LITTLE EMOTIONAL ALBERT

Amanda Wagner

Alex Gabliani

Emotion is created by biological and instinctual processes

WRONG!

Behaviorism- Emotion is generated outside the person through situational stimulation We learn our emotional reactions

EXPERIMENT

Prove that emotion can be experimentally conditioned

“Not born to fear rats”

Little Albert B

Neutral Stimuli: white rat, rabbit, monkey, dog, masks with no hair, while cotton wool

Unconditioned stimulus: loud noise behind him

GENERALIZATION Rat + Noise = Scared Albert Rat = Runaway Baby Bunny = Crying Baby

Generalization: learned fear is transferred to other objects

Significant Findings

Human behavior stems from learning/conditioning

Invalidating Freud (behavior stems from a series of unconscious processes)

Ex: Sucking thumb

CRITICISM

Ethical standards were different

New, unexplored areas of research

Extinction contradicts Watson’s assumption about indefinite conditioned fear

APPLICATION

Facial expressions: Sullivan and Lewis 2003

Phobias = genetic component: Kendler, Karkowski and Prescott

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hBfnXACsOI

1:16-5:00