Little Albert came to fear a rabbit, a furry coat and a Santa Claus mask after being conditioned to fear a white rat. This illustrates:
AStimulus generalization
BStimulus discrimination
CHigher-order conditioning
DSpontaneous recovery
Answer & Solution
Correct answer: A. Stimulus generalization
1. Stimulus generalization is responding to stimuli that resemble the conditioned stimulus, and the more similar the stimulus, the stronger the response.
2. Albert was conditioned only to the white rat, yet other furry objects also triggered fear, so the response spread by similarity.
3. Stimulus discrimination is the opposite: responding only to the trained stimulus and not to similar ones.
4. Higher-order conditioning would require a new neutral stimulus to be paired with the rat, which never happened here.
_Source: OpenStax Psychology (1st ed., CC BY 4.0), Ch 6 "Learning", §6.2 Classical Conditioning_
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