Classical Conditioning In The 1920's

In the 1890’s a famous psychology experiment was conducted by Ivan Pavlov which demonstrated classical conditioning in dogs. According to The Free Dictionary, classical conditioning is, “a learning process by which a subject comes to respond in a specific way to a previously neutral stimulus after the subject repeatedly encounters the neutral stimulus together with another stimulus that already elicits the response.” Around the 1920’s, famous psychologist John B. Watson along with a graduate student, Rosaline Rayner wanted to further the research of classical conditioning and see the effects it could have on people rather than just animals. The experiment that was conducted in order to further Pavlov’s research is known as the “Little Albert”
At the beginning of the experiment, the child showed no emotion of being scared of any of the stimuli. Later on, when the child was shown the stimuli again, Watson made a loud noise by hitting a metal pipe with a hammer when the child was given the rat. The child obviously began to cry after hearing the loud noise. Watson continued to make the loud noise every time the child was exposed to the rat and eventually, the child began to cry simply by just seeing the white rat because he was conditioned due to the noise he kept hearing when he saw the
In this phase, there is a natural occurring stimulus that will result in a response. The unconditioned stimulus (UCS) automatically generates a response. The unconditioned response (UCR) is the unlearned response that occurs in response to the unconditioned stimulus. There is also a neutral stimulus that doesn’t have an effect until a later phase. When the neutral stimulus is put with the unconditioned stimulus, it will create a response. In the “Little Albert” experiment, the unconditioned stimulus is the loud noise that was made by hitting a metal pipe with a hammer. The loud noise generated the unconditioned response which is the fear Little Albert had from the loud noise.
The second phase of classical conditioning is identified as the ‘during conditioning stage’. During this phase, the neutral stimulus that didn’t have an effect in the first phase is now paired with the unconditioned stimulus (the loud noise) in the second phase. The neutral stimulus is the white rat because initially, Little Albert had no fear of the white rat, but after Watson made the loud noise every time Little Albert saw the white rat, then Little Albert ended of being afraid of the white rat due to the loud noise that came with