Chapter 5, Problem 5FI

Summary Introduction

Introduction

We are already familiar with using classical and operant conditioning to train animals, like Pavlov and his drooling dogs or training pigeons to peck the ground in certain shapes to get food. John B Watson was interested in seeing how conditioning worked in humans. Watson and Rayner, one of Watson's graduate students, used a little boy in an experiment, using the techniques of classical conditioning. They presented the little boy with a white rat while also making loud, scary noises. Because the unconditioned stimulus (the loud noises) was paired with the conditioned stimulus (the white rat) the little boy soon began to fear just seeing the white rat. Fear is the unconditioned response to the loud noise, while also being the conditioned response to seeing the white rat.