The study consisted of Little Albert, 3 years of age, who was exposed to a docile white rat. Albert at first loved playing with the rat showing this by laughing and smiling. The white rat in this case will be considered the "unconditioned stimulus" for the study. While Albert was playing with the mouse Watson then banged 2 pipes together every time Albert touched the rat, making a terrible sound and scaring Albert. After about 6 times of Albert being scared by the pipes while simultaneously touching the white rat, Little Albert began to show the same fear of the pipes banging together just by the mere sight/presence of the white rat. This response is called the "conditioned response."
The implications of this study are two fold 1) It shows the ability to evoke an automatic response (for the most part) in humans; the ability to classically condition a human. 2) After the study was concluded Albert began to associate his fear of the white rat to other things that were white (white hair, white horse, etc.) this concludes that humans also generalize things in terms of emotions and responses.
I have always been interested in psychology and how humans behave. It is really interesting that one outside source can condition people to behave in a certain way or be afraid of certain things.. and from there evoke other fears in people.
ReplyDeleteI remember learning about this in high school. Thats a pretty whack thing to do to a little kid. Permanently afraid of the color white, that will set you back a little bit i think.
ReplyDeleteI think its amazing how our brains handle information. Every stimulus we experienced is interpreted by the brain based on past experiences, resulting in a fitting response. The brain does all this without our conscious awareness of it, which doesn't always work in our favor.
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