evaluation

• a strength of this study is that it is replicable as it was a controlled observation and had standardised procedures to chack for consistent results which increases the external reliability
• a weakness is there was only one, male ppt used so it is difficult to generalise the findings to target population
• a weakness is that the study lacks ecological validity and the controlled conditions were very artifical so it difficult to generalise findings to other environments
• a strength of a controlled observation is that it allows control over extraneous variables and this increases internal validity
• however, the psychodynamic approach would disagree with the conclsuion that phobias are learnt through conditioning but are a projection of unconscious conflicts and fears eg. Little Hans
• this study can be criticised for causing psychological harm in a vunerable ppt by creating distree and a potential life long fear and preventing him from calming himself
• another ethical problem is that they did not debrief alberts mother or return albert to his original state of no fear
• however it is argued that albert experienced no more than in everyday "rough and tumble" and they did intend to decondition him but his mother removed him and the ethical guidelines did not exist at the time
• a key social implication is it showed that phobias are a learned response and it is possible to "unlearn" phobias which has led to a successful application in the form of systematic desensitization
• a postive social implication is Le Francois suggesting that classical conditioning can be used to improve student performance to give benefits to the individual and society