Author — N. J. Mackintosh, University of Cambridge.
Source: Introduction to Psychology book. Authors — R.L. Atkinson, R.S. Atkinson, E.E. Smith, D.J. Boehm, S. Nolen-Hoeksema. Under the general editorship of V.P. Zinchenko. 15th international edition, St. Petersburg, Prime Eurosign, 2007.
Article from chapter 7. Learning and conditioning
John Watson, the father of behaviorism, believed that babies have only a few innate fears, of which the two most important are the fear of loud noises and the fear of loss of care. Literally all other fears, in his opinion, are acquired as a result of conditioning. To prove their point, Watson and his student Rosalie Rayner demonstrated the development of a conditioned fear response in an 11-month-old infant, Albert B. (Watson & Rayner, 1920). At first, Albert was happy when he reached for any small animal brought to him. The infant was then presented with a white rat seven times (conditioned stimulus) and, as he touched it, a steel bar was suddenly struck behind him (unconditioned stimulus). As a result, at the sight of a rat, Albert began to cry and pull his hand away from it. The conditioned fear reflex elicited in the rat was generalized to other stimuli—the rabbit, the dog, and the cat’s coat. Since then, hundreds of laboratory experiments have shown that pairing randomly selected and initially neutral stimuli with a negative reaction-producing event, such as a brief electric shock or a very loud noise, leads to the development of a conditioned fear response. Watson and Reiner’s research has often been cited (Harris, 1979) as evidence that adult phobias, whether fear of snakes or spiders, open spaces or enclosed spaces, are based on one or more episodes of conditioning that result in an initially neutral stimulus, such as a snake, associated with any adverse outcome. Such a direct application of the theory of conditioning is not without its difficulties, one of which is worth noting in particular (if only to protect Watson and Reiner from the accusation of cruelty): little Albert was only slightly agitated, even when a rat was allowed to crawl on him, and whatever the level fear, the experimenters found no generalizations when testing in another room.
Vicar conditioning studies have shown that simply observing a fear response to a specific conditioned stimulus can act as an unconditioned stimulus that is sufficient to serve as a reinforcer for generating a conditioned fear response. Free-born rhesus monkeys are usually afraid of snakes. This is not an innate fear, as the baby rhesus monkeys that were born in the laboratory did not show it. But it is enough for a macaque calf to see how an adult demonstrates a fear reaction to a snake once, so that the fear of snakes also arises in him (Mineka, 1987). This is just one of the ways parents can inadvertently influence their children’s behavior.
The traditional behaviorist view has been that any stimulus can be associated with any outcome. At first glance, this makes it even more problematic to explain phobias in terms of conditioning, since so far the most common phobias have been associated with social situations or animals, and not with a huge number of other objects or events (electrical outlets, the sight of one’s own blood) that are more likely to be associated with painful consequences. Does this mean that there is a genetic predisposition to phobias? No, if we remember that we are all afraid of spiders from birth — however, not everyone suffers from arachnophobia. Of course, it is differences in individual experience that, at least in part, cause one person to be afraid of spiders, another to be afraid of snakes, and a third not to be afraid of either. But why only spiders, snakes, etc.? To answer this question, a number of conditioning experiments have been carried out.
In a series of studies, Ohman and colleagues showed that the galvanic skin response that occurs in humans is more resistant to decay when the conditioned stimulus is an image of a snake or a spider rather than an image of flowers or mushrooms (Ohman, 1986). Cook and Mineka (1990) provided evidence for the existence of such selective fear in monkeys. Baby monkeys became frightened of snakes after watching a video of an adult monkey showing a fear response to a snake, but showed no fear response to flowers after watching a cleverly edited video of an adult monkey showing a state of panic at the sight of a flower. Similar results have been interpreted as evidence of a biological predisposition to associate certain kinds of stimuli with certain consequences: in the evolutionary history of early hominids or other African primates, snakes and spiders were potentially dangerous, while flowers and fungi were not. There are other questions that remain unanswered within learning theories. Ohman’s experiments found that the fear of snakes fades more slowly than the fear of flowers, but they are acquired at the same rate. Other experiments have shown that images of snakes are just as easily perceived as safe signals as images of flowers (McNally & Reiss, 1984). The baby monkeys in Cook and Mineka’s experiments, after watching videos of adult monkeys showing fear responses to flowers rather than snakes, still showed significant fear of a live snake (and no fear of flowers).
It can be concluded that if fear previously existed, then under conditions of threat or stress, sensitivity to certain types of stimuli increases, but faster development of the conditioned fear response does not occur (Lovibond, Siddle & Bond, 1993).
Phobias are an innate defense mechanism
Defense against predators is urgent; it is necessary to respond quickly to the danger with effective behavior. Slow learning by trial and error will not work in this case. See →