can basic conditioning principles explain a fear of stairs or a belief that people
are out to get you? As you will see, not only can behaviorists account for these
and other abnormal behaviors, but many psychotherapy techniques are basedon basic conditioning principles.
Explaining Psychological Disorders
John B. Watson was the first to demonstrate how seemingly “abnormal” be-
haviors are created through normal conditioning procedures. Watson usedclassical conditioning to create a fear of white rats in an 11-month-old babyknown as Little Albert (Watson & Rayner, 1920). As shown in Figure 13.5,
Watson began with the stimulus-response association between a loud noise
and fear present in most infants. That is, whenever Watson would make theloud noise, Albert would cry and show other signs of fear. Next, Watson
showed Albert a white rat, each time accompanied by the loud noise. Soon
Albert was responding to the white rat with fear responses (crying, crawlingaway) similar to those he had made to the loud noise, even when the noise
was not sounded. Watson demonstrated that what appeared to be an abnor-
mal fear of white rats in an infant could be explained by knowing the pastconditioning of the child.
Behaviorists argue that many of our seemingly irrational fears may have
been developed in a similar manner. We may not recall when bridges or
snakes were ever associated with an existing fear, but these associations could
have taken place a long time ago or even without our awareness. However,1
0234Mean Number of Different
Imitative Responses Reproduced
Boys Girls
Model RewardedBoys Girls
Model PunishedBoys Girls
No Consequences
FIGURE 13.4 Mean Number of Aggressive Responses Performed
Source: From “Influence of models ’reinforcement contingencies on the acquisition of imitative responses, ”by
A. Bandura, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 1965, 1, 589 –595.358 CHAPTER 13 The Behavioral/Social Learning Approach