Classical Conditioning - Watson and Rayner

Through their observations, Watson and Rayner concluded that emotional responses to stimuli could be learnt. The once unemotional Little Albert became afraid of rats and anything resembling one. However, despite the observations, which appeared to support their theory, the experiment still had its weaknesses, which may have influenced its plausibility. For example, the experiment lacked mundane realism. The probability of someone wanting a phobia induced in them is very small. In addition, if the exact experiment was conducted on an adult- the results may have differed greatly, because of an adult’s increased reasoning and less naivety to the environment that the experiment was conducted in.  Many have argued that although the experiment lacked mundane realism, its results could still have the potential to remove natural phobias from people and condition them with something less threatening. However, since Little Albert left the hospital before he could be de-conditioned, and because the experiment was never repeated again, the evidence of the benefits of this experiment falls short.

On the other hand, the investigation did have its strengths. One of its strengths was that its procedure was designed well to examine many different components of learning such as the effects of classical conditioning on generalization. The experiment was well controlled in different phases to observe the subsequent behavioural observations. Little Albert was even taken to different environments – from a small dark room to a well-lighted lecture room to see if the learnt emotional response was genuine and not a result of fear of the dark. In the end, the experiment did appear to prove Watson and Rayner’s initial theory that emotional responses (specifically fear) could be classically conditioned.

        The experiment also has a lot of ethical issues. The associations made might have persisted indefinitely after Albert had left the hospital without treatment to remove the phobia. The extent to which Albert would be hurt psychologically was clearly not taken into consideration, and the whole process was clearly a frightening experience for the subject. In general, there are several strengths and weaknesses of classical conditioning. For instance, a strength would be the ability classical conditioning has to explain the source of particular behaviors like phobias, and thus allow for people to help treat, reverse, or condition their phobia with something less threatening. On the downside, classical conditioning may take a long time, as it is a gradual process, in which several trials are necessary before something can be learnt. This process also cannot be applied to all species and situations. For example, with regard to animals, much of what an organism can and cannot easily learn has to do with its evolutionary history and learning opportunities. So different animals will react differently to the same stimuli in the same environment. These behaviorists also neglect to include the cognitive aspects of learning.