Certainly, let's delve deeper into each of these behavioral concepts to provide more information on John's fear of dogs and his subsequent behavior: 1. **Classical Conditioning:** This theory, proposed by Ivan Pavlov, suggests that a neutral stimulus (such as a dog) can become associated with an unconditioned stimulus (something that triggers a natural response, like fear) through repeated pairings. In John's case, if he had any negative experiences involving dogs during his childhood, even if not consciously remembered, those experiences could have triggered fear responses. Over time, encountering dogs would lead to the conditioned response of fear due to the association formed. 2. **Operant Conditioning:** Proposed by B.F. Skinner, this …show more content…
**Observational Learning:** Albert Bandura's social learning theory emphasizes learning through observation and imitation of others. If John observed people around him displaying fear or avoidance behaviors around dogs, he might have internalized those behaviors as well. This could have contributed to the development of his own fear and avoidance responses, even without a direct traumatic experience. To provide a more well-rounded answer, it's advisable to consult reputable sources on psychology and behavioral theories, such as textbooks, peer-reviewed articles, or academic journals. This will help you accurately reference the information and provide a thorough explanation of John's fear and behavior based on the behavioral perspective. John's fear of dogs and his subsequent avoidance behavior can be explained through the behavioral perspective, specifically drawing from concepts such as classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning. While no specific traumatic event is mentioned, John's fear might have developed through classical conditioning. If he had any early negative or fearful experiences with dogs, even if not consciously remembered, they could have triggered an automatic fear
He grew up hating his parents and showed no sympathy when they died. He didn’t attend either of their funerals and thought that his dad deserved to die. He did think however, that his mom was trapped and upset with herself that the dad was so abusive. He stated that his dad would come home from work and just beat him up for no reason. This led him to feel nothing for anyone and started killing and torturing pets just to past time.
Skinner in 1938.Operant conditioning is a form of learning which explains the relation of behaviors on certain rewards and consequences. The study of the theory only deals with expressible behaviors and not any internal mental thoughts and brain mechanisms. Operant Conditioning works by applying two major concepts, Reinforcements and Punishments, after the behavior is executed, which causes the rate of behavior to increase or decrease. Skinner’s Skinner box experiment with a rat is the base for operant conditioning theory and its concepts. The main principle comprises changing environmental events that are related to a person's behavior.
For this paper, I chose to write about the Little Albert experiment The overall importance of this study was to discover if a human could be conditioned to develop a bias, fear, or generalized fear of an animal, object, or person based the stimuli placed around the involved person, animal or object. Watson & Rayner (1920) suggested that “in infancy the original emotional reaction patterns are few, consisting so far as observed of fear, rage and love, then there must be some simple method by means of which the range of stimuli which can call out these emotions and their compounds is greatly increased.” This means that before any conditioning occurs, the subject should have a pure response, but after minor and simple experimentation and conditioning,
He wanted to test the notion that by following the principles of the procedure now known as "classical conditioning", he could use this unconditioned response to condition a child to fear a distinctive stimulus that normally would not be feared by a child (in this case, furry objects). Method Edit The aim of Watson and Rayner was to condition a phobia in an emotionally stable child.[1] For this study they chose a nine-month old infant from a hospital referred to as "Albert" for the experiment.[2] Watson followed the procedures which Pavlov had used in his experiments with dogs.[3] Before the experiment, Albert was given a battery of baseline emotional tests: the infant was exposed, briefly and for the first time, to a white rat, a rabbit, a dog, a monkey, masks (with and without hair), cotton, wool, burning newspapers, and other stimuli.
