Please use this to comment on your reading for sec 3.4. I'll leave it up to you about what and how you would like to comment, however I would ask that you attempt to write using behavioral terms. I will also use this as a way to 'time stamp' that you read the section on or before Saturday.
Let me know if you have any questions,
--Dr. M
THis section was very interesting and kind of creepy. It reminds me of the time when my uncle used to scare me with his huge, stuffed aninal Tazmanian Devil when I ws very little. It wasn't long before I would start to freak out when we tried to go down the stuffed animal aisle in the store.
I am familiar with Watson's Little Albert Study. I have studied it not only in introduction to psychology but also in history and systems. I think Watson idea that he can take any child and turn him into an type of professional he wants it a little extreme. As far as making the young child scared of a furry white rabbit ... well that is just a little kid for you; the same results would not occur in adults or adolescents. In addition-when the child gets older he will be able to understand that a white rabbit is not something that one needs to be scared of. That is only one difference between humans and animals regarding learning and behavior.
I thought this section was pretty interesting. I had always thought that environment had more to do with behavior than genetics. I thought the video was pretty interesting and proves this theory pretty well. I did feel like of sorry for the infant that participated in this study though. Who knows if the infant will be afraid of furry animals or creature for the rest of his life! In one of the exercises it was asked if you believe a child can be anything through the use of behavior modification. I think that all depends on how things are done. I don’t know if you could really choose an occupation for a child. On the other hand I think that you could turn a child into a thief. In behavioral terms, if a child is brought up in a home where stealing is acceptable, that child would grow up thinking that there would be nothing wrong with it as long as he or she is not being punished. And even maybe, if you took a child like this and changed his or her environment – maybe you could change their behavior and help become something better. I just don’t know what I think about being a specific type of person.
Along with this I did like the review of US, CS, UR, and CS. I thought it was pretty helpful, but also confusing. I think the more practice I have with this the better I will get. I was hoping there would be an answer key again. I just don’t feel confident in the answers that I chose. Could we go over this in class?
Regarding systematic desensitization it seems that the massive backlash in the ethicality of Watson's little albert study raised the types of research questions that led to the development of this technique. SD is now probably one of the most widely talked about and used psychological tools.
I wonder how it works in behavioral terms however, without contradicting the basic premise of behaviorism that internal mental states are irrelevant and that strictly biological responses are happening.
An US elicits an UR. Through conditioing a previously neutral stimulus is paired with the US on a number of occasions, or with enough regularity, or perhaps the UR was aversive enough that it took only one or a few exposers such that now the neutral stimulus elicits the UR. All this happens regardless of internal mental states.
You can reverse the process with extinction in classic behavioral terms, however, what process of, or schedule of extinction works best? Systematic Desensitization is a type of extinction schedule. However, now we have a CS-CR situation. In Sys Des. you relax the person using a US-UR situation then present an only slightly aversive version of the CS. The idea being that the CR, which is an increase in heart rate, adreneline, or other biological processes will be less likely to occur. Then when this is paired with more relaxation techniques they hope that you will be systematically desensitized to the CS such that it becomes a neutral stimulus again.
The behaviorist would have to say that Sys Des. is really classical conditioning all over again the same way. The relaxation acts as an establishing operation for treatment, since they are relaxed they are in a state where their ability to re-learn is increased. This allows them to produce a less aversive version of the CR and re-pair it instead with more relaxation techniques.
US (pain from a bite) causes UR (fear). A spider (netrual stimulus) is presented into a persons hand while camping and they are bitten (US) which causes pain and fear (UR). This is strongly aversive and thus just the one time causes them to associate spider (NS) with fear (UR) thus making the spider a CS.
Sys Des uses relaxation (US) to create a state of non-fear and low exciteablility (UR), this whole process is an establishing operation. They then present a picture of the CS creating arosual and fear (CR) and then pair this with more relaxation (US) causing a decrease in excitability. Eventually the picture is re-conditioned (due to being paired with the US-UR situation enough) that the previously CS of a picture of a spider beomes a type of CS2 causeing a new CR of relaxation and non-fear.
