Question

John Watson’s experiments with Baby Albert showed how classical conditioning could be used to explain?

Answer 1

John Watson's demonstration of classical conditioning with Baby Albert involved pairing a loud noise (UCS) with a white rat (CS) to elicit a fear response (CR) in Albert, which later generalized to similar furry objects.

Step-by-step explanation:

John Watson and Classical Conditioning

John Watson's experiments with Baby Albert are classic demonstrations of classical conditioning. Watson and his graduate student, Rosalie Rayner, used this method to show how a neutral stimulus, when paired with an unconditioned stimulus, can evoke a conditioned response. In the case of Little Albert, the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) was the loud noise, and the unconditioned response (UCR) was fear from the noise. The conditioned stimulus (CS) became the white rat after it was repeatedly paired with the loud noise. Soon, the mere presence of the white rat evoked the conditioned response (CR), which was fear. Later, stimulus generalization occurred when Little Albert started to fear similar furry objects.

Answer 2

The experiment showed how classical conditioning could be used to explain STIMULUS GENERALIZATION.
John Watson used a 9 months old baby to show that a subject can be conditioned to fear an object which he did not fear before. Albert was a baby who does not fear anything: cat, rat, rabbit, flurry objects, etc, but he does not like loud noise. Albert was allowed to play with white rat, which he did not show any fear for. But during the course of the experiment, anytime the baby touch the rat, Watson used bell to make loud noise. Because of this, the baby become afraid of the rat and started running away from it. To show stimulus generalization, the baby also started running away from all other objects [cat, rabbit, flurry objects, etc] which he did not fear before. Thus the fear he developed for the rat was extended to other objects.