little albert experiment who did it

Little Albert Experiment (Watson & Rayner)

Saul McLeod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

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Saul McLeod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

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Watson and Rayner (1920) conducted the Little Albert Experiment to answer 3 questions:

Can an infant be conditioned to fear an animal that appears simultaneously with a loud, fear-arousing sound?

Would such fear transfer to other animals or inanimate objects?

How long would such fears persist?

Little Albert Experiment

Ivan Pavlov showed that classical conditioning applied to animals.  Did it also apply to humans? In a famous (though ethically dubious) experiment, John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner showed it did.

Conducted at Johns Hopkins University between 1919 and 1920, the Little Albert experiment aimed to provide experimental evidence for classical conditioning of emotional responses in infants

At the study’s outset, Watson and Rayner encountered a nine-month-old boy named “Little Albert” (his real name was Albert Barger) – a remarkably fearless child, scared only by loud noises.

After gaining permission from Albert’s mother, the researchers decided to test the process of classical conditioning on a human subject – by inducing a further phobia in the child.

The baseline session occurred when Albert was approximately nine months old to test his reactions to neutral stimuli.

Albert was reportedly unafraid of any of the stimuli he was shown, which consisted of “a white rat, a rabbit, a dog, a monkey, with [sic] masks with and without hair, cotton wool, burning newspapers, etc.” (Watson & Rayner, 1920, p. 2). 

Approximately two months after the baseline session, Albert was subjected during two conditioning sessions spaced one week apart to a total of seven pairings of a white rat followed by the startling sound of a steel bar being struck with a hammer.

When Little Albert was just over 11 months old, the white rat was presented, and seconds later, the hammer was struck against the steel bar.

After seven pairings of the rat and noise (in two sessions, one week apart), Albert reacted with crying and avoidance when the rat was presented without the loud noise.

By the end of the second conditioning session, when Albert was shown the rat, he reportedly cried and “began to crawl away so rapidly that he was caught with difficulty before reaching the edge of the table” (p. 5). Watson and Rayner interpreted these reactions as evidence of fear conditioning.

By now, little Albert only had to see the rat and immediately showed every sign of fear. He would cry (whether or not the hammer was hit against the steel bar), and he would attempt to crawl away.

The two conditioning sessions were followed by three transfer sessions. During the first transfer session, Albert was shown the rat to assess maintained fear, as well as other furry objects to test generalization. 

Complicating the experiment, however, the second transfer session also included two additional conditioning trials with the rat to “freshen up the reaction” (Watson & Rayner, 1920, p. 9), as well as conditioning trials in which a dog and a rabbit were, for the first time, also paired with the loud noise.

This fear began to fade as time went on, however, the association could be renewed by repeating the original procedure a few times.

Unlike prior weekly sessions, the final transfer session occurred after a month to test maintained fear. Immediately following the session, Albert and his mother left the hospital, preventing Watson and Rayner from carrying out their original intention of deconditioning the fear they have classically conditioned.

Experimental Procedure

Classical Conditioning

• Neutral Stimulus (NS): This is a stimulus that, before conditioning, does not naturally bring about the response of interest. In this case, the Neutral Stimulus was the white laboratory rat. Initially, Little Albert had no fear of the rat, he was interested in the rat and wanted to play with it.
• Unconditioned Stimulus (US): This is a stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a response without any learning. In the experiment, the unconditioned stimulus was the loud, frightening noise. This noise was produced by Watson and Rayner striking a steel bar with a hammer behind Albert’s back.
• Unconditioned Response (UR): This is the natural response that occurs when the Unconditioned Stimulus is presented. It is unlearned and occurs without previous conditioning. In this case, the Unconditioned Response was Albert’s fear response to the loud noise – crying and showing distress.
• Conditioning Process: Watson and Rayner then began the conditioning process. They presented the rat (NS) to Albert, and then, while he was interacting with the rat, they made a loud noise (US). This was done repeatedly, pairing the sight of the rat with the frightening noise. As a result, Albert started associating the rat with the fear he experienced due to the loud noise.
• Conditioned Stimulus (CS): After several pairings, the previously Neutral Stimulus (the rat) becomes the conditioned stimulus , as it now elicits the fear response even without the presence of the loud noise.
• Conditioned Response (CR): This is the learned response to the previously neutral stimulus, which is now the Conditioned Stimulus. In this case, the Conditioned Response was Albert’s fear of the rat. Even without the loud noise, he became upset and showed signs of fear whenever he saw the rat.

In this experiment, a previously unafraid baby was conditioned to become afraid of a rat. It also demonstrates two additional concepts, originally outlined by Pavlov .

• Extinction : Although a conditioned association can be incredibly strong initially, it begins to fade if not reinforced – until is disappears completely.
• Generalization : Conditioned associations can often widen beyond the specific stimuli presented. For instance, if a child develops a negative association with one teacher, this association might also be made with others.

Over the next few weeks and months, Little Albert was observed and ten days after conditioning his fear of the rat was much less marked. This dying out of a learned response is called extinction.

However, even after a full month, it was still evident, and the association could be renewed by repeating the original procedure a few times.

Unfortunately, Albert’s mother withdrew him from the experiment the day the last tests were made, and Watson and Rayner were unable to conduct further experiments to reverse the condition response.

• The Little Albert experiment was a controversial psychology experiment by John B. Watson and his graduate student, Rosalie Rayner, at Johns Hopkins University.
• The experiment was performed in 1920 and was a case study aimed at testing the principles of classical conditioning.
• Watson and Raynor presented Little Albert (a nine-month-old boy) with a white rat, and he showed no fear. Watson then presented the rat with a loud bang that startled Little Albert and made him cry.
• After the continuous association of the white rat and loud noise, Little Albert was classically conditioned to experience fear at the sight of the rat.
• Albert’s fear generalized to other stimuli that were similar to the rat, including a fur coat, some cotton wool, and a Santa mask.

Critical Evaluation

Methodological limitations.

The study is often cited as evidence that phobias can develop through classical conditioning. However, critics have questioned whether conditioning actually occurred due to methodological flaws (Powell & Schmaltz, 2022).

• The study didn’t control for pseudoconditioning – the loud noise may have simply sensitized Albert to be fearful of any novel stimulus.
• It didn’t control for maturation – Albert was 11 months old initially, but the final test was at 12 months. Fears emerge naturally over time in infants, so maturation could account for Albert’s reactions.
• Albert’s reactions were inconsistent and the conditioned fear weak – he showed little distress to the rat in later tests, suggesting the conditioning was not very effective or durable.

Other methodological criticisms include:

• The researchers confounded their own experiment by conditioning Little Albert using the same neutral stimuli as the generalized stimuli (rabbit and dog).
• Some doubts exist as to whether or not this fear response was actually a phobia. When Albert was allowed to suck his thumb he showed no response whatsoever. This stimulus made him forget about the loud sound. It took more than 30 times for Watson to finally take Albert’s thumb out to observe a fear response.
• Other limitations included no control subject and no objective measurement of the fear response in Little Albert (e.g., the dependent variable was not operationalized).
• As this was an experiment of one individual, the findings cannot be generalized to others (e.g., low external validity). Albert had been reared in a hospital environment from birth and he was unusual as he had never been seen to show fear or rage by staff. Therefore, Little Albert may have responded differently in this experiment to how other young children may have, these findings will therefore be unique to him.

Theoretical Limitations

The cognitive approach criticizes the behavioral model as it does not take mental processes into account. They argue that the thinking processes that occur between a stimulus and a response are responsible for the feeling component of the response.

Ignoring the role of cognition is problematic, as irrational thinking appears to be a key feature of phobias.

Tomarken et al. (1989) presented a series of slides of snakes and neutral images (e.g., trees) to phobic and non-phobic participants. The phobics tended to overestimate the number of snake images presented.

The Little Albert Film

Powell and Schmaltz (2022) examined film footage of the study for evidence of conditioning. Clips showed Albert’s reactions during baseline and final transfer tests but not the conditioning trials. Analysis of his reactions did not provide strong evidence of conditioning:

• With the rat, Albert was initially indifferent and tried to crawl over it. He only cried when the rat was placed on his hand, likely just startled.
• With the rabbit, dog, fur coat, and mask, his reactions could be explained by being startled, innate wariness of looming objects, and other factors. Reactions were inconsistent and mild.

Overall, Albert’s reactions seem well within the normal range for an infant and can be readily explained without conditioning. The footage provides little evidence he acquired conditioned fear.

The belief the film shows conditioning may stem from:

• Viewer expectation – titles state conditioning occurred and viewers expect to see it.
• A tendency to perceive stronger evidence of conditioning than actually exists.
• An ongoing perception of behaviorism as manipulative, making Watson’s conditioning of a “helpless” infant seem plausible.

Rather than an accurate depiction, the film may have been a promotional device for Watson’s research. He hoped to use it to attract funding for a facility to closely study child development.

This could explain anomalies like the lack of conditioning trials and rearrangement of test clips.

Ethical Issues

The Little Albert Experiment was conducted in 1920 before ethical guidelines were established for human experiments in psychology. When judged by today’s standards, the study has several concerning ethical issues:

• There was no informed consent obtained from Albert’s parents. They were misled about the true aims of the research and did not know their child would be intentionally frightened. This represents a lack of transparency and a violation of personal autonomy.
• Intentionally inducing a fear response in an infant is concerning from a nonmaleficence perspective, as it involved deliberate psychological harm. The distress exhibited by Albert suggests the conditioning procedure was unethical by today’s standards.
• Watson and Rayner did not attempt to decondition or desensitize Albert to the fear response before the study ended abruptly. This meant they did not remove the psychological trauma they had induced, violating the principle of beneficence. Albert was left in a state of fear, which could have long-lasting developmental effects. Watson also published no follow-up data on Albert’s later emotional development.

Learning Check

• Summarise the process of classical conditioning in Watson and Raynor’s study.
• Explain how Watson and Raynor’s methodology is an improvement on Pavlov’s.
• What happened during the transfer sessions? What did this demonstrate?
• Why is Albert’s reaction to similar furry objects important for the interpretation of the study?
• Comment on the ethics of Watson and Raynor’s study.
• Support the claim that in ignoring the internal processes of the human mind, behaviorism reduces people to mindless automata (robots).

Beck, H. P., Levinson, S., & Irons, G. (2009). Finding Little Albert: A journey to John B. Watson’s infant laboratory. American Psychologist, 64 , 605–614.

Digdon, N., Powell, R. A., & Harris, B. (2014). Little Albert’s alleged neurological persist impairment: Watson, Rayner, and historical revision. History of Psychology , 17 , 312–324.

Fridlund, A. J., Beck, H. P., Goldie, W. D., & Irons, G. (2012). Little Albert: A neurologically impaired child. History of Psychology , 15, 1–34.

Griggs, R. A. (2015). Psychology’s lost boy: Will the real Little Albert please stand up? Teaching of Psychology, 4 2, 14–18.

Harris, B. (1979). Whatever happened to little Alb ert? . American Psychologist, 34 (2), 151.

Harris, B. (2011). Letting go of Little Albert: Disciplinary memory, history, and the uses of myth. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 47 , 1–17.

Harris, B. (2020). Journals, referees and gatekeepers in the dispute over Little Albert, 2009–2014. History of Psychology, 23 , 103–121.

Powell, R. A., Digdon, N., Harris, B., & Smithson, C. (2014). Correcting the record on Watson, Rayner, and Little Albert: Albert Barger as “psychology’s lost boy.” American Psychologist, 69 , 600–611.

Powell, R. A., & Schmaltz, R. M. (2021). Did Little Albert actually acquire a conditioned fear of furry animals? What the film evidence tells us.  History of Psychology ,  24 (2), 164.

Todd, J. T. (1994). What psychology has to say about John B. Watson: Classical behaviorism in psychology textbooks. In J. T. Todd & E. K. Morris (Eds.), Modern perspectives on John B. Watson and classical behaviorism (pp. 74–107). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Tomarken, A. J., Mineka, S., & Cook, M. (1989). Fear-relevant selective associations and covariation bias. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 98 (4), 381.

Watson, J.B. (1913). Psychology as the behaviorist Views It. Psychological Review, 20 , 158-177.

Watson, J. B., & Rayner, R. (1920). Conditioned emotional reactions . Journal of Experimental Psychology, 3 (1), 1.

Watson, J. B., & Watson, R. R. (1928). Psychological care of infant and child . New York, NY: Norton.

Further Information

• Finding Little Albert
• Mystery solved: We now know what happened to Little Albert
• Psychology’s lost boy: Will the real Little Albert please stand up?
• Journals, referees, and gatekeepers in the dispute over Little Albert, 2009-2014
• Griggs, R. A. (2014). The continuing saga of Little Albert in introductory psychology textbooks. Teaching of Psychology, 41(4), 309-317.

Inside The Horrifying Little Albert Experiment That Terrified An Infant To The Point Of Tears

In 1920, the two psychologists behind the little albert experiment performed a study on a nine-month-old baby to determine if classical conditioning worked on humans — and made him terrified of harmless objects in the process..

In 1920, psychologists John Watson and Rosalie Rayner performed what’s known today as the Little Albert Experiment. In an attempt to prove that classical conditioning worked on humans as well as animals, they trained an infant to show fear toward completely harmless objects, a concept that goes against all modern ethical guidelines.

YouTube The nine-month-old subject of the Little Albert Experiment.

Twenty years earlier, Ivan Pavlov had conditioned dogs to drool upon hearing the sound of a dinner bell, even when no food was presented to them. Watson and Rayner wanted to similarly condition a human to react to a stimulus, but their idea quickly went wrong.

The Johns Hopkins University psychologists were able to train Little Albert to react negatively to objects like a white rat, a Santa Claus mask, and even his own family pets. However, the boy’s mother pulled him out of the study before Watson and Rayner could try to reverse the conditioning, leaving parts of their hypothesis unproven.

What’s more, critics were quick to point out that the Little Albert Experiment had several flaws that may have made it scientifically unsound. Today, it’s remembered as a profoundly unethical study that may have traumatized an innocent child for life — all in the name of science.

What Was The Little Albert Experiment?

Even people who aren’t in the psychology field know about “classical conditioning” thanks to the infamous experiment conducted by Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov. The psychologist proved that it was possible to teach animals to react to a neutral stimulus (that is, a stimulus that produced no natural effect) by conditioning them.

According to Verywell Mind , Pavlov made a metronome tick every time he fed his canine test subjects. The dogs soon associated the sound of the metronome (the neutral stimulus) with food.

Soon, Pavlov could make the dogs salivate in expectation of food simply by producing the ticking sound, even when he didn’t actually feed the dogs. Thus, they were conditioned to associate the sound of the metronome with food.

YouTube Little Albert showed no fear toward the white rat at the beginning of the experiment.

Watson and Rayner wanted to try to reproduce Pavlov’s study in humans, and the Little Albert Experiment was born. The researchers presented a nine-month-old boy they called “Albert” with fluffy animals like a monkey, a rabbit, and a white rat. Albert had no negative reaction to them, and he even tried to pet them.

Next, the psychologists struck a hammer against a steel pipe every time they presented Albert with the creatures. The sudden, loud noise made the baby cry.

