Final answer:
Watson and Rayner sought to demonstrate that emotions, particularly fear responses, could be conditioned through classical conditioning, as shown in the Little Albert experiment. They successfully conditioned Little Albert to fear a white rat (and subsequently other similar furry objects) by associating it with a loud noise, demonstrating stimulus generalization in the process.
Step-by-step explanation:
John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner's Little Albert Experiment
John B. Watson and his graduate student, Rosalie Rayner, sought to demonstrate through the Little Albert experiment that fear responses can be created through classical conditioning. Initially, Little Albert showed no fear towards neutral stimuli such as a white rat. However, once Watson and Rayner started making a loud sound whenever Little Albert touched the rat, he began to associate the white rat with the fear elicited by the loud noise. This fear then generalized to similar objects, such as a rabbit and a Santa Claus mask. The goal of their experiment was to counter Sigmund Freud's notion that phobias arise from internal conflicts, demonstrating instead that emotions could be results of conditioned responses.
In the context of the Little Albert experiment, the Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS) was the loud sound, the Conditioned Stimulus (CS) became the white rat, the Unconditioned Response (UCR) was the fear caused by the loud sound, and the Conditioned Response (CR) was the fear shown in response to the white rat alone.
In Watson and Rayner's experiments, Little Albert's subsequent fear of other furry white objects is an example of stimulus generalization, where the conditioned fear response transfers to similar stimuli not directly associated with the original conditioning.