The Little Albert experiment was a case study showing empirical evidence of classical conditioning
in humans. This study was also an example of stimulus generalization. It was carried
out by John B. Watson and his graduate student, Rosalie Rayner, at Johns Hopkins University.
The results were first published in the February 1920 issue of the Journal of Experimental
Psychology. John B. Watson, after observing children in
the field, was interested in finding support for his notion that the reaction of children,
whenever they heard loud noises, was prompted by fear. Furthermore, he reasoned that this
fear was innate or due to an unconditioned response. He felt that following the principles
of classical conditioning, he could condition a child to fear another distinctive stimulus
which normally would not be feared by a child.
Methodology The aim of Watson and Rayner was to condition
phobias into an emotionally stable child. They chose "Albert" for this study from a
hospital. As the preliminary to the experiment, Little
Albert was given a battery of baseline emotional tests: the infant was exposed, briefly and
for the first time, to a white rabbit, a rat, a dog, a monkey, masks, cotton, wool, burning
newspapers, and other stimuli. During the baseline, Little Albert showed no fear toward
any of these items. Albert was then placed on a mattress on a table in the middle of
a room. A white laboratory rat was placed near Albert and he was allowed to play with
it. At this point, the child showed no fear of the rat. He began to reach out to the rat
as it roamed around him. In later trials, Watson and Rayner made a loud sound behind
Albert's back by striking a suspended steel bar with a hammer when the baby touched the
rat. Little Albert responded to the noise by crying and showing fear. After several
such pairings of the two stimuli, Albert was again presented with only the rat. Now, however,
he became very distressed as the rat appeared in the room. He cried, turned away from the
rat, and tried to move away. Apparently, the baby boy had associated the white rat with
the loud noise and was producing the fearful or emotional response of crying.
This experiment led to the following progression of results: First, the introduction of a loud
sound resulted in fear—a natural response. Secondly, the introduction of a rat paired
with the loud sound eventually resulted in fear. Finally, the successive introductions
of only a rat resulted in fear. Therefore, learning was demonstrated.
The experiment did not have a control subject. Apparent results
Watson used the same kind of classical conditioning as Pavlov had used in his experiments with
dogs. The experiment showed that Little Albert seemed
to generalize his response to furry objects so that when Watson sent a non-white rabbit
into the room seventeen days after the original experiment, Albert also became distressed.
He showed similar reactions when presented with a furry dog, a seal-skin coat, and even
when Watson appeared in front of him wearing a Santa Claus mask with white cotton balls
as his beard. Albert, however, did not fear everything with hair; and there was some confusing
results when pairing the noise with the rabbit and dog.
Post experiment lecture tour and later inspiration Albert exhibited an approach and avoidance
conflict with the objects presented to him at the age of 1 year and 21 days, his age
at the conclusion of the experiment. Albert was then reportedly removed from the hospital.
Watson had discussed how to desensitize a human, but knew from the beginning of the
study the possibility existed that there would not be time to do so with Albert. As Albert
left the hospital on the day the last tests were made, no desensitizing ever took place,
and it is possible that his fear responses continued post-experimentally.
Following the conclusion of the experiment, Watson gave a series of weekend lectures describing
the Little Albert study. One of these lectures was attended by Mary Cover Jones, which sparked
her interest in pursuing graduate work in psychology.
Identifying Little Albert According to some textbooks, Albert's mother
worked in the same building as Watson and didn't know the tests were being conducted.
When she found out, she took Albert and moved away, letting no one know where they were
going. A 2009 report, however, disputes that. Some authors have written that the baby's
mother was a wet nurse at the hospital. Because wet nurses were of low social status, and
because she worked for the institution itself, she may have felt coerced and unable to turn
down a request for her baby to be used in Watson's experiment. "Voluntary consent, as
we understand the term today, was not possible to give or to withhold", they wrote. Presumably,
most parents—if given a choice—would not allow their babies to participate in an experiment
in which researchers plan to terrify them. Douglas Merritte
In 2009, psychologists Hall P. Beck and Sharman Levinson published an article in which they
claimed to have discovered the true identity of "Albert B." After reviewing Watson's correspondence
and publications, as well as research in public documents, Beck argued that "Albert B." was
a pseudonym for Douglas Merritte, the son of Arvilla Merritte, then a woman who appears
to have been a wet nurse at the Harriet Lane Home. Recent research has shown, however,
that Douglas Merritte may not have been "Little Albert".