Soon, Albert was conditioned to associate the loud noise with the fuzzy animals, and he began crying in fear whenever he saw the creatures — even when Watson and Rayner didn’t strike the pipe.

Albert became terrified of not only the monkey, rabbit, and rat, but also anything furry that looked like them. He cried when he saw a Santa Claus mask with a white beard and grew scared of his own family’s dogs.

YouTube Throughout the course of the study, Little Albert became frightened of a Santa Claus mask.

Watson and Rayner intended to attempt to reverse the conditioning performed on Little Albert, but his mother pulled him from the study before they had the chance. Thus, there is a chance the poor child remained scared of furry objects for life — which raises countless questions related to ethics.

Related Posts

The controversy surrounding the little albert experiment.

Many of the ethical debates regarding the Little Albert Experiment involved not only the methods that Watson and Rayner deployed to “condition” the infant but also the way in which the psychologists conducted the study. For one, the experiment had only a single subject.

What’s more, according to Simply Psychology , creating a fear response is an example of psychological harm that’s not permitted in modern psychological experiments. While the study was conducted before modern ethical guidelines were implemented, criticism of how Watson and Rayner executed the experiment was raised even at the time.

Wikimedia Commons John Watson, the psychologist behind the Little Albert Experiment.

Then there was the issue of the scientists’ failure to deprogram the child after the experiment was over. They initially intended to attempt to “uncondition” Little Albert, or remove the irrational fear from the poor child’s mind. However, since his mother withdrew him from the experiment, Watson and Rayner were unable to do so.

As such, the fear was potentially firmly embedded in the child’s brain — a fear that was previously nonexistent. Because of this, both the American Psychological Association and the British Psychological Society would ultimately deem this experiment unethical.

The Unknown Fate Of Little Albert

After criticism arose, Watson tried to explain his behavior, claiming that Little Albert would have been exposed to the frightening stimuli later in life anyway. “At first there was considerable hesitation upon our part in making the attempt to set up fear reactions experimentally,” he said, according to GoodTherapy .

Watson continued, “We decided finally to make the attempt, comforting ourselves… that such attachments would arise anyway as soon as the child left the sheltered environment of the nursery for the rough and tumble of the home.”

The true fate of Albert remained unknown for decades, however, and experts still aren’t positive about his actual identity.

YouTube Little Albert was conditioned to become frightened of furry creatures.

One study, as reported by the American Psychological Association , posited that Little Albert was a pseudonym for Douglas Merritte, the son of a nurse at Johns Hopkins named Arvilla Merritte. Arvilla was reportedly paid one dollar for her son’s participation in the study.

Sadly, young Douglas died of complications from hydrocephalus when he was just six years old. If he was indeed the true Little Albert, his medical condition adds another layer of questionability to the experiment. If he was born with hydrocephalus, he may have reacted to the stimulus differently than a typical baby would have.

Other research, however, suggests the true Albert was a little boy named William Albert Barger. Per New Scientist , Barger lived a long, happy life and died in 2007. However, his relatives report that he had an aversion to animals — and they even had to put the family dogs away when he came to visit.

If the Little Albert Experiment has taught scientists nothing else, it’s this: While it’s important to make discoveries in order to understand the human condition better, it’s vital to remember that the test subjects are human beings who may carry the impacts with them for the rest of their lives.

Now that you’ve read all about the Little Albert Experiment, go inside the Milgram experiment , which proved that everyday people are capable of monstrous acts. Then, discover the tragedy of David Reimer , the boy who was forced to live as a girl for a doctor’s experiment.

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The Little Albert Experiment

Watson and Rayner's classic (and controversial) experiment

• The Experiment
• Classical Conditioning
• Stimulus Generalization
• Criticism and Ethical Problems

What Happened to Little Albert?

One of the most famous figures in psychology history isn't a psychologist at all. "Little Albert," as he was called, was the pseudonym of a young boy at the center of the infamous psychology experiment in which he was conditioned to fear rats—a fear that also extended to other similar objects, including fluffy white toys and a white beard.

The Little Albert experiment was a famous psychology experiment conducted by behaviorist John B. Watson and graduate student Rosalie Rayner. Previously, Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov had conducted experiments demonstrating the conditioning process in dogs . Watson took Pavlov's research a step further by showing that emotional reactions could be classically conditioned in people.

Keep reading to learn more about what happened in the Little Albert experiment, what it reveals about the conditioning process, and why it is considered so controversial.

Verywell / Jessica Olah

What Happened in the Little Albert Experiment?

The experiment's participant was a child that Watson and Rayner called "Albert B." but is known popularly today as Little Albert. When Little Albert was 9 months old, Watson and Rayner exposed him to a series of stimuli, including a white rat, a rabbit, a monkey, masks, and burning newspapers, and observed the boy's reactions.

At the experiment's outset, the little boy showed no fear of any objects he was shown. What Watson did next changed everything. The next time Albert was exposed to the rat, Watson made a loud noise by hitting a metal pipe with a hammer.

Naturally, the child began to cry after hearing the loud noise. After repeatedly pairing the white rat with the loud noise, Albert began to expect a frightening noise whenever he saw the white rat. Soon, Albert began to cry simply after seeing the rat.

Watson and Rayner wrote: "The instant the rat was shown, the baby began to cry. Almost instantly he turned sharply to the left, fell over on [his] left side, raised himself on all fours and began to crawl away so rapidly that he was caught with difficulty before reaching the edge of the table."

It's a textbook example of how classical conditioning works. In some cases, these frightening experiences can cause a lasting fears, such as with phobias .

Classical Conditioning in the Little Albert Experiment

The Little Albert experiment is a great example of how classical conditioning can be used to condition an emotional response. Here's how the process works:

• Neutral Stimulus : A stimulus that does not initially elicit a response (the white rat).
• Unconditioned Stimulus : A stimulus that elicits a reflexive response (the loud noise).
• Unconditioned Response : A natural reaction to a given stimulus (fear).
• Conditioned Stimulus : A stimulus that elicits a response after repeatedly being paired with an unconditioned stimulus (the white rat).
• Conditioned Response : The response caused by the conditioned stimulus (fear).

Stimulus Generalization in the Little Albert Exerpiment

In addition to demonstrating that emotional responses could be conditioned in humans, Watson and Rayner also observed a phenomenon known as stimulus generalization.

Stimulus generalization happens when things similar to the conditioned stimulus evoke a similar response.

After conditioning, Albert feared not just the white rat, but a wide variety of similar white objects as well. His fear included other furry objects, including Raynor's fur coat and Watson wearing a Santa Claus beard.

Criticism and Ethical Problems With the Little Albert Experiment

While the experiment is one of psychology's most famous and is included in nearly every introductory psychology course , it is widely criticized for several reasons. First, the experimental design and process were not carefully constructed. Watson and Rayner did not develop an objective means to evaluate Albert's reactions, instead of relying on their own subjective interpretations.

The experiment also raises many ethical concerns. Little Albert was harmed during this experiment—he left the experiment with a previously nonexistent fear. By today's standards, the Little Albert experiment would not be permitted.

The question of what happened to Little Albert has long been one of psychology's mysteries. Before Watson and Rayner could attempt to "cure" Little Albert, he and his mother moved away. Some envisioned the boy growing into a man with a strange phobia of white, furry objects.

In 2009, researchers published the results of their attempt to track down the boy's identity. As reported in American Psychologist , a seven-year search led by psychologist Hall P. Beck led to the discovery of a child the researchers believed might be Little Albert. After tracking down and locating the original experiments and the possible identity of the boy's mother, it was suggested that Little Albert was actually a boy named Douglas Merritte.

Unfortunately, the researchers discovered that Douglas had died on May 10, 1925, at the age of six, of hydrocephalus (a build-up of fluid in his brain), which he had suffered from since birth.

In 2012, Beck and Alan J. Fridlund reported that Douglas was not the healthy, normal child Watson described in his 1920 experiment. Instead, they suggested that Watson may have known about and deliberately concealed the boy's neurological condition. If true, these findings would have cast a shadow over Watson's legacy, and deepened the ethical and moral issues of this well-known experiment.

In 2014, however, doubt was cast over Beck and Fridlund's findings when researchers presented evidence that a boy named William Barger was the real Little Albert. Barger was born on the same day as Merritte to a wet nurse who worked at the same hospital as Merritte's mother. While his first name was William, he was known his entire life by his middle name—Albert.

While experts continue to debate the true identity of the boy at the center of Watson's experiment, there is little doubt that Little Albert left a lasting impression on the field of psychology. The experiments contributed to our understanding of the classical conditioning process. It also demonstrated that fear could be conditioned, which has helped mental health experts better understand how conditions like specific phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder form.

Beck HP, Levinson S, Irons G. Finding Little Albert: A journey to John B. Watson's infant laboratory . Am Psychol. 2009;64(7):605-14. doi:10.1037/a0017234

van Meurs B, Wiggert N, Wicker I, Lissek S. Maladaptive behavioral consequences of conditioned fear-generalization: a pronounced, yet sparsely studied, feature of anxiety pathology .  Behav Res Ther . 2014;57:29-37. doi:10.1016/j.brat.2014.03.009

Fridlund AJ, Beck HP, Goldie WD, Irons G. Little Albert: A neurologically impaired child . Hist Psychol. 2012;15(4):302-27. doi:10.1037/a0026720

Powell RA. Correcting the record on Watson, Rayner, and Little Albert: Albert Barger as "psychology's lost boy" . Am Psychol.  2014;69(6):600-11.

• Beck, H. P., Levinson, S., & Irons, G. (2009). Finding little Albert: A journey to John B. Watson’s infant laboratory.  American Psychologist, 2009;64(7):  605-614.
• Fridlund, A. J., Beck, H. P., Goldie, W. D., & Irons, G. Little Albert: A neurologically impaired child. History of Psychology. doi: 10.1037/a0026720; 2012.
• Watson, John B. & Rayner, Rosalie. (1920). Conditioned emotional reactions.  Journal of Experimental Psychology, 3 , 1-14.

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

The Little Albert Experiment

The Little Albert Experiment is a world-famous study in the worlds of both behaviorism and general psychology. Its fame doesn’t just come from astounding findings. The story of the Little Albert experiment is mysterious, dramatic, dark, and controversial.

The Little Albert Experiment was a study conducted by John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner in 1920, where they conditioned a 9-month-old infant named "Albert" to fear a white rat by pairing it with a loud noise. Albert later showed fear responses to the rat and other similar stimuli.

The Little Albert Experiment is one of the most well-known and controversial psychological experiments of the 20th century. In 1920, American psychologist John B. Watson and his graduate student, Rosalie Rayner, carried out a study. Their goal was to explore the concept of classical conditioning. This theory proposes that individuals can learn to link an emotionless stimulus with an emotional reaction through repeated pairings.

For their experiment, Watson and Rayner selected a 9-month-old infant named "Albert" and exposed him to a series of stimuli, including a white rat, a rabbit, a dog, and various masks. Initially, Albert showed no fear of any of these objects. However, when the researchers presented the rat to him and simultaneously struck a steel bar with a hammer behind his head, Albert began to cry and show signs of fear. After several repetitions of this procedure, Albert began to show a fear response to the rat alone, even when the loud noise was not present.

The experiment was controversial because of its unethical nature. Albert could not provide informed consent, and his fear response was deliberately induced and not treated. Additionally, the experiment lacked scientific rigor regarding experimental design, sample size, and ethical considerations. Despite these criticisms, the Little Albert Experiment has had a significant impact on the field of psychology, particularly in the areas of behaviorism and classical conditioning. It has also raised important questions about the ethics of research involving human subjects and the need for informed consent and ethical guidelines in scientific studies.

Let's learn who was behind this experiment...

Who Was John B. Watson?

John B. Watson is pivotal in psychology's annals, marked by acclaim and controversy. Often hailed as the "Father of Behaviorism," his contributions extend beyond the well-known Little Albert study. At Johns Hopkins University, where much of his groundbreaking work was conducted, he delivered the seminal lecture "Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It."

This speech laid the foundation for behaviorism, emphasizing observable and measurable behavior over introspective methods, a paradigm shift in how psychological studies were approached. Watson's insistence on studying only observable behaviors positioned psychology more closely with the natural sciences, reshaping the discipline. Although he achieved significant milestones at Johns Hopkins, Watson's tenure there ended in 1920 under controversial circumstances, a story we'll delve into shortly.

Classical Conditioning

John B. Watson was certainly influential in classical conditioning, but many credit the genesis of this field to another notable psychologist: Ivan Pavlov. Pavlov's groundbreaking work with dogs laid the foundation for understanding classical conditioning, cementing his reputation in the annals of psychological research.

Classical conditioning is the process wherein an organism learns to associate one stimulus with another, leading to a specific response. Pavlov's experiment is a quintessential example of this. Initially, Pavlov observed that dogs would naturally salivate in response to food. During his experiment, he introduced a neutral stimulus, a bell, which did not produce any specific response from the dogs.

However, Pavlov began to ring the bell just before presenting the dogs with food. After several repetitions, the dogs began to associate the sound of the bell with the forthcoming food. Remarkably, even without food, ringing the bell alone led the dogs to salivate in anticipation. This involuntary response was not a behavior the dogs were intentionally trained to perform; instead, it was a reflexive reaction resulting from the association they had formed between the bell and the food.

Pavlov's research was not just about dogs and bells; its significance lies in the broader implications for understanding how associative learning works, influencing various fields from psychology to education and even marketing.

Who Was Little Albert?

John B. Watson took an idea from this theory. What if...

• ...all of our behaviors were the result of classical conditioning?
• ...we salivated only after connecting certain events with getting food?
• ...we only became afraid of touching a stove after we first put our hand on a hot stove and felt pain?
• ...fear was something we learned? 

These are the questions that Watson attempted to answer with Little Albert.

Little Albert was a nine-month-old baby. His mother was a nurse at Johns Hopkins University, where the experiment was conducted. The baby’s name wasn’t really Albert - it was just a pseudonym that Watson used for the study. Due to the baby’s young age, Watson thought it would be a good idea to use him to test his hypothesis about developing fear.

Here’s how he conducted his experiment, now known as the “Little Albert Experiment.”

Watson exposed Little Albert to a handful of different stimuli. The stimuli included a white rat, a monkey, a hairy mask, a dog, and a seal-skin coat. When Watson first observed Little Albert, he did not fear any stimuli, including the white rat.

Then, Watson began the conditioning.

He would introduce the white rat back to Albert. Whenever Little Albert touched the rat, Watson would smash a hammer against a steel bar behind Albert’s head. Naturally, this stimulus scared Albert, and he would begin to cry. This was the “bell” of Pavlov’s experiment, but you can already see that this experiment is far more cruel.

Like Pavlov’s dogs, Little Albert became conditioned. Whenever he saw the rat, he would cry and try to move away from the rat. Throughout the study, he exhibited the same behaviors when exposed to “hairy” stimuli. This process is called stimulus generalization. 

What Happened to Little Albert?

The Little Albert study was conducted in 1920. Shortly after the findings were published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, Johns Hopkins gave Watson a 50% raise . However, the rise (and Watson’s position at the University) did not last long. At the end of 1920, Watson was fired.

