Little Albert and Classical Conditioning - Essay Example

Little Albert and ical Conditioning ical conditioning depends on unconditioned reflex responses (Coon & Mitterer, p. 231). It is based on what happens before we respond. It initiates with a stimulus that consistently generates feedback. For instance, if a wisp of cotton is aimed toward an individual’s eyes, naturally, that person would blink. Blinking is a reflex; it is an involuntary and untrained reaction. In classical conditioning, if a horn is sounded just before the cotton wisp touches the person’s eye, the individual will blink.

Hence, even if that person hears the horn, he would certainly blink. In classical conditioning, a precursor stimulus that does not elicit a feedback is associated with another one that does. Learning takes place whenever a new stimulus successfully obtains reactions.Keywords: classical conditioning, reflexLittle Albert and Classical Conditioning Conditioned emotional responses as defined by Coon and Mitterer (2010) are learned emotional reactions to previously neutral stimuli (p. 232). An example of this are phobias, which psychologists believe began as conditioned emotional responses.

During the time of Watson and Rayner (1920) who conducted the study entitled, Conditioned Emotional Reactions, different assumptions have been proposed in concerning the likelihood of conditioning diverse types of emotional response; however, exact experimental evidence in aid of such view is missing. It was recommended previously that in infancy the fundamental emotional reaction models are not many, comprising so far as perceived of fear, rage and love, then there must be several uncomplicated ways by means of which the range of stimuli which can bring forth these emotions and their compounds are highly amplified, or else, intricacy in adult response could not be accounted for (Watson & Rayner, 1920).

Watson and Rayner (1920) though without adequate experimental evidence, enhanced the perspective that this variety was augmented by means of trained impulse aspects. It was recommended that the first home life of the child endows a laboratory setting for creating conditioned emotional responses. With this premise, Watson and Rayner (1920) put the whole matter into an experimental test. Watson and Rayner (1920) used the subject named Albert who was reared almost from birth in a hospital environment; his mother was a wet nurse in the Harriet Lane Home for Invalid Children.

Alberts life was typical, he was fit from birth and one of the best developed youngsters ever brought to the hospital, weighing twenty-one pounds at nine months of age. He was impassive and inexpressive. His stability was one of the major reasons for utilizing him as a subject in their test as emphasized by Watson and Rayner (1920) for they felt that they could cause him reasonably little harm in performing such experiments. Watson and Rayner (1920) cited the possibility of conditioning fear of an animal like associating a white rat by visually presenting it along with striking a steel bar.

In this case, the unconditioned stimulus or the one that naturally elicits a response without doing any training is striking the steel bar for when Albert was eight months, twenty-six days of age, striking a steel bar for the third time actually made him cry violently. In this example of pairing, the conditioned stimulus is the white rat for its use is employed to bring forth fear by pairing it with the usual stimulus that causes fear to the subject. Conditioned response is a reaction that is learned, hence, if it is successful to link a white rat and striking a steel bar to draw out fear, in the case of Albert, he began to cry even if the rat alone is the one presented to him; this reaction of the subject is considered a conditioned response.

Watson and Rayner (1920) were triumphant in eliciting fear from Albert when presented with a rat by gradually associating it with striking a steel bar that made him cry previously. They employed the use of different tests to draw out the reaction they wanted. Hence, when a rat was presented to Albert, he fears it as evidenced by his violent crying. Thus, when he was presented by other animals such as a rabbit and a dog and a fur coat made him whimper possibly due to the fact that he was trained to be afraid of a rat which, in his perception is closely linked to a rabbit, a dog and a fur coat by means of certain features that is why he was anxious whenever he sees these and this therefore, is the concept of generalization: anything closely associated or similar to a conditioned stimulus will also bring forth the same response toward it.

In the study conducted by Watson and Rayner (1920), the conditioning did not last over time because continuous presentation of the objects that caused fear to the subject did not persist and since, he was no longer presented with the objects he fears for a long time, his usual reactions died out in matter of time and this then is the concept of extinction emphasizing that certain responses could vanish as time pass by. With so many advances in different fields of science, the study conducted by Watson and Rayner (1920) might face a variety of controversies if performed at present.

Many advocacy groups might not consider the idea of using humans as test subjects as pleasant especially at a very young age. Moreover, some may argue that it would be better if such concepts of fear, rage and rage were obtained naturally without trying artificially to elicit these. Furthermore, people may disapprove this study especially if repulsive feedback were learned by the subject like with Albert’s case, he attempted to play with the pubic hair of the mother when he was three years of age, and this response would probably enrage conservative groups.

Thus, if such test is to be conducted at present, a variety of factors must be considered.ReferencesCoon, D., & Mitterer, J.O. (2010). Classical Conditioning in Humans—an Emotional Topic. Psychology: A Journey, 231-232.Watson J. B., & Rayner, R. (1920). Conditioned emotional reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 3(1), 1–14.