A Psychology Experiment Gone Wrong

Tác giả: Đào Việt Quân

The Little Albert Experiment and its Lessons

The Little Albert experiment was the brainchild of John B Watson, a famous psychologist. Despite its flaws, it is an interesting study concerning classical conditioning, and has taught the science and psychology community many lessons. Watson had only worked in animal behavior research beforehand, but for this experiment he wanted to move towards research into humans. He wanted to examine whether he could condition fear into human babies.

For context, classical conditioning is when an unconditioned stimulus - an object/ action that creates a response (e.g. food creating a sense of hunger) - is paired with a neutral stimulus, or an object/action that creates no response (e.g. a ringing bell). After these two stimuli have been paired together for some time, the neutral stimulus now draws the response (e.g. a ringing bell now creates a sense of hunger).

For the experiment, an 8 month-old, nicknamed “Albert”, was picked to be the subject. According to the researchers, Albert did not display a fear of rats or furry objects prior to the experiment. Watson first presented a furry white rat (the neutral stimulus) in front of the baby. Then, Watson proceeded to stand behind Albert and make loud noises by banging metal rods, which naturally made him cry (the unconditioned stimulus). As a result, through repeated trials, Little Albert cried when a rat, or any type of furry object for that matter, was presented, even without the loud noises. Albert had become conditioned to fear the rat, as the experiment had intended. Watson concluded that phobias can be manufactured in human beings and that they can be detrimental towards personality development.

So what went wrong? Watson intended to uncondition Albert’s fear, but his mother decided to pull him out of the experiment before that could be done. This meant that Watson had left a child with a previously nonexistent fear. The experiment did not have any controls, not to mention being unethical as its subject was a human child. Albert’s mother was also only paid a meager $1 for her child’s contribution, equating to about $13 today. In the end, Watson lost his prestigious job at John Hopkins University. However, the experiment does have its upsides. It has helped define ethical standards for organizations such as the American Psychological Association and the British Psychological Society, so that experiments today are safer and will not make the same ethical mistakes as John B Watson did.

Author: Dao Viet Quan, St. Mark's School