Why? At first, the University claimed it was due to an affair. Watson conducted the Little Albert experiment with his graduate student, Rosalie Rayner. They fell in love, despite Watson’s marriage to Mary Ickes. Ickes was a member of a prominent family in the area, upon the discovery of the affair, Watson and Rayner’s love letters were published in a newspaper. John Hopkins claimed to fire Watson for “indecency.”

Years later, rumors emerged that Watson wasn’t fired simply for his divorce. Watson and Rayner were allegedly conducting behaviorist experiments concerning sex. Those rumors included claims that Watson, a movie star handsome then, had even hooked devices up to him and Rayner while they engaged in intercourse. These claims seem false, but they appeared in psychology textbooks for years. 

There is so much to this story that is wild and unusual! Upon hearing this story, one of the biggest questions people ask is, “What happened to Little Albert?”

The True Story of the Little Albert Experiment

Well, this element of the story isn’t without uncertainty and rumor. In 2012, researchers claimed to uncover the true story of Little Albert. The boy’s real name was apparently Douglas Merritte, who died at the age of seven. Merritt had a serious condition of built-up fluid in the brain. This story element was significant - Watson claimed Little Albert was a healthy and normal child. If Merritte were Little Albert, then Watson’s lies about the child’s health would ruin his legacy.

And it did until questions about Merritte began to arise. Further research puts another candidate into the ring: William Albert Barger. Barger was born on the same day in the same hospital as Merritte. His mother was a wet nurse in the same hospital where Watson worked. Barger’s story is much more hopeful than Merritte’s - he died at 87. Researchers met with his niece, who claimed that her uncle was particularly loving toward dogs but showed no evidence of fear that would have been developed through the famous study.

The mystery lives on.

Criticisms of the Little Albert Experiment

This story is fascinating, but psychologists note it is not the most ethical study.

The claims about Douglas Merritte are just one example of how the study could (and definitely did) cross the lines of ethics. If Little Albert was not the healthy boy that Watson claimed - well, there’s not much to say about the findings. Plus, the experiment was only conducted on one child. Follow-up research about the child and his conditioning never occurred (but this is partially due to the scandalous life of Watson and Rayner.)

Behaviorism, the school of psychology founded partly by this study, is not as “hot” as it was in the 1920s. But no one can deny the power and legacy of the Little Albert study. It is certainly one of the more important studies to know in psychology, both for its scandal and its place in studying learned behaviors.

Other Controversial Studies in Psychology 

The Little Albert Experiment is one of the most notorious experiments in the history of psychology, but it's not the only one. Psychologists throughout the past few decades have used many unethical or questionable means to test out (or prove) their hypotheses. If you haven't heard about the following experiments, you can read about them on my page!

The Robbers Cave Experiment

Have you ever read  Lord of the Flies?  The book details the shocking and deadly story of boys stranded on a desert island. When the boys try to govern themselves, lines are drawn in the sand, and chaos ensues. Would that actually happen in real life?

Muzafer Sherif wanted to find out the answer. He put together the Robbers Cave Experiment, which is now one of the most controversial experiments in psychology history. The experiment involved putting together two teams of young men at a summer camp. Teams were put through trials to see how they would handle conflict within their groups and with "opposing" groups. The experiment's results led to the creation of the Realistic Conflict Theory.

The experiment did not turn out like  Lord of the Flies,  but the results are no longer valid. Why? Sherif highly manipulated the experiment. Gina Perry's The Lost Boys: Inside Muzafer Sherif's Robbers Cave Experiment  details where Sherif went wrong and how the legacy of this experiment doesn't reflect what actually happened.

Read more about the Robber's Cave Experiment .

The Stanford Prison Experiment 

The Stanford Prison Experiment looked similar to the Robbers Cave Experiment. Psychologist Phillip Zimbardo brought together groups of young men to see how they would interact with each other. These participants, however, weren't at summer camp. Zimbardo asked his participants to either be a "prison guard" or "prisoner." He intended to observe the groups for seven days, but the experiment was cut short.

Why? Violence ensued. The experiment got so out of hand that Zimbardo ended it early for the safety of the participants. Years later, sources question whether his involvement in the experiment encouraged some violence between prison guards and prisoners. You can learn more about the Stanford Prison Experiment on Netflix or by reading our article.

The Milgram Experiment 

Why do people do terrible things? Are they evil people, or do they just do as they are told? Stanley Milgram wanted to answer these questions and created the Milgram experiment . In this experiment, he asked participants to "shock" another participant (who was really just an actor receiving no shocks at all.) The shocks ranged in intensity, with some said to be hurtful or even fatal to the actor.

The results were shocking - no pun intended! However, the experiment remains controversial due to the lasting impacts it could have had on the participants. Gina Perry also wrote a book about this experiment - Behind the Shock Machine: The Untold Story of the Notorious Milgram Psychology Experiments. 

The Monster Study 

In the 1930s, Dr. Wendell Johnson was keen on exploring the origins and potential treatments for stuttering in children. To this end, he turned to orphans in Iowa, unknowingly involving them in his experiment. Not all the participating children had a stutter. Those without speech impediments were treated and criticized as if they did have one, while some with actual stuttering were either praised or criticized. Johnson's aim was to observe if these varied treatments would either alleviate or induce stuttering based on the feedback given.

Unfortunately, the experiment's outcomes painted a bleak picture. Not only did the genuine stutterers fail to overcome their speech issues, but some of the previously fluent-speaking orphans began to stutter after experiencing the negative treatment. Even by the standards of the 1930s, before the world was fully aware of the inhumane experiments conducted by groups like the Nazis, Johnson's methods were deemed excessively harsh and unethical.

Read more about the Monster Study here .

How Do Psychologists Conduct Ethical Experiments?

To ensure participants' well-being and prevent causing trauma, the field of psychology has undergone a significant evolution in its approach to research ethics. Historically, some early psychological experiments lacked adequate consideration for participants' rights or well-being, leading to trauma and ethical dilemmas. Notable events, such as the revelations of the Milgram obedience experiments and the Stanford prison experiment, brought to light the pressing need for ethical guidelines in research.

As a result, strict rules and guidelines for ethical experimentation were established. One fundamental principle is informed consent: participants must know that they are part of an experiment and should understand its nature. This means they must be informed about the procedures, potential risks, and their rights to withdraw without penalty. Participants consent to participate only after this detailed disclosure, which must be documented.

Moreover, creating ethics review boards became commonplace in research institutions, ensuring research proposals uphold ethical standards and protect participants' rights. If you are ever invited to participate in a research study, it's crucial to thoroughly understand its scope, ask questions, and ensure your rights are protected before giving consent. The journey to establish these ethical norms reflects the discipline's commitment to balancing scientific advancement with the dignity and well-being of its study subjects.

Related posts:

• John B. Watson (Psychologist Biography)
• The Psychology of Long Distance Relationships
• Behavioral Psychology
• Beck’s Depression Inventory (BDI Test)
• Operant Conditioning (Examples + Research)

Reference this article:

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The Shocking Truth Behind the Little Albert Experiment: How One Study Changed Psychology Forever

The Little Albert experiment is one of psychology’s most controversial and widely known studies. Conducted in 1920 by John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner at Johns Hopkins University, the study aimed to test the principles of classical conditioning. The experiment involved conditioning a young child to fear a white rat by pairing the rat with a loud noise. The study is still discussed today as an example of the ethical concerns surrounding research on human subjects.

The study involved a nine-month-old infant, “Little Albert,” who was exposed to a white rat, a rabbit, a dog, and other animals. Initially, the baby showed no fear of the animals, but the researchers then began to pair the presentation of the animals with a loud noise. After several pairings, Little Albert began to show fear of the rat, even when the noise was not present. The study has been criticized for its lack of ethical considerations, including the use of a young child as a subject and the potential long-term effects of the conditioning on the child’s mental health.

Despite the criticisms, the Little Albert experiment remains a significant study in the history of psychology. It has contributed to our understanding of classical conditioning and the effects of early experiences on behavior. The study has also raised important ethical questions about using human subjects in research and the need for informed consent and ethical considerations in psychology.

Background of the Experiment

The Little Albert Experiment is a famous psychology experiment conducted in the early 1920s by John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner. The experiment aimed to test the principles of classical conditioning, which had been previously demonstrated in experiments with dogs by Ivan Pavlov.

The experiment involved a 9-month-old infant named Albert, conditioned to fear a white rat by pairing it with a loud noise. The goal was to see if Albert would develop a fear response to the rat even without the loud noise.

The experiment was controversial from the start, as it involved using a human subject, and the methods used were considered unethical by today’s standards. The experiment was also criticized for its lack of scientific rigor and the fact that it was a single case study, limiting the generalizability of the findings.

Despite these criticisms, the Little Albert Experiment remains an integral part of the history of psychology and continues to be studied and discussed today. It has helped to shape our understanding of how humans learn and develop fears and phobias, and it has also raised important ethical questions about the use of human subjects in psychological research.

The Little Albert Experiment is a fascinating and controversial case study that has significantly impacted the field of psychology. While the methods used in the experiment are no longer considered acceptable, the findings have helped to advance our understanding of how humans learn and develop emotional responses to stimuli.

The Subject: Little Albert

Little Albert was the subject of a famous psychology experiment conducted in 1920 by John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner at Johns Hopkins University. At the time of the experiment, Albert was a 9-month-old infant selected for his age and lack of fear towards animals.

Little Albert was presented with a white rat during the experiment, which he initially showed no fear of. However, the researchers then paired the presentation of the rat with a loud noise, causing the infant to become frightened and cry. This process was repeated several times until Little Albert began to show fear towards the rat, even without the accompanying noise.

The experiment tested the principles of classical conditioning, which is the process by which an organism learns to associate a neutral stimulus with a meaningful stimulus. In this case, the white rat served as the neutral stimulus, while the loud noise served as the meaningful stimulus.

The experiment’s results were controversial, as some critics argued that it was unethical to cause fear in an infant intentionally. Additionally, some psychologists have questioned the experiment’s validity, as Little Albert’s identity was only known many years later.

Despite these criticisms, the Little Albert experiment remains a significant contribution to psychology and has influenced subsequent research on the effects of conditioning on behavior.

The Process

In the Little Albert experiment, John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner aimed to test the principles of classical conditioning on a 9-month-old infant named Albert. The process involved conditioning Albert to fear a white rat by pairing it with a loud noise.

The experiment was conducted in several stages. In the first stage, Albert was shown the white rat, and he did not show any fear. In the second stage, Watson and Rayner made a loud noise behind Albert’s head whenever he reached for the rat. This process was repeated several times until Albert began to associate the loud noise with the rat and became afraid of it.

In the subsequent stages, Watson and Rayner tested Albert’s fear response to similar stimuli, such as a rabbit, a dog, and a fur coat. Albert showed fear responses to these stimuli as well, demonstrating stimulus generalization.

The experiment was controversial, as it involved subjecting a young child to fear and distress. Additionally, the experiment lacked ethical considerations and was not conducted with informed consent from Albert’s parents.

Despite these criticisms, the Little Albert experiment remains a landmark study in psychology, as it demonstrated the principles of classical conditioning and the potential for fear to be conditioned in humans.

Stimulus and Response

When discussing the Little Albert Experiment, we often refer to the concept of stimulus and response. Stimulus refers to any event or object that elicits a response from an organism. Response, on the other hand, refers to the behavior or reaction of an organism to a particular stimulus.

In the Little Albert Experiment, the white rat was the stimulus, and Albert’s crying and crawling away was the response. Through classical conditioning, the researchers paired the white rat with a loud noise, eventually leading to Albert’s fear of the rat.

Stimulus generalization also occurred in the experiment. Albert’s fear response generalized to similar stimuli, such as a white rabbit, a fur coat, and a Santa Claus mask. This demonstrates how our responses to one stimulus can generalize to other similar stimuli.

It’s important to note that stimulus and response are only sometimes straightforward. Various factors, such as past experiences, emotions, and cognitive processes, can influence our responses to stimuli.

For example, if we have a positive association with a particular food, such as pizza, the sight or smell of pizza can elicit a positive response, such as hunger or pleasure. However, if we have a negative experience with pizza, such as getting food poisoning, the same stimulus can elicit a negative response, such as disgust or nausea.

Understanding the concept of stimulus and response can help us better understand our behaviors and reactions to different situations. By identifying the stimuli that elicit certain responses, we can learn to control our behaviors and emotions more effectively.

We now know that the Little Albert experiment was a study conducted by John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner in 1920. The study aimed to show that it was possible to condition a young child to fear a previously neutral stimulus. In this case, the neutral stimulus was a white rat, and the unconditioned stimulus was a loud noise.

The study’s findings were significant because they showed that fear could be learned through classical conditioning. The study demonstrated that fear could be generalized to other stimuli, even if they were not initially associated with the fear response. For example, Albert later showed fear responses to the rat and other similar stimuli.

The Little Albert experiment raised ethical concerns because it involved using a young child as a subject. The study was also criticized for its lack of scientific rigor and for the fact that it did not follow proper ethical guidelines. Despite these criticisms, the study remains a classic example of classical conditioning and its effects on human behavior.

It is important to note that the identity of Little Albert was just recently discovered. Researchers have now identified him as Douglas Merritte, the son of a wet nurse named Arvilla Merritte, who lived and worked at a campus hospital during the experiment. This discovery has shed new light on the study and its impact on the child involved.

The Little Albert experiment has significantly impacted the field of psychology and our understanding of classical conditioning. While the study may have been ethically questionable, it has provided valuable insights into how we learn and respond to environmental stimuli.

Implications

The Little Albert experiment has significant implications in the field of psychology. It provides evidence for the principles of classical conditioning and the role of environmental factors in shaping behavior.

One implication of the experiment is the potential for developing phobias through classical conditioning. The experiment demonstrated that fear responses can be conditioned in humans by pairing a neutral stimulus, such as a white rat, with an aversive stimulus, such as a loud noise. This finding has been applied to developing treatments for phobias, such as exposure therapy, which involves gradually exposing individuals to feared stimuli in a safe and controlled environment.

Another implication is the importance of ethical considerations in research. The Little Albert experiment has been criticized for its ethical implications, particularly regarding the use of a young child as a subject and the potential long-term effects of the experiment on the child’s psychological well-being. This has led to the development of ethical guidelines in research, which prioritize the protection of human subjects and the prevention of harm.

The Little Albert experiment highlights the complex interplay between environmental factors and behavior and the importance of ethical considerations in research. It has contributed to developing theories and treatments in psychology while also serving as a cautionary tale for the potential consequences of unethical research practices.

Controversies and Criticisms

Regarding the Little Albert Experiment, several controversies and criticisms have been raised over the years. Here are some of the most notable ones:

• Ethical concerns:  One of the biggest criticisms of the Little Albert Experiment is that it was highly unethical. Albert could not provide informed consent, and his fear response was deliberately induced and not treated. Additionally, the experiment lacked scientific rigor regarding experimental design, sample size, and ethical considerations.
• Validity of the results:  Another criticism of the Little Albert Experiment is that its results may need to be validated. The experiment lacked control groups and was not well-controlled, so it isn’t easy to know whether the results were due to classical conditioning or other factors.
• Generalization of the results:  Some critics have also pointed out that the results of the Little Albert Experiment may not be generalizable to other contexts. For example, the experiment only involved one child, and whether the same results would be seen with other children or in different situations is still being determined.

