After writing multiple blog posts about famous psychology experiments, I have noticed an interesting trend. It seems that only unethical and damaging experiments become famous and noteworthy due to their bizarreness and cruelty. The Little Albert experiment is no exception. Created by John B. Watson and Ivan Pavlov, this experiment was meant to examine classical conditioning, meaning wether or not the repeated effects of 2 different stimuli could trigger a conditioned response from humans similar to how they do with dogs. Oddly, they decided to use a 9 month old child, referred to as Albert, to test these effects. If the term classical conditioning or conditioned response sounds confusing, it essentially means that by repeatedly combining two different stimuli together, the brain will begin to no longer discern between the two stimuli, rather it will interpret them together even if experienced interchangeably.
The premise of the experiment was rather simple, the test subject, Albert, would be exposed to a variety of stimuli including a white rat, a rabbit, a monkey, scary masks and burning news papers. His initial reactions were recorded as, “Having no fear towards any of the objects.” The next time Albert was exposed to the white rat, and it is unclear why the men conducting the experiment specifically chose this object over others, Watson made a loud noise by hitting a metal pipe with a hammer. After hearing such a loud noise, Albert began to cry in the presence of the rat. After repeating this process many times, Albert started to cry as soon as he saw the white rat. Even if there was no loud sound from the hammer, Albert would cry whenever the rat was in his sight. This was because Albert associated the white rat and the loud noise interchangeably. Him crying was a conditioned response based on a neutral stimulus being altered by an unconditioned stimulus.
This experiment concluded that similar to the way we train dogs, humans can be classically conditioned to associate one thing with another so much so, that a response can achieved from multiple similar stimuli. For example, Albert was terrified of the white rat because he associated it with a loud noise, but he was also scared of furry white objects in general. Watson wearing a Santa Clause beard and wearing a white furry coat reaped the same reaction from Albert as the white rat did. This experiment was criticized for its lack of ethics and lasting damage it inflicted upon the test subject Albert, although it present new research on how humans react to stimuli that is still be used by workers in various fields today.
Yes, I just learned about this in my psychology class. It was an experiment which shows generalization in classical conditioning. As far as the lasting effects on Baby Albert, while the study was unethical, no one knows what lasting psychological damage may have happened to Albert because the rest of his life remains mystery. The only evidence they have of adult Albert’s life comes from his niece, the only family member that they were able to track down after decades of research on Albert’s identity, who says he disliked animals (possibly from the experiment) but otherwise held a happy life.
kill albert