In 1920, Watson and his assistant conducted an experiment on Johns Hopkins University . The protagonist of the experiment was a 9-month-old baby, Albert.
Before the experiment began, the experimenters conducted a series of emotional tests on Albert Jr., which allowed him to come into contact with white rat , rabbit, dog, hairy and hairless masks, cotton wool, etc., and found that he was not afraid of these items. Two months later, the experiment officially began. Watson and his assistant placed a white rat next to Albert, and found that he was not afraid of the white rat; When they hit the hanging iron rod with an iron hammer, making a huge noise, Albert would cry and express fear when he heard it. So Watson and the others paired these two stimuli, which eventually led to Albert, who would cry and feel fear when he saw the white rat. After this experiment, Watson conducted a series of derivative experiments, such as pairing the furry dog with Santa . The results showed that Albert Jr. was afraid of both stimuli.
This experiment has always been criticized, and I think it is too cruel for Albert Jr. Through this experiment, Watson proved that people can also establish conditioned reflexes through training. If we often give positive reinforcement (reward) to a certain behavior of people, then this behavior will be consolidated; if reinforcement is not given or negative reinforcement (punishment), then the behavior will weaken or no longer occur.
Zimbardo and Prison Experiments
1971, American psychologist Philip Zimbardo conducted an experiment in Stanford University . He created a simulated prison and conducted a psychological study on the authority in prison and the impact of the behavior of the regulated person. As the warden of Zimbardo, the participants were all Stanford University college volunteers, and he randomly selected several subjects to serve as guards. As the experiment began, the prisoners and guards quickly adapted to their roles, and slowly they began to cross the set boundaries. The guards gradually lost control and used their power to punish and control the prisoners. The prisoners also collapsed one after another, and two people even had to withdraw from the experiment early. Finally, Zimbardo was warned of the increasingly serious anti-social behavior in this experiment and ended the entire experiment early.
Regarding this experiment, there was a detailed video record at that time, and later a movie was made - "Stanford Prison Experiment". Friends who are interested can go and take a look.
Rosenthal and students
1966, in order to study the impact of teachers' expectations on students' performance, psychologist Rosenthal conducted an experiment.
He came to an elementary school to test language ability and reasoning ability for students in each grade. After the test, he did not look at the test results, but randomly selected 20% of the students and told their teachers that these children have great potential and may be more promising than other students in the future. Eight months later, Rosenthal came to the school again, and the results were shocking, and the 20% of the students he randomly selected improved significantly.
Why is this? This shows that the teacher’s expectations played a key role. The teachers believed in the experts' conclusions and believed that the designated children were indeed more promising, so they placed higher expectations on them, encouraged and guided them more. At the same time, the self-confidence of the selected children was also enhanced, and thus the grades improved more than other unselected children. This effect is also called " Pygmalion effect ". It not only affects people's educational concepts, but also has a profound impact on the improvement of other social behaviors.
