Cory Willis
1/24/14
Intro to Psych
Summary
The Experiment on Little Albert is what I watched, and read about. This experiment was
performed by John B. Watson which was the one who founded American Behaviorism and
promoted Pavlov’s Ideas. His experiment involved a 9 month old baby exposed to a white
rat let along other objects and animals conditioned to react a certain way when was in his
presence. Whether he cried, was happy or any other emotion he felt. The main idea
surrounding this Experiment dealing with Classical Conditioning was that the vast amount
of human emotions and behavior could be accounted for by conditioning principles. An
example in the textbook states that “Watson thought you learn to love another person when
that person was paired with stroking and cuddling”( p.304 Ch9 Wade).
Ideally, John Watson studied Ivan Pavlov’s research on conditioning his Dog thoroughly.
What Pavlov did was take the phenomena that he believed was the basis of all learning in
human beings and other animals. (Pavlov, 1927) To be sure Pavlov ran an experiment on
his dog. The experiment involved conditional and unconditional stimulus. With a stimulus,
you’re always going to get a conditional or unconditional response and that’s what Pavlov
knew from the start. A neutral stimulus he used was the food bowl for the dog, and the
unconditional stimulus was the actual food. Therefore, there will always be a response
