Pavlovs Little Albert Experiment

Introduction

It is often said, that all actions are acquired through the act of conditioning the mind or body to perform it. In the mid-twentieth century, behaviorists believed that anyone can potentially be trained to perform any task, regardless of the subjects’ genetic background, personality, and internal thoughts, within the limits of the subjects’ physical capabilities. It only requires the right type of conditioning. This school of thought has become known as Behaviorism. Formally established with the 1913 publication of John Watson’s paper, "Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It”. Watson has been famously quoted as saying “Give me a dozen healthy infants,….I'll guarantee

Classical conditioning relies on the association between stimuli and responses while involving involuntary reflexive behavior. This conditioning process requires reinforcement to succeed. Pavlovs’ Little Albert experiment findings support the idea that we develop responses to certain stimuli that are not naturally occurring. Picture the mill worker suddenly ceasing his days’ labor when the whistle blows. The worker's mind has been conditioned, over time, to end a physical action upon an auditory cue. Pavlov discovered that we make associations which cause us to generalize our response to one stimuli onto a neutral stimuli it is paired with (Narie, 2014, p. 214). Classical conditioning requires two variables called the unconditioned stimulus and the unconditioned response. The In the given example, the whistle and caseation of work are not naturally occurring; the worker was conditioned to respond to the noise. Therefore, the whistle is considered the conditioned stimulus, and the ending of work, the conditioned

Both are psychological processes that lead to forms of associative learning. They involve making the association between behaviors and events, as well as, being governed by laws of association - for example, it is easier to associate stimuli that are alike and that occur at similar times (Mackintosh, 1983, p. 316). However similar, there are several important differences. In classical conditioning, the response is a reflex and involuntary. Whereas, in operant conditioning, the response is voluntary. In operant conditioning, the learner is also rewarded with incentives, while classical conditioning involves no such enticements. Most notably, classical conditioning is passive on the part of the learner, while operant conditioning requires the learner to actively participate and perform some type of action to be rewarded or