john b watson rat experiment

Little Albert Experiment (Watson & Rayner)

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Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

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Watson and Rayner (1920) conducted the Little Albert Experiment to answer 3 questions:

Can an infant be conditioned to fear an animal that appears simultaneously with a loud, fear-arousing sound?

Would such fear transfer to other animals or inanimate objects?

How long would such fears persist?

Little Albert Experiment

Ivan Pavlov showed that classical conditioning applied to animals.  Did it also apply to humans? In a famous (though ethically dubious) experiment, John Watson and Rosalie Rayner showed it did.

Conducted at Johns Hopkins University between 1919 and 1920, the Little Albert experiment aimed to provide experimental evidence for classical conditioning of emotional responses in infants

At the study’s outset, Watson and Rayner encountered a nine-month-old boy named “Little Albert” (his real name was Albert Barger) – a remarkably fearless child, scared only by loud noises.

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.

The baseline session occurred when Albert was approximately nine months old to test his reactions to neutral stimuli.

Albert was reportedly unafraid of any of the stimuli he was shown, which consisted of “a white rat, a rabbit, a dog, a monkey, with [sic] masks with and without hair, cotton wool, burning newspapers, etc.” (Watson & Rayner, 1920, p. 2). 

Approximately two months after the baseline session, Albert was subjected during two conditioning sessions spaced one week apart to a total of seven pairings of a white rat followed by the startling sound of a steel bar being struck with a hammer.

When Little Albert was just over 11 months old, the white rat was presented, and seconds later, the hammer was struck against the steel bar.

After seven pairings of the rat and noise (in two sessions, one week apart), Albert reacted with crying and avoidance when the rat was presented without the loud noise.

By the end of the second conditioning session, when Albert was shown the rat, he reportedly cried and “began to crawl away so rapidly that he was caught with difficulty before reaching the edge of the table” (p. 5). Watson and Rayner interpreted these reactions as evidence of fear conditioning.

By now, little Albert only had to see the rat and immediately showed every sign of fear. He would cry (whether or not the hammer was hit against the steel bar), and he would attempt to crawl away.

The two conditioning sessions were followed by three transfer sessions. During the first transfer session, Albert was shown the rat to assess maintained fear, as well as other furry objects to test generalization. 

Complicating the experiment, however, the second transfer session also included two additional conditioning trials with the rat to “freshen up the reaction” (Watson & Rayner, 1920, p. 9), as well as conditioning trials in which a dog and a rabbit were, for the first time, also paired with the loud noise.

This fear began to fade as time went on, however, the association could be renewed by repeating the original procedure a few times.

Unlike prior weekly sessions, the final transfer session occurred after a month to test maintained fear. Immediately following the session, Albert and his mother left the hospital, preventing Watson and Rayner from carrying out their original intention of deconditioning the fear they have classically conditioned.

Experimental Procedure

Classical Conditioning

• Neutral Stimulus (NS): This is a stimulus that, before conditioning, does not naturally bring about the response of interest. In this case, the Neutral Stimulus was the white laboratory rat. Initially, Little Albert had no fear of the rat, he was interested in the rat and wanted to play with it.
• Unconditioned Stimulus (US): This is a stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a response without any learning. In the experiment, the unconditioned stimulus was the loud, frightening noise. This noise was produced by Watson and Rayner striking a steel bar with a hammer behind Albert’s back.
• Unconditioned Response (UR): This is the natural response that occurs when the Unconditioned Stimulus is presented. It is unlearned and occurs without previous conditioning. In this case, the Unconditioned Response was Albert’s fear response to the loud noise – crying and showing distress.
• Conditioning Process: Watson and Rayner then began the conditioning process. They presented the rat (NS) to Albert, and then, while he was interacting with the rat, they made a loud noise (US). This was done repeatedly, pairing the sight of the rat with the frightening noise. As a result, Albert started associating the rat with the fear he experienced due to the loud noise.
• Conditioned Stimulus (CS): After several pairings, the previously Neutral Stimulus (the rat) becomes the conditioned stimulus , as it now elicits the fear response even without the presence of the loud noise.
• Conditioned Response (CR): This is the learned response to the previously neutral stimulus, which is now the Conditioned Stimulus. In this case, the Conditioned Response was Albert’s fear of the rat. Even without the loud noise, he became upset and showed signs of fear whenever he saw the rat.

