The Large Ant Critical Analysis

In the following essay I will be looking into the study conducted by Watson and Rayner (1920) on a small child known as ‘Little Albert’. The experiment was an adaptation of earlier studies on classical conditioning of stimulus response, one most common by Ivan Pavlov, depicting the conditioning of stimulus response in dogs. Watson and Rayner aimed to teach Albert to become fearful of a placid white rat, via the use of stimulus associations, testing Pavlov’s earlier theory of classical conditioning.

Classical Conditioning. Due to Pavlov’s success, Watson was inclined to do his own experimentation. His most famous, yet controversial, being on “Little Albert.” “Albert” was a child conditioned by Watson to be afraid of rats. Essentially, Watson would create a loud, banging noise. This would eventually lead to the fear of not just rats, but all fuzzy animals (John Watson - Little Albert, 2008).

Our understanding of classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning has allowed us to unlock many of the answers we sought to learn about human behavior. Classical conditioning is a technique of behavioral training, coined by Ivan Pavlov, which basically states that an organism learns through establishing associations between different events and stimuli. This helps us understand human behavior in an assortment of ways. It makes it clear that almost everything we do is based on patterns of stimulus and response. For example, if you were bitten aggressively by a dog as a child, you may be still scared of dogs today. That is because the dog caused you pain, which in turn caused you have anxiety towards dogs.

Classical conditioning effects everyday life especially in relation to phobias and addiction which will be discussed in this essay. Classical conditioning was founded by Ivan Pavlov. He believed that if a behaviour can be learned, it can also be unlearned too. This essay will highlight the importance of conditioning principles in explaining and treating problem behaviours. Classical conditioning has revolutionised behavioural therapies, such as flooding and systematic desensitisation to treat phobias, and aversion therapies to treat addictive behaviour.

“The Cavemen in the Hedges” is a short story that contains many underlying themes of psychoanalytical theory. Themes of the “id,” a selfish, primal, version of one’s self concerned only with physical desires; the “superego,” part of a person’s psyche that is only worried about ideals and morals; and the “ego,” the rational part of the brain that attempts to satisfy both the id and superego natures make up an immense proportion of the breakdown of this story. Repression and other psychological defense mechanisms are also very important in the analysis as well.

Learning is a fascinating concept. Everyone does it and everyone always has, but not everyone explores its eclectic process. That being said, through the course of history, it has been studied vehemently. Ivan Pavlov, a behaviorist, had some groundbreaking research on subclass of learning called classical conditioning. Coming across it incidentally, he discovered that dogs would salivate not only from eating food, but anything associated with them getting fed. Anything unnatural in their feeding process, he termed as the conditioned stimulus, which would result in the conditioned response of them salivating (Daniels). Though classical conditioning seems rather simple and commonsensible, the information psychologists have gathered from it has been revolutionary. It has shown psychologists the very basics of how we learn and adapt as organisms and opened the door for other studies (Myers 268). According to psychologists, learning is the process of acquiring new and relatively enduring information or behaviors (Myers 268).

Another behavioural psychologist, Watson (1915) was influenced by Pavlov’s dogs’ (1902). Watson suggested that if reflexes can be conditioned in dogs, then they can be conditioned in human behaviour too (Gross 2010). Watson used Pavlov’s idea of classical conditioning to influence his experiment with Little Albert, where Watson successfully conditioned fear into an 8-month-old boy using a range of different stimuli.

As I began reading this piece, I put in the back of my mind, “Trailhead” which I read for class before on how ants live their lives. As always, these small insects who I usually do not care about, surprise me with their way of living. The Myth of the Ant Queen follows a study made by Deborah Gordon, who spends most of her time studying ants. The author opens its piece with Gordon’s work and then moves towards the creation of societies, and the use of technology to develop those. The writing in this piece, for myself, leans toward a future society as a sign of awareness. The author mentions bottom-up intelligence, which comes from one person, and gets build from togetherness. The main goal in The Myth of the Ant Queen is that there is not a

It’s getting warmer, and besides the good things that come with summer, don’t forget about ants. These hard-working animals can be really annoying when appearing at your house in high number. However, you can quickly get rid of them with the help of the homemade ant repellent we present here.

