WEEK 3 PROJECT

WEEK 3 PROJECT

[Name of the Writer]

[Name of the Institution]

WEEK 3 PROJECT

John B. Watson is an American psychologist and is considered as the founder of the psychology of behavior. He theorized that a person can learn emotional actions through experience(Watson & Rayner, 2000). According to him, human beings have the emotional responses because for certain environment stimulus that is present around can condition us by the type of responses. He conducted the experiment in order to find the theory behind his assumptions that was not only groundbreaking but also a most controversial experiment in the field of psychology. The main subject of his experiment is "Little Albert".

Basically, there are 3 stages that comprise classical conditioning. In all the stages, the responses and the stimuli are specifically given scientific terms. We will relate to these scientific terms with little Albert experiment.

The first stage is known as the stage of the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) that generates in an organism the unconditioned response (UCR). In the little Albert Experiment, the behavior is produced due to the stimulus in the environment and therefore it is called the natural response that is not told by anyone. In this regard, when the researcher of the experiment presented Albert with a rabbit, a white rat, a dog, a mask without and with the hair, and wool of white cotton, this instills no fear in him and thus is known to be a stage of the unconditioned stimulus. Initially, Albert looks curiously to the presented objects and animals and he even reached and touches them. He even did not show any sign of fear in his approach. This part is known as his natural reaction and scientifically referred to as the unconditioned stimulus (UCS). The stimulus is viewed as unconditioned in light of the fact that there is no learning required for the reaction of dread in the subject.

In the second stage of the experiment when little Albert is 11 months old, whenever the little Albert tried to reach for the object or the animal, the researcher produces a loud noise on back of his head. This is a stage where the unconditioned stimulus response is associated with the stimulus that generates no response and thus is known as the conditioned stimulus (CS). As expected this thing instills fear in little Albert and he started crying.

Now for every object, a loud noise is created that make him fearful of the objects. This means that after he had learned that every object makes certain noise when it is touched it creates a conditioned response of fear in him.

At the next stage, they wanted to know whether the process of generalization occurs or not to him. For this purpose, they presented him with a white fur coat, a dog, a cotton package, and even the hair of Watson. For all of the items, Watson had a negative response. Therefore it is interpreted by the researchers that in Albert's case generalization did occur.

In psychology, the term extinction is referred to as the conditioned response gradual weakening that would eventually result in the disappearing and decreasing of the behavior. We can say in other words that the behavior that is developed due to conditioning stops eventually.

Warner and Rayner show from their experimentation of classical conditioning that fear can be created by them. Over the period of the next few weeks and months, it was observed that little Albert fear of the rats after the ten days of the conditioning is marked much less. This learned response dying out is known as the phenomenon of extinction(Dibbets & Maes, 2011). However, it is evident that after a full month, that the repetition of the procedure that instills fear can renew the association if repeat few times.

References

Dibbets, P., & Maes, J. H. (2011). The effect of an extinction cue on ABA-renewal: Does valence matter?. Learning and Motivation, 42(2), 133-144.

Watson, J. B., & Rayner, R. (2000). Conditioned emotional reactions.

(Watson & Rayner, 2000)

(Dibbets & Maes, 2011)