Little Albert Studies
The Effects of the Little Albert Studies on Classical Conditioning
Classical conditioning has been impacted by many studies. The Little Albert experiment which was done by Watson and Rayner in 1920 showed empirical evidence of classical conditioning in humans. Although this case study is widely disputed in it’s methods, it added a world of knowledge to the field of psychology. This was a huge breakthrough for behavioral studies. Up until this time it was shown that classical conditioning was possible in dogs but there wasn’t any research on if it would work for humans as well. Research on classical conditioning can apply to many different areas including prejudices, phobias, paraphilias, drug addictions, and many more (Mary Baldwin College, …show more content…
Psychology 310: Lecture, September 23, 2013). The more research that is done on this topic the better because only then will we begin to understand the treatment that must be done in order to treat these different conditions.
The researchers in the Little Albert case study attempted to establish a fear reaction through classical conditioning (Chance, 2014). Their subject, “Little Albert” as he was known, showed no signs of fearing a white rat, a pigeon, a rabbit, a dog, a monkey, cotton wool, or a burning newspaper at the beginning of the study. The researchers used a loud noise created by banging a steel bar with a hammer as the unconditioned stimulus for fear. Little Albert would be exposed with the white rat and then the researchers would present the unconditioned stimulus. After a few trials of presenting Little Albert with the white rat and the unconditioned stimulus he began to cry and show other signs of fear as soon as he saw the rat. Through Pavlovian conditioning he learned to fear white rats (Chance, 2014). Little Albert experienced stimulus generalization that made it so he feared everything that was white and fluffy.
Unfortunately the Little Albert study was not followed up on to see if he continued to have this fear.
In 2009, psychologists Hall Beck and Sharman Levinson discovered the true identity of Little Albert. They looked through libraries and census records to find that his true identity was Douglas Merritte, the son of a Johns Hopkins wet nurse (Cosh, 2012). His death certificate showed that the child died of hydrocephalus after acquiring meningitis three years prior to his death. Hall Beck and Sharman Levinson came across something quite interesting in their research of Douglas Merritte. They found evidence that Douglas was not as normal, healthy, and well-developed as Watson had said. The first sign of a disabled child being used in this study was that it should not have taken 3 years for him to die of meningitis during the pre-antibiotic era. Also, in the videos of the experiment done by Watson which were filmed late in the first year of his life he had slow reaction times, his motor skills were poor, and he didn’t make eye contact with any of the adults around him or “consult” their emotional reactions (Cosh, 2012). Whether or not Watson had knowingly used a brain damaged baby in his study willingly is still highly debated but nonetheless his research showed that classical conditioning was possible in humans, opening a huge field of study for …show more content…
behaviorists.
Drug abuse research has been greatly impacted by this research; without that knowledge we would probably still be in the dark about how to treat drug abuse. A study done by Siegel, et al. on drug tolerance and withdrawal showed further implications of drug abuse treatments. It was stated that events that occur during drug administration correspond to a Pavlovian conditioning trial (Siegel, 2005). This study used cues that accompany the primary drug effect function as conditioned stimuli. The direct effect of the drug constitutes as the unconditioned stimulus. Prior to any learning, the pharmacological stimulation elicited responses that compensated for the drug-induced disturbances, this was the unconditioned responses. After a few trials of pairing the predrug conditional stimuli and pharmacological unconditioned stimuli, drug-compensatory responses are elicited as conditioned drug responses. These conditional compensatory responses mediate the development of tolerance by counteracting the drug effect (Siegel, 2005). This is an example of cue-exposure therapies that are designed to extinguish the association between predrug cues and the systematic effects of the drug. Cue-exposure therapies make it so that the cues will no longer elicit conditioned compensatory responses (Siegel, 2005).
Studies like this one have led to the development of conditioning-based, behavioral therapies for addiction.
It is important to remember that this research is all possible due to the findings in the Little Albert study. As previously mentioned, Pavlovian conditioning can also be used in the treatment of phobias. A study by Garakani, et al. used Pavlovian conditioning as a model to add to the understanding of the causes of anxiety (Garakani, 2006). This study took a more biological approach to determine the causes of anxiety. They found the important areas of the brain that relate to the fear response. They concluded by stating that through further investigation of these pathways and neuropeptide systems will lead to the finding of novel therapeutic interventions for a wide range of anxiety disorders, such as generalized anxiety, phobias, panic, and PTSD (Garakani,
2006). In conclusion, the Little Albert has opened a huge field of research that is applicable to humans. It has lead to the development of many treatments for drug abuse and phobias. If it were not for the research that started it all we would continue to be unaware of effective treatments for many disorders among humans.
Works Cited
Chance, Paul. (2014). Learning and Behavior. California: Wadsworth.
Cosh, Colby. (2012). Bad Behaviour. Maclean’s, 125(7), 53-57. Retrieved from Academic
Search Complete.
Garakani, A., Mathew, S. J., & Charney, D. S. (2006). Neurobiology of Anxiety Disorders and
Implications for Treatment. Mount Sinai Journal Of Medicine, 73(7), 941-949.
