The Little Albert Experiment
1. The Little Albert Experiment - 1920
The Little Albert Experiment was conducted and published in 1920. This experiment happened at Johns Hopkins University by John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner. The study was conducted to prove that there was evidence of classical conditioning in humans making them fear things, such as white mice, by the unconditioned fear of loud noises. Watson felt that fear was learned and that children were not born with it, and he wanted to find support for that. He believed that fear was innate and caused by unconditioned responses, and that if he used that classic conditioning, he could cause a child to fear some other thing that most children aren’t typically afraid of. In this experiment, Watson and Rayner were …show more content…
going to create a new fear in a young child. They decided to use a young child named Albert from a hospital, who happened to be about 9 months old, so he didn’t already have the life experiences that cause people to fear things. They put Albert in a room and gave him simple emotional tests, putting different things such as animals and materials in front of him. He was not afraid of any of them. Then, they decided to put Albert on a mattress with the white rat, and he still showed no fear until they start making loud, clashing noises behind him every time he touched the rat. After a while, Albert started to make the assumption that the loud, scary noise happened only when he touched the rat, causing him to be afraid of it and try to get away from it whenever it was near him. He now associated the rat with the loud, unexpected noise and responded with crying and trying to get away, or fear. Watson’s results showed that Albert’s bad emotions towards the rat also transferred over to many other furry things, such as dogs, rabbits, and a cotton ball Santa mask. He did not fear everything that was furry or had hair, though. He did have some mixed reactions towards the rabbit and dog when they were met with the noise. Watson’s results were more or less what he expected, being based off of Pavlov’s similar experiment involving dogs. However, it was not conducted as best as it could have been, considering that he didn’t use a control.
2. The Westermarck Effect - 1891
The Westermarck effect was hypothesized first by Edvard Westermarck.
It is also known as reverse sexual imprinting, which is basically just the occurrence that happens to people who have grown up with each other starting from when they were very young, making them desensitized to sexual attraction towards each other. One of the reasons why he created this theory was as an explanation to the incest taboo, and the evidence that he uses to justify this theory comes from many different places, cultures, and biologically related …show more content…
families. One of those pieces of evidence came from “collective farm”, or Israeli kibbutzim.
In those collective farms, the children were not put in groups by whom they were related to, but rather groups with other peers of the same age. From the children in this study later in life, there were almost 3,000 marriages, but a very miniscule amount of those (14) actually happened between the kids who grew up together in the same age group, which helps to justify the Westermarck theory. Of those 14 out of nearly 3,000 marriages, none of the children had grown up with each other until at least the age of 6. With those results, Westermarck came to the conclusion that his hypothesis takes place in children up to the age of 6, and that past that age, they are more capable of developing those sexual attractions towards each other when they grow up. He found also that, according to the theory of genetic sexual attraction, a pair of siblings who had not grown up with each other or met each other until they had gotten older could feel the same kind of sexual attraction towards each other as if they had not been related. The Westermarck theory was pretty much accepted in groups and places where it was much more common considering that inbreeding, or having children with someone that you are closely related to, causes the children to develop deformities or mental defects, making incest seem to be an unnatural
thing.
The Little Albert Experiment was conducted and published in 1920. This experiment happened at Johns Hopkins University by John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner. The study was conducted to prove that there was evidence of classical conditioning in humans making them fear things, such as white mice, by the unconditioned fear of loud noises. Watson felt that fear was learned and that children were not born with it, and he wanted to find support for that. He believed that fear was innate and caused by unconditioned responses, and that if he used that classic conditioning, he could cause a child to fear some other thing that most children aren’t typically afraid of. In this experiment, Watson and Rayner were …show more content…
going to create a new fear in a young child. They decided to use a young child named Albert from a hospital, who happened to be about 9 months old, so he didn’t already have the life experiences that cause people to fear things. They put Albert in a room and gave him simple emotional tests, putting different things such as animals and materials in front of him. He was not afraid of any of them. Then, they decided to put Albert on a mattress with the white rat, and he still showed no fear until they start making loud, clashing noises behind him every time he touched the rat. After a while, Albert started to make the assumption that the loud, scary noise happened only when he touched the rat, causing him to be afraid of it and try to get away from it whenever it was near him. He now associated the rat with the loud, unexpected noise and responded with crying and trying to get away, or fear. Watson’s results showed that Albert’s bad emotions towards the rat also transferred over to many other furry things, such as dogs, rabbits, and a cotton ball Santa mask. He did not fear everything that was furry or had hair, though. He did have some mixed reactions towards the rabbit and dog when they were met with the noise. Watson’s results were more or less what he expected, being based off of Pavlov’s similar experiment involving dogs. However, it was not conducted as best as it could have been, considering that he didn’t use a control.
2. The Westermarck Effect - 1891
The Westermarck effect was hypothesized first by Edvard Westermarck.
It is also known as reverse sexual imprinting, which is basically just the occurrence that happens to people who have grown up with each other starting from when they were very young, making them desensitized to sexual attraction towards each other. One of the reasons why he created this theory was as an explanation to the incest taboo, and the evidence that he uses to justify this theory comes from many different places, cultures, and biologically related …show more content…
families. One of those pieces of evidence came from “collective farm”, or Israeli kibbutzim.
In those collective farms, the children were not put in groups by whom they were related to, but rather groups with other peers of the same age. From the children in this study later in life, there were almost 3,000 marriages, but a very miniscule amount of those (14) actually happened between the kids who grew up together in the same age group, which helps to justify the Westermarck theory. Of those 14 out of nearly 3,000 marriages, none of the children had grown up with each other until at least the age of 6. With those results, Westermarck came to the conclusion that his hypothesis takes place in children up to the age of 6, and that past that age, they are more capable of developing those sexual attractions towards each other when they grow up. He found also that, according to the theory of genetic sexual attraction, a pair of siblings who had not grown up with each other or met each other until they had gotten older could feel the same kind of sexual attraction towards each other as if they had not been related. The Westermarck theory was pretty much accepted in groups and places where it was much more common considering that inbreeding, or having children with someone that you are closely related to, causes the children to develop deformities or mental defects, making incest seem to be an unnatural
thing.