I really enjoyed section 3.4. It was much easier to understand than the previous section. I actually last semester did a report in clinical psychology about systematic desensitization and John B Watson. The Little Albert Study is a study thats been drilled into my head through the completion of many psychology courses while at my time here at UNI. I like the mention of desesitization too and Mary Cover Jones. I think that desensitiztion is a very important component in behavior modification especially when being used to help an individual overcome a phobia. In my opinion its probably the most useful and important theory used as a coping strategy. Aside from that the point that Watson makes about molding a child into whatever he wants them to be by the use of behavioral principles hold some truth to it, but i think that could only be true for such a time. I think that everyone changes that they grow and mature and what you teach a child as a youth probably wont translate into adult hood. I was a very deviant child and had many oppositional defiancy problems but as an adult in college now many of those problem are behind me and ive matured into a responsible member of society. So i guess it would all depend on that child's social and developmental process.
I really enjoyed this section. Being a psychology major, I've learned a lot about Watson in many of my other classes. It's nice to have a refresher every now and then, since he did a lot of interesting things. Watson's study on Little Albert is one that is very popular within psychology. It was an interesting study, in which a baby emitted a crying behavior once he was shown a furry animal paired with a loud bang noise. This led to the child becoming afraid of all things furry. I think it would have been very interesting if Watson was able to desensitize him (reduce the fear), but Little Albert's mother took him out of the study. I really think that could have added a lot more importance to Watson's already famous study. Overall, I liked this section and found it easy to read.
What I took from Section 3.4:
I had never before heard about Watson's experiment with Little Albert. I was glad there was a video on youtube to go along with it to give me better insight into the world of Watson. I found Watson to be an interesting man studying all those crying babies. I personally think I would go insane. I feel that Watson had to be a very confident man to make the statement about being able to train any child to become a doctor or begger. I also can't believe the Albert's mother would even allow her child in this experiment. I wonder if she thought it was a bad idea later and that is why she took Albert out of it. I still wish to know if Albert could have been desensitized because he was trained to be sensitized through experiments.
I was surprised to read Mary Cover Jone's story because I have never heard of her and also because she was a woman. I have heard little recognition of women in science so I surprised to hear her name. It was interesting to read of her methods of systematic desensitization, and she sounded more humble than Watson.
Section 3.4 was one of the most interesting sections we've had so far. The questions concerning human nature and our natural behavioral tendencies were thought-provoking, especially concerning the literature between structuralism, functionalism, and Watson. Personally, I fell on the side of Functionalism, which claims that behavior has to have some function that allows us to compete for survival in a natural selection sense.
Also, I liked the section on systematic desensitization, which is a term used to describe a behavioral method used in helping people overcome phobias. The statistics were also pretty compelling, especially the one stating that it is five times more likely that civilization will end from an asteroid smashing into the earth than dying in a plane crash. It truly demonstrates some of our irrational fears and how these fears can be reinforced by the media and our society.
I liked how this section went further into Watson's life than what most of us may know about. I have heard about the Little Albert study several times before and about Watson's affair with Rayner. I knew Watson was a behaviorist in his belief that all human behavior is learned strictly through the environment; however, I have not really taken it into as much consideration until I read this section. After reading Watson's Behaviorist manifesto and watching the youtube video, I really got a grasp of Watson's belief in the Tabula Rasa - we are all born with a blank slate. Watson tried to exemplify that in his Little Albert study.
The video said that Watson thought his experiment was a success because it proves that fears are learned. Yes, Watson was able to instill a fear of white furry objects into Albert by pairing them with a loud aversive sound. However, how can Watson explain Albert's preexisting fear of loud noises? If fear is learned, how was Albert already scared of loud noises? Watson was able to create a fear of white furry objects into Little Albert, but not a fear of loud noises, which is where I develop some skepticism about Watson's belief in Tabula Rasa. Yes, I agree that we learn a great deal amount of our knowledge through interactions and encounters in our environment, but I also believe that we have innate qualities that we express despite our environment. Some babies are born more temperamental than others, how does Watson explain that?
