Conditioned Emotional Reactions (The Case of Little Albert) By John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner

Conditioned Emotional Reactions is the latest addition to the psychology journal article collection. An initiative by the All About Psychology website to make important, insightful and engaging publications freely available.

In 1920 John B. Watson ("Father of Behaviorism") and Rosalie Rayner attempted to show how fear could be induced in an infant through classical conditioning.

Watson and Rayner published the results of their research in the Journal of Experimental Psychology. Entitled Conditioned Emotional Reactions their research became one of the most (in)famous psychology studies ever conducted and was soon to be known forever as "The Case of Little Albert".

If you would like to read Conditioned Emotional Reactions over at the main website, you can do so via the following link.

Conditioned Emotional Reactions

Download and Keep Your Own Copy



If you would like to download and keep a PDF text copy of Conditioned Emotional Reactions you can do so via the following link.

Download Your Own Copy Here

Conditioned Emotional Reactions is also available on Kindle.



Conditioned Emotional Reactions: The Case of Little Albert

What Happened to Little Albert?

Towards the end of Conditioned Emotional Reactions, Watson and Rayner included the following heading and text:

"Detachment" or removal of conditioned emotional responses.

Unfortunately Albert was taken from the hospital the day the above tests were made. Hence the opportunity of building up an experimental technique by means of which we could remove the conditioned emotional responses was denied us.

The fate of little Albert had remained a mystery for almost a century. Until Now.

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Conditioned Emotional Reactions

Little Albert Update

Exploring Psychology



I've just updated the Little Albert page on the website with an audio recording of the original study by Watson and Raynor. I've also added a link to a wonderful video by psychologist Michael Britt; entitled Finding Little Albert; which is introduced as follows:

Little Albert – one of the most famous subjects in the history of psychology has finally been identified. Researchers spent 7 years tracking down every possible lead in order to discover who John Watson’s "Albert B" really was. In this video episode I take you through each step of the extensive detective work to uncover his identity. It’s a fascinating, creative, and in the end touching journey.

You can visit the updated Little Albert page via the following link.

Little Albert

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Little Albert Update

Gestalt Psychology

Exploring Psychology



"Patterns" The New Psychology, is the title of an historically important article from 1930 in which A. T. Poffenberger, Professor of psychology at Columbia University describes the latest theory of gestalt and compares it with Freudian and other ideas of behavior.

You can access this excellent gestalt psychology article for free via the following link.

Gestalt Psychology

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Gestalt Psychology

Superstition in The Pigeon By B.F. Skinner: The Psychology eBook Collection

Exploring Psychology



Considered a learning theory classic, Superstition in The Pigeon By B.F. Skinner was first published in Journal of Experimental Psychology in 1948.

You can download and read Superstition in The Pigeon by B.F. Skinner for free by Clicking Here

Click Here to visit the main psychology eBook collection page.

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Superstition in The Pigeon By B.F. Skinner: The Psychology eBook Collection

Teaching Pigeons To Bowl. The Story of How B.F. Skinner Discovered Shaping

Exploring Psychology



Look at any list of the most eminent psychologists of the 20th Century and B.F Skinner will be towards the top of that list. Building on the seminal work of both Ivan Pavlov and John Watson, B.F Skinner became the leading exponent of behaviourism within psychology. At the heart of this influential theory is the core belief that human behavior is best understood in terms of responses to environmental stimuli.

In formulating his theories, B.F Skinner conducted numerous behaviour experiements with rats and pigeons, as can be seen in the following video.

We Are What We Do



Shaping

As alluded to in the above video clip a central tenet of Skinner's theory was shaping. This is the notion that reinforcement can be employed to elicit complex behavior and behavior that would not normally be exhibited. For instance in the video a pigeon's behaviour is shaped into ringing a bell by reinforcing with food closer and closer approximations to the desired behavior.

A Day of Great Illumination: B.F. Skinner's Discovery of Shaping

This is the title of a wonderful article written by Gail Peterson that was published in the Journal of The Experimental Analysis of Behavior, which having read it left me thinking "Well I Never!" The following passage article is taken form the introduction.

Despite the seminal studies of response differentiation by the method of successive approximation detailed in chapter 8 of The Behavior of Organisms (1938), B. F. Skinner never actually shaped an operant response by hand until a memorable incident of startling serendipity on the top floor of a flour mill in Minneapolis in 1943. That occasion appears to have been a genuine eureka experience for Skinner, causing him to appreciate as never before the significance of reinforcement mediated by biological connections with the animate social environment, as opposed to purely mechanical connections with the inanimate physical environment. This insight stimulated him to coin a new term (shaping)...Moreover, the insight seems to have emboldened Skinner to explore the greater implications of his behaviorism for human behavior writ large, an enterprise that characterized the bulk of his post-World War II scholarship.

You can read this fascinating article in full by Clicking Here



"Superstition" in The Pigeon by B.F. Skinner (1948)

I will be making this classic piece of research on learning theory available for free download as part of the psychology eBook collection.

The Psychology eBook Collection

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Teaching Pigeons To Bowl. The Story of How B.F. Skinner Discovered Shaping