Watson's Little Albert Experiment
Hello!
I have chosen to look at Watson’s Little Albert study. I remember learning of this experiment in high school psychology, and it has always stuck in my mind – mainly because I feel so bad for the little guy! He thinks he is going to play with a nice, cute little animal (rat), and then he ends up getting terrified!
A more formal recap is as follows:
In an effort to demonstrate whether or not emotional responses could be conditioned, Watson introduced a baby Albert (nine months) to various stimuli such as a white rat, a rabbit, dog, monkey and various textiles. The “training” involved having an assistant make a loud noise out of Albert’s view and then Watson would record his reaction. When Albert just had the objects, he was a very …show more content…
happy, content baby, showing no fear of new items. Once the loud noise was introduced, Albert became more fearful with each strike of the sound, eventually crying (Watson & Rayner, 1920).
After the initial experiment at nine months, Watson & Rayner (1920), did think about the ethics of continuing to set up fear reactions.
The decided to go ahead and continue as
“…comforting ourselves by the reflection 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.” (Watson & Rayner, 1920).
I take that to mean that Watson and Raynor figured that since Albert would get scared of things once he left the hospital setting, it was okay to inflict fear onto him for their experiment. The rest of the experiment was a series of the same – show Albert innocent objects, make continual loud noises until he was crying, sometimes violently, then wait a few weeks to see if he would have the same reactions (he did). The experiment went on until Albert was one year and 21 days. Albert abruptly left the hospital setting and basically disappeared (Watson & Rayner, …show more content…
1920).
As I stated before, I have been familiar with this study since high school. This is the first time I have read the actual report by Watson and Raynor. As far as ethical considerations – I don’t really know where to begin, it has so many issues! To start, the experiment only focused on a sample size of one – little Albert. As far as I can see this was a test on only one child and a very controlled environment, this type of situation makes it difficult to present valid results. (Principle B: Fidelity and Responsibility). However, the biggest ethical issue with this study is Principle E: Respect for People’s Rights and Dignity, as well as the Section 3, subsection 3.04:
“3.04 Avoiding Harm
(a) Psychologists take reasonable steps to avoid harming their clients/patients, students, supervisees, research participants, organizational clients, and others with whom they work, and to minimize harm where it is foreseeable and unavoidable.
(b) Psychologists do not participate in, facilitate, assist, or otherwise engage in torture, defined as any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person, or in any other cruel, inhuman, or degrading behavior that violates 3.04(a).” (APA.org, 2017)
Without a doubt, Watson and Raynor inflicted psychological harm onto Albert. The descriptions of his reactions include observations of his showing initial stages of fear such as withdrawing and whimpering, yet the authors continued to scare Albert until he cried. Frequent mention of Albert “starting violently” (Watson and Rayner, 1920), and at one point when shown the rat (11 months 10 days/third round of experiment) Albert reacted so badly he almost crawled off the exam table was caught “with difficulty” (Watson & Rayner, 1920). The experiment continued for two more sessions with Albert consistently being pushed until he exhibited extreme fear and made attempts to flee. The experiments consisted of a constant exposure to fearfully stimuli, calming toys, and return to fearful stimuli - at one point Albert began to display some violent play with his preferred toys, blocks, Watson & Rayner noted Albert began
to slam the blocks down with force (1920).
The original goal of the experiment was to see if emotional responses could be conditioned. A more ethical way of doing this kind of study would be to pick a positive emotional response – love, calming etc., or utilizing surveys and interviews after a negative event had occurred in a child’s life. For example, studying children that have experienced violence in their neighborhoods and controlling for confounding variables such as congenital conditions that would alter reactions. Unfortunately, our world does not have a shortage of “naturally” occurring traumatic events, we don’t need to recreate them in a lab.