This was one of my favorite sections thus far. Everything was very clearly explained, and I found the topic in general to be very interesting. I have always found extreme behaviorism to be somewhat intriguing. I cannot understand how anyone could ever think that all behavior is completely attributed to the environment, and thus could be changed with appropriate manipulations of the environment. To me, it seems clear that we are just born with certain traits to an extent. However, Watson clearly did not see the world this way. I have had some confusion about the differences between structuralism and functionalism in the past, but this section helped to clear this up for me. Structuralism involves breaking the behaviors down into smaller elements and analyzing these elements. Functionalism is the idea that every behavior that is emitted has a survival benefit. The video of little Albert is most interesting to me because it clearly shows how far research standards have come over the years. I am sure that an experiment like the one done on little Albert would no longer be allowed because of the potential mental harms that could result in little Albert. Systematic desensitization is a technique that holds a huge amount of potential as a helpful agent for change in our society as well.
I really enjoyed this section because I completely agree with Watson's viewpoint that Psychology should be objective. And he was also correct that most behaviors are learned. Think of your common behaviors. How many of us would have started doing those things unless society showed us how to? His Tabula Rasa idea is correct that we are a blank slate at birth and we fill in that slate through our experiences from then on.
And although it's not a very comfortable thing to think about, I do think someone who understands behavior well enough could turn a child into whatever they wanted. To put it simply, all they would have to do is choose the characteristics associated with that specialist, and reinforce the behaviors that go with it and punish the behaviors that don't.
Systematic desensitization does sound like an ingenious idea. I would love to use it with my sister and her phobia of needles. She's 4 feet 9 inches tall and about ninety pounds. It takes her twenty minutes of crying with the doctor and then three nurses holding her down to give her a shot / IV, etc. I'm really enjoying learning about these topics because of all of the immediate, real world applications.
The beginning of this section was interesting, and the idea of having completely objective psychology is an interesting one. I think that's one of the reasons some people see psychology as a sort of fake science. My roommate is an accounting major, and has more than once mentioned that he thinks psychology is bunk. He thinks he could come in and refute most psychology research because there could be so many different interpretations and causes (I've made the point of telling him that people already do that, and if he could actually come in and disprove all of these things like he says he could, he could probably make a ton of money. But he hasn't switched from accounting to psychology yet). He is far from a "science guy", he only likes working with numbers because there's only one correct answer, and you always know when you're right. I've told him before that's exactly why I like dealing with stuff like psychology, but he doesn't understand. Anyways, I've tried explaining to him the scientific method and independent/dependent variables, and that generally when conducting an experiment, those administrating it are only changing one variable at a time to see what the outcome is. The problem with this, and I can understand this argument, is that you are dealing with people, and it's hard to imagine isolating one single variable when it comes to something as complex as the human brain. We can all think of examples where we have been presented with situations that were mostly functionally identical and reacted differently in each, whether that's a result of learning or just a different mood on that day or whatever. It seems like it would be next to impossible to establish both objectivity and consistency when dealing with people in experiments. In this situation, it would help to have psychology be completely objective, but I think by its nature in most situations it can't be truly objective, at least not beyond a shadow of a doubt. When you look at chemistry or physics, though, it's considered more legitimate by many people because it's so consistent and predictable, and also because it doesn't involve people. People don't like to think that they are predictable and consistent like gravity or long division.
Back to the reading assignment, I didn't realize that Watson never had a plan for desensitizing Albert, or that an established approach to desensitization hadn't even been established at that point. Honestly that seems pretty irresponsible, and I don't know if he a) was apathetic, b) hadn't thought of how this sort of experiment could have long term effects on Albert's life, or c) knew that it would have long term effects and just wanted to see what those would be. I definitely wouldn't put my money on option b, and I'd lean more towards option c, because he had already said he could mold any child into anything he wanted, so he was aware that this would have an effect on the subject/participant (subject is probably more fitting in this case). Mary Cover Jones's observation that people were never afraid when they were eating is pretty impressive to me, and the idea to apply that to relaxation even more so. Is this still utilized today? If not, why?
In this section I enjoyed learning more about Watson. Although, I think he had some major character flaws that weren't mentioned in the chapter. If I am remembering correctly (from past classes) he wrote many things on child-rearing, and thought that parents should stay detached from their children. Because of this, at least two of his children committed suicide later in life. I also think his experiment with Little Albert was very unethical, and I hope that Albert was able to lead a normal life after the experiment.
