The Little Albert Experiment: An Example Of Human Conditioning

Classical Conditioning. Due to Pavlov’s success, Watson was inclined to do his own experimentation. His most famous, yet controversial, being on “Little Albert.” “Albert” was a child conditioned by Watson to be afraid of rats. Essentially, Watson would create a loud, banging noise. This would eventually lead to the fear of not just rats, but all fuzzy animals (John Watson - Little Albert, 2008).

What is Watson’s Classical Conditioning? Classical Conditioning was found by Dr. Ivan Pavlov. Watson’s research was influenced by Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning Theory. Watson made a research on children’s emotions using the Classical Conditioning model. According to Watson, love, fear, and anger are the three kinds of emotions inherited by humans (Hall 1988). He believed these emotions could be learned through conditioning. He formed his hypothesis and carried out an experiment. John B. Watson’s classical condition experiment was on a child named Little Albert. This experiment was while a child was playing with a rabbit, smashing two bars to make a loud noise behind the child’s head. After hearing the loud noise the child

Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov had done experiments on dogs showing the conditioning process, but Watson was interested in taking Pavlov’s research to the next level and show that emotional reactions can be classically conditioned in people (Cherry, 2016). They used a nine-month-old baby boy and exposed him to a series of stimuli including a white rat, a rabbit, a monkey, masks and burning newspapers and watched the boys reaction, initially he showed no fear of the objects he was shown (Cherry, 2016). He then decided that he

Watson’s theory was based on the ideas of classical conditioning of Ivan Pavlov who used animals for research and believed that they could be taught anything by watching and copying others. Watson further developed the theory applying it on people’s behaviour, based on the conditioning and training of behaviour and on the belief that anyone could be taught anything as we are all born with the same abilities, disregarding feelings and emotions.

Little Albert an 11 month old boy was chosen as the participant. Watson identified that a white rat did not provoke any fear response in Albert, so it was a neutral stimulus. Little Albert was then exposed to the white rat, but every time he reached out to touch it Watson would make a loud noise. Albert would get frightened and start to cry. After repeating this several times, Albert started getting frightened just by seeing the rat. Just like the bell in Pavlov's experiment, the white rat had become a conditioned stimulus to Albert. Watson therefore concluded that even complex behaviour such as fear was a learned response.

Pavlov and Watson are both associated with classical conditioning which is when you are taught to act a certain way by association and instruction. We do not use this in practice today but it helps us to understand phobias such as a child being scared of spiders because mummy is and always screams when she sees one.

Another behavioural psychologist, Watson (1915) was influenced by Pavlov’s dogs’ (1902). Watson suggested that if reflexes can be conditioned in dogs, then they can be conditioned in human behaviour too (Gross 2010). Watson used Pavlov’s idea of classical conditioning to influence his experiment with Little Albert, where Watson successfully conditioned fear into an 8-month-old boy using a range of different stimuli.

Examine the Historical and Ethically Controversial Case of Little Albert For many decades, psychological testing and theories has played a significant role in psychology and has always raised a concern in regards to ethics. Ethics is simply about knowing the difference between right and wrong. Therefore, in psychology, researchers have a moral responsibility to protect their participants from harm. In this week assignment, I will examine the ethical controversy that has caused many questions and concerns about the episode of John Watson and The Little Albert Experiment.

Little Albert’s was chosen because of his strong emotional stability and researches think his personality could be “relatively little harm by carrying out such experiments…” (Wastson & Rayner, 1920, p. 3). However, from psychologists’ point of view, his emotional reaction was far from mild and experimenters did not put effort to comfort him (Smith & Haslam, 2012). Although the principles of classical conditioning are useful in treatment of phobias and even medical implications, it is questioned whether its worth to cause harm to the subject in order to complete the study. The unethical research method of classic studies brings potential damages to the participants (Russell & Purcell, 2009). The ignorance of such damages overrates the experimental result and conclusion. Studies should be morally and ethically grounded.

