The aim of
One baby boy, Albert B, aged 9 months at the start of the study and 11 months when the conditioning began. Albert's mother was a wet nurse at the hospital and Albert was chosen because he seemed healthy and quite fearless (he “practically never cried” according to Watson).
“Little Albert,” the baby behind John Watson's famous 1920 emotional conditioning experiment at Johns Hopkins University, has been identified as Douglas Merritte, the son of a wetnurse named Arvilla Merritte who lived and worked at a campus hospital at the time of the experiment — receiving $1 for her baby's ...
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.
This Albert was not brain-damaged and was easy-going, though (likely coincidentally, given how Albert's fears would diminish between sessions) he had an aversion to dogs! Albert died in 2007, without ever knowing of his early life in a hospital residence, or of his apparent part in psychology's history.
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! Little Albert was a 9-month-old baby who was tested on his reactions to various neutral stimuli.
His real name was Douglas Merritte, and he was the son of Arvilla Merritte, who worked as a wet nurse at a campus hospital. After the experiment, Douglas was not deconditioned and it is unknown whether he ever overcame his fears. He died at age six from hydrocephalus, or water in the brain.
Watson had originally planned to decondition Albert out of his fear of rats, in order to demonstrate that conditioned fears could be eliminated. Albert was removed from the experiment by his mother prior to this happening, which means that the experiment left a child with a fear that he did not previously had.
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.
A white laboratory rat was placed near Albert and he was allowed to play with it. At this point, Watson and Rayner made a loud sound behind Albert's back by striking a suspended steel bar with a hammer each time the baby touched the rat. Albert responded to the noise by crying and showing fear.
Answer and Explanation: Methodologically, the Little Albert experiment can be improved by incorporating various elements that by today's standards must exist in a scientific experiment. These elements include a control group, variable manipulation, and a randomization procedure.
Identify the major flaw with John B. Watson's Little Albert experiment. ANSWER : It is unethical for a researcher to induce fear in a child, since it is harmful to induce fear.
Answer and Explanation: The Little Albert Experiment demonstrates a violation of the principle of beneficence and nonmaleficence in American Psychological Association Ethical Principles and Code of Conduct. This principle states that psychologists strive to benefit others in their work, and to do no harm.
This experiment is considered very unethical. The researchers failed to decondition Albert to the stimuli he was afraid of, which should have been done after the experiment. Albert ended up passing away at the age of six due to hydrocephalus, a condition that can lead to brain damage.
Although Watson cared deeply for Sherlock, he understood that some people could not live without the person that they love. Sherlock was that person for Watson, but Watson would never be his. In the end, Watson lets go of his partner and helps save Jessie.
However, during the entirety of its seven-season run, Holmes and Watson have remained platonic. In today's era of television, the notion that two people who live and work together yet have no inkling of any romantic tension doesn't happen quite as often.
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.
Something I discuss in my project is that using different types of testing rather than what was originally used with sound in the Little Albert experiment is the best way to create a more ethical environment and one of the best ways to do it would be through positive correlation instead of negative such as using ...
Therefore: In the experiment, the White Rat was previously a Neutral Stimulus that turned into the Conditioned Stimulus. It is NOT an Unconditioned Stimulus because it did not initially cause Little Albert to cry, as he was not afraid of it.
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.
The unethical aspects of the Little Albert experiment were; Protection of the participants, as most babies are hurt by loud noises this experiment brought harm to him, Informed consent, Little Albert was too young to understand so he would never have been able to give proper informed consent, Withdrawal from an ...
Gibson and Richard D. Walk (1960) investigated the ability of newborn animals and human infants to detect depth. Gibson and Walk tested whether youngsters would crawl over an apparent cliff – if the neonates did it could be assumed that the ability to see depth was not inborn.
What happened after "Little Albert" was classically conditioned to fear a tame, white rat? Stimulus generalization occurred; Albert responded with fear to other furry animals and fuzzy objects.
"Little Peter" experiments
In this experiment, an infant was classically conditioned to express a fearful response when a white rat was presented along with a loud noise that shocked the child.
Much similar to the experiment involving Pavlov's dogs, John B Watson performed an experiment in 1913 in which classical conditioning was put to the test. The experiment involved a 9- month old infant orphan boy, named Albert, and several items used as stimuli.