John B Watson Research Paper

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Have you ever wondered why people or animals do the things that they do? Well, for John B. Watson, this was his main focus. In fact, he is still to this day known as the father of what is called behaviorism. “Watson stated that behaviorism is the scientific study of human behavior. It is simply the study of what people do” (Watson, 1999). One of Watson’s more popular experiments is known as “Little Albert”. In which Watson and his assistant, Rosalie Rayner, tested the affects of different stimuli on an infant to prove that fear is learned rather than already known. In this experiment, they first exposed little Albert to a variety of animals and masks to which he showed no fear towards. They then presented a white rat to little Albert, and again, he showed no fear towards it.…show more content…
After doing this a couple times a week over a several week period, little Albert would begin to cry when presented a white rat, whether or not the loud noise was created or not, not because he was scared of the rat, but because he was scared of the noise associated with the rat. They then learned that this phobia was carried over to different furry animals such as cats and dogs. This experiment was important to the field of psychology for many reasons, one of which is that it shows that fear can be taught over time, meaning that one can basically control what it is that a person or animal is afraid of. Take my dogs for example, when little, to discipline them I would spank them with a rolled up newspaper. To this day, they run and hide at just the sight of a newspaper in my hands. . Also, it “had shown that classical conditioning could be used to create a phobia” (McLeod, 2008). This was huge because it helped to explain why some might be afraid of certain

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