Topic D Case Studies

Name of experiment 	Aim 	Procedure 	Findings 	Conclusions
Coombes et al (1980) 	To test social learning theory in rats   	He let two rats drink from a spout. One rat had been given an injection to make it sick. He then observed their next behaviours. 	The rats then avoided the drinking spout. The rat which hadn’t been sick learned not to drink from the spout because it had seen the other rat being sick. 	The rats managed to learn how to avoid something unpleasant, using social learning theory. This is similar to learning a fear.
Mineka et al (1984) 	To test social learning and phobias in animals 	They tested their reactions to snakes and other things. The wild born monkeys were only afraid of the snakes, but the lab born monkeys were not afraid of anything. Then the lab born monkeys watched the reactions of the wild born monkeys to the snakes and learnt to fear the snakes but not the other objects.	This shows that the monkeys could dlarn to be afraid of snakes through social learning 	
Watson and Rayner (1920) 	To test classical conditioning, could they make a boy fear a white erat 	They produced a phobia in a little boy called Albert. Each time a white erat was shown to Albert a  loud noise was made behind him. 	The noise frightened him and he associated his fear with the rat. Albert’s fear generalised to other white fluffy things such as cotton wool and a white mask. 	This shows that fears can be produced through negative experiences that have happened in the past. A phobia of that object may be generalised to other objects with similar characteristics.
Bennett Levy and Marteau (1984)	To see whether we are more afraid of, or avoid, animals that move quickly move suddenly or look very different from people	Used 2 questionnaires, both asked the questions about the same 29 animals. Q1 asked about the fear of animals, Q2 measured how the participants felt about each animal. 	The most feared were rats cockroaches jellyfish and spiders. They were described as more ugly and more different from humans. The more of these features that they had the more people were afraid of them. 
People were less likely to approach ugly slimy or speedy animals, were more afraid of them.	This supports the nature side of the debate. It supports the preparedness theory as it shows that some animals may cause phobias if they have certain characteristics even if the person has never had negative experiences with them before.
Jones (1924) 	To investigate whether a phobia in a little boy could be deconditioned and whether this would generalise to other objects.	Jones observed Little Peter who had a phobia of a white rat. When she showed him a white rat he screamed. His reactions to different objects were observed. She used new situations, other children and classical conditioning to decondition him. 	He eventually stopped fearing the white rat. During the last session he would say that he liked the rabbit and would allow the rabbit to nibble his fingers, a massive improvement from the start of the experiment. The other children acted as role model.	Both classical conditioning and social learning were used to help decondition Peter. It reduced generalised fears and helped Peter to cope with new animals.