John Watson's Theory Of Classic Conditioning

John Watson, after learning Ivan Pavlov’s theory of Classic Conditioning, believed it was worth exploring further, but should be taken further. If the conditioning could be done with animals, then it should also pertain to human subjects as well. He believed that every person learned and perceived differently, which explained why there were differences in behavior. Watson and his assistant Rosalie Raynor conducted an experiment with a 9 month old infant known as Little Albert. According to Watson and Raynor, he was a healthy and well-adjusted boy with mild mannerisms. The experiment would attempt to condition fear of a white rat into Albert. First, Rosalie Raynor introduced Albert to multiple items, similar in sensation and texture; introduced
She was a psychology student of John Watson. While Watson believed as Pavlov, that an individual can be conditioned to stimulus, Jones believed that an individual could be unconditioned or desensitized. Peter was an almost 3 year old little boy with an outrageous fear of white rabbits and lab rats. Jones believed that she could teach Peter to overcome his fear of rabbits and rats with continued positive exposure. He was brought into a playroom with other children of the same age with no adverse reactions to the rat or rabbit what-so-ever. In the beginning, as soon as Peter saw the rat, he immediately began screaming in fear and fell over in his crib. Peter was removed and placed on a chair across the room, then another child was put in his place. This child picked up the rat and began to play with it while Peter watched from across the room. There was a set of beads in the crib and anytime the rat touched the beads he would cry and say “my beads”, although when the girl played with the beads he had no complaints. The process of introducing items continued comparable items he cried and unlike items he was fine, no interest and no fear. During this test, it was determined that Peter had a greater aversion to the white rabbit than the white rat. Peter was put in a playroom with three other children and always the white rabbit in the room. It was introduced while he was drinking milk and eating a snack of cookies (a positive experience for association). Discernible results of desensitization were noted and occasionally Peter was observed on his on with the lab rat to determine the progress. Over the course of days, the rabbit was brought closer and closer, presented in different ways and his tolerance increased until he was no longer fearful, but played happily with the rabbit. It was concluded that desensitization could be used to