laboratory rat. This study was, in effect, a demon-
stration of how a“neurosis”can develop in a child.
In the tradition of Pavlovian conditioning, Albert
was given a laboratory rat to play with. But each
time the rat was introduced, a loud noise was intro-
duced simultaneously. After a few such trials, the rat
(previously a neutral stimulus) elicited a fearful
response in Albert that also generalized to similar
furry objects.
Mary Cover Jones (1924) demonstrated how
such learned fears can be removed. A 3-year-old
boy, Peter, was afraid of rabbits, rats, and other
such objects. To eradicate the fear, Jones brought
a caged rabbit closer and closer as the boy was
eating. The feared object thus became associated
with food, and after a few months, Peter’sfearof
the rabbit disappeared entirely. It is important,
however, to recall Jones’s admonition that the
fear of the rabbit must not be so intense that
the child will develop an aversion to food.
Watson’s conditioning of fears and Jones’s“recon-
ditioning”of them were direct antecedents of the
development of Wolpe’s (1958) therapy by recip-
rocal inhibition, which arrived on the scene some
30 years later.
As the foregoing experiences of Albert and
Peter suggest, the major theoretical underpinnings
of the behavior therapy movement were Pavlovian
conditioning and Hullian learning theory. In the
1950s, Joseph Wolpe and Arnold Lazarus in South
Africa and Hans Eysenck at Maudsley Hospital in
London began to apply the results of animal
research to the acquisition and elimination of anxi-
ety in humans. Wolpe began to experiment with
the reduction of fears in humans by having patients,
while in a state of heightened relaxation, imagine
the situations in which their fears occurred. Wolpe’s
technique ofsystematic desensitization, like Jones’s
reconditioning work, provided a practical demon-
stration of how principles of learning could be
applied in the clinical setting. In his work on con-
ditioned reflex therapy, Salter (1949) also attempted
to develop a method of therapy that was derived
from the Pavlovian tradition.
It is important to note that these investigators
did not merely introduce new techniques. They
also argued vigorously that their techniques were
derived from the framework of a systematic experi-
mental science. In addition, they took pains to
point out that their demonstrations of the origins
and treatment of neurotic fears proved that it was
unnecessary to subscribe to the “mentalistic
demonology”of Freudianism or to the“psychiatric
pigeon-holing”practiced by Kraepelinians.
At about the same time that Wolpe, Lazarus,
and Eysenck were developing their conditioning
procedures, the operant tradition was beginning
to have an impact. Skinner and his colleagues
(Lindsley & Skinner, 1954; Skinner, 1953) were
demonstrating that the behavior of hospitalized
psychotic patients could be modified by operant
procedures. By establishing controlled environ-
ments to ensure that certain responses of the patient
would be followed by specific consequences, signif-
icant behavioral changes were produced.
At first, there was a radical quality to behavior
therapy. The inner world of the patient was
largely ignored in the rush to focus on behavior.
Whether in reaction to the mentalism of psycho-
analysis or out of an overly provincial view of
what should be the subject matter of science, the
early behavior therapists studiously avoided any-
thing of a cognitive nature. However, in 1954,
Julian Rotter published his bookSocial Learning
and Clinical Psychology. In it, he demonstrated
convincingly that a motivation-reinforcement
approach to psychology could be coupled with a
cognitive-expectancy approach. Thus, behavior
was regarded as determined both by the value of
reinforcements and by the expectancy that such
reinforcements would occur following the behav-
ior in question. What is more, Rotter’s novel
views were supported by a series of laboratory
studies that left no doubt that one could be clini-
cal, oriented toward both learning theory and
cognitive theory, and scientifically respectable, all
at the same time. Also significant in this context
was the application of Albert Bandura’s (1969)
social learning contributions to the modification
of behavior. It was theorists such as Rotter and
Bandura who led the way to the current cognitive
emphasis, giving CBT a more wide-ranging andPSYCHOTHERAPY: BEHAVIORAL AND COGNITIVE-BEHAVIORAL PERSPECTIVES 399