Was his method used in the experiment "good psychology" because his experiment does not meet ethical standards, does that also weaken the integrity of the experiment done. It also begins to question if Albert was his only test subject and if not, was it done under the same pretext as Albert? In our text we are also introduced to "systematic desensitization: " as a way to cure a phobia. After a little more research on the experiment an article "The Little Albert Experiment " by Alexander Burgemeester states that, "Watson could have ‘cured’ Albert of the phobia he had induced using a process known as systematic desensitization but chose not to as he and Raynor wanted to continue with the experiment until the Albert’s mother came to collect

Spearheaded by John Watson, who led the field of behaviorism, psychologists across the world began horrendous experiments for a time period they deemed themselves to be so “advanced” and “great.” Watson himself focused on children, due to them being so-called “blank slates”; but that does not mean adults were tested on. One of the most notable psychological experiments ever was the Little Albert Experiment. Watson intended to terrify the poor baby to fear anything with fur- rats, dogs, beards, so on and so forth. Today we recognize this as unethical, but back then, regulation of the psychological community was very poor. Prior to the experiments, Albert was unphased by much. When Watson showed him a laboratory rat, Albert instantly took to it. Watson, while Albert would be petting the rat, struck a steel bar with a hammer, instantly causing Albert to cry. This went on and on, until Albert was practically broken. Any sight of the rat would cause him to burst out in tears. The worst part of the experiment was that Albert was never desensitized. Up until his death 87 years later, Little Albert was terrified of anything with fur, and suffered massive anxiety. Other experiments occurred, less publicized, of course, because the experiments that took place were some of the worst humanity could bring

The Little Albert experiment has become a famous case study that has been discussed by a plethora of professionals in the psychology industry. In 1920, behaviorist John Watson and his assistant Rosalie Rayner began to conduct the first experiment that had been done with a child. Watson and Rayner chose Albert because they thought he was stable; he was accustomed to a hospital environment due to his mother’s career as a wet nurse, he was healthy and showed little emotion. Stability played a major factor in choosing Albert for this case study because Watson wanted to ensure that they would do as little harm as possible with the experiment. The conditioning of Albert began with a series of emotional tests that became part of a routine in which Watson and Rayner were “determining whether fear reactions could be called out by other stimuli than sharp noises and the sudden removal of support” (-----). Watson’s method of choice for this experiment was using principles of classic conditioning to create a stimulus in children that would result in fear. Since Watson wanted to condition Albert, he used a variety of objects that would otherwise not scare him. These objects included white rat, dog, blocks, rabbit, fur coat, wool and a Santa Claus mask.

For the second stage, a white rat was used as Watson’s CS, the CS must be a neutral stimulus that initially has no effect on the UR. Little Albert showed no phobia towards the rat before conditioning occurred. By pairing the US with the CS, the infant learned to associate the loud noise of the hammer and metal bar with the white rat. After strengthening the association between the US and the CS by repetition, Little Albert eventually became fearful and upset when only presented with the once neutral stimulus, the white rat. This response was the CR which marked the completion of step three. Little Albert was now afraid of the white rat because it triggered his fear of the loud noise. Classical conditioning can be used to prove many forms of behavior between subjects when looking at the the right unconditioned/ conditioned stimuli and unconditioned/ conditioned responses. The theory of classical conditioning can be used to explain the development of distrust and trust issues in the relationships between people.

As mention, John Watson was interested in conducting experiments to find more research about behaviorism. In 1920’s, John Watson conducted one of his most controversial experiment, “Little Albert”.

Behaviourists regard behaviour has a response and stimulus which is determined by the environment one lives in. With this reductionist idea, it is therefore easy for behaviourists to control experiments. Behaviourists carry out experiments with control over variables, precise measurements objectivity and observability, resulting in very reliable results. However, some critics may argue that behaviour is studied under artificial conditions which do not match real life environments, resulting in low ecological validity. Furthermore, another strength of this approach is that all three of its theories, classical conditioning, operant conditioning and social learning theory have succeeded when applied to its studies. For instance, classical conditioning is when new behaviours maybe acquired through association between an environmental stimulus and a neutral stimulus. An example of this is Watson’s little Albert experiment (1920) where the neutral stimulus (white rat) and