspended steel bar with a hammer above Little Albert. - He was startled, held his breath and began to cry 
  • He showed no fear of a rat, rabbit, dog, monkey, mask with hair or cotton wool 
• Watson and Rayner - Little Albert - Session 1 procedure and findings

  Procedure - At 11 months old. When they presented Albert with a rat, experimenters hit the steel bar with the hammer just as he reached for it x2

  Findings - Initially, Albert jumped and fell forward. Second time, Albert began to whimper
• Watson and Rayner - Little Albert - Session 2 procedure and findings

  Procedure - (conditioning)One week later - Presented with No Noise + Rat, Noise + rat x3, No noise, Noise + rat x2 and then No Noise

  Findings (conditioning)- By the end of session 2 he began immediately crying even when he saw the rat with no noise and crawled quickly away
• Watson and Rayner - Little Albert - Session 3 procedure and findings

  Procedure (generalisation) - 5 days later - generalisation. Neutral stimulus – Little Albert liked playing with blocks so they were used to calm him down. As he was playing with them he was presented with: a rabbit, a dog, a seal-fur coat, Cotton wool, Watson’s hair and a Santa Claus mask

  Findings (generalisation) - Blocks = Happy Albert. Dog, rabbit, santa mask, Watson’s hair and fur coat = crying, moving away from stimulus and crawling away. Cotton Wool = less negatively
• Watson and Rayner - Little Albert - Session 4 procedure and findings

  Procedure (Time) 5 days later - 5 days later Albert was presented with the rat with no noise. The response was present but weaker so they performed conditioning again. Also conditioned response to the dog and rabbit by making loud noise with their presentation. Then Albert was taken to well-lit lecture theatre to see if the response was same as in the small lab room

  Findings (Time 5 days later) - Dog, rabbit, rat= large fear response, Blocks= no fear and Theatre= slight fear
• Watson and Rayner - Little Albert - Session 5 procedure and findings

  Procedure - 1 month later - Albert was tested again with various stimuli including the rat, rabbit, dog, fur coat and Santa Claus mask

  Findings - Albert still showed varying degrees of fear reactions to all of the stimuli, still crying and crawling away some of the time
• Watson and Rayner - Little Albert - Conclusion

  Watson & Rayner concluded that they had successfully conditioned Albert to fear the white rat and that his fear response generalised to other white, furry things (with a stronger response the more closely they resembled the rat) and transferred to other situations.