Reading 10: LITTLE EMOTIONAL ALBERT
Watson, J.B., & Rayner R. (1920). Conditioned emotional responses. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 3, 1-14.
In the 1920’s a new movement known as behaviorism began to take hold, which suggested that behavior is formed outside the person through various environmental factors or situational stimuli. Watson theorized emotional responses occur, because we have been conditioned to respond emotionally. Watson wanted to demonstrate that if a stimulus automatically creates a specific emotion in you (for example, fear) and the stimulus is repeated over time with something else, then whatever is associated with the stimulus will also be feared. A study was done using a participant named Albert B. He was recruited …show more content…
To study this, researchers developed a research tool called the visual cliff. The visual cliff is a table about 4 feet high with a top made out of clear glass. Directly under the center platform (shallow side) is a solid surface with red and white checkered pattern. Under the other half is the same pattern, but at the bottom level (deep side). There is clear glass above the deep side, which gives an appearance of a sudden drop to the floor (deep side). The participants for this study included 36 infants between the ages of 6 to 14 months. The mothers of these infants also participated. Each child was placed at the center platform of the visual cliff and was called by their mothers, first from the deep side then from the shallow side. The goal of this study was to determine whether depth perception was learned or …show more content…
With lambs, not one mistake was made while they were on the visual cliff. The baby goat, it became frightened and froze showing that the goat was in complete control of his/her visual sense. Kittens too were found to have great sense of perception as soon as they were able to move on their own at about 4 weeks old. However, for the rats it was a different story. They did not appear to show any preference towards the shallow side of the table, but this may be because rats use the sense of smell to travel. The worst animal to perform on the visual cliff was the turtle. They might have preferred the deep side of the cliff because their natural environment is water. However 76% of the turtles crawled off onto the shallow end while 27% of them went towards the deep side. The authors conclude that this capacity is inborn because to learn through trial and error it would cause too many potentially
Watson, J.B., & Rayner R. (1920). Conditioned emotional responses. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 3, 1-14.
In the 1920’s a new movement known as behaviorism began to take hold, which suggested that behavior is formed outside the person through various environmental factors or situational stimuli. Watson theorized emotional responses occur, because we have been conditioned to respond emotionally. Watson wanted to demonstrate that if a stimulus automatically creates a specific emotion in you (for example, fear) and the stimulus is repeated over time with something else, then whatever is associated with the stimulus will also be feared. A study was done using a participant named Albert B. He was recruited …show more content…
To study this, researchers developed a research tool called the visual cliff. The visual cliff is a table about 4 feet high with a top made out of clear glass. Directly under the center platform (shallow side) is a solid surface with red and white checkered pattern. Under the other half is the same pattern, but at the bottom level (deep side). There is clear glass above the deep side, which gives an appearance of a sudden drop to the floor (deep side). The participants for this study included 36 infants between the ages of 6 to 14 months. The mothers of these infants also participated. Each child was placed at the center platform of the visual cliff and was called by their mothers, first from the deep side then from the shallow side. The goal of this study was to determine whether depth perception was learned or …show more content…
With lambs, not one mistake was made while they were on the visual cliff. The baby goat, it became frightened and froze showing that the goat was in complete control of his/her visual sense. Kittens too were found to have great sense of perception as soon as they were able to move on their own at about 4 weeks old. However, for the rats it was a different story. They did not appear to show any preference towards the shallow side of the table, but this may be because rats use the sense of smell to travel. The worst animal to perform on the visual cliff was the turtle. They might have preferred the deep side of the cliff because their natural environment is water. However 76% of the turtles crawled off onto the shallow end while 27% of them went towards the deep side. The authors conclude that this capacity is inborn because to learn through trial and error it would cause too many potentially