In this experiment, a previously unafraid baby was conditioned to become afraid of a rat. It also demonstrates two additional concepts, originally outlined by Pavlov .

• Extinction : Although a conditioned association can be incredibly strong initially, it begins to fade if not reinforced – until is disappears completely.
• Generalization : Conditioned associations can often widen beyond the specific stimuli presented. For instance, if a child develops a negative association with one teacher, this association might also be made with others.

Over the next few weeks and months, Little Albert was observed and ten days after conditioning his fear of the rat was much less marked. This dying out of a learned response is called extinction.

However, even after a full month, it was still evident, and the association could be renewed by repeating the original procedure a few times.

Unfortunately, Albert’s mother withdrew him from the experiment the day the last tests were made, and Watson and Rayner were unable to conduct further experiments to reverse the condition response.

• The Little Albert experiment was a controversial psychology experiment by John B. Watson and his graduate student, Rosalie Rayner, at Johns Hopkins University.
• The experiment was performed in 1920 and was a case study aimed at testing the principles of classical conditioning.
• Watson and Raynor presented Little Albert (a nine-month-old boy) with a white rat, and he showed no fear. Watson then presented the rat with a loud bang that startled Little Albert and made him cry.
• After the continuous association of the white rat and loud noise, Little Albert was classically conditioned to experience fear at the sight of the rat.
• Albert’s fear generalized to other stimuli that were similar to the rat, including a fur coat, some cotton wool, and a Santa mask.

Critical Evaluation

Methodological limitations.

The study is often cited as evidence that phobias can develop through classical conditioning. However, critics have questioned whether conditioning actually occurred due to methodological flaws (Powell & Schmaltz, 2022).

• The study didn’t control for pseudoconditioning – the loud noise may have simply sensitized Albert to be fearful of any novel stimulus.
• It didn’t control for maturation – Albert was 11 months old initially, but the final test was at 12 months. Fears emerge naturally over time in infants, so maturation could account for Albert’s reactions.
• Albert’s reactions were inconsistent and the conditioned fear weak – he showed little distress to the rat in later tests, suggesting the conditioning was not very effective or durable.

Other methodological criticisms include:

• The researchers confounded their own experiment by conditioning Little Albert using the same neutral stimuli as the generalized stimuli (rabbit and dog).
• Some doubts exist as to whether or not this fear response was actually a phobia. When Albert was allowed to suck his thumb he showed no response whatsoever. This stimulus made him forget about the loud sound. It took more than 30 times for Watson to finally take Albert’s thumb out to observe a fear response.
• Other limitations included no control subject and no objective measurement of the fear response in Little Albert (e.g., the dependent variable was not operationalized).
• As this was an experiment of one individual, the findings cannot be generalized to others (e.g., low external validity). Albert had been reared in a hospital environment from birth and he was unusual as he had never been seen to show fear or rage by staff. Therefore, Little Albert may have responded differently in this experiment to how other young children may have, these findings will therefore be unique to him.

Theoretical Limitations

The cognitive approach criticizes the behavioral model as it does not take mental processes into account. They argue that the thinking processes that occur between a stimulus and a response are responsible for the feeling component of the response.

Ignoring the role of cognition is problematic, as irrational thinking appears to be a key feature of phobias.

Tomarken et al. (1989) presented a series of slides of snakes and neutral images (e.g., trees) to phobic and non-phobic participants. The phobics tended to overestimate the number of snake images presented.

The Little Albert Film

Powell and Schmaltz (2022) examined film footage of the study for evidence of conditioning. Clips showed Albert’s reactions during baseline and final transfer tests but not the conditioning trials. Analysis of his reactions did not provide strong evidence of conditioning:

• With the rat, Albert was initially indifferent and tried to crawl over it. He only cried when the rat was placed on his hand, likely just startled.
• With the rabbit, dog, fur coat, and mask, his reactions could be explained by being startled, innate wariness of looming objects, and other factors. Reactions were inconsistent and mild.

