Findings and conclusions

• Weaknesses

  • Findings lack validity
  • controlled location + controlled conditions = artificial
  • lacks ecological validity as it becomes difficult to generalise the findings to other environments
  • Issues with sample
  • Used 1 male ppt = Little Albert
  • His response may not be the same as another child's response e.g a female
  • Unrepresentative sample = lower population validity
  • Alternative evidence to contradict
  • Freud says phobias are projections of unconscious fears
  • Little Hans had a phobia of horses = a projection from his fear of his father
  • Conflicts W+R conclusions on conditioning being responsible
• Strengths

  • High internal validity
  • The 5 different session used within procedure
  • The emotional test was done to ensure that Albert had no prior fears which could impact the findings
  • Increases the internal validity and means W+R have a legitimate measure of the effect of conditioning fear response