Pavlov’s Eperiment
Ivan Pavlov was a Russian scientist. He first studied the digestive systems in animals. Pavlov was then interested in learning how the reactions of animals in some situations worked. He wanted to know if he could make a dog salivate without the presence of food. He first gave the dog food, which made him salivate. Then, he gave the dog food and rang a bell. After a few times doing this, the dog started drooling when the bell ringed, even if food was not present. The conditioned stimulus was the bell, the unconditioned stimulus was the food and the conditioned response was the salivation of the dog. Extinction is a gradual weakening and eventual disappearance of the conditional response tendency. This occurs when the conditioned stimulus happens too many times without the unconditioned stimulus. Stimulus discrimination is learning to respond to one stimulus and not another one. Pavlov had to change the route of the salivary glands and that the results of this experiment could be different with humans. Pavlov theorized that we learned through association.
John Watson
John Watson made an experiment that proved behaviors on humans. He used Little Albert and he exposed him to a white rat, a rabbit, a dog, a monkey, masks with and without hair, cotton wool, burning newspapers, etc. Two months later, Little Albert was placed near a laboratory rat and he was allowed to play with it. Little Albert was not scared. While he was playing with the rat, Watson and his assistant made a loud noise by striking a steel bar. After this, Little Albert cried and showed fear. When he was shown a rat or something close to a rat, even Watson’s white hair, he would be scared. The conditioned stimulus of the experiment was the white rat, the unconditioned stimulus was the loud noise, and the conditional response was Little Albert crying. The limitations of this experiment were that it was unethical and that it was never done again. The law of frequency states that the most often events are linked, the more powerful will be the association. The law of recency states that the response that has most recently occurred after a particular stimulus is the response most likely to be associated with that stimulus. Watson believed behaviorism was almost all of psychology since he believed that psychology was the study of human behavior. He believed that he could turn someone into whatever he wanted if he controlled his behavior.
