What Is The Little Albert Experiment Unethical

Many psychological studies have been carried out over the years, mostly ethical practices in the interest of knowledge, however there have been some experiments carried out that have had serious negative consequences on their test subjects. Two experiments of this type are the ‘Little Albert’ experiment where a child was conditioned to fear a white rat to test whether fear is innate or conditional. The second experiment was carried out on young orphans to find out if stuttering was a genetic trait or something that can be cured or induced. Both experiments left their subjects permanently affected and neither one would be doable today due to their unethical natures.

In the 1920s an experiment was conducted on a 9 month old baby, to test whether
fear was innate or conditioned. The experiment, named ‘The Little Albert Experiment’ was carried out by behaviourist, John B. Watson and graduate student, Rosalie Raynor. They chose an infant from a hospital and the experiment began with the infant being placed on a mattress in the middle of a room and he was then given a white rat to play with. The child showed no fear. Watson would then hit a steel bar creating a loud noise any time Albert touched the rat. Naturally, when he heard the noise he would sense fear and begin to cry. This was repeated several times and Albert soon began to associate the rat with the loud noise and became distressed any time the rat was produced. He soon began to generalise his fear towards anything white or fluffy. Notes taken by Watson and Raynor during the experiment said:

"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."

This experiment shows how through classical conditioning you can prompt an emotional response. However, on top of this Watson and Raynor observed that during the experiment, stimulus generalization had also occurred ie, after being conditioned to fear the white rat, Albert also began to fear similar (white and/or fluffy) objects such as a Santa beard and Raynor’s fur coat.
As one of the most famous experiments carried out in psychology, the little Albert experiment has been hugely criticised for many reasons.
Firstly, the experiment was not constructed carefully enough to provide conclusive findings. Watson and Raynor didn’t find an objective way to assess the infants reactions, instead relying on their own interpretations to draw a conclusion from their experiment. Later it came out that the child used in the experiment may have suffered from hydrocephalus. This would have seriously jeopardized any conclusions drawn from the experiment as in the experimental notes, Albert was described as ‘a healthy child.’ Furthermore, it is immoral to carry out an experiment of this type on anyone unwilling or unable to give their explicit consent. As Albert was an infant, he was unable to give his consent and this point is strengthened due to the fact that Albert was not de-sensitized after the experiment. He was removed from the hospital by his mother, leaving Raynor and Watson unable to de-sensitize him due to a lack of time. It is unclear whether Albert’s mother a) knew about the experiment b) if she did indeed give consent for her child to be used in this experiment and c) knew if he would have to be de-sensitized
afterwards.
There are lots of debates regarding the Little Albert experiment however the general feeling towards it, given the fact that the child may not have been totally healthy during the experiment, is that there really isn’t enough viable data to draw a precise conclusion. However, some argue that if there was a clear and precise way to de-sensitize Albert then the trauma that he endured would have been worth it due to the insight into human mentality gained, potentially helping those suffering from phobias. Others argue however that a child should never have to undergo any type of trauma, mental or otherwise, regardless of whether it has long lasting effects or not.

During the 1930s, it was widely believed that stuttering was genetic and not acquired. Speech therapist, Dr Wendell Johnson and graduate student Mary Tudor, wanted to show that these theories were wrong and that stuttering was controllable and could be either created in a person, or cured. From these ideas, the 'Monster Study' was born. Johnson thought that he could make a ‘normal’ child stutter or make a childs stutter worse. In the experiment, 22 orphans, aged between 3 and 6 took part in his experiment. The children were divided into two groups, labelled 'normal speakers' and 'stutterers'. Some teachers and staff at the orphanage unknowingly took part in the experiment, being told that the whole group of 'stutterers' had a stutter, however at this point only half the group actually showed signs of it. During the experiment, the children in the 'normal speakers' group were given encouraging feedback towards their speech. However, the other group were addressed about stuttering and forced to take much more care in not repeating words. During this experiment, 5 of the 6 'normal' children in the stuttering group actually began stuttering because of the negative therapy and of the 5 children left who had stuttered previously, three became significantly worse. In contrast to this, of the 'normal speakers' only one child developed greater speech problems due to the study. On realising the significance of the effect on these children, the researchers attempted to reverse the damage they did only to discover the effects were irreparable, leaving the children to stutter for the rest of their lives.
Obviously, there are ethical problems with this experiment because it had lifelong negative effects however there are other ethical problems with this experiment. The children and orphanage staff involved in the study were never told about it. It came out in a newspaper over 60 years later and this was the first those involved learned of it. Also, the study was never published. Some of Johnsons colleagues were outraged that he would experiment on orphan children to prove a theory, and because of the damage done to the children and their speech, it was kept hidden so as to preserve Johnsons reputation. However, in spite of the negative side effects, the Monster Study does have a small case for defence. The researchers involved had good intentions, looking to help stutterers. Johnson was a severe stutterer himself and the findings taken from his theory have contributed hugely to finding successful new ways of treating people with stutters.

Overall, psychological experiments carried out in history have been beneficial to our understanding of the human psyche. However some have been unethical in practice and could not be carried out today because of this. Any experiment that harms or could potentially harm a test subject cannot be carried without explicit consent. The two experiments outlined have had participants who are unaware of the situation and this is one of the main reasons they are unethical and cannot be repeated today.