Despite these criticisms, the Little Albert Experiment remains an essential landmark in the history of psychology. It helped to establish the principles of classical conditioning and paved the way for future research in this area. However, it is essential to remember the ethical concerns raised and approach the experiment’s results with caution.

Replications

We know that replication is a crucial part of the scientific process. It helps researchers determine if a study’s findings are reliable and can be generalized to other populations. In the case of the Little Albert experiment, there have been a few attempts at replication.

One of the most well-known replications was conducted by Mary Cover Jones in 1924. She used a similar method to the Little Albert experiment but aimed to reverse the conditioned fear response. She worked with a three-year-old boy named Peter, who was afraid of rabbits. Jones gradually introduced the rabbit to Peter while eating; eventually, he could touch and play with the rabbit without fear.

Another attempt at replication was conducted by Hall and his colleagues in 1965. They tried replicating the Little Albert experiment but used a different participant and stimulus. They conditioned an eight-month-old boy named Steven to fear a white rabbit. However, the results were different from the original Little Albert experiment.

In 2009, Beck and colleagues attempted to replicate the Little Albert experiment using a similar method. They conditioned an eleven-month-old boy named Jonah to fear a white rat. However, they did not use the same ethical standards as the original experiment, and the results were inconsistent with the original study.

The attempts at replication have been mixed, and the results have yet to be consistent with the original Little Albert experiment. However, these replications have helped researchers better understand the limitations and ethical concerns of the original study.

Impact on Psychology

The Little Albert Experiment has had a significant impact on the field of psychology, particularly in the areas of behaviorism and classical conditioning. This experiment provided evidence that humans, like animals, can be conditioned to respond to a stimulus through the principles of classical conditioning.

The experiment also demonstrated the concept of stimulus generalization, where the fear response is generalized to other furry objects. This finding helped psychologists understand how phobias can develop and how they can be treated through exposure therapy.

Furthermore, the experiment sparked ethical debates about using human subjects in research. Today, psychologists have strict guidelines and regulations to ensure that research is conducted ethically and responsibly.

The Little Albert Experiment remains a landmark study in psychology. It has contributed to our understanding of human behavior and has paved the way for future research in classical conditioning and behaviorism.

Frequently Asked Questions

What was the purpose of the little albert experiment.

The Little Albert experiment aimed to test the principles of classical conditioning. In particular, the experiment aimed to determine if a child could be conditioned to fear a previously neutral stimulus, in this case, a white rat, by repeatedly pairing it with a loud, unpleasant noise.

Is the Little Albert experiment classical or operant conditioning?

The Little Albert experiment is an example of classical conditioning, which is the process of learning by association. In classical conditioning, a neutral stimulus is repeatedly paired with a stimulus that naturally elicits a response, and eventually, the neutral stimulus alone will elicit the same response.

What happened in the Little Albert experiment?

During the experiment, a young boy named Albert was exposed to a white rat, a rabbit, a dog, a monkey, and other furry objects. Initially, Albert showed no fear of these objects. However, when a loud noise was made behind Albert’s head while he was playing with the rat, he became frightened. After several repetitions of this procedure, Albert began to show fear of the rat even without the noise.

Did they ever find the baby in the Little Albert experiment?

The identity of Little Albert was never definitively confirmed, and his fate remains unknown. Some researchers have speculated that Albert may have died during childhood, while others believe that he may have lived a long and healthy life.

Was Little Albert sick during the experiment?

There is no evidence to suggest that Little Albert was sick during the experiment. However, it is important to note that the experiment was conducted without the consent of Albert’s parents, and the potential psychological harm caused by the experiment is a matter of ongoing debate.

Did Little Albert kill himself?

There is no evidence to suggest that Little Albert killed himself. The identity and fate of Little Albert remain unknown, and it is important to approach any speculation about his life and death with caution.

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Psychology is Everywhere...

The Little Albert Experiment

Little Albert was the fictitious name  given to an unknown child who was  subjected to an experiment in classical conditioning by John Watson and Rosalie Raynor at John Hopkins University in the USA, in 1919. By today’s standards in psychology, the experiment would not be allowed because of ethical violations, namely the lack of informed consent from the subject or his parents and the prime principle of “do no harm”.  The experimental method contained significant weaknesses including failure to develop adequate control conditions and the fact that there was only one subject.  Despite the many short comings of the work, the results of the experiment are widely quoted in a range of psychology texts and also were a starting point for understanding phobias and the development of treatments for them.

What happened to Little Albert as he was known is unknown and several psychologists have tried in vain to definitively answer the question of: “what happened to Little Albert?”

What is classical conditioning?

Classical Conditioning Explained

Classical conditioning is a type of behaviourism first demonstrated by Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov in the 1890s.Through a series of experiments he demonstrated that dogs which normally salivated when presented with food could be conditioned to salivate in response to any stimulus in the absence of the original stimulus, food.  He rang a bell every time a dog was about to be fed, and after a period of time the dog would salivate to the sound of the bell irrespective of food being presented.

What did Watson do to Little Albert?

Many people have illogical fears of animals.  While it is logical to be frightened of a predator with the power to kill you, being afraid of a spider, a mouse or even cats and most dogs is not.  To those of us who don’t suffer from phobias it is the funniest thing in the world to see a person standing on a stool, screaming because of a mouse.  Phobias however are real, and for some people quite limiting and potentially damaging. Imagine suffering from agoraphobia – fear of open spaces or even being afraid of going to the dentist to the extent that your health suffered.

Now,  while we know now that phobias can be learned from watching others who have a fear,  for example our mother being afraid of spiders, known as social learning, Watson used the tools and knowledge he had available to him to investigate the potential causes of them ultimately, one supposes, to develop treatments for phobias.

John Watson endeavoured to repeat classical conditioning on a young emotionally stable child, with the objective of inducing phobias in the child. He was interested in trying to understand how children become afraid of animals.

Harris (1979) suggested:  ‘Watson hypothesized that although infants do not naturally fear animals, if “one animal succeeds in arousing fear, any moving furry animal thereafter may arouse it”

Albert was 9 months old and taken from a hospital, subjected to a series of baseline tests and then a series of experiences to ‘condition’ him. Watson filmed his study on Little Albert and the recordings are accessible on Youtube.com.

A series of unethical experiments was conducted with Little Albert

Watson started by introducing Albert to a number of furry animals, including a dog, a rabbit and most importantly a white rat. Watson then made loud, unpleasant noises by clanging a metal bar with a hammer.  The noise distressed Albert.  Watson then paired the loud noise with the presentation of the rat to Albert. He repeated this many times.  Very quickly Albert was conditioned to expect the frightening noise whenever the white rat was presented to him. Very soon the white rate alone could induce a fear response in Albert.  What was interesting was that without need for further conditioning the fear was generalised to other animals and situations including a dog, rabbit and a white furry mask worn by Watson himself.

Watson and Raynor  who knew all along the timescale by when Albert had to be returned to his mother,  gave him back without informing her of the activities and conditioning that they had inflicted on Albert, and most worryingly not  taking the time to counter condition or ‘curing’ him of the phobia they had induced.

What were the problems with this the way this study was done?

Both the American Psychological Association (APA) and the British Psychological Society (BPS) have well developed codes of ethics which any practicing psychologists have to adhere to. In addition, all places of higher learning and research have ethical committees to which research proposals have to be submitted for consideration. The core concern is to focus on the quality of research, the professional competence of the researchers and of greatest importance, the welfare of human and animal subjects. At the time of Watson and Raynor’s work, there were no such guidelines and committee.  While to some extent, it is wrong to measure historical research by modern-day standards, this experiment is almost a case study in unethical research. The experiment broke the cardinal ethical rules for psychological research. Those being:

• Do no harm .  Psychologists have to reduce or eliminate the potential that taking part in a study may cause harm to a participant during and afterwards. Little Albert was harmed during and would potentially have suffered life-long harm as a result.
• The participants’ right to withdraw.  Nowadays, if you are involved as participant in any psychological or medical study you are given the right that you can withdraw at any stage during the study without consequence to you. Albert and his mother were given no-such rights.
• The principle of informed consent.  Subjects have to be given as much information about the study as possible before the study begins so that they can make a decision about participating based on knowledge.  If the research is such that giving information before the study may affect the outcome then an alternative is a thorough debrief at its conclusion.  Neither of these conditions was satisfied by Watson’s treatment of Albert.
• Professional competence of the researcher.  While it may seem presumptive to question the behaviour of the father of “behavioural psychology”, the method used in this study was not particularly good psychology.  There was only one subject and the experiment lacks any form of control.  Such criticism however, is a little post hoc since research in psychology at that time was in its infancy.

Besides the ethical issues with the experiment, as can be seen from the recordings, the environment was not controlled, the animals changed, and several appeared themselves to be in distress. The final act of Watson applying a mask was presented very closely to Albert, something that potentially would cause any child distress.

Watson could have ‘cured’ Albert of the phobia he had induced using a process known as systematic desensitisation but chose not to as he and Raynor wanted to continue with the experiment until the Albert’s mother came to collect him.

Watch a Recap of this experiment in this video:

Harris B (1979): Whatever happened to Little Albert ?  American Psychologist, February 1979,     pp 151-160

Code of Ethics:

http://www.bps.org.uk/what-we-do/ethics-standards/ethics-standards

About Alexander Burgemeester

2 Responses to “The Little Albert Experiment”

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what are the laws of classical conditioning in this experiment

Wow, this entire article is full of inaccuracies. Firstly, they didn’t begin the conditioning experiments on Albert until he was 11 months and 3 days old. While the first few original reactions with the different animals did not need further conditioning, the steel rod was struck several times throughout the experiment to reinstate the fear response with the stimuli. Also, it is only speculated that Albert’s mother was unaware that these experiments were going on. You mention that the mask in which Watson wears at the ending of the video would distress any child, but before beginning the experiments, Watson and his crew tested several different stimuli on Albert and marked any emotional responses. The masks were part of this test and did not originally trigger a response. A fear response was present after Albert was conditioned to fear the white rat and things that were visually similar. The mask had white hair attached at the top. He had a similiar response to a paper bag of white cotton wool. Lastly, the fact that your entire article is written with a secondary source (written in 1979 no less) as your only source beside the video, and never even refers to Watson’s original journal publication (which is available for free online at http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Watson/emotion.htm ) is even more of a reason to find this article flawed.

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Little Albert Experiment

Classical conditioning plays a central role in the development of fears and associations. Some phobias may be due at least in part to classical conditioning. For example, a person who associates leaving the home with being abused by their parents might develop agoraphobia .

Who Conducted the Little Albert Experiment?

Psychologist John Watson conducted the Little Albert experiment. Watson is known for his seminal research on behaviorism, or the idea that behavior occurs primarily in the context of conditioning. He was a professor of psychology at Johns Hopkins University, and much of his research revolved around animal behavior. Some sources report that Watson implicated his children in some of his studies, creating tension in his family. After a scandal that resulted in his resignation from John Hopkins, Watson worked in advertising until his retirement.

How Did the Experiment Work?

Albert was a 9-month-old baby who had not previously demonstrated any fear of rats. In the beginning of the experiment, when Albert was 11 months old, John Watson placed a rat (in addition to some other animals and objects with fur) on the table in front of Albert, who reacted with curiosity and no sign of fear.

He then began making a loud noise behind the baby by pounding on a steel bar with a hammer on several separate occasions while showing Albert the rat. Albert cried in reaction to the noise and, after a period of conditioning, cried in response to the rat even without the loud noise. When presented with the other animals, he also responded with varying degrees of fear despite not ever hearing the loud noise when presented with those animals.

This experiment is prototypical example of classical conditioning. One conclusion Watson drew from the experiment was that fear may have a critical impact on personality development.

The Little Albert Experiment: Ethical Issues and Criticism

Watson had originally planned to decondition Albert to the stimulus, demonstrating that conditioned fears could be eliminated. However, Albert was removed from the experiment before this could happen, and thus Watson created a child with a previously nonexistent fear. This research practice would be widely considered unethical today; standards outlined by the American Psychological Association and the British Psychological Society would also deem the study unethical.

Watson rationalized his treatment of Little Albert by stating that even if they did not conduct the experiment on the child, he would experience similar conditioning as he grew older. “At first there was considerable hesitation upon our part in making the attempt to set up fear reactions experimentally,” Watson wrote. “We decided finally to make the attempt, comforting ourselves … that such attachments would arise anyway as soon as the child left the sheltered environment of the nursery for the rough and tumble of the home.”

Although the experiment is remembered as a case for classical conditioning, some critics point out that the study was done without any type of control. However, adding a control element to psychological research was not common at this time.

What Happened to Little Albert?

“Little Albert” was the son of a wet nurse by the name Arvilla Merritte who worked at the Harriet Lane Home for Invalid Children. Because of this, much of Albert’s infancy was spent in Johns Hopkins Hospital with his mother. Arvilla received $1 for her son’s part in the experiment, which would be equivalent to around $13 today.

Most sources agree that Albert’s real name was Douglas Merritte. Nobody knows whether his fear of rats persisted into adulthood, as he died at six years of age from hydrocephalus.

Classical Conditioning in Popular Culture

Several pieces of literature have addressed classical conditioning in children, including Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World . In Brave New World , poor children were conditioned to dislike or fear books. Thus their lower status was maintained as they avoided learning from books. This page contains at least one affiliate link for the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, which means GoodTherapy.org receives financial compensation if you make a purchase using an Amazon link.

References:

• American Psychological Association. APA concise dictionary of psychology . Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2009. Print.
• Augustyn, A. (n.d.). John B. Watson. Encyclopedia Britannica . Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-B-Watson
• Burgemeester, A. (n.d.). The Little Albert experiment. Retrieved from https://www.psychologized.org/the-little-albert-experiment
• Cherry, K. (2019, July 3). The Little Albert experiment: A closer look at the famous case of Little Albert. Retrieved from https://www.verywellmind.com/the-little-albert-experiment-2794994
• DeAngelis, T. (2010). ‘Little Albert’ regains his identity. Monitor on Psychology, 41 (1), 10. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/monitor/2010/01/little-albert
• Inflation calculator. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1920?amount=1
• Watson, J. B., & Rayner, R. (1920). Conditioned emotional reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 3 (1), 1-14. Retrieved from https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Watson/emotion.htm

Last Updated: 07-30-2019

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wow little albert had a hard life

He did. Unfortunately he died at the age of 6 after contracting hydrocephalus.

The only problem I have with this is that it says about if they had permission from Little Albert’s mother for the experiment, Yet to my knowledge Little Albert was an orphan

therefore how do we know she wouldnt have given permission?

Little Albert was in a special needs hospital for the first year of his life. His mother was a nurse there. The experiments were done without her presence. There were not any research regulations at the time saying that the parent or participant needed to be fully informed of the experiment.