Overall, Albert’s reactions seem well within the normal range for an infant and can be readily explained without conditioning. The footage provides little evidence he acquired conditioned fear.

The belief the film shows conditioning may stem from:

• Viewer expectation – titles state conditioning occurred and viewers expect to see it.
• A tendency to perceive stronger evidence of conditioning than actually exists.
• An ongoing perception of behaviorism as manipulative, making Watson’s conditioning of a “helpless” infant seem plausible.

Rather than an accurate depiction, the film may have been a promotional device for Watson’s research. He hoped to use it to attract funding for a facility to closely study child development.

This could explain anomalies like the lack of conditioning trials and rearrangement of test clips.

Ethical Issues

The Little Albert Experiment was conducted in 1920 before ethical guidelines were established for human experiments in psychology. When judged by today’s standards, the study has several concerning ethical issues:

• There was no informed consent obtained from Albert’s parents. They were misled about the true aims of the research and did not know their child would be intentionally frightened. This represents a lack of transparency and a violation of personal autonomy.
• Intentionally inducing a fear response in an infant is concerning from a nonmaleficence perspective, as it involved deliberate psychological harm. The distress exhibited by Albert suggests the conditioning procedure was unethical by today’s standards.
• Watson and Rayner did not attempt to decondition or desensitize Albert to the fear response before the study ended abruptly. This meant they did not remove the psychological trauma they had induced, violating the principle of beneficence. Albert was left in a state of fear, which could have long-lasting developmental effects. Watson also published no follow-up data on Albert’s later emotional development.

Learning Check

• Summarise the process of classical conditioning in Watson and Raynor’s study.
• Explain how Watson and Raynor’s methodology is an improvement on Pavlov’s.
• What happened during the transfer sessions? What did this demonstrate?
• Why is Albert’s reaction to similar furry objects important for the interpretation of the study?
• Comment on the ethics of Watson and Raynor’s study.
• Support the claim that in ignoring the internal processes of the human mind, behaviorism reduces people to mindless automata (robots).

Beck, H. P., Levinson, S., & Irons, G. (2009). Finding Little Albert: A journey to John B. Watson’s infant laboratory. American Psychologist, 64 , 605–614.

Digdon, N., Powell, R. A., & Harris, B. (2014). Little Albert’s alleged neurological persist impairment: Watson, Rayner, and historical revision. History of Psychology , 17 , 312–324.

Fridlund, A. J., Beck, H. P., Goldie, W. D., & Irons, G. (2012). Little Albert: A neurologically impaired child. History of Psychology , 15, 1–34.

Griggs, R. A. (2015). Psychology’s lost boy: Will the real Little Albert please stand up? Teaching of Psychology, 4 2, 14–18.

Harris, B. (1979). Whatever happened to little Alb ert? . American Psychologist, 34 (2), 151.

Harris, B. (2011). Letting go of Little Albert: Disciplinary memory, history, and the uses of myth. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 47 , 1–17.

Harris, B. (2020). Journals, referees and gatekeepers in the dispute over Little Albert, 2009–2014. History of Psychology, 23 , 103–121.

Powell, R. A., Digdon, N., Harris, B., & Smithson, C. (2014). Correcting the record on Watson, Rayner, and Little Albert: Albert Barger as “psychology’s lost boy.” American Psychologist, 69 , 600–611.

Powell, R. A., & Schmaltz, R. M. (2021). Did Little Albert actually acquire a conditioned fear of furry animals? What the film evidence tells us.  History of Psychology ,  24 (2), 164.

Todd, J. T. (1994). What psychology has to say about John B. Watson: Classical behaviorism in psychology textbooks. In J. T. Todd & E. K. Morris (Eds.), Modern perspectives on John B. Watson and classical behaviorism (pp. 74–107). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Tomarken, A. J., Mineka, S., & Cook, M. (1989). Fear-relevant selective associations and covariation bias. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 98 (4), 381.

Watson, J.B. (1913). Psychology as the behaviorist Views It. Psychological Review, 20 , 158-177.

Watson, J. B., & Rayner, R. (1920). Conditioned emotional reactions . Journal of Experimental Psychology, 3 (1), 1.

