John B Watson Research Paper

Behaviourism was founded by John. B Watson (1878-1958), Watson revolved the main thesis of behaviourism around animal studies which was conducted through observation, testing, verbal accounts and the condition reflex method. Behaviourism revolved around classical and operate conditioning, founded by both Watson and B. F Skinner (1904-1990). Classical conditioning is the experimental process of conditioning a subject of which is believed will produce an automatic response of recognition to (Holt et al, 2012, p.276). ‘The little Albert Experiment’ is an example of this, where a baby is introduced to fire, monkey, dog, rabbit and a white rat, on introduction to each of these a positive reaction is perceived. On the second introduction of these the conditioning begins whereby each time little Albert is introduced to the animals a loud bar was struck which impacted him negatively, the baby then developed a fear of

Operate conditioning was founded by Skinner. Skinner’s main interest was observing behaviour and instrumental learning which was believed to portray stimulus. Skinner carried out an experiment named the Skinner box, which consisted of putting rats in a box, allowing them to explore the box freely and whilst pressing on a lever food would be given as a reinforcement, this encouraged the rats to progressively press the lever. Skinner’s main idea portrayed that maintaining positive reinforcement resulted in effective behaviour, the idea of punishment was not effective as it decreased the trial and error procedure (Holt et al, 2012, p. 281). Both these experiments and theories can be perceived as unethical as it impacts reactions from the animals and children which lead to negative emotions. It concludes of little thought or compassion for the subjects involved but only wanting results and thesis from the experiments carried