His mother was actually present everyday for the experiments. She gave permission to Watson to do these experiments because Watson was giving her 1 dollar (which was a lot back then) after each of the experiments, and she needed that money to survive and help feedL’little Albert’

Which behaviourist theory is being discussed in the little albert story

I think we need more of this kind of experimentation, too bad he died before he was permanently scared. Woulda been cool to see his life deteriorate naturally instead of some freak accident medical phenomena.

TheFastAndTheCurious

I think Albert was a troubled child with bad parents

but why was he removed from the experiment?

He was orphaned out to a family.

Can someone please maybe tell me who wrote it and the date, i want to reference this site for an assignment.

We are happy to hear you’re finding our site to be a helpful resource! There is no named author — the author of this page is simply “GoodTherapy.” I would recommend asking your professor or faculty how they would like you to cite a website with no named author.

We hope this is helpful! Please let us know if you have further questions!

Great article. thanks

bro he should have been put down this poor child was abused by his own (illegitimate) father#Maury#unfortunate#thatstuff

Poor little Albert :( . Bless his soul may he RIP. Great article (;.

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• Classical Conditioning
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Little Albert

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Conditioned emotional reactions ; Experiment ; Learning ; Watson

John Watson’s experiment on children’s conditioned emotional reactions

Introduction

In 1919, upon Watson’s return from the army, he decided to pursue research, along with Rosalie Rayner, on children’s emotional response and development based on conditioning processes. The first and only study that Watson and Rayner performed on this topic was the study with Albert B. or, most known, as Little Albert, at the laboratory of a hospital. This experiment became one of the most frequently cited in psychology books and magazines and is described as “one of the classic studies of twentieth-century psychology” (Todd 1994 , p. 82).

The Conditions Surrounding the Experiment

Watson’s academic career was built on examining animal learning. He was applying Pavlov’s principles of classical conditioning, where innate bodily reflexes are conditioned with new stimuli to create new learning by association. Thus, conditioning...

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Beck, H. P., Levinson, S., & Irons, G. (2009). Finding Little Albert. A journey to John B. Watson’s infant laboratory. American Psychologist, 64 (7), 605–614.

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Moore, J. (2017). John B. Watson’s classical S-R Behaviorism. The Journal of Mind and Behavior, 38 (1), 1–34.

Rilling, M. (2000). How the challenge of explaining learning influenced the origins and development of John B. Watson’s behaviorism. American Journal of Psychology, 113 (2), 275–301.

Todd, J. T. (1994). What psychology has to say about John B. Watson: Classical behaviorism in psychology textbooks, 1920–1989. In J. T. Todd & E. K. Morris (Eds.), Modern perspectives on John B. Watson and classical behaviorism , Contributions in psychology (Vol. 24, pp. 75–107). Westport: Greenwood Press/Greenwood Publishing Group.

Watson, J. B., & Rayner, R. (2000). Conditioned emotional reactions. American Psychologist, 55 (3), 313–317, a reprint of Watson, J. B., & Rayner, R. R. (1920). Journal of Experimental Psychology , 3 , 1–14.

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Georgiadou, P. (2021). Little Albert. In: Shackelford, T.K., Weekes-Shackelford, V.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19650-3_1046

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Looking back: Finding Little Albert

Hall P. Beck, with Gary Irons, reports on a seven-year search for psychology’s lost boy.

15 May 2011

In 1920 the British Psychological Society invited John Broadus Watson to address a symposium on behaviourism (Watson, 1920). Watson was disappointed that his university was unable to fund his crossing. This article provides new information about a study Watson would most likely have presented to the Society had his monetary circumstances been more favourable.

In the winter of 1919/20, Watson and his graduate assistant, Rosalie Alberta Rayner, attempted to condition a baby boy, Albert B., to fear a white laboratory rat (Watson & Rayner, 1920). They later reported that the child's fear generalised to other furry objects. The 'Little Albert' investigation was the last published study of Watson's academic career. Watson and Rayner became embroiled in a scandalous affair, culminating in his divorce and dismissal from Johns Hopkins.

Despite its methodological shortcomings and questionable ethics (Cornwell & Hobbs, 1976; Samelson, 1980), the attempted conditioning of Albert is a staple in psychology textbooks and one of the most influential investigations in the discipline. The continuing appeal of Watson and Rayner's research is not solely due to the importance of their purported findings. Much of the fascination with the study is attributable to Albert himself.

After the last day of testing, Albert left his home on the Johns Hopkins campus. His disappearance created one of the greatest mysteries in the history of psychology. 'Whatever happened to Little Albert?' is a question that has intrigued generations of students and professional psychologists (Harris, 1979). This article is a detective story summarising the efforts of my co-authors, my students and myself to resolve a 90-year-old cold case.

What was known about Albert  

From Watson's writings we learned that Albert's mother was a wet nurse in the Harriet Lane Home, a paediatric facility on the Hopkins campus. She and her son lived at Harriet Lane for most of the boy's first year. Watson and Rayner reported that Albert was tested at 8 months 26 days, 11 months 3 days, 11 months 10 days, 11 months 15 days, 11 months 20 days, and 12 months 21 days of age. It was also known that Albert was a male Caucasian. Though useful, this information had not led other researchers (e.g. Resnick, 1974) to Albert. New evidence was clearly needed if we hoped to identify Watson's famous participant.

In addition to written descriptions, a movie that Watson (1923) made of Albert and other infants provided a critical information source. By concurrently examining the investigators' write-up, the movie and Watson's correspondence with President Goodnow of Johns Hopkins we determined that Albert was born between 2 March and 16 March 1919. Adding 12 months 21 days, the age of the last assessment, to the birth date indicated that data collection concluded between 23 March and 6 April 1920. The process by which these dates were derived is more fully described elsewhere (Beck et al., 2009).

We had learned a great deal about Albert. Now came the most difficult part of our inquiry: finding an individual whose characteristics matched Albert's attributes.

Traces of Albert

We searched archives for the investigators' notes, drafts of the study and other pertinent documents, but found no clues as to Albert's or his mother's identity. An attempt to locate Watson's private papers was particularly maddening. Watson (Buckley, 1989) burned these documents late in his life, declaring 'When you are dead you are all dead' (p.182). We will never know what historical treasures he destroyed that day.

Efforts to uncover patient and employee records at Hopkins were equally futile. With no private papers, no patient records, and no employee records to guide us, we were without direction. At this point, we could only confirm why previous attempts to find Albert had failed.

If I had thought through the implications of the information Watson and Rayner provided, I would have known where to look for Albert on the initial day of our inquiry. Two of the first facts we learned were that the investigation was performed during the winter of 1919/20 and that Albert and his mother lived on the Hopkins campus. In 1920 a census was conducted throughout the US. If a census was taken at Hopkins then it might include Albert's mother and perhaps Albert.

On 2 January 1920 a census taker recorded the names of 379 persons residing on the Hopkins campus (US Bureau of the Census, 1920). I downloaded a copy of the census, but did not have time to study it. I was packing for Germany to conduct a series of human–computer interaction studies.

The census provides a clue

I incorrectly assumed that my work in Europe would delay the search for Albert. However, the next step on the road to Albert would not be taken by travelling to an American archive but by journeying to Granada, Spain. There, at the 2005 European Congress of Psychology, I met my future co-author Dr Sharman Levinson, who was then a professor at the University of Angers, France. We discovered a mutual interest in Watson's career. After the conference, I mailed Levinson copies of many historical documents that my students had digitised.

Her attention was caught by the census. No one under 14-years-old was listed even though Watson and other sources indicate that children were living on campus. Almost everyone on the census was single, divorced or widowed, so it is reasonable to speculate that the census taker never asked about children.

Neither were any wet nurses included on the census. Three women, Pearl Barger, Ethel Carter, and Arvilla Merritte, however, were listed as 'foster mothers'. Foster mother is an occupation encompassing a variety of activities involving the maternal care of another's child. Levinson's discovery of the foster mothers gave our inquiry new direction, but did not constitute proof that these women were wet nurses. After returning to the United States, my students and I set out to discover whether Pearl Barger, Ethel Carter, and Arvilla Merritte were lactating during the winter of 1919/20. Our attention initially focused on Pearl Barger. Could Albert B. be Albert Barger? Several hundred hours were spent searching death certificates, marriage licences, birth records and other documents in the Maryland State Archives. These efforts failed to produce evidence of Pearl's motherhood.

Ethel Carter gave birth on 26 August 1920 at Hopkins. She could have been a wet nurse and probably knew Albert. Ethel, however, was not Albert's mother. She was a black woman and her child was a female.

Arvilla Merritte was a 22-year-old Caucasian. On 9 March 1919, she delivered a boy ('Baby Merritte') on the Hopkins campus (Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, 1919). The father was listed as William Merritte.

Further searches for Arvilla Merritte yielded no additional information. Like Albert and Pearl, she had disappeared. For months, Levinson, my students and I searched for clues, finally noticing that an unknown individual had jotted down Arvilla's maiden name on the birth record:?'Irons'. Maiden names were not typically included on these documents, so I asked myself: What motivated someone to add it to this record? Did the record keeper believe that Arvilla was unmarried? One of my most trusted students was assigned to investigate.

The breakthrough came when she entered 'Arvilla Irons' into a genealogical database. Suddenly, the ancestors and descendents of the foster mother appeared across her screen. Arvilla's grandson, Larry Irons, left an e-mail address so relatives might contact him. I responded, describing the importance of Albert to psychology, and requesting further contact.

Meeting the Irons family

It was a very emotional moment when Gary, Larry's brother, phoned. Gary confirmed that Arvilla worked at the Harriet Lane Home and that she gave birth to a boy on 9 March 1919. I learned from Gary that Arvilla named her son, Douglas.

Could Douglas be Little Albert? Descriptions of the Harriet Lane Home (Howland, 1912–1913; Park, 1957) and blueprints of the facility suggest that there were never many, probably no more than four in-residence wet nurses at any time. Douglas was certainly at Hopkins when Albert was tested, but was he Albert or Albert's nursery mate?

What is the likelihood that a Harriet Lane Home wet nurse would give birth to a male between 2 March and 16 March? To better record my own reasoning, I made my assumptions explicit. If half the babies were male and births were randomly distributed throughout the year, then the probability that the child would be male and born in this period would be 1 in 52 (1/2 x 1/26). Although my assumptions were estimates, the calculations definitely showed that it was unlikely that anyone other than Albert would share these attributes.

The strongest argument against Douglas is his name. Why did Watson not refer to the baby as Douglas? As we will see, Arvilla was reluctant to share aspects of her personal life. Although it is possible that Arvilla requested anonymity, a more probable explanation is that Watson did not know the baby's name. In 1920 Hopkins was a very stratified social environment (Park, n.d.). Interactions between professors and wet nurses were almost solely restricted to professional matters.

But why call the child Albert B.? At the 2008 meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, I asked the eminent Watson scholar, Charles Brewer that question. He reminded me that Watson was named after a prominent Baptist minister, John Albert Broadus.

Naming Albert for his own namesake might not have been Watson's only playful use of names. John and Rosalie married soon after Watson's divorce. They had two children, William and James. Perhaps it is coincidence, but it is interesting that Watson greatly admired his predecessor, the philosopher-psychologist, William James.

Arvilla's story

In the early 20th century, the Irons family moved from New Jersey to rural Amelia, Virginia, about 64 km west of Richmond. On 18 December 1915, Arvilla, age 17, gave birth to Maurice Irons: the father was not recorded. Maurice eventually fathered Larry, Gary and five sisters.

In 1918 Arvilla became pregnant again. Later that year or in early 1919, she moved to Baltimore, leaving her parents to raise Maurice. Before giving birth, she lived in the Baltimore Home for Fallen and Friendless Women, a Christian facility 1.1 km from the Hopkins campus.

Arvilla went to work at Harriet Lane shortly after Douglas' birth. In the early 1920s, she and Douglas left Hopkins and moved into the home of Raymond Brashears, a farmer in the area of Mount Airy, Maryland. Raymond's wife, Flora, was very ill; she needed help fulfilling her domestic duties and caring for her young daughter. Flora succumbed to meningitis on 15 May 1924 ('Deaths: Mrs. Flora Belle Brashears', 1924).

In 1926 Arvilla married Wilbur Hood. Thirteen years later, a daughter, Gwendolyn, was born to the couple. 'Hoody' and Arvilla grew apart after Gwendolyn's birth and divorced in the 1940s. Arvilla's senior years were healthy and vigorous. She died in 1988, leaving behind a trunk containing her most precious possessions, the landmarks of her life.   

Following her mother's funeral, Gwendolyn discovered two photographic portraits in the trunk. One was of Maurice when he was four or five years old. The second was of a baby she did not recognise. Puzzled, Gwendolyn asked if Gary knew who the child was.

Many years before, Gary had inadvertently come across the open trunk. He questioned his mother about the portraits. She told him that one child was his father and the other was Douglas. Gwendolyn was understandably upset to learn about Douglas. Her mother never told her that she had a second brother.

Comparing the portrait and film

I asked Gary if he would send me a photograph of the portrait. To obtain a better image, he removed the old picture from its glass-covered frame. On the back was the address of the photographic studio. It was located less than 3 km from Hopkins.

After the portrait arrived, several colleagues compared Douglas' photograph to stills of Albert made from the Watson movie. No one saw any features indicating that the two boys could not be the same person. Therefore, I felt that a more expert assessment was justified.

The principal shortcoming with the photographic evidence was that we did not know Douglas' age when the portrait was taken. Babies' facial features rapidly change making positive identification impossible. The quality of Watson's movie was another problem. Albert's eyes look like black dots; it was not possible to determine where the eye sockets began and ended. Enlarging stills from the movie brought forth some features, but the resolution was poor. Although we could not confirm that the two boys were the same individual, a disconfirmation might be possible. In other words, the baby's features might be so different that they could not be the same individual.

Money is no object if you have none. When in need, I have always depended upon the kindness of scientists. Friends called friends and I was eventually put in contact with Dr William Rodriguez of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. He graciously consented to compare Douglas's portrait with a number of stills of Albert.

As expected, Rodriguez (personal communication, 13 June 2008) noted that the fast rate of tissue growth during infancy precluded a definitive identification of Albert. He then addressed the question: Did the photographic evidence reveal that Douglas and Albert were different people?

'My examination using a simplified cross sectional ratio comparison appears to suggest that one cannot exclude the subject in question as possibly being baby Albert. There are certainly facial similarities based upon my observations even taking into account the differential chronological age of the subjects depicted. In conclusion the two photographs could be the same individual' (personal communication, 13 June, 2008).

Although visual and biometric comparisons found a resemblance, if the sole evidence were the photographs, we would not claim that Douglas was Albert. Fortunately, the photographic data can be evaluated in conjunction with other findings to determine the likelihood that Douglas was Little Albert.

