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Little Albert Experiment and Behaviorism

John Broadus Watson conducted an experiment known as the Little Albert experiment to study conditioning and emotion in children. He exposed a baby named Albert to various stimuli like a white rat and rabbit. When Albert showed no fear of the rat initially, Watson conditioned him by pairing the rat with a loud noise, which caused Albert to cry in fear. After repeated pairings, Albert showed a generalized fear response not just to the rat but also to other furry white stimuli. The experiment demonstrated Watson's theory that emotions can be learned through conditioning.

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63 views10 pages

Little Albert Experiment and Behaviorism

John Broadus Watson conducted an experiment known as the Little Albert experiment to study conditioning and emotion in children. He exposed a baby named Albert to various stimuli like a white rat and rabbit. When Albert showed no fear of the rat initially, Watson conditioned him by pairing the rat with a loud noise, which caused Albert to cry in fear. After repeated pairings, Albert showed a generalized fear response not just to the rat but also to other furry white stimuli. The experiment demonstrated Watson's theory that emotions can be learned through conditioning.

Uploaded by

Gan Zi Xi
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

JOHN BROADUS WATSON

THE LITTL E ALBERT EXPERIMENT


He initially showed no fear
of any of the objects he was
shown and was interested
to play with it.
Albert was exposed to a series of
stimuli including a white rat, a rabbit,
a monkey, masks and burning
newspapers to observe his reactions.
WATSONS CONDITIONING THEORY
The first person to use the term behaviourism
to study human behaviour.
His most famous research is related to
childrens emotion.
People normally inherit 3 kinds of basic emotions :
fear, anger & love.
These emotions can be learned through
the process of conditioning.
This is what Watson concluded
as stimulus generalization
(emotion learning) as Little IMPLICATIONS
Albert has generalized that all IN TEACHING
& LEARNING
fury and white things will
make loud sounds, and thus
he was afraid of them.
All types of
behaviour can be
learned through
conditioning process.
Positive behavior can
be taught by using
suitable stimulus.

The next time Albert was exposed to


the rat, Watson made a loud noise by
hitting a metal pipe with a hammer.
Albert responded showing fear & cry.
More exercises
should be carried
out after learning
to consolidate
what has been
learned in
students memory.

After repeatedly pairing the white


rat with the loud noise, Alberts
reaction was panic & frightened.
Teachers should
use suitable
stimulus to
motivate pupils
in learning.

Little Albert was stimulated with


other stimuli (rabbit, fury thing)
& he shown fear too.

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