Watson, J. B., & Watson, R. R. (1928). Psychological care of infant and child . New York, NY: Norton.

Further Information

• Finding Little Albert
• Mystery solved: We now know what happened to Little Albert
• Psychology’s lost boy: Will the real Little Albert please stand up?
• Journals, referees, and gatekeepers in the dispute over Little Albert, 2009-2014
• Griggs, R. A. (2014). The continuing saga of Little Albert in introductory psychology textbooks. Teaching of Psychology, 41(4), 309-317.

This page has been archived and is no longer being updated regularly.

‘Little Albert’ regains his identity

January 2010, Vol 41, No. 1

Print version: page 10

One of psychology's greatest mysteries appears to have been solved. “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 participation.

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. After a number of conditioning trials, Watson and Rayner reintroduced the animals and furry items without the scary noise. Through the conditioning, the animals and objects that were once a source of joy and curiosity had become a trigger of fear.

Watson had no reason to reveal Albert's true identity, and he never de-conditioned the child. (Watson was also dismissed from the university around the same time because of an affair with Rayner.) Since then, Little Albert's fate and identity have been a recurring question among psychology scholars, including Appalachian State University psychologist Hall P. Beck, PhD, who with a team of colleagues and students, sought answers. For seven years, Beck and his associates scoured historical materials, conferred with facial recognition experts, met with relatives of the boy they theorized was Albert.

Eventually, the pieces of the puzzle came together. The attributes of Douglas and his mother matched virtually everything that was known about Albert and his mother. Like Albert's mother, Douglas's mother worked at a pediatric hospital on campus called the Harriet Lane Home. Like Albert, Douglas was a white male who left the home in the early 1920s and was born at the same time of year as Albert. What's more, a comparison of a picture of Albert with Douglas' portrait revealed facial similarities.

Sadly, the team also discovered that Douglas died at age 6 of acquired hydrocephalus, and was unable to determine if Douglas' fear of furry objects persisted after he left Hopkins.

The team, which also included Sharman Levinson, PhD, of The American University in Paris, and Gary Irons, the grandson of Arvilla Merritte, published their findings in the October American Psychologist (Vol. 64, No. 7). The article not only satisfies a long-held curiosity, but also reflects a growing interest in the fate of research participants, says Cathy Faye, of the Archives of the History of American Psychology at the University of Akron. Participants in such famous, controversial studies “have become unwitting protagonists whose stories are told over and over again in psychology textbooks,” she says. “So people become very curious: Who were they, and how did they feel about the experiment?”

Beck is pleased his students have answered some of those questions, but the real bonus, he believes, is what they gained in the research process.

“The search took them beyond the memorization of their lectures and textbooks, and for the first time, into the creative world of psychological research,” he says. “In the end, that was even more important to them than finding Albert.”

—T. DeAngelis

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Little Albert Experiment

Classical conditioning plays a central role in the development of fears and associations. Some phobias may be due at least in part to classical conditioning. For example, a person who associates leaving the home with being abused by their parents might develop agoraphobia .

Who Conducted the Little Albert Experiment?

Psychologist John Watson conducted the Little Albert experiment. Watson is known for his seminal research on behaviorism, or the idea that behavior occurs primarily in the context of conditioning. He was a professor of psychology at Johns Hopkins University, and much of his research revolved around animal behavior. Some sources report that Watson implicated his children in some of his studies, creating tension in his family. After a scandal that resulted in his resignation from John Hopkins, Watson worked in advertising until his retirement.

How Did the Experiment Work?

Albert was a 9-month-old baby who had not previously demonstrated any fear of rats. In the beginning of the experiment, when Albert was 11 months old, John Watson placed a rat (in addition to some other animals and objects with fur) on the table in front of Albert, who reacted with curiosity and no sign of fear.

He then began making a loud noise behind the baby by pounding on a steel bar with a hammer on several separate occasions while showing Albert the rat. Albert cried in reaction to the noise and, after a period of conditioning, cried in response to the rat even without the loud noise. When presented with the other animals, he also responded with varying degrees of fear despite not ever hearing the loud noise when presented with those animals.