After seven years of investigation, we discovered an individual, Douglas Merritte, who shared many characteristics with Little Albert. Our findings are summarised as follows:  - Watson and Rayner tested Albert during the winter of 1919/20. Douglas' mother, Arvilla, resided on the Hopkins campus on 2 January 1920.  - Watson and Rayner tell us that Albert's mother was employed at the Harriet Lane Home. According to family history, Arvilla worked at the Harriet Lane Home.  - Albert's mother was a wet nurse. Arvilla gave birth on 9 March 1919 and was listed as a foster mother on the 1920 Hopkins census. She could have served as a wet nurse.  - Documents suggest that there were probably no more than four wet nurses residing in the Harriet Lane Home at any one time. Thus, Arvilla is one of very few women who could have been Albert's mother.  - Douglas was born on the Hopkins campus and cared for by his mother after she left the hospital. Therefore, it is very likely that Douglas lived on campus with his mother during the winter of 1919/20.  - If Douglas lived with Arvilla, then he, like Albert, spent almost his entire first year at Harriet Lane.  - Like Albert, Douglas left Hopkins during the early 1920s.  - By jointly considering Watson and Rayner's article, the film, and Watson's correspondence with Goodnow, we determined that Albert was born between 2 March and 16 March 1919. Douglas was born on 9 March 1919.  - Albert and Douglas were Caucasian males.  - Visual inspection and biometric analyses of the Douglas portrait and Little Albert film find 'facial similarities'. No features were so different as to indicate that Douglas and Albert could not be the same individual. Although some of these attributes are shared by more than one person, the probability that the complete set applies to anyone except Albert is very small. The available evidence strongly supports the proposition that Douglas Merritte is Little Albert. After 90 years, psychology's lost boy has come home.

Gary, his wife, Helen, and I set flowers on Arvilla's grave. Then we drove several miles to the Church of the Brethren. Beside the church is a small well-kept cemetery. I followed Gary to a modest-sized tombstone. It read, 'Douglas, Son of Arvilla Merritte, March 9, 1919 to May 10, 1925.' Below his name, were inscribed lines from a Felicia Hemans poem (189-?, p.331).

'The sunbeam's smile, the zephyr's breath, All that it knew from birth to death.'

Standing beside Douglas' grave, my prevailing feeling was one of loneliness. Douglas never grew up; our search was longer than the child's life. The quest, which had for so long been a part of my life, was over. I put flowers beside my little friend and said goodbye. Whatever happened to Little Douglas? We may never know if he experienced any long-term negative consequences from his conditioning. We did discover that his health deteriorated after leaving the Harriet Lane Home. His death certificate (Department of Health Bureau of Vital Statistics, 1925) states that Douglas died from hydrocephalus and convulsions.

To conclude that Douglas's story ended in a rural Maryland graveyard overlooks much of the significance of his life. Although we found no indication that Watson and Rayner's procedures provoked criticism in the 1920s, Douglas's treatment now exemplifies the need for an ethical code to protect the rights of participants. All behaviour therapies trace their lineage to Mary Cover Jones's (1924) counterconditioning of Peter, a follow-up to the Albert investigation. Watson and Rayner's simple study of fear acquisition and generalisation encouraged the development of effective treatments for phobias and an array of other behavioural problems.  - Hall P. Beck is at the Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina.  - Gary Irons lives in Finksburg, Maryland

Box 1: Why are we drawn to Little Albert?

It can be argued that discovering Little Albert's identity is not important. It will not alter the impact of behaviourism on psychology. Finding Douglas will not change how we conduct therapy, train intellectually challenged individuals, conduct computer-assisted instruction, etc. Yet many people do find the discovery of the identity of Albert significant or at least interesting. So why does Little Albert have such magnetism? Here are a few things which may have contributed to Albert's popularity.  - What happened to Little Albert is a mystery. People love mysteries. Nevertheless, that fact alone cannot fully account for the interest Albert generates. What happened to the many other babies that Watson tested is also a mystery and no one to my knowledge has attempted to locate them.  - There is a lack of closure. The Watson and Rayner study was never completed. The original plan was to decondition Albert. Unfortunately, he left Hopkins on the last day of testing.  - Many people believe that Albert was mistreated. Certainly, by modern standards, establishing a fear in an infant is ethically questionable. Not removing the fear makes matters far worse. People want to know if Albert suffered any long-term negative consequences as a result of his conditioning.  - For many psychologists, the Little Albert study is one of the first investigations that they learn about. We tend to value those early experiences that brought us into the discipline. It is remarkable how many people have told me in vivid detail about the first time they heard of the Albert study.  - We know Albert's name. Whether intentional or not, giving the baby a name was a publicity masterstroke. It would be much harder for people to emotionally relate to the child if he was not given a name or called Baby A, Baby 32, or the like.  - Albert was a baby. Many people are simply interested in and protective of babies. Babies bring out powerful emotional responses.   These six factors account for some of Albert's magic. This list, however, cannot fully explain the little boy's continued appeal. Albert has transcended his role as a participant and become an integral member of our psychological family.

Albert's fame is widespread. As much as Pavlov's dogs, and Skinner's pigeons, Albert is the face that psychology shows the general public. A more important, and often ignored role, is that stories, like that of Albert, are part of our collective memory. Our identification as psychologists is predicated upon knowledge and appreciation of our mutual history.

Beck, H.P., Levinson, S. & Irons, G. (2009). Finding Little Albert. American Psychologist, 64, 605–614. Buckley, K.W. (1989). Mechanical man: John Broadus Watson and the beginnings of behaviorism. New York: Guilford. Cornwell, D. & Hobbs, S. (1976, 18 March).The strange saga of little Albert. New Society, pp.602–604. Deaths: Mrs. Flora Belle Brashears. (1924, 24 May). The Frederick Post, p.5. Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Division of Vital Records (Birth Record, BC) (1919). Baby Merritte, 70288, 02/25/04/006. Maryland State Archives (MSA T310–230), Annapolis, MD. Department of Health Bureau of Vital Statistics (Death Record Counties) (1925). Douglas Merritte, Carroll County, 10 May 1925. Maryland State Archives (MSA S1179, MdHR 50, 259-375, 2/56/62(1), Annapolis, MD. Harris, B. (1979). Whatever happened to little Albert? American Psychologist, 34, 151–160. Hemans, F. (189-?). The poetical works of Mrs. Hemans. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell. Howland, J. (1912–1913). The Harriet Lane Home for Invalid Children, Johns Hopkins Alumni Magazine, 1, 115–121. Jones, M.C. (1924). A laboratory study of fear: The case of Peter. Pedagogical Seminary, 31, 308–315. Park, E.A. (1957). [Records of the Harriet Lane Home]. Collection Harriet Lane Home [Series 4b]. The Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives of The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, MD. Park, E.A. (n.d.). The Howland period from 1912 to 1926. [Records of the Harriet Lane Home]. Collection Harriet Lane Home [Series 4b]. The Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives of The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, MD. Resnick, J.H. (1974). In pursuit of Albert. Professional Psychology, 5, 112–113. Samelson, F. (1980). J.B. Watson's Little Albert, Cyril Burt's twins, and the need for a critical science. American Psychologist, 35, 619–625. US Bureau of the Census (1920). Johns Hopkins Hospital, Maryland. In 14th Census of the United States, 1920 (Enumeration District 82, Sheet 4A; Roll: T625_661). Retrieved 29 June 2009 from Ancestry Library database. Watson, J.B. (1920, 30 March). [Letter to Frank J. Goodnow]. The Ferdinand Hamburger, Jr., Archives of The Johns Hopkins University (Record Group 02.001/Office of the President /Series 1/File 115 (Department of Psychology) 1920–1921). Watson, J.B. (Writer/Director) (1923). Experimental investigation of babies [Motion picture]. (Distributed by C. H. Stoelting Co., Chicago, IL). Watson, J.B. & Rayner, R. (1920). Conditioned emotional reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 3, 1–14.

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What is the little albert experiment in behavioral science, what is the little albert experiment.

Definition: The Little Albert Experiment was a psychological study conducted by John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner in 1920. The experiment aimed to demonstrate classical conditioning, a form of associative learning, in humans. The researchers sought to show that a child could be conditioned to develop a fear response to a previously neutral stimulus.

What are findings of The Little Albert Experiment?

Conditioned fear response.

The first finding of the Little Albert Experiment was that a fear response could be induced in a previously unafraid infant through classical conditioning. The infant, referred to as “Little Albert,” was exposed to a loud noise (the unconditioned stimulus) whenever he reached for a white rat (the neutral stimulus), eventually causing him to associate the rat with the noise and develop a fear response to the rat (the conditioned stimulus).

Generalization

The 2nd finding of the Little Albert Experiment was that the conditioned fear response could generalize to other stimuli that shared similar characteristics with the original conditioned stimulus. Little Albert’s fear of the white rat extended to other white, furry objects, such as a rabbit, a dog, and a fur coat.

Emotional Reactions

The 3rd finding of the Little Albert Experiment was that emotional reactions could be conditioned, providing evidence for Watson’s behaviorist theory, which posited that emotions are learned behaviors that can be manipulated through conditioning.

Examples of The Little Albert Experiment

Original little albert study.

The first example of the Little Albert Experiment was the original study conducted by Watson and Rayner, in which they successfully conditioned an infant to develop a fear response to a white rat by pairing the rat with a loud noise.

Subsequent Research on Classical Conditioning

The 2nd example of the Little Albert Experiment is its lasting impact on subsequent research in classical conditioning, influencing the development of studies on conditioned emotional responses and phobias, as well as treatments for phobias and other anxiety disorders, such as systematic desensitization and exposure therapy.

Shortcomings and Criticisms of The Little Albert Experiment

Ethical concerns.

The first criticism of the Little Albert Experiment was its ethical implications. Deliberately inducing fear in an infant without consent and without attempts to reverse the conditioning is considered unethical by today’s standards and would not be permitted under current research guidelines.

Methodological Issues

The 2nd criticism of the Little Albert Experiment was methodological in nature. The small sample size (only one infant), lack of control group, and potential confounding variables limit the generalizability and validity of the study’s findings.

Incomplete Data

The 3rd criticism of the Little Albert Experiment was the incomplete data and lack of follow-up. The experiment did not address the long-term effects of the conditioning or explore possible methods of reversing the learned fear response, leaving many unanswered questions regarding the persistence and malleability of conditioned emotional responses.

Related Behavioral Science Terms

Belief perseverance, crystallized intelligence, extraneous variable, representative sample, factor analysis, egocentrism, stimulus generalization, reciprocal determinism, divergent thinking, convergent thinking, social environment, decision making, related articles.

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Baby used in notorious fear experiment is lost no more

By Helen Thomson

1 October 2014

Rat or rabbit, I don't like it

(Image: Courtesy of Ben Harris)

You’ll have heard of Pavlov’s dogs, conditioned to expect food at the sound of a bell. You might not have heard that a scarier experiment – arguably one of psychology’s most unethical – was once performed on a baby.

In it, a 9-month-old, at first unfazed by the presence of animals, was conditioned to feel fear at the sight of a rat. The infant was presented with the animal as someone struck a metal pole with a hammer above his head. This was repeated until he cried at merely the sight of any furry object – animate or inanimate.

The “Little Albert” experiment, performed in 1919 by John Watson of Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, was the first to show that a human could be classically conditioned. The fate of Albert B has intrigued researchers ever since.

Hall Beck at the Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, has been one of the most tenacious researchers on the case. Watson’s papers stated that Albert B was the son of a wet nurse who worked at the hospital. Beck spent seven years exploring potential candidates and used facial analysis to conclude in 2009 that Little Albert was Douglas Merritte, son of hospital employee Arvilla.

A life cut short

Douglas was born on the same day as Albert and several other points tallied with Watson’s notes. Tragically, medical records showed that Douglas had severe neurological problems and died at an early age of hydrocephalus, or water on the brain. According to his records, this seems to have resulted in vision problems, so much so that at times he was considered blind.

Beck and his colleagues reanalysed grainy video footage of Watson’s experiments, in which they claim Little Albert shows behavioural deficits that were “grossly abnormal”. These included being unusually uninterested in the animals when he was initially presented with them, and some kind of perception problem. They consulted with two clinicians, who suggested that Albert showed signs of neurological damage that fitted with Merritte’s medical records, discovered at a later date. Could Watson have known about this impairment and lied when he said that he had chosen Albert because he was a healthy, psychologically stable, baby?

If correct, “the significance of Beck’s revelation was that it indicated the scale and nature of the researcher’s dubious practices was far greater than previously supposed,” says Alex Haslam , a psychologist at the University of Exeter, UK.

But not everyone was won over. “When Beck claimed he had discovered Little Albert I was so excited,” says Russ Powell at MacEwan University in Alberta, Canada, “but then I started finding inconsistencies.”

All adding up

Powell and his colleagues decided to reinvestigate the case. They focused on another woman who had worked at the hospital – teenager Pearl Barger, who, they claim, Beck had discounted after finding no evidence that she’d had a baby while there.

Powell’s team uncovered new genealogical documentation, of a Pearl Barger, married and known as Pearl Martin. A US census later revealed that Pearl Martin had three children with her husband – however, one was delivered in 1919, before they married. That child’s name was William Albert Barger, but hospital records showed he went by his middle name. “Albert B,” says Powell, “it all added up.”

As well as the name, the team argue that there are more significant consistencies between Albert Barger and Little Albert than for Douglas Merritte and Little Albert. Although both boys were born on the same day as Albert B, Barger was much closer in weight and left hospital at exactly the same age.

But what of the neurological impairment seen in the videos? Having sought advice from researchers familiar with child behaviour, Powell argues that the infant’s behaviour on first encountering the animals was not in fact abnormal but consistent with Watson’s previous research that showed most infants are unafraid of animals they have never seen before. He also points out that Albert grasps a small marble in one video, which doesn’t tally with the visual impairment problems noted on Merritte’s medical records.

If correct, it means Watson actually did test a healthy, stable child as claimed.

The real Albert B?

Alan Fridlund at the University of Santa Barbara, who worked with Beck on his paper, stands by the original finding. “We sought two clinical experts to view Albert on film,” says Fridlund. He also argues that body weight is meaningless when stature isn’t considered, and that Albert’s short stature is consistent with hydrocephalus.

Fridlund says that Powell and his colleagues have made numerous errors in their medical interpretation. “Without the advice of external experts, they fell prey to frank confirmation bias,” he says. “In an upcoming paper we will clarify the evidence that excludes William Barger as the Albert candidate.”

Haslam is, for now, convinced by Powell’s interpretation: “The important point is not that Beck was probably wrong,” he says, “but that we were rushing in to confer pariah status on the already unfashionable Watson.”

But what of Albert Barger? He died in 2007 after a long, happy life, says his niece. She says the family had no idea he might be Little Albert, and that his mum had hidden the fact that he was born out of wedlock. She describes him as an intellectually curious person who would have been thrilled to know he had participated in this kind of experiment. Intriguingly, he had an aversion to animals – so much so that the family dogs had to be kept in a separate room when he visited – although she says this might have been because he once witnessing a dog killed in an accident.

“We will never be able to confirm nor deny the possibility that his aversion to animals could be, to some extent, the lingering effects of the condition procedure,” says Powell. “Perhaps a fittingly ambiguous outcome for a poorly design experiment conducted almost a century ago.” But, he adds, if Barger is indeed Little Albert, it does suggest Watson’s claim that his experiments would do relatively little harm in the long run was, thankfully, correct.

