John B. WatsonJohn B. Watson was a very important theorist within the Behaviorist category of Human Development. Behaviorism is is the theory, developed by Watson, which focuses on how humans behave in a controlled environment. Watson believed in the "blank slate" theory, which means that humans are born with nothing in their brain and they grow to be who they are by the environment they live in.
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In 1920, Watson and his colleague Rayner carried out an experiment with a 9-month-old infant named Little Albert (Levine & Munsch). Watson wanted to figure out if he could condition a child to show fear. He began the experiment with an unconditioned stimulus by making a loud sound. Little Albert then started to cry in fear, because small children do not like loud noises. Next, Watson introduced a neutral stimulus, a white rat. Little Albert was curious about the white rat and showed no fear. For the second part of the experiment, Little Albert was introduced to the white rat as the same time the loud sound was being made, and he would cry each time. This happened over the course of a few days. The, for the third part of the experiment, Little ALbert was only introduced to the white rat with no loud sound. Little Albert would cry each time he saw the white rabbit. This experiment is a very good example of the definition of conditioning.
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