I thought the part on systematic desensitization was very interesting. One of my friends has OCD. In high school he had to go to a special clinic to get help. I remember him telling me that they used systematic desensitization (but the clinic called it exposure). They would first have the patients visualize their fears, and eventually introduce them more and more, until they felt less anxiety in the situation.
I remember learning about The Little Albert experiment when I was in intro. I remember being so appalled, too. I wanted to know if little Albert grew up to live a healthy, normal life. I couldn't believe that a mother would let someone do that to her child! But then again, it was an enormous break through for psychology.. And I have to say that i agree with Watson. i believe behaviors are learned through the environment and our experiences.
This section was very interesting and much easier to understand than previous ones. It was nice to have the refresher on systematic desensitization, too
This section was a review for me since I have studied Watson in several classes. I've never seen the issues with the Little Albert study. We do much worse to animals including killing them for studies. Why is it such a big deal to teach a kid to be afraid of something? I do see now though that it could be unethical since he never planned on desensitizing him to the stimuli. During my history and systems class we talked a lot about the study and were told that no one ever knew what happened to Albert. I looked into it and found that they are almost certain they found him. But he died in 1925 at 6 years old. It would be interesting to know what his life would have been like as an adult.
This section was partially review for me, though some information was new. I personally find Watson's Little Albert study slightly disturbing but I can also see how in could come in useful when either creating or removing a fear. I do feel that this study would have been much different and perhaps not as successful if done with an adult because of the amount of experience and knowledge. I agree with Melissa's comment that it would have been interesting to see Albert's adult life.
Since I'm in my last semester of my psychology major, I've studied about Watson and little Albert quite a bit. I understand where people are coming from in thinking that is it a cruel study; however, I think that it was crucial in the study of human behaviors. I think that if little Alberts mom would have left him in the study Watson would have been able to effectively desensitize him. We have since learned that desensitization is a very effecting way of reducing a phobia. However, if I were little Albert's mother, I probably would have removed him from the study as well. I would be interesting to know if seeing a rat still elicited an aversive response from little albert in his later years. And if it did, what kind of response did he emit. I enjoyed this section.
This section was a good review from history and systems.I was refreshed on Myelinization is the formation of the myelin sheath that surrounded
the axon of a nerve fiber. Myelinization helps speed the flow of electrical impulse. Watson formed two camps of structuralists and the functionalists. The little ablert study is very famous for demonstrate how
humans learn to generalize the basic reflexes they are born with to a wide range of objects and with a complexity of emotions. Watson believed that we are born with 3 basic reflex emotions, Fear, Rage, and Love.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FKZAYt77ZM
There are ethical standards with certain experiements in concerning the little albert study. Systematic desensitization uses a combination of relaxation techniques, visualization, and taking small systematic steps towards approaching the object the individual fears.
I enjoyed reading through this section as it was a quick easy read. Watson's "Little Albert" study - although possibly unethical - is effective in terms of "forming" a developing child's mind. I don't necessarily agree that Watson could really change a child by "making them whatever he wanted". I believe their behaviors and mental aspects can be altered in various manners but I find it hard to believe that an infant can be shaped (at a young age) to be an astronaut or a chemist. There has to be a sort of intrinsic motivation (in my opinion) for the person to put in their "all".
Watson is a very famous psychologist and has been a subject in a few of my courses I have taken. Systematic desensitization is one of the important findings. His claim that he can turn anyone into anything I believe to be false. I also think there is a Conscious. I Think it should be noted that Watson was a bad father and some of his children took their own lives. I Don't know why he was able to publish so many parenting books. It is really cool to think about human behavior through the lens Watson does, how everything we do is just a response to a stimulus or previous stimulus.
I liked this section a lot because I am super familiar with Watson. Though Watson is a manwhore, womanizer stupid guy, his work with little Albert really made history. I think that it was a little unethical, but I don't really know if I would remember that as a baby if that happened to me. I don't think that he could have made children whatever he wanted; he tried doing that with his kids and a few of them ended up comitting suicide! Yeah he was a good psychologist, but socially I think he's mean. On another note it was nice to relearn more about myelinization again. My friend has just been recently diagnosed with MS so he's learning all about myelin too.