Journal references: Beck’s paper: American Psychologist , doi.org/b9bsvx Powell’s paper: American Psychologist , doi.org/v2k

• psychology /

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The Little Albert Experiment: The Perverse 1920 Study That Made a Baby Afraid of Santa Claus & Bunnies

in History , Psychology , Science | January 29th, 2015 4 Comments

The field of psy­chol­o­gy is very dif­fer­ent than it used to be. Nowa­days, the Amer­i­can Psy­cho­log­i­cal Asso­ci­a­tion has a code of con­duct for exper­i­ments that ensures a subject’s con­fi­den­tial­i­ty, con­sent and gen­er­al men­tal well being. In the old days, it was­n’t the case.

Back then, you could, for instance, con sub­jects into think­ing that they were elec­tro­cut­ing a man to death, as they did in the infa­mous 1961 Mil­gram exper­i­ment , which left peo­ple trau­ma­tized and hum­bled in the knowl­edge that deep down they are lit­tle more than weak-willed pup­pets in the face of author­i­ty. You could also try to turn a group of unsus­pect­ing orphans into stut­ter­ers by method­i­cal­ly under­min­ing their self-esteem as the folks who ran the apt­ly named Mon­ster Study of 1939 tried to do. But, if you real­ly want to get into the swamp of moral dubi­ous­ness, look no fur­ther than the Lit­tle Albert exper­i­ments, which trau­ma­tized a baby into hat­ing dogs, San­ta Claus and all things fuzzy.

In 1920, Johns Hop­kins pro­fes­sor John B. Wat­son was fas­ci­nat­ed with Ivan Pavlov ’s research on con­di­tioned stim­u­lus. Pavlov famous­ly rang a bell every time he fed his dogs. At first the food caused the dogs to sali­vate, but after a spell of pair­ing the bell with din­ner, the dogs would even­tu­al­ly sali­vate at just the sound of the bell. That’s called a con­di­tioned response. Wat­son want­ed to see if he could cre­ate a con­di­tioned response in a baby.

Enter 9‑month old Albert B., AKA Lit­tle Albert. At the begin­ning of the exper­i­ment, Albert was pre­sent­ed with a white rat, a dog, a white rab­bit, and a mask of San­ta Claus among oth­er things. The lad was unafraid of every­thing and was, in fact, real­ly tak­en with the rat. Then every time the baby touched the ani­mals, sci­en­tists struck a met­al bar behind him, cre­at­ing a star­tling­ly loud bang. The sound freaked out the child and soon, like Pavlov’s dogs, Lit­tle Albert grew ter­ri­fied of the rat and the mask of San­ta and even a fur coat. The par­tic­u­lar­ly messed up thing about the exper­i­ment was that Wat­son didn’t even both to reverse the psy­cho­log­i­cal trau­ma he inflict­ed.

What hap­pened to poor baby Albert is hard to say, in part because no one is real­ly sure of the child’s true iden­ti­ty. He might have been Dou­glas Mer­ritte, as psy­chol­o­gists Hall P. Beck and Shar­man Levin­son argued in 2009. If that’s the case, then the child died at the age of 6 in 1925 of hydro­cephalus. Or he might have been William Albert Barg­er, as Russ Pow­ell and Nan­cy Dig­don argued in 2012. He passed away in 2007 at the age of 87. He report­ed­ly had a life­long aver­sion to dogs, though it can­not be deter­mined if it was a last­ing effect of the exper­i­ment.

Lat­er in life, Wat­son left aca­d­e­mics for adver­tis­ing.

You can watch a video of the exper­i­ment above .

via Men­tal Floss

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Online Psy­chol­o­gy Cours­es

How To Think Like a Psy­chol­o­gist: A Free Online Course from Stan­ford

Watch Footage from the Psy­chol­o­gy Exper­i­ment That Shocked the World: Milgram’s Obe­di­ence Study (1961)

Her­mann Rorschach’s Orig­i­nal Rorschach Test: What Do You See? (1921)

Jonathan Crow  is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at  @jonccrow . And check out his blog  Veep­to­pus , fea­tur­ing lots of pic­tures of  bad­gers  and even more pic­tures of  vice pres­i­dents  with octo­pus­es on their heads.  The Veep­to­pus store is  here .

by Jonathan Crow | Permalink | Comments (4) |

Related posts:

Comments (4), 4 comments so far.

Mmh, the Mil­gram exper­i­ment did­n’t quite have the effects you described. The par­tic­i­pants have always been kept anony­mous, so we know lit­tle of the endur­ing influ­ence on them. Of course, par­tic­i­pat­ing in the exper­i­ment was unpleas­ant and stress­ful, as the debrief­ing after the exper­i­ment clear­ly showed. But cer­tain­ly we do not know whether peo­ple real­ly felt and thought about them­selves what you described. What­ev­er it was, it is rather like­ly that a fair amount of those who par­tic­i­pat­ed actu­al­ly came out stronger and more mind­ful of the con­se­quences of their actions than if they would nev­er have par­tic­i­pat­ed.

As far as I know, only 1 per­son ever tried to con­tact peo­ple who had par­tic­i­pat­ed in Mil­gram’s exper­i­ments: Lau­ren Slater, who describes it in a chap­ter of the book “Open­ing Skin­ner’s Box”. Worth read­ing.

Wat­son tried to reverse the con­di­tion­ing of Lit­tle Albert, but before he had a chance to, the moth­er took the kid and stormed off, depriv­ing him of restor­ing him to his orig­i­nal state. Old­er edi­tions of psy­chol­o­gy books failed to include this update to the study.

I think it is so cru­el the way they have done exper­i­ments and or used ani­mals for their sick lit­tle games. It should NEVER be allowed or done peri­od. Then to brain wash the kid to be afraid of those things is also sick and dis­gust­ing I don’t care if it’s in the name of sci­ence, NO! It’s nev­er okay.

As awful as this lit­tle Albert project was, it def­i­nite­ly helped with research. It helped nar­row down if cer­tain sounds or faces can be dis­tin­guished as fears. I think they were try­ing to see if trau­ma is caused by envi­ron­men­tal out­comes. I obvi­ous­ly wouldn’t want any babies to devel­op any fears, but I do think this is the best way to approach it. The baby was mon­i­tored and he was so young so I doubt his brain remem­bered it in his lat­er years, he was con­di­tioned for research. In today’s world I think a bet­ter approach would be to ask some­one and study peo­ple who have had trau­ma from fears.

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The undergraduate neuroscience journal, ethical history: a contemporary examination of the little albert experiment, sehar bokhari.

Read more posts by this author.

Micaela Bartunek

Sehar bokhari , micaela bartunek.

In 1917, two curious researchers looking to examine the effects of fear conditioning began a study at Johns Hopkins University that would later become one of the most controversial experiments in the field. John Watson and Rosalie Rayner sought to test the limits of fear conditioning by recruiting a small child to partake in their study. The nine month old infant, known simply as "Little Albert B," was selected for his developmental and emotional stability at such a young age [1]. Watson's Little Albert study, taught in countless Introduction to Psychology courses, helps to further illustrate the idea of classical conditioning most notably explained by Ivan Pavlov. However, what many courses fail to explore is the issue of ethics behind experiments like Watson's, and the effects studies like it have on the subsequent behavior and development of their participants. As a result of studies such as Watson's, universities have created Institutional Review Boards, ethical boards that seek to ensure humane practices and protect human life while concurrently advancing knowledge in research. Understanding Watson's Little Albert study not only illuminates an interesting aspect of behavioral psychology, but also brings up interesting questions about research ethics in studies involving human participants.

The Mechanics of Fear Conditioning

Watson's research centered around Albert's interactions with a variety of animals including white rabbits and mice. Watson and Rayner noted that initially, Albert's behavior towards these animals was curious and playful. To condition a fearful response in the child, Watson exposed Albert to each animal while simultaneously producing a loud, frightening noise by slamming a large hammer into a long metal pipe. At first, Albert reacted by withdrawing from the animal. Then his lips began to tremble. Upon the third blow, Albert began to cry and shake violently. It was the first time Albert exhibited any sort of fear repsonse within the study. It certainly wouldn't be the last [1].

Days later, Albert was presented with the same animals as previously described, only this time without any noise. Albert immediately withdrew from them, now fearing the animals themselves. Watson and Rayner had successfully taught a nine-month old child to fear something he initially loved, through interaction and classical conditioning [1].

Fear Generalization

As the study progressed, Watson questioned whether Albert's fear conditioning could be applied to other objects and animals similar in nature to a white rabbit. Albert was presented with a wool coat, a small dog, and even a Santa Claus mask with a beard fashioned out of cotton balls. Albert now exhibited signs of generalization–a phenomenon in which the original stimulus is not the only stimulus that elicits fear from the participant. In Albert's case, objects that looked visually similar to the objects he was originally conditioned to fear also elicited the same response–despite the fact that these objects were not conditioned in the first phase of the study.

Watson and Rayner concluded that Albert's conditioned fear response persisted for approximately one month. As Albert's fears spread, however, his mother abruptly removed him from the study. Because of his immediate and sudden departure, Watson and Rayner were never able to reverse the effects of Albert's fear conditioning through a process known as desensitization [1].

Desensitization utilizes a series of relaxation and imagination techniques in order to reverse the effects of fear conditioning [2]. If properly performed, extinction occurs when the subject is repeatedly exposed to the conditioned stimulus without the fear-conditioning stimulus--in Albert's case, the loud sound. Over time, the participant's fear fades due to repeated exposure to the conditioned stimulus without the negative consequence. The participant then substitutes the initial fear with that of a normal response [3]. However, new research on desensitization raises questions as to whether it fully reverses the effects of fear conditioning. Research suggests that even if desensitization works, it may not necessarily last, so the participant runs the risk of relapse [9]. Unfortunately, Albert was never even exposed to these methods, and as such, many have wondered what effects this study and lack of desensitization may have had throughout Albert's lifetime.

The Mystery of a Lifetime

Johns Hopkins University became the focus of the search for Albert. Watson left behind little evidence to suggest Little Albert's whereabouts following the study, though he did leave Albert's estimated date of birth, age at the same time of their research, and a grain film that documented the entirety of the study. One researcher, Hall Beck from Appalachian State University in North Carolina, was the first to provide an answer.

Beck used Albert's history to track down, a nurse at Johns Hopkins University's Hospital that he suspected to be Albert's mother. Beck discovered that the nurse had a son named Douglas Merrite who fit the proper description of Albert during the time of the study [4]. Merritte pased away at age six due to hydrocephamus that initiate the fear response. These responses are regulated by the nervous system which creates a startle response and simultaneously increase a person's heart rate, respiration rate, or blood pressure [6].

The human brain is a complicated system of neural structures and pathways, some of the which serve as conduits to fear and learning. These intricate systems in the brain can cause even nine month old children to fear for their lives. Even with desensitization techniques, it is still uncertain just how these sorts of experiments affect human beings. Today, Institutional Review Boards closely monitor modern studies to avoid repeating what happened to Little Albert and ensure that subjects are protected both mentally and physically.

IRBS & Ethics

As with many controversial experiments like Watson's, the question of the ethical boundaries in research is brought to the forefront. Is it morally acceptable to conduct an experiment on an infant? Many suggest that experimenters should find a strict balance between the importance of protecting those who participate in experiments, especially infants, and scientific advancement [7]. Regulations boards, known as Institutional Review Boards (or IRBs) now exist within federally funded research universities in order to protect such balances within proposed research studies [8]. Research proposals must explicitly state and explain the risk and benefits to participants within the study, as well as give participants the right to withdraw at any time if they wish to do so. Proper debriefing following experiments must also take place, ensuring that subjects are fully aware of the purpose of the study and how the experiments will be obtaining their results [2].

Perhaps as time goes on and new findings emerge, IRBs and researchers alike can learn to identify the line beyond which an experiment goes too far. Even if a study is considered ethical and approved by an IRB, it may still be controversial. Examining studies such as Little Albert's allow IRBs to recognize moral dilemmas and adapt their procedures regarding experimental proposals in order to ensure that these ethical complications do not reoccur. It may not be easy, but when an experiment builds itself around a strong ethical foundation, the results of the study, as well as the study itself, are preserved in honesty and integrity. As Dan McArthur, a Professor of Philosophy at York University, puts it, when we protect scientific integrity and respect our participants, "good ethics can sometimes mean better results" [10].

• Classics in the History of Psychology. (n.d.). Retrieved November 16, 2015, from http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Watson/emotion.htm
• Systematic Desensitization | Simply Psychology. (n.d.). Retrieved November 16, 2015, from http://www.simplypsychology.org/Systematic-Desensitisation.html
• Hermans, D., Graske, M., Mineka, S., & Lovibond, P. (2006). Extinction in Human Fear Conditioning. Retrieved November 19, 2015, from https://lirias.kuleuven.be/bitstream/123456789/125886/1/24.pdf
• The Search for Psychology's Lost Boy. (2014, June 1). Retrieved November 16, 2015, from http://chronicle.com/interactives/littlealbert
• Limbic System: Amygdala (Section 4, Chapter 6) Neuroscience Online: An Electronic Textbook for the Neurosciences | Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy - The University of Texas Medical School at Houston. (n.d.). Retrieved November 16, 2015, from http://neuroscience.uth.tmc.edu/S4/chapter06.html
• Maren, S. (n.d.). Neurobiology of Pavlovian Fear Conditioning - Annual Review of Neuroscience. Retrieved November 16, 2015, from http://www.annualreviews.org.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/doi/full/10.1146/annurev.neuro.24.1.897
• Diekema, D. (n.d.). Ethical Issues In Research Involving Infants. Retrieved November 16, 2015, from http://www.seminperinat.com/article/S0146-0005(09)00060-3/fulltext
• Goodwin, C., & Goodwin, A. (1995). Ethics in Psychological Research. In Research in psychology: Methods and design (7th ed., pp. 41-44). New York: Wiley.
• Vervliet, B., Craske, M. & Hermans, D. (n.d.). Fear Extinction and Relapse: State of the Art. Retrieved November 16, 2015, from http://www.annualreviews.org.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-clinp-sy-050212-185542
• Mcarthur, D. (2009). Good ethics can sometimes mean between science: Research ethics and the milgram experiments. Science and Engineering Ethics, 15(1), 69-79. doi: http://dx.doi.org.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/10.1007/S11948-008-9083-4

Little Albert Experiment

The little albert experiment and it's affects on psychology.

Skinner primarily worked and developed his theory of radical behaviorism and operant conditioning, Pavlov delved into reinforcing behavior using his theory of classical conditioning, and John B. Watson developed the theory of methodological behaviorism. Watson’s psychological research led to the "Little Albert Experiment", a widely cited, controversial study in which Watson set out to prove that emotional reactions could be conditioned in human subjects. 

John B. Watson and Behaviorism

Watson's research, watson's contributions to psychology, the little albert experiment: white rat, loud noises, and conditioning psychology.

John Watson's experiment was the first of its kind and has been recounted in psychology textbooks for decades, though it is often considered controversial. Using a child in a psychological experiment was considered unethical, but Watson wanted to follow the guidelines Pavlov used to condition dogs. Pavlov used food to condition dogs in his experiments, training the dogs to respond to the sound of a bell and associate it with food. Each time the dogs heard the bell, they would salivate, showing they were conditioned to expect food at the sound of the bell. 