Rescorla advances original theory by acknowledging a previous flaw of Pavlovian Conditioning and attempts to express a more ‘modern’ view by illustrating the circumstances producing learning in animals, the context of learning and the manner it effects behaviour. Thus suggesting that Pavlovian Conditioning is a form of associative learning, rather than reflex tradition as previously suggested. Furthermore, Rescorla emphasised how Pavlovian Conditioning still plays a fundamental role in modern psychology. However, it must be considered that this research is era dependent; being modern at the time of writing of 1988. Resultantly, one must consider if these arguments are still valid in 21st Century psychology, and if so, how. To further demonstrate

Everyone is familiar with the state of armed conflict that is war, and for as long as there has been civilization there has been war. Upon first glance, Henry David Thoreau’s “The Battle of the Ants” seems like a simple descriptive story of a battle between two different species of ants, one red and one black, but if one were to further inspect the text, they could see that Thoreau uses the ants and their battle as a satirical allegory for human conflict. Thoreau chooses to use ants as a metaphor to make it clear to the reader that war is futile, pointless, and a waste of life.

For the second stage, a white rat was used as Watson’s CS, the CS must be a neutral stimulus that initially has no effect on the UR. Little Albert showed no phobia towards the rat before conditioning occurred. By pairing the US with the CS, the infant learned to associate the loud noise of the hammer and metal bar with the white rat. After strengthening the association between the US and the CS by repetition, Little Albert eventually became fearful and upset when only presented with the once neutral stimulus, the white rat. This response was the CR which marked the completion of step three. Little Albert was now afraid of the white rat because it triggered his fear of the loud noise. Classical conditioning can be used to prove many forms of behavior between subjects when looking at the the right unconditioned/ conditioned stimuli and unconditioned/ conditioned responses. The theory of classical conditioning can be used to explain the development of distrust and trust issues in the relationships between people.

The film provides a good example for how classical conditioning is used in the world. Skinner’s theories of behaviorism are introduced in many of the scenes throughout the movie. According to Skinner, acquisition and retention of new behaviors would elicit rewards. Pavlov’s theory of classical conditioning involves a stimulus and a response that are connected (Myers, 2013). Using the injection, classical conditioning was used to make Alex feel ill every time he watched the films.

Among those lasting ironies described as being central to the existence of humans in general is that, for all we’ve sought to defend or fortify ourselves from the elements, or more usually one another, and for what’s been motioned out of the sublime resisting us, in a certain sense, due to its firm stance in the mysterious, or away from immediate control or influences exerted by us, or anything we can conceive, there’s still an insatiable draw in lusting after instances, or circumstances where the presence of danger is an irrefutable fact, and could potentially prove fatalistic if pursued. Most of the time, we’d not be prone to consent with placement so near to what harms, but for all the talk of “fight or flight” coloring these conversations, it drives back, in part, to some prehistoric derring-do, where viable risks were openly challenged so that superior strength could be shown, even if it meant to die trying. Contained within the pages of Macfarlane’s own recounting, much less ones come from courageous men of a like-minded sort, who’d aligned in “The Pursuit of Fear” by means comparable to what’s seen here, there’s a gradual recollection of what tethers them all. Reappearing, even, is Burke, and his “heady blend of pleasure and terror,” who Macfarlane surmises by “(proposing) these sublime sights caused terror, and terror… a passion which, he wrote, ‘always produces delight when it does not press too closely’” (Macfarlane 75). The nearness, then, is what is across the

A significant piece of several psychological theories in the late nineteenth century was introspection, which is “the examination or observation of one's own mental and emotional processes” (Press, 2013). In retort to this theory behaviorism came about. Behaviorism is predominantly concerned with observable and measurable aspects of human behavior. In other words behaviorism does not look at the biological aspects but it suggests that all behaviors are learned habits and changes in response to the environment. It endeavors to explain how these particular habits are formed. Behaviorism claimed that the causes of behavior was not necessarily found in the complexities of the mind but could be observed in one’s immediate environment, from stimuli that produced, reinforced, and punished certain responses also known later on as conditioning. It wasn’t until the twentieth century that the scientist began to discover the actual systems to learning, thereby laying a foundation for behaviorism. A theorist by the name of Ivan Pavlov was a major contribution to the discovering of significant behavioral theories.