This experiment is prototypical example of classical conditioning. One conclusion Watson drew from the experiment was that fear may have a critical impact on personality development.

The Little Albert Experiment: Ethical Issues and Criticism

Watson had originally planned to decondition Albert to the stimulus, demonstrating that conditioned fears could be eliminated. However, Albert was removed from the experiment before this could happen, and thus Watson created a child with a previously nonexistent fear. This research practice would be widely considered unethical today; standards outlined by the American Psychological Association and the British Psychological Society would also deem the study unethical.

Watson rationalized his treatment of Little Albert by stating that even if they did not conduct the experiment on the child, he would experience similar conditioning as he grew older. “At first there was considerable hesitation upon our part in making the attempt to set up fear reactions experimentally,” Watson wrote. “We decided finally to make the attempt, comforting ourselves … 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.”

Although the experiment is remembered as a case for classical conditioning, some critics point out that the study was done without any type of control. However, adding a control element to psychological research was not common at this time.

What Happened to Little Albert?

“Little Albert” was the son of a wet nurse by the name Arvilla Merritte who worked at the Harriet Lane Home for Invalid Children. Because of this, much of Albert’s infancy was spent in Johns Hopkins Hospital with his mother. Arvilla received $1 for her son’s part in the experiment, which would be equivalent to around $13 today.

Most sources agree that Albert’s real name was Douglas Merritte. Nobody knows whether his fear of rats persisted into adulthood, as he died at six years of age from hydrocephalus.

Classical Conditioning in Popular Culture

Several pieces of literature have addressed classical conditioning in children, including Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World . In Brave New World , poor children were conditioned to dislike or fear books. Thus their lower status was maintained as they avoided learning from books. This page contains at least one affiliate link for the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, which means GoodTherapy.org receives financial compensation if you make a purchase using an Amazon link.

References:

• American Psychological Association. APA concise dictionary of psychology . Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2009. Print.
• Augustyn, A. (n.d.). John B. Watson. Encyclopedia Britannica . Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-B-Watson
• Burgemeester, A. (n.d.). The Little Albert experiment. Retrieved from https://www.psychologized.org/the-little-albert-experiment
• Cherry, K. (2019, July 3). The Little Albert experiment: A closer look at the famous case of Little Albert. Retrieved from https://www.verywellmind.com/the-little-albert-experiment-2794994
• DeAngelis, T. (2010). ‘Little Albert’ regains his identity. Monitor on Psychology, 41 (1), 10. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/monitor/2010/01/little-albert
• Inflation calculator. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1920?amount=1
• Watson, J. B., & Rayner, R. (1920). Conditioned emotional reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 3 (1), 1-14. Retrieved from https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Watson/emotion.htm

Last Updated: 07-30-2019

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wow little albert had a hard life

He did. Unfortunately he died at the age of 6 after contracting hydrocephalus.

The only problem I have with this is that it says about if they had permission from Little Albert’s mother for the experiment, Yet to my knowledge Little Albert was an orphan

therefore how do we know she wouldnt have given permission?

Little Albert was in a special needs hospital for the first year of his life. His mother was a nurse there. The experiments were done without her presence. There were not any research regulations at the time saying that the parent or participant needed to be fully informed of the experiment.

His mother was actually present everyday for the experiments. She gave permission to Watson to do these experiments because Watson was giving her 1 dollar (which was a lot back then) after each of the experiments, and she needed that money to survive and help feedL’little Albert’

Which behaviourist theory is being discussed in the little albert story

I think we need more of this kind of experimentation, too bad he died before he was permanently scared. Woulda been cool to see his life deteriorate naturally instead of some freak accident medical phenomena.

TheFastAndTheCurious

I think Albert was a troubled child with bad parents

but why was he removed from the experiment?

He was orphaned out to a family.

Can someone please maybe tell me who wrote it and the date, i want to reference this site for an assignment.

We are happy to hear you’re finding our site to be a helpful resource! There is no named author — the author of this page is simply “GoodTherapy.” I would recommend asking your professor or faculty how they would like you to cite a website with no named author.

We hope this is helpful! Please let us know if you have further questions!