The methods of the Little Albert Experiment

In the Little Albert experiment, Watson wanted to show that infants have a natural, innate fear of loud sounds. The experiment was also meant to prove that he could use a loud noise to produce conditioned responses in the child when they were shown a neutral stimulus. Watson believed phobias were developed from external stimuli and were conditioned responses. Watson and his assistant, graduate student Rosalie Rayner, recruited a nine-month-old infant and performed the experiments at Johns Hopkins University.

Watson and Rayner called the child "Little Albert" to hide his identity. They devised a protocol to produce emotional conditioning in the experiment with little Albert. Watson wanted to condition fear and believed his controlled experiment would produce the desired fear conditioning because of the hypothesis that babies fear loud sounds.

Little Albert and the white rat

In the experiment, Little Albert was first presented with a white laboratory rat, which served as the neutral stimulus. The white rat approached him and crawled around and on top of him. Albert showed no signs of fear and a mild interest in the rat. During this phase of the experiment, other white furry objects were presented to Albert, including a white rabbit, a white dog, and a Santa Claus mask. Albert showed no fear but was interested in the animals and other furry objects. 

Once Albert was introduced to the objects, they were presented again. However, this time, Watson created a loud clang, or unconditioned stimulus, using a hammer and a pipe. The loud noise startled Albert, causing him to cry, the unconditioned response. The researchers repeated this loud noise several times. First, the object, such as a white rat, was presented, followed immediately by a loud sound. After a few repetitions, Albert began crying at the sight of the rat with no loud noise. The rat, which was previously the neutral stimulus, had become the conditioned stimulus, causing Albert to cry due to its association with the unconditioned stimulus. Albert’s fearful reaction, which was once the unconditioned response, then became the conditioned response. During further experiments, the conditioned response of crying was also transferred to all other furry objects from the experiment—a process called stimulus generalization. This led Watson and Rayner to believe they had produced an emotionally conditioned response in Albert through classical conditioning.

Watson believed he had proven his hypothesis that a child could be emotionally conditioned to fear through association. Although the experiment is used as an example of emotional conditioning, some psychologists do not agree that a conditioned response had been instilled in little Albert, and others argue that it was an unethical experiment.

Classical conditioning

The experiment conducted by John Watson and Rosalie Raynor demonstrated that classical conditioning could produce a fear response in humans. The results of the Little Albert experiment were originally published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology in 1920. Though it has been widely criticized, Watson’s study represents an important advancement in clinical psychology and the behavioral sciences; and it is one of the reasons Watson is still considered a highly influential American psychologist. 

Critics of the experiment

The Little Albert experiment is often cited as a compelling example of emotional conditioning. However, some researchers agree that a more extensive study pool or more than one experiment should have been conducted to produce comprehensive results that proved Watson had achieved classical conditioning. Infants have different personalities; some are naturally fearful, others are bold, and many are naturally cautious of unfamiliar items, people, and sounds. 

Douglas Meritte and his mother's role

Critics have another reason for not agreeing with Watson's experiment. Some believe the infant was sick when the conditioning experiments took place. The idea that Little Albert was ill at the time of the experiments comes from research into the identity of Albert. Psychologists believe they have tracked down the real Little Albert, Douglas Merritte. According to research published in a paper titled “Finding Little Albert: A Journey to John B. Watson’s Infant Laboratory”, Douglas Merritte was the son of a wet nurse at Harriet Lane Home, a pediatric hospital at Johns Hopkins University. According to John Watson, Albert’s mother held the same role at the same hospital. 

Douglas Merritte was born around the same time as Albert, and he lived with his mother at Harriet Lane Home for the majority of the first year of his life. These clues are frequently cited as evidence that Albert was sick during the experiments. Douglas might have had meningitis at the time of the experiments. Douglas died five years later due to hydrocephalus. If Little Albert was Douglas, he might have been a neurologically impaired child who was too sick to be considered a typical example of a perfectly healthy infant. He may have been dealing with underlying health issues that could have impacted his reactions during the experiment, including whether or not he was actually conditioned to react to the objects.

Other theories on the identity of Little Albert beyond Douglas Meritte

Some individuals have considered another possible candidate for Little Albert named William Barger. In a paper titled “Psychology’s Lost Boy: Will the Real Little Albert Please Stand Up?” researchers state that William Albert Barger was known to family and friends as Albert, and they used his middle name more than his first name. Modern psychologists use the information from this experiment to shape their hypotheses and theories regardless of who the child was. Today, using a young child in a psychology experiment, such as the one devised by Watson and Rayner, is unethical.

Long term effects and ethical psychology

If the child was Douglas Merritte, the long-term effects of this type of conditioning are not fully understood. Using a sick child also may impact Watson's reputation. If Douglas is the real Albert, the experiment may not able to support the idea of conditioning. Hydrocephaly is painful, and it potentially damages cognitive capabilities. It is speculated that Watson chose Douglas because he was sick; a baby with Douglas's condition would be calm during the initial stages but more likely to react by crying at the sound of the clanging. There are arguments on both sides, and whether the child in the Little Albert study was Douglas Meritte, William Albert Barger, or another child may not be as important as the ethics of this situation and what happened to Little Albert. 

The ethical complications of the Little Albert test

Testing and clinical trials involving children are not commonplace in psychology in the 21st century. Tests where one scares a child or causes traumatic responses can impact that child for life. Young children cannot consent to being included in experiments, and informed consent was not obtained in Albert’s case. Additionally, the conditioning of the irrational fear was never reversed in Albert. For these reasons, the psychology experiment is often considered unethical and abusive. 

Behaviorism and modern psychology

Counselor reviews.

The Little Albert experiment is a demonstration of classical conditioning. John B. Watson's work, especially with Little Albert and the rat, contributed to psychology through the development of methodological behaviorism. Behaviorism and its concepts are the basis for many psychological approaches to treatment in the present day. You're not alone if you want to learn more about behaviorism or changing maladaptive patterns. Many therapists practice behavioral therapy, offering ethical support to anyone who seeks it. Consider contacting a provider online or in your area for further guidance.

The experiment is a demonstration of classic conditioning such as the naturally occurring stimuli, which are what behaviorists study. Psychological researchers B.F. Skinner, Ivan Pavlov, and John B. Watson studied theories involving reinforcement with little Albert to produce wanted/specific behaviors. Each of these psychologists added to the understanding of human behavior with their pioneering research and theories. Skinner primarily worked and developed his theory of radical behaviorism and operant conditioning, Pavlov delved into reinforcing behavior using his theory of classical conditioning, and John B. Watson developed the theory of methodological behaviorism.

John B. Watson’s work, especially with little Albert, contributed to psychology through the development of methodological behaviorism. Behaviorism and the concepts it puts forth are the basis for many psychological approaches to treatments for behavioral problems. Cognitive behavioral therapy is one such treatment that has its roots in John Watson’s school of behaviorism.

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Was 'Little Albert' ill during the famed conditioning study?

March 2012, Vol 43, No. 3

Print version: page 12

New evidence suggests that the baby boy known as Little Albert—the subject of John B. Watson's and Rosalie Rayner's famous 1920 emotion-conditioning investigation at Johns Hopkins University—may not have been the "healthy," "normal" boy Watson touted, but a neurologically impaired child who suffered from congenital hydrocephalus.

What's more, supporting evidence suggests that Watson suppressed that information to augment the study's findings, perhaps reasoning that an unresponsive child would provide a better baseline for later strong reactions and help deflect accusations of child maltreatment.

"It took tremendous chutzpah to do this because Watson set himself up as one of the world's experts on child development partly on the basis of this study," says University of California, Santa Barbara, Associate Professor Alan J. Fridlund, PhD, who details the findings in an article in press at the History of Psychology .

Fridlund wrote the article in collaboration with Hall P. Beck, PhD, lead author of a 2009 American Psychologist article concluding that Little Albert was very likely Douglas Merritte, the son of Arvilla Merritte, an impoverished wet nurse who worked at Johns Hopkins during the time of the study. That earlier report—which detailed seven years of investigation by Hall, colleagues and students—ended with the discovery that Merritte died at age 6 from what period doctors labeled as acquired hydrocephalus.

Fridlund began looking into Albert's early health when an aspect of the American Psychologist article kept gnawing at him—namely, the assumption that Merritte's hydrocephalus was acquired long after the conditioning procedure. (Watson and Rayner tested Albert at around 9 months of age, and gave him several conditioning sessions at around 11 months, but they never tried to decondition him.) As Fridlund thought about pictures he'd seen of Little Albert, and Watson's descriptions of Albert as "stolid, phlegmatic and unemotional," he began to wonder if the boy's disorder was congenital. Hydrocephalus, marked by an accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain, can lead to signs and symptoms that include an enlarged head, seizures, vomiting, and a variety of motor, visual and cognitive impairments.

Fridlund says that in his examination of the films Watson made of Albert, the child's condition was already evident. In the film, the infant seemed unusually passive, unresponsive and unaware of social cues. Goldie, who was blind to Albert's identity when Fridlund asked him to view the film, made the same observations and noted such abnormalities as Albert's use of hand-scooping rather than grasping gestures, poor eye-scanning abilities and impassive facial expressions—all consistent with some kind of neurological impairment.

Their clinical hypotheses were validated when Irons procured medical records from Johns Hopkins University. They verify that Merritte indeed had congenital hydrocephalus, and recounted in disturbing detail treatments the child was subjected to during his first year of life, including repeated cranial and lumbar punctures to reduce fluid buildup in the brain. Moreover, medical staff repeatedly injected diagnostic dyes that caused toxic reactions, and by their own admission, introduced bacterial meningitis that led to damaging high fevers. (It is unclear from the records whether the infection was caused accidentally or experimentally.) The records also confirm that there is no overlap between the times the investigators tested Little Albert and the times the infant was acutely ill, offering further evidence that Little Albert was indeed Douglas Merritte and suggesting Watson was aware of the child's changing medical status.

Because the evidence so clearly supports Watson's cognizance of Albert's condition, the conclusion that he intentionally misrepresented it is nearly inescapable, the authors contend. Yet in testing a neurologically impaired child, Watson may simply have embodied the mentality of researchers of the time, they say. Historical evidence suggests it was standard practice to use poor, sick infants and children as experimental subjects; given her low social status as a poor, single woman, Arvilla Merritte may well have felt pressured into offering up her child because she couldn't otherwise obtain the expensive medical treatments available from the doctors who employed her.

The findings shed an important modern light on an old teaching chestnut, Fridlund believes.

"Because Watson and Rayner tried to condition fear in an infant and made no effort to follow him after discharge and insure his well-being, the Little Albert study has always led us to consider basic issues of experimental ethics," he says. "But now it forces us to confront deeper, more disturbing issues like the medical misogyny, the protection of the disabled and the likelihood of scientific fraud. It's a story all psychologists can learn from."

—T. DeAngelis

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All The Controversies Surrounding The Little Albert Experiment

In 1920, behaviorist John B. Watson and his eventual wife, Rosalie Rayner - then a graduate student studying under him - set out to prove they could condition a child's feelings. Specifically, they wanted to demonstrate their power to engender a phobia within a living being. Their experiment was based on Pavlov’s conditioning of dogs, which implemented a repetitive action in order to elicit a desired response. 

While Watson and Rayner did technically accomplish their goal, they also clearly yet inadvertently demonstrated the need for ethics in psychological studies. Their actions against their subject, a baby known as “Little Albert,” are now understood to have been abhorrent -- riddled with ethical issues -- and due to the researchers' carelessness, determining the amount of damage they inflicted is practically impossible.

The Experiment Conditioned 'Little Albert' To Fear Any Furry, White Object

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John B. Watson and his assistant, Rosalie Rayner, instilled a genuine and debilitating fear of white, furry objects in their subject, a child known as "Little Albert." Watson wrote that he conditioned the child by creating a loud noise whenever Albert reached out to touch a white rat, leading the boy to become fearful of anything that looked remotely similar to the animal.

Watson further wrote that the baby became distressed whenever he saw a rabbit, a dog, or a rudimentary Santa Claus mask with a cotton-ball beard. As far as Watson could determine, the boy's fear only extended to objects that were both furry and white.

No Objective Parameters Were Imposed To Evaluate Albert's Reactions

A scientific experiment should record  objective observations and employ multiple subjects as a control group. Essentially, other scientists should be able to step into the laboratory and find similar results. Rather than employing these experimentation methods, Watson and Rayner carried out their experiment on only one child without any means to objectively evaluate his reactions.

In the experiment, Watson and Raynor introduced Albert to a small white rat. Once Albert was comfortable with the animal and began to reach out for it, Watson struck a metal bar with a hammer, creating a loud noise. Watson continued this cycle until Albert was not only afraid to reach out for the creature, but was also afraid of the rat itself. 

Watson and Rayner concluded that they could train Albert to fear the rat by making noise, though this conclusion was  far from objective .

Researchers Failed To Reverse Albert's Conditioning Once The Experiment Ended

Once Watson and Rayner's experiment concluded, they failed to reverse any of the psychological damage they inflicted upon Albert. Supposedly, the duo didn't have time to extinguish the child's fears because Albert's mother left town the moment the study was finished. 

Rather than reaching out to Albert's mother, Watson and Rayner assured their study's readers that Albert would grow out of his fear thanks to his time in the "rough and tumble" world.

Watson May Have Known About And Hid Albert's Poor Health

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According to Watson, the child used in the Little Albert experiment was a normal, docile child who could represent the "children of the world."  Watson wrote in 1920 :

Albert's life was normal: he was healthy from birth and one of the best developed youngsters ever brought to the hospital, weighing 21 pounds at nine months of age. He was on the whole stolid and unemotional. His stability was one of the principal reasons for using him as a subject in this test. We felt that we could do him relatively little harm by carrying out such experiments as those outlined below.

Albert likely wasn't as healthy as Watson claimed - he may have even been mentally impaired. Modern researchers debate whether or not Watson knew about Albert's possible impairment, although some believe he actually sought out a child with an infirmity.

Watson Burned All Of His Research Before He Passed

After the Little Albert experiment, Watson went on to publish books on child-rearing, but he never shared his research on the Little Albert investigation. Before Watson passed in 1958,  he burned all of his notes on the experiment, limiting the possibility of anyone tracking down the child at the center of the analysis.

No record exists of Watson publishing any additional information on the experiment or discussing his role in the child's conditioning.

Watson May Have Chosen A Passive Child To Procure The Desired Results

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Modern scholars believe Watson specifically chose a baby for his experiment who was more passive than active. One theory claims that Albert suffered from a neurological disorder, and that in the film footage of the experiment, he's "alarmingly unresponsive."

Even if Albert did not have such a disorder, he displayed antisocial behavior. William Goldie, a pediatric neurologist, studied the footage in 2012 and noted that the child barely acknowledges Watson or Rayner:

No evidence is provided of mutual gaze or that Albert sees Watson or is responding to any of Watson’s specific actions. Albert’s temperament and behavior are not within the normal range for his age, and the abnormalities observed on film cannot solely be attributed to the hospital environment or the physical context of filming.