The website that I found the original study on is out of York University in Toronto, Canada, called “Classics in the History of Psychology”. It is a pretty interesting site: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/index.htm
Stacie
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I have chosen to look at Watson’s Little Albert study. I remember learning of this experiment in high school psychology, and it has always stuck in my mind – mainly because I feel so bad for the little guy! He thinks he is going to play with a nice, cute little animal (rat), and then he ends up getting terrified!
A more formal recap is as follows:
In an effort to demonstrate whether or not emotional responses could be conditioned, Watson introduced a baby Albert (nine months) to various stimuli such as a white rat, a rabbit, dog, monkey and various textiles. The “training” involved having an assistant make a loud noise out of Albert’s view and then Watson would record his reaction. When Albert just had the objects, he was a very …show more content…
happy, content baby, showing no fear of new items. Once the loud noise was introduced, Albert became more fearful with each strike of the sound, eventually crying (Watson & Rayner, 1920).
After the initial experiment at nine months, Watson & Rayner (1920), did think about the ethics of continuing to set up fear reactions.
The decided to go ahead and continue as
“…comforting ourselves by the reflection 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.” (Watson & Rayner, 1920).
I take that to mean that Watson and Raynor figured that since Albert would get scared of things once he left the hospital setting, it was okay to inflict fear onto him for their experiment. The rest of the experiment was a series of the same – show Albert innocent objects, make continual loud noises until he was crying, sometimes violently, then wait a few weeks to see if he would have the same reactions (he did). The experiment went on until Albert was one year and 21 days. Albert abruptly left the hospital setting and basically disappeared (Watson & Rayner, …show more content…
1920).
As I stated before, I have been familiar with this study since high school. This is the first time I have read the actual report by Watson and Raynor. As far as ethical considerations – I don’t really know where to begin, it has so many issues! To start, the experiment only focused on a sample size of one – little Albert. As far as I can see this was a test on only one child and a very controlled environment, this type of situation makes it difficult to present valid results. (Principle B: Fidelity and Responsibility). However, the biggest ethical issue with this study is Principle E: Respect for People’s Rights and Dignity, as well as the Section 3, subsection 3.04:
“3.04 Avoiding Harm
(a) Psychologists take reasonable steps to avoid harming their clients/patients, students, supervisees, research participants, organizational clients, and others with whom they work, and to minimize harm where it is foreseeable and unavoidable.
(b) Psychologists do not participate in, facilitate, assist, or otherwise engage in torture, defined as any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person, or in any other cruel, inhuman, or degrading behavior that violates 3.04(a).” (APA.org, 2017)
Without a doubt, Watson and Raynor inflicted psychological harm onto Albert. The descriptions of his reactions include observations of his showing initial stages of fear such as withdrawing and whimpering, yet the authors continued to scare Albert until he cried. Frequent mention of Albert “starting violently” (Watson and Rayner, 1920), and at one point when shown the rat (11 months 10 days/third round of experiment) Albert reacted so badly he almost crawled off the exam table was caught “with difficulty” (Watson & Rayner, 1920). The experiment continued for two more sessions with Albert consistently being pushed until he exhibited extreme fear and made attempts to flee. The experiments consisted of a constant exposure to fearfully stimuli, calming toys, and return to fearful stimuli - at one point Albert began to display some violent play with his preferred toys, blocks, Watson & Rayner noted Albert began
to slam the blocks down with force (1920).
The original goal of the experiment was to see if emotional responses could be conditioned. A more ethical way of doing this kind of study would be to pick a positive emotional response – love, calming etc., or utilizing surveys and interviews after a negative event had occurred in a child’s life. For example, studying children that have experienced violence in their neighborhoods and controlling for confounding variables such as congenital conditions that would alter reactions. Unfortunately, our world does not have a shortage of “naturally” occurring traumatic events, we don’t need to recreate them in a lab.
The website that I found the original study on is out of York University in Toronto, Canada, called “Classics in the History of Psychology”. It is a pretty interesting site: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/index.htm
Stacie
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