Great article. thanks

bro he should have been put down this poor child was abused by his own (illegitimate) father#Maury#unfortunate#thatstuff

Poor little Albert :( . Bless his soul may he RIP. Great article (;.

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Biography of Psychologist John B. Watson

• Contributions
• Achievements and Awards
• Publications
• Famous Quote

John B. Watson was a pioneering psychologist who played an important role in developing behaviorism . He is remembered for his research on the conditioning process .

Watson is also known for the Little Albert experiment, in which he demonstrated that a child could be conditioned to fear a previously neutral stimulus. His research further revealed that this fear could be generalized to other similar objects.

John B. Watson believed that psychology should be the science of observable behavior.

Early Life of John B. Watson

John B. Watson was born on January 9, 1878, and grew up in South Carolina. He entered Furman University at the age of 16. After graduating five years later with a master's degree, he began studying psychology at the University of Chicago, earning his Ph.D. in psychology in 1903.

John B. Watson's Career

Watson began teaching psychology at Johns Hopkins University in 1908. In 1913, he gave a seminal lecture at Columbia University titled "Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It," which essentially detailed the behaviorist position.   According to Watson, psychology should be the science of observable behavior.

"Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior. Introspection forms no essential part of its methods, nor is the scientific value of its data dependent upon the readiness with which they lend themselves to interpretation in terms of consciousness."  

The "Little Albert" Experiment

In his most famous and controversial experiment , known today as the "Little Albert" experiment , John Watson and a graduate assistant named Rosalie Rayner conditioned a small child to fear a white rat. They accomplished this by repeatedly pairing the white rat with a loud, frightening clanging noise.

They were also able to demonstrate that this fear could be generalized to white, furry objects other than the white rat. The ethics of the experiment are often criticized today, especially because the child's fear was never de-conditioned.

In 2009, researchers proposed that Little Albert was a boy named Douglas Merritte. Questioning what happened to the child had intrigued many for decades.   Sadly, the researchers found that the child died at the age of six of hydrocephalus, a medical condition in which fluid builds up inside the skull.

In 2012, researchers proposed that Merritte suffered from neurological impairments at the time of the Little Albert experiment and that Watson may have knowingly misrepresented the boy as a "healthy" and "normal" child. However, in 2014, researchers suggested that another child, Albert Barger, matches the characteristics of Little Albert better than Douglas Merritte.  

Leaving Academia

Watson remained at Johns Hopkins University until 1920. He had an affair with Rayner, divorced his first wife, and was then asked by the university to resign from his position. Watson later married Rayner and the two remained together until her death in 1935. After leaving his academic position, Watson began working for an advertising agency where he stayed until he retired in 1945.

During the latter part of his life, Watson's already poor relationships with his children grew progressively worse. He spent his last years living a reclusive life on a farm in Connecticut. Shortly before his death on September 25, 1958, he burned many of his unpublished personal papers and letters.

John B. Watson's Contributions to Psychology

Watson set the stage for behaviorism, which soon rose to dominate psychology. While behaviorism began to lose its hold after 1950, many of the concepts and principles are still widely used today. Conditioning and behavior modification are still widely used in therapy and behavioral training to help clients change problematic behaviors and develop new skills.

John B. Watson's Achievements and Awards

Watson's lifetime achievements, publications, and awards include:

• 1915—Served as the president of the American Psychological Association (APA)
• 1919—Published Psychology From the Standpoint of a Behaviorist
• 1925—Published Behaviorism  
• 1928—Published Psychological Care of Infant and Child
• 1957—Received the APA's Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions

Selected Publications of John B. Watson

Here are some of Watson's works for further reading:

• Watson JB. Psychology as the behaviorist views it .  Psychological Review. 1913;20(2):158-177. doi:10.1037/h0074428
• Watson JB, Rayner R. Conditioned emotional reactions .  Journal of Experimental Psychology. 1920;3(1):1-14. doi:10.1037/h0069608

John B. Watson's Famous Quote

"Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take anyone at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select—doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. I am going beyond my facts and I admit it, but so have the advocates of the contrary and they have been doing it for many thousands of years." —John B. Watson, Behaviorism, 1925  

Watson JB. Psychology as the behaviorist views it .  Psychological Review, 1913;20:158–177. doi:10.1037/h0074428

Powell RA, Digdon N, Harris B, Smithson C. Correcting the record on Watson, Rayner, and Little Albert: Albert Barger as “psychology’s lost boy" .  American Psychologist. 2014:69(6),600-611. doi:10.1037/a0036854

Watson JB.  Behaviorism . People's Institute Publishing Company, 1925.