The Little Albert Experiment involved the conditioning of a young child, known only as "Albert B." The child was between the ages of 9 and 11 months at the time of the study. The experiment began with Albert showing no fear of a white rat, a rabbit, or a dog. However, when a loud noise was made behind him every time he reached for the rat, he began to show signs of fear. The researchers continued to expose Albert to the rat, and eventually, he’d began to cry at the mere sight of it. They found that Albert showed fear responses to the other objects such as a rabbit, dog and even a fur coat,, suggesting
However, she counters this belief by presenting evidence from her research that a dog’s behavior is often a result of its environment and upbringing rather than its breed. By presenting her credentials as a scientist who has conducted extensive research in dog cognition and behavior, Horowitz establishes her ethos and positions herself as a reliable and credible authority on the topic. Throughout her talk, Horowitz continues to appeal to ethos by sharing personal anecdotes
Behavior therapy was studied by Ivan Pavlov and his famous dog study in which dogs were conditioned to salivate upon hearing a bell. It was later continued to be studied by John Watson who has the famous “Little Albert” study in which an 11-month old infant was conditioned to be scared of fuzzy white things because a rat was paired with a loud noise. The conclusion of the two conditioning experiences was that, behaviors followed by satisfying experiences tend to increase in frequency and behaviors followed by aversive experiences tend to decrease in frequency” (Thoma, 2015). Watson’s assistant Mary Jones, used this principle to clinical applications reasoning that, “if conditioning could be used to induce a phobia, perhaps it could be used to undo a phobia as well” (Thoma, 2015). Thus, behavior therapy was developed and began being used for
From that, he learned about the generalization of classical conditioning, which was that fear could be broadened to more than one thing or subject just by association. For example, since they conditioned Little Albert to have a fear of the white rats in the laboratory, he developed a fear of anything that seemed to be similar. They tested him on five things: a white dog, a white rabbit, a fur coat, cotton wool, and a Father Christmas mask. Even though these three things were never paired with the loud noise; they all cause the same conditioned response as the white rats. This was what they found out through generalization.
Conditioned Response Imagine being five years old and being attacked by a four-year-old German Shepherd dog. That is exactly what happened to my brother-in-law, Timmy. Ironically enough we grew up as neighbors, my sister later married him. I remember growing up with an elderly man living in the house directly behind my now brother-in-law’s house. This man adopted a German Shepherd puppy as his only companion after his wife died just a year or so before.
In 1920, Watson and Rayner used infant Albert B. “Little Albert” in an unprecedented experiment of conditioned fear (Watson & Rayner, 1920). Little Albert was discharged from the experiment as an infant and his real identity and welfare remained a mystery until Beck, Levinson & Irons published their identity findings in 2009 (Beck, Levinson, & Irons, 2009). According to Beck et al. (2009) , Little Albert (Douglas Merritte), had developed hydrocephalus after the study and died.
Introduction Learning enables you as an individual, to gain more knowledge about something which you have never learned about. Learning also has to do with past experiences which are influenced by behavioural changes (Weiten, 2016). There are different types of ways to learn; through, classical conditioning, operant conditioning and observational learning which will be discussed and analysed in the essay. Behaviourism Behaviourism is considered one of the main subjects in psychology and the two main people who founded behaviourism were, Burrhus Frederic Skinner, also known as B.F Skinner and Ivan Pavlov who were famous for the work they did on classical and operant conditioning (Moderato & Presti, 2006). According to Moderato and Presti
Alex was conditioned to react in a passive manner when confronted with any action that could be considered ultra-violence. Classical conditioning experiments have been performed on humans with a large degree of success. One of the most notable and most controversial classical conditioning experiments done on humans was Watson’s “Little Albert” experiment. This experiment was conducted to test the fear response in humans. The experiment started off by introducing Albert to several animals, a white rat, monkey, bunny and a dog (Creelan).
With respect to the behavioural theory, as was seen in the case of Little Albert, while this study showed that fear could be instilled in persons, it lacked evidence to suggest that little Albert developed a phobia. Using this perspective, some time in the past a person may have learnt to associate fear with sleep, based on his brother’s pranks about the bogey man coming to get him once he falls asleep. As a result, the person would avoid sleep at all costs From the hereditary point of view, while experiments were successfully carried out on mice, to show how genes could be altered to engender a particular response to the same stimuli from future generations, it is not clear if the same could be said for human beings. If a person is said to have developed a phobia genetically, it will be
Then, it was B.F. Skinner who made the concept became popular and well-known throughout the world and even pinned the name of operant conditioning to this concept That is why, he is called the Father of Operant Conditioning and his famous experiment, the Skinner Box. Operant conditioning determinants’ are reinforce, nature response and time interval between response and reinforcement. On the other hand, classical conditioning is a learning way that connects between two stimuli which produce natural response. It measures one stimulus that
Eventually, the previously neutral stimulus comes to evoke the response without the presence of the naturally occurring stimulus. The two elements are then known as the conditioned stimulus and the conditioned response. 2. Operant conditioning Operant conditioning (sometimes referred to as instrumental conditioning) is a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior. Through operant conditioning, an association is made between a behavior and a consequence for that