John B Watson Research Paper

Based on this belief Watson and Raynor (1920) designed the Little Albert Experiment to explore how classical conditioning can be used to condition an emotional response. “Classical conditioning occurs when two stimuli become associated with one another such that one stimulus now triggers a response that previously was triggered by the other stimulus,” (Passer & Smith, 2011, p. 214).

Watson was an American psychologist who established the psychological school of behaviorism. He conducted the "Little Albert" experiment was a famous psychology experiment. Pavlov’s previous years works provided a basis for Watson’s (1913) idea that human emotions and behaviors, though biologically influenced, are mainly a bundle of conditioned responses. When Watson conducted the “Little Albert” study he and his graduate student Rosalie Rayner began to show how certain fears might be conditioned and the effect on people and how they react to them. “Little Albert” feared loud noises but not white rats that were presented at the time. When Watson and Rayner presented rat to Little Albert reached to touch it as any other kid at that age would because they are simply curious. Next they struck a hammer against a steel bar just behind his head and after several times of seeing the rat and hearing the loud noise, Albert burst into tears and began to cry as he saw the rat. Five days later, he had generalized this startled fear reaction to the sight of a rabbit, a dog, and a sealskin coat. For years people wondered whatever happened came about of Little Albert. In today’s society the treatment of Little Albert would be unacceptable in today’s ethical

The Little Albert Experiment demonstrated that classical conditioning works in human beings. Albert was a 9-month-old baby who had not previously demonstrated any fear of rats.Psychologist John Watson placed a rat on the table in front of Albert at the beginning of the experiment, and Albert had no reaction. Then on several separate occasions John Watson began making loud noises whilst showing Albert the rat. Following this Albert cried in reaction to the noise and, after a period of conditioning, cried in response to the rat even without the loud noise. This was the start to classical conditioning. When putting aside the fame and fortune of this experiment, Watson violated most ethical standards according to ethical research of today 's time. No approval was provided, no guarantee of the subject’s safety was

In this paper I will look at the behaviorists Pavlov and Skinner, and explore their theories in behaviorism and conditioning. I will discuss the contrasting theories of classical and operant conditioning, their similarities and differences in principals. In looking at these two strategies I have attempted to apply these historical concepts or theories to the current educational setting specifically to the severely autistic preschool population.

In contrast with Classical Conditioning, Skinner introduced Operant Conditioning to conduct research on shaping one’s own behaviors through two kinds of consequences: reinforcement and punishment. Reinforcement is the consequences that increase the chance that the behavior will occur again in the future. Two kinds of reinforcements he identified were positive reinforcement (stimulus that favors the outcome, such as praise) and negative reinforcement (the removal of unpleasant stimulus to increase recurring behavior). Punishment also plays an important role with Operant Conditioning. Punishment is the consequences that decrease the chance that the behavior will occur again. Positive Punishment is presenting an unpleasant stimulus after a response

Operant Conditioning is a type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforce of diminished by a punisher. Operant conditioning was first introduced when B.F. Skinner discovered, while he was studying the psychology of behaviorist movement, and the individual learns a particular behavior through interaction with the environment. There are many ways to apply operant conditioning to everyday life. In the environment, the events or stimulus that occur would result in the individual changing their behavior when the individual interacts with the environment. For example, if the individuals' person performs a specific action, they get a positive reinforcement, such as a treat. There are many ways that there would be an increase in the behavior of such a response in the future.  My operant conditioning example is when I am teaching my cousin's dog how to sit down. When my cousin was young she wanted a dog, and I would always watch her play with her dog named Spark. I would watch my cousin try to put Spark in the front of her two-seat car and try to strap him down, but Spark will always try to bite her.

Watson and Rayner (1920) as cited in Seligman et al (2001) conducted a series of conditioning experiments on Little Albert in which they conditioned him to fear a white rat. By pairing a loud noise, which Little Albert feared, with the presentation of the rat several times, Watson and Rayner conditioned Little Albert to fear white rats too. The boy’s fear quickly became generalised not just to fear of rats but also to the fear of rabbits, dogs and even a fur coat. Their experiment showed that fear could be conditioned though it was later criticised on ethical bases.