Siegel, S. (2005). Drug Tolerance, Drug Addiction, and Drug Anticipation. Current Directions in Psychological Science (Wiley-Blackwell). 14(6), 296-300. doi:
10.1111/j.0963-7214.2005.00384.x
Classical conditioning has been impacted by many studies. The Little Albert experiment which was done by Watson and Rayner in 1920 showed empirical evidence of classical conditioning in humans. Although this case study is widely disputed in it’s methods, it added a world of knowledge to the field of psychology. This was a huge breakthrough for behavioral studies. Up until this time it was shown that classical conditioning was possible in dogs but there wasn’t any research on if it would work for humans as well. Research on classical conditioning can apply to many different areas including prejudices, phobias, paraphilias, drug addictions, and many more (Mary Baldwin College, …show more content…
Psychology 310: Lecture, September 23, 2013). The more research that is done on this topic the better because only then will we begin to understand the treatment that must be done in order to treat these different conditions.
The researchers in the Little Albert case study attempted to establish a fear reaction through classical conditioning (Chance, 2014). Their subject, “Little Albert” as he was known, showed no signs of fearing a white rat, a pigeon, a rabbit, a dog, a monkey, cotton wool, or a burning newspaper at the beginning of the study. The researchers used a loud noise created by banging a steel bar with a hammer as the unconditioned stimulus for fear. Little Albert would be exposed with the white rat and then the researchers would present the unconditioned stimulus. After a few trials of presenting Little Albert with the white rat and the unconditioned stimulus he began to cry and show other signs of fear as soon as he saw the rat. Through Pavlovian conditioning he learned to fear white rats (Chance, 2014). Little Albert experienced stimulus generalization that made it so he feared everything that was white and fluffy.
Unfortunately the Little Albert study was not followed up on to see if he continued to have this fear.
In 2009, psychologists Hall Beck and Sharman Levinson discovered the true identity of Little Albert. They looked through libraries and census records to find that his true identity was Douglas Merritte, the son of a Johns Hopkins wet nurse (Cosh, 2012). His death certificate showed that the child died of hydrocephalus after acquiring meningitis three years prior to his death. Hall Beck and Sharman Levinson came across something quite interesting in their research of Douglas Merritte. They found evidence that Douglas was not as normal, healthy, and well-developed as Watson had said. The first sign of a disabled child being used in this study was that it should not have taken 3 years for him to die of meningitis during the pre-antibiotic era. Also, in the videos of the experiment done by Watson which were filmed late in the first year of his life he had slow reaction times, his motor skills were poor, and he didn’t make eye contact with any of the adults around him or “consult” their emotional reactions (Cosh, 2012). Whether or not Watson had knowingly used a brain damaged baby in his study willingly is still highly debated but nonetheless his research showed that classical conditioning was possible in humans, opening a huge field of study for …show more content…
behaviorists.
Drug abuse research has been greatly impacted by this research; without that knowledge we would probably still be in the dark about how to treat drug abuse. A study done by Siegel, et al. on drug tolerance and withdrawal showed further implications of drug abuse treatments. It was stated that events that occur during drug administration correspond to a Pavlovian conditioning trial (Siegel, 2005). This study used cues that accompany the primary drug effect function as conditioned stimuli. The direct effect of the drug constitutes as the unconditioned stimulus. Prior to any learning, the pharmacological stimulation elicited responses that compensated for the drug-induced disturbances, this was the unconditioned responses. After a few trials of pairing the predrug conditional stimuli and pharmacological unconditioned stimuli, drug-compensatory responses are elicited as conditioned drug responses. These conditional compensatory responses mediate the development of tolerance by counteracting the drug effect (Siegel, 2005). This is an example of cue-exposure therapies that are designed to extinguish the association between predrug cues and the systematic effects of the drug. Cue-exposure therapies make it so that the cues will no longer elicit conditioned compensatory responses (Siegel, 2005).
Studies like this one have led to the development of conditioning-based, behavioral therapies for addiction.
It is important to remember that this research is all possible due to the findings in the Little Albert study. As previously mentioned, Pavlovian conditioning can also be used in the treatment of phobias. A study by Garakani, et al. used Pavlovian conditioning as a model to add to the understanding of the causes of anxiety (Garakani, 2006). This study took a more biological approach to determine the causes of anxiety. They found the important areas of the brain that relate to the fear response. They concluded by stating that through further investigation of these pathways and neuropeptide systems will lead to the finding of novel therapeutic interventions for a wide range of anxiety disorders, such as generalized anxiety, phobias, panic, and PTSD (Garakani,
2006). In conclusion, the Little Albert has opened a huge field of research that is applicable to humans. It has lead to the development of many treatments for drug abuse and phobias. If it were not for the research that started it all we would continue to be unaware of effective treatments for many disorders among humans.
Works Cited
Chance, Paul. (2014). Learning and Behavior. California: Wadsworth.
Cosh, Colby. (2012). Bad Behaviour. Maclean’s, 125(7), 53-57. Retrieved from Academic
Search Complete.
Garakani, A., Mathew, S. J., & Charney, D. S. (2006). Neurobiology of Anxiety Disorders and
Implications for Treatment. Mount Sinai Journal Of Medicine, 73(7), 941-949.
Siegel, S. (2005). Drug Tolerance, Drug Addiction, and Drug Anticipation. Current Directions in Psychological Science (Wiley-Blackwell). 14(6), 296-300. doi:
10.1111/j.0963-7214.2005.00384.x