Psychology Of Learning Discussion Board Response- READ ENTIRELY BEFORE YOU CONTACT ME!

https://youtu.be/9hBfnXACsOI

1. Please take a moment to watch the video posted above.

2. Next you will write a response to Beth’s below, you need to include why you agree/disagree and add something beyond that. (approx. 150 words for each). You are always welcome to use your personal experiences to provide an understanding of the material. Attached at the end of these instructions you will find the a response from a classmate to read and respond to.

Every posting needs outside resources that will be used inside the posting and at the bottom of the posting (to give credit to your sources). Example of outside resources could be a news excerpt, an article, or a textbook.

Classmate post:

Beth:

 In today's view this experiment is ethically wrong. There is no way that this experiment could be conducted today. It is wrong and you can not treat a baby or toddler in this way. A baby should not be scared by anyone on purpose. I mean think of how this little guy ended up when he got older. I understand that the experiment helped psychology in understanding conditioned responses, but it doesn't make what Watson or Pavlov did right.

      Albert became terrified of things that he once was not afraid of at all. He had a positive reaction to the white rat at first, so scaring him with the loud noise is the outcome that Watson wanted from this test. He also wasn't afraid of the fire, monkey, dog, and rabbit at first, but addingg the loud noise was scary to this poor child. Infants are too young to mentally process the fact that its just a terribly loud noise. They also don't know how to react other than crying when they are frightened by something. It is sad to think that this child was not even the slightest bit afraid of animals and at the end of the experiment he was more than terrified of them. He was even hesitant when it came to the fur coat.

      The study on little Albertt was done a total of seven times, and there was never an attempt made to take the fear away. The least they could have done was try to decondition the fear response. Little Albert at one time enjoyed the things that he was now frightened of. After doing the experiment seven times Little Albert was now afraid of the white rat on its own (Hobbes, 2010). Maybe Little Albert was scared of Watson. Babies know who people are, maybe Albert thought "this is a scary man so I'm just going to cry and be upset when I am around him". I can't really find any information on Little Albert's adult life and would be interested to see how he turned out as a person. He was probably afraid of everything that he came into contact with if there was a loud noise present.

       It is still very difficult to determine if Little Albert was actually diagnosed with any phobias, because this study was never ran again. In science an experiment needs to be done over and over and the same results need to be concluded, since this experiment was ethnically wrong it can not be done again. So Watson could have given Little Albert a rat phobia, because of a loud sound that he heard, but we will never really know, because we were not there and the study has never been replicated (Dilion, 2016).

Dillon, R. F., & Dillon, A. D. (2016). Little Albert study. Salem Press Encyclopedia Of Health,

Hobbs, S. (2010). Little Albert: Gone But Not Forgotten. History & Philosophy Of Psychology, 12(2), 79-83.