William Barger MacEwan University psychology researchers
Russ Powell and Nancy Digdon found that Little Albert was most likely William Albert Barger.
He had been born within a day of Merritte, was known by friends and family as "Albert"
even though his given name was William, and his mother had also worked at the hospital
where the experiment was conducted. In addition, his size and developmental condition much
more closely matched the experiment's documentation of the subject baby's condition. Through the
use of a professional genealogist, the researchers learned Barger had died in 2007 at age 87
and identified one close living relative, a niece. In an interview, Barger's niece stated
that she and her uncle had been quite close throughout his life, acknowledged Barger's
antipathy toward dogs as a well-known fact that family members would tease him about,
and stated that she did not recall any other phobias. The researchers concluded that Barger
was unaware of his role as an infant test subject.
Ethics and considerations Albert was only about eight months old at
the time of the first test. Because of his age, the experiment today would be considered
unethical by the American Psychological Association's ethic code. Since the experiment, and other
later studies which pushed the boundaries of experimental ethics, legislation was passed
to prevent unethical and potentially harmful experiments. Health Insurance Portability
and Accountability Act of 1996, the Public Health Service Act, and new required education
in using human research participants was put into place by the National Institutes of Health
in 2000. In the early 1970s, following widely publicized cases of research abuse, The National
Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research was
created to study issues surrounding the protection of humans in research. In 1979, the Commission
issued a report entitled "Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human
Subjects of Research", which provided the ethical framework which federal regulations
for the protection of human participants in research are currently based on. Under the
NCPHS standards set in the late 1970s, an experiment such as Watson's would not have
been allowed. Albert's conditioned fear was never extinguished,
because the program ended before systematic desensitization was administered. It is presumed,
although he still must have displayed fear to many various stimuli after moving, he would
likely have been desensitized by his natural environments later in life. Today's ethical
guidelines would not permit this study to be carried out or replicated.
A common belief about the experiment is that it was performed without the knowledge or
consent by Albert's mother. Recent investigation has shown this to be false. However, though
Albert's mother may have in fact given her consent, it is also reasonable to believe
that she felt pressured by a number of factors to agree to let Albert participate in the
experiment even if she did have reservations. It is known that Albert's mother worked as
a wet nurse at Johns Hopkins University, where Watson was employed and the experiment took
place. Also, as a wet nurse, Albert's mother would have been considered to have a low social
status. Since little Albert's mother was asked by a famous psychologist and fellow Johns
Hopkins employee, it is possible she agreed out of fear for the future of her job and
pressure from individuals with higher social power. It would have been a further source
of questionable ethics for this experiment which already has some other questionable
ethical components. Researchers today are required to obtain fully informed consent
from participants, or—in the case of children—from their parents or guardians.
Criticisms A detailed review of the original study and
its subsequent interpretations by Ben Harris stated:
Critical reading of Watson and Rayner's report reveals little evidence either that Albert
developed a rat phobia or even that animals consistently evoked his fear during Watson
and Rayner's experiment. It may be useful for modern learning theorists
to see how the Albert study prompted subsequent research [...] but it seems time, finally,
to place the Watson and Rayner data in the category of "interesting but uninterpretable"
results.
It is difficult to be certain exactly what happened during the Little Albert Experiment
since there is a lack of concrete evidence and scientific records. Though a video was
taken during the experiment, some textbooks even interpret that differently. Different
sources give contradicting information on the course of events that took place surrounding
the Little Albert Experiment. Some of these events include what exactly the baby in the
experiment was conditioned with, what he later had fears of, and what happened to the child
after the experiment. It was found that most textbooks "suffer from
inaccuracies of various degrees" while referring to Watson and Rayner's study. Texts often
misrepresent, exaggerate, or minimize the range of Albert's post-conditioning fears.
In popular culture Little Albert was featured in a 1920 educational
film by Rayner and Watson. Notes
References American Psychological Association. Ethical
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Lost Boy: In 2009 the decades-old mystery of 'Little Albert' was finally solved. Or
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The Case of Peter. Pedagogical Seminary, 31, pp. 308–315.
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impairment: Watson, Rayner, and Historical Revision" History of Psychology, Jul 28 , 2014,
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Powell. R. A., Digdon, N., Harris, B. & Smithson, C.. Correcting the record on Watson, Rayner
and Little Albert: Albert Barger as ‘Psychology’s lost boy.’ American Psychologist.
Reiss, B. K.. A biography of Mary Cover Jones. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. The Wright
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