Little Albert Experiment

Ivan Pavlov

Watson & Ivan Pavlov

Albert

Watson & Rosalie Rayner

Field experiment

Laboratory experiment

Natural experiment

Randomised Control Trial

1 month old

8 months old

11 months old

9 months old

To see whether operant conditioning principles could work in humans.

To see whether classical conditioning principles could work in humans.

To see whether social conditioning principles could work in humans.

To see whether punishments could produce fear.

It is possible to create a conditioned emotional response in humans after only a few pairings of the stimuli.

It might be necessary to repeat the pairings of the UCS and NS/CS as there is some extinction of the response.

A conditioned response may be transferred to other similar objects and settings (generalisation).

The strength of the unconditioned response reduces as a result of a strengthening of the conditioned response.