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 allowed.
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.
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.
Soon after the experiments, Little Albert and his mother moved away from John Hopkins and disappeared. By tracking down financial records Beck found out that he was most likely to be the illegitimate son of the campus nurse, Arvilla Merritte, who had a boy called, Douglas.
The Little Albert Experiment demonstrated that classical conditioning—the association of a particular stimulus or behavior with an unrelated stimulus or behavior—works in human beings. In this experiment, a previously unafraid baby was conditioned to become afraid of a rat.
In the study, Watson and graduate student Rosalie Rayner exposed the 9-month-old tot, whom they dubbed “Albert B,” to a white rat and other furry objects, which the baby enjoyed playing with. Later, as Albert played with the white rat, Watson would make a loud sound behind the baby's head.
They declared that “Albert B.” (as the baby was called in the original report) had actually been Douglas Merritte, a child who died of hydrocephaly just a few years after the experiment.
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.
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.
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 allowed.
What was the outcome of John Watson's Little Albert experiment? The outcome of John Watson's Little Albert experiment was that classical conditioning is possible in humans, since the boy learned to associate a neutral stimulus (white rat) with a fearful stimulus (loud bang) to be scared of the white rat.
The study had only one subject. The study has never been replicated.
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.
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.
Another important consideration is debriefing. As Albert was a baby it was not possible to debrief him at the conclusion of the experiment. If extinction did not occur, the experimenters should have desensitized him to white furry objects at the conclusion of their research.
What Ever Happened to Little Albert? The question of what happened to Little Albert has long been one of psychology's mysteries. Watson and Rayner were unable to attempt to eliminate the boy's conditioned fear because he moved with his mother shortly after the experiment ended.
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.
It was carried out by John B. Watson and his graduate student, Rosalie Rayner, at Johns Hopkins University. The results were first published in the February 1920 issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology.
Albert's real identity was discovered by researcher Hall Beck. After a 7 year investigation, Beck revealed Albert's identity in 2009: he was Douglas Meritte and he died at age 6 from water on the brain (hydrocephalus). No one could confirm whether or not he kept his phobia of white rats throughout his short life.
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.
Watson and Rosalie Rayner's (1920) famous conditioning study, was Douglas Merritte (1919-1925). Following the finding that Merritte died early with hydrocephalus, questions arose as to whether Douglas's condition was congenital, rather than acquired in 1922, as cited on his death certificate.
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.
Another psychologist, Russell A. Powell, of Grand McEwan University in Canada questioned Beck's conclusions. He also started his own research and, in 2012, published his conclusions. According to him, little Albert was actually William Albert Barger, a normal child who lived a healthy life and died at the age of 88.
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.
"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.