little albert

The study I choose to write about is the classic study of “Little Albert”. I choose this study because I found it interesting that experimental work had only been done on one child and that was Little Albert. They choose little Albert because he was a healthy infant and one of the best developed youngsters at that hospital. It was because of these reasons they felt they would do him no harm with the experiment they were getting ready to inflict on him. They would soon find out that their assumptions were wrong! Summarize the study: this study was conducted by John B. Watson. It was done to see what fear reactions can be called out by certain stimuli and then they tested to see if they combined certain stimuli what emotional reaction would it cause little Albert to have if any. The study started when he was 9 months old, but they did not start creating a conditioned response until he was 11 months and 3 days old. They first started running him through emotional tests that would determine whether fear reactions can be called out by other stimuli than sharp noises and the sudden removal of support. Albert was first introduced to several different variables for example (rats, rabbits, a dog, monkey, mask with hair and without, ect.) He showed no fear, rage, or even cried to any of these objects when first confronted with them. (Classics in the History of Psychology -- Watson & Rayner (1920) psychclassics.yorku.ca/Watson/emotion.htm. Emotional Reactions and Psychological Experimentation,' American Journal of Psychology, April, 1917, Vol. 28, pp. 163-174…)

The test that call out a fear reaction was done on Little Albert by striking a hammer upon a suspended steel bar four feet in length and three-fourths of an inch in diameter. Although the first two times produced a small reaction to the noise it wasn’t until the third try of this test that produced little Albert to go into a full out crying fit. This was the first time an emotional situation in the