Little Albert Ill During The Famed Conditioning Study
LITTLE ALBERT 2 Little Albert
“Conditioned Emotional Reactions,” by John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner, was released to the public in February of 1920. Watson hypothesized that our emotional responses are set in our brain. These responses are pre-set because of the experiences we have gone through. For example, a person may begin to cry when an old song is played because the person made an association in their brain with the stimuli. Watson stated that our behavior is a combination of both learning and conditioning. The purpose of this experiment was to prove that our emotional responses can be conditioned, opposed to the previous findings of Sigmund Freud. Freud believed that …show more content…
I disagree with this statement. If Little Albert was presented with the stimuli after the experiment, without the loud noise, he may have been afraid at first. As time went on, Albert would slowly become less afraid. This is called extinction (“Little Emotional Albert,” n.d.). In March of 2012, “Was ‘Little Albert’ Ill During the Famed Conditioning Study?” discussed whether Little Albert was as “normal” and “healthy” as Watson had claimed. The article, published by the American Psychological Association, describes how Alan J. Fridlund, PhD., further investigated Watson’s experiment. The new evidence indicated that the infant, as a neurologically damaged child, suffered from congenital hydrocephalus. Congenital hydrocephalus is excess cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in the brain at birth. Today’s researchers believe that Watson kept this fact hidden in order to continue on with his study. It is likely that Little Albert is actually a young boy named Douglas Merritte, son of Arvilla Merritte. Arvilla Merritte was a wet nurse working in John Hopkins University during the time of the study. After seven years of investigating the study, the researchers discovered that Douglas Merritte died at the age of six. The doctors declared that his death was caused by acquired hydrocephalus. Acquired hydrocephalus develops later in life (“Was ‘Little Albert’ Ill?,”
“Conditioned Emotional Reactions,” by John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner, was released to the public in February of 1920. Watson hypothesized that our emotional responses are set in our brain. These responses are pre-set because of the experiences we have gone through. For example, a person may begin to cry when an old song is played because the person made an association in their brain with the stimuli. Watson stated that our behavior is a combination of both learning and conditioning. The purpose of this experiment was to prove that our emotional responses can be conditioned, opposed to the previous findings of Sigmund Freud. Freud believed that …show more content…
I disagree with this statement. If Little Albert was presented with the stimuli after the experiment, without the loud noise, he may have been afraid at first. As time went on, Albert would slowly become less afraid. This is called extinction (“Little Emotional Albert,” n.d.). In March of 2012, “Was ‘Little Albert’ Ill During the Famed Conditioning Study?” discussed whether Little Albert was as “normal” and “healthy” as Watson had claimed. The article, published by the American Psychological Association, describes how Alan J. Fridlund, PhD., further investigated Watson’s experiment. The new evidence indicated that the infant, as a neurologically damaged child, suffered from congenital hydrocephalus. Congenital hydrocephalus is excess cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in the brain at birth. Today’s researchers believe that Watson kept this fact hidden in order to continue on with his study. It is likely that Little Albert is actually a young boy named Douglas Merritte, son of Arvilla Merritte. Arvilla Merritte was a wet nurse working in John Hopkins University during the time of the study. After seven years of investigating the study, the researchers discovered that Douglas Merritte died at the age of six. The doctors declared that his death was caused by acquired hydrocephalus. Acquired hydrocephalus develops later in life (“Was ‘Little Albert’ Ill?,”