PSYCH 111 Chapter Notes - Chapter III: Rosalie Rayner, Little Albert Experiment, Institutional Review Board
Document Summary
Freud"s psychoanalytic view of human behavior was based on the idea that we are motivated by unconscious instincts and repressed conflicts from early childhood. In simplified freudian terms, behavior, thoughts, and emotions are generated internally through biological and instinctual processes. Behaviorists" viewpoint was radically opposed to the psychoanalytic school and proposed that behavior is generated outside the person through various environmental or situational stimuli. To see if albert was naturally afraid of certain stimuli, the researchers presented him with a white rat, a rabbit, a monkey, a dog, masks with and without hair, and white cotton wool. He never showed the slightest fear of them. All humans, and especially infants, will exhibit fear reactions to loud, sudden noises. A steel bar four feet in length was struck with a hammer just behind albert. The noise startled and frightened him and made him cry.