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Little Albert Experiment

The little albert experiment and it's affects on psychology.

Skinner primarily worked and developed his theory of radical behaviorism and operant conditioning, Pavlov delved into reinforcing behavior using his theory of classical conditioning, and John B. Watson developed the theory of methodological behaviorism. Watson’s psychological research led to the "Little Albert Experiment", a widely cited, controversial study in which Watson set out to prove that emotional reactions could be conditioned in human subjects. 

John B. Watson and Behaviorism

Watson's research, watson's contributions to psychology, the little albert experiment: white rat, loud noises, and conditioning psychology.

John Watson's experiment was the first of its kind and has been recounted in psychology textbooks for decades, though it is often considered controversial. Using a child in a psychological experiment was considered unethical, but Watson wanted to follow the guidelines Pavlov used to condition dogs. Pavlov used food to condition dogs in his experiments, training the dogs to respond to the sound of a bell and associate it with food. Each time the dogs heard the bell, they would salivate, showing they were conditioned to expect food at the sound of the bell. 

The methods of the Little Albert Experiment

In the Little Albert experiment, Watson wanted to show that infants have a natural, innate fear of loud sounds. The experiment was also meant to prove that he could use a loud noise to produce conditioned responses in the child when they were shown a neutral stimulus. Watson believed phobias were developed from external stimuli and were conditioned responses. Watson and his assistant, graduate student Rosalie Rayner, recruited a nine-month-old infant and performed the experiments at Johns Hopkins University.

Watson and Rayner called the child "Little Albert" to hide his identity. They devised a protocol to produce emotional conditioning in the experiment with little Albert. Watson wanted to condition fear and believed his controlled experiment would produce the desired fear conditioning because of the hypothesis that babies fear loud sounds.

Little Albert and the white rat

In the experiment, Little Albert was first presented with a white laboratory rat, which served as the neutral stimulus. The white rat approached him and crawled around and on top of him. Albert showed no signs of fear and a mild interest in the rat. During this phase of the experiment, other white furry objects were presented to Albert, including a white rabbit, a white dog, and a Santa Claus mask. Albert showed no fear but was interested in the animals and other furry objects. 

Once Albert was introduced to the objects, they were presented again. However, this time, Watson created a loud clang, or unconditioned stimulus, using a hammer and a pipe. The loud noise startled Albert, causing him to cry, the unconditioned response. The researchers repeated this loud noise several times. First, the object, such as a white rat, was presented, followed immediately by a loud sound. After a few repetitions, Albert began crying at the sight of the rat with no loud noise. The rat, which was previously the neutral stimulus, had become the conditioned stimulus, causing Albert to cry due to its association with the unconditioned stimulus. Albert’s fearful reaction, which was once the unconditioned response, then became the conditioned response. During further experiments, the conditioned response of crying was also transferred to all other furry objects from the experiment—a process called stimulus generalization. This led Watson and Rayner to believe they had produced an emotionally conditioned response in Albert through classical conditioning.

Watson believed he had proven his hypothesis that a child could be emotionally conditioned to fear through association. Although the experiment is used as an example of emotional conditioning, some psychologists do not agree that a conditioned response had been instilled in little Albert, and others argue that it was an unethical experiment.

Classical conditioning

The experiment conducted by John Watson and Rosalie Raynor demonstrated that classical conditioning could produce a fear response in humans. The results of the Little Albert experiment were originally published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology in 1920. Though it has been widely criticized, Watson’s study represents an important advancement in clinical psychology and the behavioral sciences; and it is one of the reasons Watson is still considered a highly influential American psychologist. 

Critics of the experiment

The Little Albert experiment is often cited as a compelling example of emotional conditioning. However, some researchers agree that a more extensive study pool or more than one experiment should have been conducted to produce comprehensive results that proved Watson had achieved classical conditioning. Infants have different personalities; some are naturally fearful, others are bold, and many are naturally cautious of unfamiliar items, people, and sounds. 

