Monday, October 21, 2013

John B. Watson, Behaviourism and "Little Albert"

Classical conditioning was demonstrated by Pavlov in dogs. Watson sought to do the same with babies in the early 1920s by creating a fear response in furry animals through the association with a loud clanging noise.



More here  and here

There has been much controversy over the ethics of this study and, if my memory serves correctly - which it may not, Watson later came back and stated that he was able to de-condition the fear response he created but to my knowledge there was no evidence to support that he did.

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