watson U.1 L.7
not a great student, but got a master degree at 21
developed a descriptive, objective approach to studying human behaviour, called behaviourism
he described the relationship between brain myelination and learning ability in rats at different ages
showed that the degree of mylinization was related to learning ability
he studied emotions, and thought three unlearned emotional reactions we were born with :
fear : evoked by sudden noise or loss of physical support, other fears may be learned by crying, rapid breathing, etc..
rage : response to a child being constrained, when a child needs to do something they don’t want to, ex. take a bath, clean room
love : an automatic response when given care, according to watson, babies are conditioned to love certain people, ex. mother feeds and therefore becomes the conditioned stimulus directing affection towards her
little albert experiment :
happened at john hopkins in 1920, most controversial experiments in psychology
the goal was to show how principles of classical conditioning could be applied to condition fear of a white rate into “little albert” who was a 9 month old baby
his assistant rosalie rayner presented the boy with a white rat, and observed he wasn’t afraid of it
then they made a loud noise behind the rat, which he then would cry and become afraid of the rat after repeating several times
later, they used other white furry things such as a rabbit, dog & fur coat and he cried at all of them
they demonstrated how emotions could become conditioned responses
very unethical experiment because they conditioned fear into a child
he left john hopkins because they found out his assistant was his girlfriend
in 2009 we found out he died at the age of 6 due to hydrocephalus, his real name was douglas merritte
questioned whether they knew he was cognitively deficient, his motor skills were poor, he doesn’t make any eye contact, he still hadn’t learned to walk at the time of his death
watson then began a career in advertising, sold shoes at a department store, and then became the vice-president at an advertising agency
his income was much more there than scaring children