True Life Tuesday: The Little Albert Experiment

With my classes in my Masters programs we did talk about many of psychology's famous experiments. Especially the ones that could never be conducted today because of ethical issues. This experiment is one of those.

Most people are aware of the psychological idea of classical conditioning through the famous Pavlov's dog experiment. In simple terms this is the idea that a response can be conditioned to occur when a neutral stimuli is introduced. After Pavlov's experiment on dogs behaviorist John B. Watson was interested in determining if classical conditioning could be applied to humans. He, along with graduate student Rosalie Rayner, set off on their experiment.

Little Albert was a 9 month old boy who was the subject of the experiment. To begin Watson and Rayner exposed him to many items including a white rat, rabbit, monkey, masks and burning newspapers. The child did not show any fear reactions to the items. Eventually when showing the rat to the boy Watson would hit a metal pipe with a hammer which caused Albert to cry. Eventually he would cry just seeing the rat even if the noise was not made. Eventually Albert and his mother moved away before he could be desensitized by Watson and Rayner. 

For many years the identity of Little Albert was not known and people wondered what happened to the child. Did he life a life filled with irrational feels. Many people believe that Little Albert was a boy by the name of Douglas Merritte. Unfortunately he died in 1925 at the age of 6 from hydrocephalus, an accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid on the brain. This is a condition that he had since birth. However, some people feel like Albert was another boy by the name of William Albert Barger. His mother worked at the hospital where the experiment took place. He also went by Albert his entire life. He dies at the age of 87 in 2007 and according to his family he has a fear of all animals.

With the ethical regulations in place this experiment would never be able to be undertaken today. This is because of the harm caused to the subject. Also, if Douglas Merritte was Little Albert this could bring the results into question. Hydrocephalus can cause crying in children and this could not be eliminated as a cause of the response from the child.