Watson and Rayner method procedure findings and conclusions.

• Findings - emotional test - presented with various objects such as a white rat, burning newspaper. All had no fear, calm and even tempered baby.
• Findings - loud noise = startled, arms raised and crying.
• Findings - session 1 - 1st time the rat and the noise was presented, jumped and fell forward. 2nd time the rate and the noise was presented fell forward and crying.
• Findings - session 2 - rat and no noise, went to touch the rat and then withdrew. Brought in a control object of wooden blocks and he played happily. Then presented with 5 joint stimulations, he got more distressed each time.
• Findings - session 3 - range of objects presented to him including control objects, rat and rabbit = fear, dog and fur coat = less fear, cotton wool = some fear.
• Findings - session 4 - moved to a big lecture hall, freshened up and more joint stimulations, less extreme fear and no fear of the wooden blocks after freshened up the fear response was stronger.
• Findings - session 5 - 1 month later the same objects were presented to him, furry objects = feared response but not as intense, wooden blocks = no fear.
• Conclusions - Watson and Rayner - phobias in adults cannot be traced back to the unconscious mind like Freud dais, most phobias are conditioned responses, such as the joint stimulation. Learned responses can be generalised to other objects, albert showed a fear response to many furry objects overtime not just the white rat.
• Methodology - controlled observation at John Hopkins uni USA, in a well lit dark room. Sample - one boy little albert aged 8 months 26 days at the start of the study.
• Evaluation - methodology - method was artificial - weakness - lacks ecological validity, location of research and controlled conditions were artificial, difficult to generalise findings of Albert's reactions to other environments e.g. response at home may be different.
• Evaluation - methodology - issues with the sample - weakness - sample used, only one male participant, he may have responded differently than other children so unrepresentative difficult to generalise to wider populations.
• Evaluation - procedure - ethical issue - psychological harm - weakness - criticised for causing psychological harm to vulnerable ppts, distress caused and potential lifelong fear and prevention of the soothing nature of sucking his thumb. highly unethical way to complete the study.
• Evaluation - procedure - a replicable study - strength - controlled observation and standardised procedures and filming process meaning same procedures could be repeated in order to check for consistent results into effects of conditioning on fear reactions, therefore increasing external reliability.
• Evaluation - findings and conclusions - the sample is unrepresentative - weakness - sample used only one male participant, may have responded different than other children, difficult to generalise findings to the target population - low external/population validity.
• Evaluation - findings and conclusions - high internal validity - strength - different sessions knew he was a calm, even-tempered baby due to tests so no fear reactions prior to the study, wooden blocks as control objects - not just crying at anything - increases internal validity of findings, legitimate.
• Evaluation - ethical and social implications - weakness - ethical issue of psychological harm, study criticised for causing psychological harm in a vulnerable participant, created distress, a potential lifelong fear response in an infant and preventing him from calming himself and sucking his thumb. as such many would argue it is a highly unethical study.
• Evaluation - ethical and social implications - ethical issue, lack of debrief - weakness - another ethical problem is that watson and rayner did not deal with the ethical issues in their study. Did not debrief alberts mother and di not return albert in his original state of fear. (no fear in response to furry objects) so highly unethical.
• Evaluation - ethical and social implications - social implication, health sector - watson and rayner showed that phobias are learned response therefore possible to 'unlearn' the phobia, led to a successful application in the form of systematic desenitisation which counter conditions the fear response with one of relaxation, proven valuable in treatment of phobias - so has positive implications in treatment in phobias.
• Evaluation - ethical and social implications - social implication, education - idea that the environment and conditioning can affect human emotion and behaviour can be used in education association of a previous negative experience and making it positive by picking out the positive parts - school, pleasant stimulus in classroom so positive experiences - on wider society more qualified, more skills for jobs and lower unemployment.