John Watson and Little Albert conditioned fear by pairing a white rat with a loud noise, leading to generalized fear of similar objects. This phenomenon is called?

• A. Operant conditioning
• B. Classical conditioning of fear
• C. Reinforcement
• D. Law of effect

Answer: (B)

Classical conditioning explains this. A neutral stimulus—the white rat—becomes feared after it’s paired with an aversive unconditioned stimulus—the loud noise. With repeated pairings, the rat itself elicits a fear response, now a conditioned response, even without the noise. The fear then generalizes to similar objects, showing how the learned association extends to stimuli that resemble the original conditioned stimulus. This isn’t operant conditioning, because there’s no behavior being shaped by consequences; the fear response is automatic, not voluntary, and there’s no reinforcement driving a specific action.