Behaviourism was founded by John B Watson. It says that scientific psychology should study only observable behaviour. He told that psychologists shouldn’t study consciousness altogether and should focus exclusively on behaviours that could observed directly.Behaviour referred to any kind of observable response or activity by an organism.

Barnett (2015) stated, Ivan Pavlov was the first theorist to develop behaviourism. He lived with his dogs and would bring food (stimulus) to them daily. He noticed each time the dogs saw him, they would salivate. He wondered, would they still salivate if he didn’t have any food for them? They did. The dogs had been conditioned to associate Pavlov with food; now known as classical conditioning. This observation led Pavlov to conduct further experiments with the dogs. In his experiments, he would provide a stimulus (thing, event or reward someone or something will receive for a desired behaviour) which was food. Pavlov provided a separate incident, the sound of a bell each time he provided the stimulus/food; the dogs salivated. He removed the stimulus and only rang the bell and the dogs still salivated. This behaviour that Pavlov observed is known as classical conditioning. Classical conditioning lead to what is known as behaviourism.

It was invented by John Broadus Watson who was born on January 9, 1878 who died on September 25, 1958 (aged 80). He was residing in New York City, New York. His Nationality is American. Mr. J. Broadus was in the field of Psychology.

John B. Watson first championed the idea of focusing on experimental observation and behaviors in psychology. Use of analytical techniques allowed the psychologist to be objective as opposed to subjective, and made work in psychology scientific. Behaviors seen through habits were the primary focus of analysis for Watson (Moore, 2011). There are both weaknesses and strengths in focusing on behaviorism. Thus, behaviorism has had some positive influences in academics. Additionally, through Watson’s founding work, came four conditioning theories; connectionism, classical conditioning, contiguous conditioning, and operant conditioning.

McLeod (2015) wrote “[the] obvious advantage of [operant conditioning] is its ability to clearly define behavior and to measure changes in behavior [and thus it] looks for simple explanations of human behavior from a very scientific standpoint”. Skinner believed that a simple way to shape behavior is to provide feedback on learner performance by means of approval, compliments, encouragement, et al. According to Thomas (2005), when a student begins learning a new task, reinforcement (praise) should occur frequent intervals, and as the performance improves reinforcement occurs less frequently, until eventually only exceptional outcomes will receive any reinforcement. An undesired behavior can be quenched by being simply ignored by the teacher instead of being reinforced by having attention drawn to it, which is not an easy task. Furthermore, knowledge of success is extremely important as it serves to motivate a student’s future learning. However, it is also vital to vary the type of reinforcement given so that the behavior is maintained (p. 122-125). Vargas (2009) wrote that “teaching [is] designing circumstances that change the way others behave. Teaching deals with behavior. All behavior” (p. 5). Thus, it is with the implementation of proper contingencies designed to correct misbehavior that true

B.F Skinner, one of the most prominent psychologists in the 20th century, introduced the concept of operant conditioning in 1938. By furthering his research into the behaviours of animals, he developed his famous theory of Operant Conditioning (McLeod). Two of the major terminology Skinner used to explain the recurring or extinction of particular behaviours are reinforcement and punishment. In this paper, I would briefly introduce the meanings behind these terminology, give some daily examples for this theory, as well as describing my personal stance towards this.

Psychologists have been studying the concept of learning for decades, and the ways animals and humans store and use the concept of learning. Learning comes with many detailed theories on how the human mind works. One of the most well known psychologists Skinner discovered operant conditioning. This theory gave us a better understanding of how a human mind works, and it also gives us a look into the human behavior. Skinner did most of his studies on pigeons and rats to get an in depth look on the main factors of learning. These studies gave Skinner an explanation on how humans learn and change behaviors. He came to a conclusion of realizing how reinforcement shapes behavior, which is called operant conditioning. When you look into positive and

Behavioral psychology, also known as behaviorism, focused on the overt behavior i.e observable behavior. In this theory of learning based upon the idea that all behaviors are acquired through conditioning. Conditioning occurs through interaction with the environment. According to behaviorism, behavior can be studied in a systematic and observable manner with no consideration of internal mental states.