Watson proved that fears do not always have to be elicited from birth; people can be trained to be afraid of things. In his experiment called “Little Albert,” Watson used his son, Albert, to prove that fear is not always an innate reaction. For a couple of days, Watson would let Albert play with a white mouse, which Albert seemed to really enjoy, then recorded his results. After a certain amount of days, Watson would still let Albert play this white mouse, but he would then make a loud banging noise. Immediately after Albert heard this noise, he would start to cry. After more days had passed, Watson would simply show Albert the white mouse, and Albert would start crying. By conducting this experiment, Watson was able to determine that the banging noise was considered the unconditioned stimulus, the white mouse was the conditioned stimulus, and crying was both the unconditioned and conditioned stimulus.

When I was younger, I would always wait anxiously for my parents to come home. I would always be downstairs playing with my babysitter, and every time I heard the door open, my parents would be right there. With that being said, I would immediately run to the door to greet them. Keep in mind, this happened on weekdays, the days my parents worked, and on weekend when I would hear the door, I would still run to the door because I would think that it would be one of my parents coming home. I can relate to Watson’s experiment because I experienced these different stimuli and responses like Albert did. In my case, the unconditioned stimulus was the noise of the door opening, the conditioned stimulus was my parents actually walking through the door, and the unconditioned and conditioned responses were me being extremely enthralled every time I heard the door opening.