This section again was a lot of review for me due to the fact that in most of my psych class, at some point we talked about Watson. In history and systems we talked a lot about Watson, from what I remember he wasn't that great of a guy, but he did a lot for psychology. I really enjoy learning about phobias and how they work. Overall, it was a review, but a good refresher. There was also a little bio-psych review with myelinization.
I think John B. Watson is very interesting. I think he is best known for his "Little Albert Study." I know this experiment would never happen today, with all of the ethical issues it contains. I do think his research makes sense in that kids are often so influenced by their parental figures. I think that is scary how much parents can shape their children and their children's behaviors. I don't believe that everything that is tested on non-human animals can apply to humans. I think we can learn a lot from the testing, but not everything. Watson is easy for me to understand.
This section was a good refresher on Behaviorism. Watson's "Little Albert" study is an important contribution to the field of psychology as his research shows that behaviors are often learned through environment and experiences. However, the study itself is somewhat disturbing and goes against ethical principle of modern psychology because he failed to desensitize his subject of the aversive stimulus. Had Little Albert lived through adulthood, it would have been interesting to see how or if the rat would elicit the same aversive, fearful response.
Behaviorism is an effective way to shape behavior, and children's behavior from a young age can be easy to modify and shape from a young age. However, I disagree that it is completely possible to shape who they become, as far as their future goes because of individual personality traits and skills and external stimuli and environments.
I found this section interesting and a bit less confusing and overwhelming than Section 3.3. I remember learning about Little Albert in Intro to Psychology. As an Early Childhood major, I have ethical issues with Watson and his manipulation of an infant's environment. The fact that Watson did not desensitize Little Albert once he was done with the psychological study really frustrates me. He didn't even PLAN to desensitize that poor little boy. What if that child was scarred for life because of Watson's manipulation of his environment?! Ok, that's probably a bit dramatic considering the portion of Little Albert's environment that was manipulated, but, still, it bothers me that Watson showed no concern for Albert's future well-being. Also, I was struck by the reason that Little Albert was chosen to participate in the psychological study. He "wasn't afraid of much." Umm I googled this situation and discovered that Little Albert was only nine months old when he participated in the study. What nine month old IS afraid of a lot of things?! Really! He hadn't lived long enough to establish a fear of things in his environment. Ok ... I'm done ranting about Watson's ethically screwed up survey .,, but that's my comment for Section 3.4. :-)
Psychology is a study of the science of the phenomena of consciousness. That behavior is only one part of our total complexity. I think a lot can be studied by using non-human animals, but not everything that we learn can relate to both human and non-human animals. I wish we knew more about the Little Albert study and what happened to him later in life. I think that there are many ethical issues in this experiment. I'm not sure by just doing one experiment that you can apply theories for all. I do believe you can become what your society and environment make you. I would say that there is a strong correlation to the theory of child can be anything through the use of behavior modification techniques. Children for the most part are a product of their parents. Parents do have the power to impact their children's behavior in a strong way.
I liked this section a lot because it brought me back to the class, history and systems of psychology, which I really enjoyed. Watson and his study with Little Albert is very interesting and it's something that I will never forget since it has been mentioned in so many of my classes. I liked the topics of structuralism and functionalism, and personally I find functionalism much more interesting. The video that we watched on Youtube showed that Watson could instil fear into a person by the Little Albert Study. He came to the conclusion that fears are learned. Also, the relaxation tips were very helpful to me because of my long stressful semester. I tried meditating and it actually worked!
I liked this section a lot because it brought me back to the class, history and systems of psychology, which I really enjoyed. Watson and his study with Little Albert is very interesting and it's something that I will never forget since it has been mentioned in so many of my classes. I liked the topics of structuralism and functionalism, and personally I find functionalism much more interesting. The video that we watched on Youtube showed that Watson could instil fear into a person by the Little Albert Study. He came to the conclusion that fears are learned. Also, the relaxation tips were very helpful to me because of my long stressful semester. I tried meditating and it actually worked!