The Little Albert Experiment: The Modern Day Codes Of Conduct

Watson and Rayner aimed to investigate; ‘Can we condition fear of an animal, e.g., a white rat, by visually presenting it and simultaneously striking a steel bar?’ (B.Watson, R.Rayner, 2000). To test this method the case study was carried out in a controlled lab-based setting, with participant observation. To first eliminate any participant variables, little Albert at nine months of age was subject to a successive viewing of a white rat, a rabbit, a monkey, a dog, with masks and without hair, along with cotton wool, burning newspaper and other variables. (B.Watson, R Rayner , 1920). Manipulation was the most common reaction to these encounters (attempts to touch or engage with the stimulus presented), Watson and Rayner (1920) write ‘At no time did this infant ever show fear in any situation.’

The Milgram Experiment violates three of the five principles outlined in the Five General Principles of Ethics. Milgram wanted to see if there was a connection between “the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience” (McLeod, 2007). Milgram’s hypothesis that he based his experiment on was “How the German people could permit the extermination of the Jews?” (Dan Chalenor, 2012). The first one that Milgram’s experiment violated was “Principle A: Beneficence and Nonmaleficence” which is where “psychologists strive to benefit those with whom they work and take care to do no harm” (Ethical principles, 2013, p. 3, para. 3). The second principle that was violated was “Principle B: Fidelity and Responsibility” which is where

The use of human experiments in sociology is controversial for many reasons, mainly due to ethical concerns. Human experimentation, as done in the 1960s and earlier was highly unethical and at most times presented some form of danger to the test subjects. During that time and before the thirst for knowledge about human behavior superseded the concern for safety. Sociologists and researchers then would often subject the participants to harmful variables that had lasting physical or mental effects. Other times participants were not made fully aware of the experiment or the researcher's’ true motives. Many of these experiments violated basic human rights. For example, the study done Stanford University. Participants were subjected to unnecessary

Albert’s baseline reactions to the stimuli were noted. He showed no fear when presented with a rat, a rabbit, a dog, a monkey, a mask with hair, or cotton wool. When Albert was 11 months old the experiments started.

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

Ethical Guidelines that are Broken in Milgram's Study on Obedience The ethical guidelines suggest that debriefing the participants after the experiment is essential, which Milgram has done it thoroughly in order to reveal the aim and the true purpose of his study. Although he

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.

“While biological factors certainly increase the vulnerability to developing fear and phobia, findings have not yet confirmed that these behaviors are controlled by biological mechanisms” (Rofé). Treating and understanding, psychoanalysis, phobias are believed to be a defense mechanism against trauma that might have been brought up as child. It still debated wether phobias are biological or created through life experiences. Due to varied experiments and evaluation, stating phobias derive from young childhood traumas would be untruthful and not factual. In the theory of psychoanalytic fear and phobias are created if the child remembers the experience which have brought

The Asch Experiment: In the experiment it takes a group of people that are actors and one volunteer and told the actors to give the wrong answer to see if the volunteer would say the right answer or go along with the wrong answer everyone else is saying. I think this shows that its difficult to enforce standards of ethics because a lot of times in the work environment people are scared to be a outcast or do something differently then the crowd when they see something ethically wrong, so they just go with it even though they do not agree with it. ‘

In an experiment called "Little Albert" by psychologist John B. Watson, an infant named Albert was conditioned to fear white rats. He was repeatedly exposed to white rats and was taught fear response to these furry animals which wouldn’t otherwise occur naturally. Although this wouldn’t have been what Albert wanted to perceive as part of his reality, he became extremely distressed whenever he saw a white rat and it was out of his control to

According to Web MD (2012), a mental illness caused by a biological factor includes an abnormal balance of special chemicals in the brain called neurotransmitters. It can also be genetics, brain defects, or even prenatal damage (2012). Little Albert seemed to be normal in that sense to most. However, evidence collected by several researchers say that Little Albert was not a healthy and normal infant as Watson had described (Beck, Fridlund, Goldie, Irons, 2012). Analysis of the film of little Albert suggests that Little Albert had substantial behavioral and neurological deficits (2012). It was suggested that in these films Little Albert’s unresponsive nature was like that of severely mentally challenged child (2012). So while some may think biological factors played no part, they actually may have.

One of Freuds most famous experiments was 'Little Hans'. This was about a five year old boy who was afraid of horses, and was jealous of the birth of his sister. It was thought that Hans' anxiety culminated from his inner desire to be his mothers mate. Freud used Hans in order to help develop another of his theories - the 'Oedipus Complex' which is a small boys inner jealousy of his father and fear of punishment by castration by him. It must be stressed that the

Charlie Gordon was a thirty-seven year old that had an IQ of 68. He had a dream to get smart, and an operation he signed up for would help him achieve that dream. He was thrust into the operation without any knowledge of what would happen. He also was not informed of any additional information about the experiment, besides that the experiment would make him intelligent. After the experiment was completed and Charlie's intelligence reversed back to normal, Dr. Nemur and Strauss made little to no effort to make sure his personal life wasn't altered because of the experiment. Charlie Gordon's doctors did not act ethically when they performed the surgery to make him smarter.

Psychological research has been growing and developing new ways of studying human behavior, collecting knowledge and expanding our understanding of our nature. For instance, studies involving human subjects presented risks for violation of ethical research guidelines, by pushing the limits of human experience (Kim, 2012). Throughout history, there have been numerous studies that elevated this concern, such as the Milgram Experiment of 1963. One of the major ethical raised was that it lacked informed consent from the participants and eventually raised the issue of protecting human subjects. This paper examines the ethical compliance in psychological research and emphasizes the importance of ethics and professionalism by analyzing different

Thereby it is not completely clear, what the causes for phobia are. Phobia is often caused by something scary that happened earlier in somebody’s life, but not every one develop phobias after special experiences. An explanation for this could be that for some people certain parts of the brain and specific neural pathways are associated with phobias. It is