John B. Watson
1878-1958
The Father of Behaviorism
Brief History
Top Contributions
Famous Experiment
Little Albert
Watson conducted a study of an infant child and it is named the Little Albert experiment. In this experiment Watson proves that fear is learned by associating things the child perceives with loud noises.
Criticisms of Little Albert
Watson's experiment has several flaws. For example the results are askew because it's hard to interpret the outcome, whether Albert was truly afraid of just the rat or if it was intense anxiety to animals, as stated by Ben Harris (1979)
"Critical reading of Watson and Rayner's (1920) report reveals little evidence either that Albert developed a rat phobia or even that animals consistently evoked his fear (or anxiety) during Watson and Rayner's experiment.
It may be useful for modern learning theorists to see how the Albert study prompted subsequent research [...] but it seems time, finally, to place the Watson and Rayner data in the category of "interesting but uninterpretable" results."
Sources
General Information
Kendra Cherry (2014). John B. Watson Biography (1878-1958). Retrieved from http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesofmajorthinkers/p/watson.htm
Baby Albert Video
Penn State Media Sales, Youtube User: Jaap van der Steen (2011, Dec. 12). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMnhyGozLyE
Harris, B. (1979). "Whatever Happened to Little Albert" American Psychologist, 34, 2, pp. 151–160. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Albert_experiment#Criticisms