The initial methods of pairing a banging bar and a rat in terms of learning through classical condition refers to the Little Albert Experiment performed by John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner at Johns Hopkins University in the 1920s (Conditioned Emotional Reactions, 1920). This experiment was a case study details evidence of human classical conditioning and also evidence of stimulus generalization. The intent of this case study was to condition a sort of phobia in a child who proved to be rather emotionally stable. The researchers chose a nine-month old infant from a hospital who they called Albert. This experiment followed methods used by Pavlov in his similar studies with dogs and ringing bells. In this study, Albert was faced with a dog, a monkey, a rabbit, a white rat, a masked image, burning newspapers and other stimuli items. Albert proved to show no fear during any of these initial tests (Conditioned Emotional Reactions, 1920). For the second part of the study, Albert was placed on a cot on a table in a room while the white rat was sat down next to Albert. While Albert played with the rather friendly white rat, the researchers would then make a loud sound behind the child’s back by hitting a hanging steel bar with a hammer every single time the child reached for or touched the rat. Albert reacted by showing fear and by crying. Following several other tests with two other stimuli and then again with the rat only Albert showed fear of only the rat. The infant therefore began to associate the rat with the loud noise eliciting a fearsome response to distress (Conditioned Emotional Reactions, 1920).
In this case, the unconditioned stimulus was the loud noise of the hammer banging on the steel bar. The conditioned stimulus in this case study is the rat which initially was only considered a neutral stimulus. The conditioned response of Albert was the elicited emotional response he had to seeing the rat following the noise tests associated with the rat. Watson and Rayner were able to condition Albert to react to different stimuli, such as masks and other items, because the young child began to associate the loud, fearsome noise to the white rat after being faced with this distress over and over again. The concept of generalization refers to how Albert eventually became fearful of other furry objects similar to the white rat. For example, a Santa Claus mask with cotton balls in the beard began to elicit the same emotional reactions from the infant (Conditioned Emotional Reactions, 1920).
In this case study the classical conditioning did not last over time because after one year of experimentation Albert was able to leave the hospital where he went on living in a natural environment and therefore had become desensitized; although this classical conditioning may have never fully extinguished, extinction, or gone away. The child may have very well continued living on with these conditioned fears (Conditioned Emotional Reactions, 1920).
A study or experiment such as this would never be replicated in today’s society or research methods because of very serious ethical concerns related to the way Watson and Rayner conducted their research. First all, some say that Albert’s mother, a wet nurse working in the same hospital, may have been forced or coerced into her baby being used in the study. Furthermore, policies and legislations have been put in place in the United States in the 1970s in order to prevent harmful experiments and research studies on human beings. Because of reviews and perceptions of this particular case study, contradictory evidence has suggested it is difficult to ever say this experiment produced concrete evidence and there is no way to actually be sure which instances took place, which stimuli were used to prompt baby Albert’s emotional reactions to the rat, and more importantly, what actually happened to Albert in his later years of life.
References
Watson, J. B., & Rayner, R. (1920). Conditioned Emotional Reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 3(1), 1-14. Retrieved February 26, 2016, from http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Watson/emotion.htm
