Watson and Rayner (1920, classic study)

• aim?

  • if they could condition fear of animal by simultaneously presenting animal and striking steel bar to make loud noise and frighten child.
  • can fear be transferred to other animals/objects?
  • effect of time on CR
• sample?

  selected 1 child, Albert B. Healthy from birth, seeming calm and unemotional.

  • 9 months, emotional tests carried out as a baseline to asses fear reactions. Introduced to stimuli like rabbit, white rat, cotton wool ect, Albert showed no fear. also banged steel bar, Albert showed fear response
  • all observations were recorded
• what happened after Albert showed emotion for the first time after steel bar was hit?

  • 11 months 3 days, Albert was checked for fear responses, Albert went to reach for a rat and steel bar was hit when rat was touched, in which Albert produced fear response.
  • 11 months 10 days, Albert was presented rat with/ without sounds. He immediately started to cry and crawl away, showing he had been conditioned. Albert was also given blocks to play with which he had no problem with, so conditioning had some affect (blocks don't look like rat)
• what happened when they tested stimulus generalisation?

  • 11 months 15 days, tested on different objects.
  • things like rabbit (!), dog, hair, Santa mask showed negative response. things like blocks, paper no negative response.
  • 11 months 20 days, extinction occurred as rat alone gave Albert a less extreme response so they renewed the conditioning.
  • then they tried to condition fear to similar objects again, rabbit and dog was introduced which Albert whimpered at.
• did stimulus generation go further than just objects?

  yes. Albert was then moved to a lecture room. showed a slight negative reaction like keeping hands away and whimpering. still joyfully played with blocks
• results?

  at 11 Albert developed:

  • fear responses that can be conditioned
  • fear response that can be transferred to different stimuli/situations
  • fear can be learnt in humans via CC with stimulus generalisation.
• follow up procedure?

  at 1 year 21 days they wanted to see if the fear had stayed for a month after so they carried out further trials which Albert gave negative responses to.

  • couldn't see if fear had stayed for over a year as Alberts mother had pulled him out of the study
• conclusions?

  • CR of fear can occur in humans after even only a few pairings of stimuli, but pairings might have to eb repeated
  • CR can be transferred to similar objects and settings.
  • No means of seeing if responses could be extinguished due to Albert being pulled out of the study
• generalisability?

  • low ! case study of one individual, results are not representative. Being a young child does not correlate to how an adult would react.
• reliability?

  • high ! standardised procedures and well documented like what animals were produced with what sound at what age.
  • Also studied in another room to remove and extraneous variables.
• applications?

  • explains how fear response is learnt so can give important treatments such as therapies for phobias (systematic desensitisation)
• validity?

  • high ! carried out in lab setting with controlled variables, eg use of blocks to show how albert would normally play when given non-conditioned objects. C/E show how fear responses can be learnt so supports psychology as a science.
  • eco validity is low due to the controlled artificial settings. study was in quiet small room and babies normally learn in far more complex areas. All areas Albert was in was artificial due to Watson and Rayner controlling it, even when they move into a lecture hall
• ethics?

  • low ! open to psychological harm due to not being fully protected - described as whimpering or crying most of the time.
  • also not made clear how much the mother knew what would happen to Albert even though consent was given. Mother did withdraw him so may have not been aware of what was going on.