Douglas Meritte and his mother's role

Critics have another reason for not agreeing with Watson's experiment. Some believe the infant was sick when the conditioning experiments took place. The idea that Little Albert was ill at the time of the experiments comes from research into the identity of Albert. Psychologists believe they have tracked down the real Little Albert, Douglas Merritte. According to research published in a paper titled “Finding Little Albert: A Journey to John B. Watson’s Infant Laboratory”, Douglas Merritte was the son of a wet nurse at Harriet Lane Home, a pediatric hospital at Johns Hopkins University. According to John Watson, Albert’s mother held the same role at the same hospital. 

Douglas Merritte was born around the same time as Albert, and he lived with his mother at Harriet Lane Home for the majority of the first year of his life. These clues are frequently cited as evidence that Albert was sick during the experiments. Douglas might have had meningitis at the time of the experiments. Douglas died five years later due to hydrocephalus. If Little Albert was Douglas, he might have been a neurologically impaired child who was too sick to be considered a typical example of a perfectly healthy infant. He may have been dealing with underlying health issues that could have impacted his reactions during the experiment, including whether or not he was actually conditioned to react to the objects.

Other theories on the identity of Little Albert beyond Douglas Meritte

Some individuals have considered another possible candidate for Little Albert named William Barger. In a paper titled “Psychology’s Lost Boy: Will the Real Little Albert Please Stand Up?” researchers state that William Albert Barger was known to family and friends as Albert, and they used his middle name more than his first name. Modern psychologists use the information from this experiment to shape their hypotheses and theories regardless of who the child was. Today, using a young child in a psychology experiment, such as the one devised by Watson and Rayner, is unethical.

Long term effects and ethical psychology

If the child was Douglas Merritte, the long-term effects of this type of conditioning are not fully understood. Using a sick child also may impact Watson's reputation. If Douglas is the real Albert, the experiment may not able to support the idea of conditioning. Hydrocephaly is painful, and it potentially damages cognitive capabilities. It is speculated that Watson chose Douglas because he was sick; a baby with Douglas's condition would be calm during the initial stages but more likely to react by crying at the sound of the clanging. There are arguments on both sides, and whether the child in the Little Albert study was Douglas Meritte, William Albert Barger, or another child may not be as important as the ethics of this situation and what happened to Little Albert. 

The ethical complications of the Little Albert test

Testing and clinical trials involving children are not commonplace in psychology in the 21st century. Tests where one scares a child or causes traumatic responses can impact that child for life. Young children cannot consent to being included in experiments, and informed consent was not obtained in Albert’s case. Additionally, the conditioning of the irrational fear was never reversed in Albert. For these reasons, the psychology experiment is often considered unethical and abusive. 

Behaviorism and modern psychology

Counselor reviews.

The Little Albert experiment is a demonstration of classical conditioning. John B. Watson's work, especially with Little Albert and the rat, contributed to psychology through the development of methodological behaviorism. Behaviorism and its concepts are the basis for many psychological approaches to treatment in the present day. You're not alone if you want to learn more about behaviorism or changing maladaptive patterns. Many therapists practice behavioral therapy, offering ethical support to anyone who seeks it. Consider contacting a provider online or in your area for further guidance.

The experiment is a demonstration of classic conditioning such as the naturally occurring stimuli, which are what behaviorists study. Psychological researchers B.F. Skinner, Ivan Pavlov, and John B. Watson studied theories involving reinforcement with little Albert to produce wanted/specific behaviors. Each of these psychologists added to the understanding of human behavior with their pioneering research and theories. Skinner primarily worked and developed his theory of radical behaviorism and operant conditioning, Pavlov delved into reinforcing behavior using his theory of classical conditioning, and John B. Watson developed the theory of methodological behaviorism.

John B. Watson’s work, especially with little Albert, contributed to psychology through the development of methodological behaviorism. Behaviorism and the concepts it puts forth are the basis for many psychological approaches to treatments for behavioral problems. Cognitive behavioral therapy is one such treatment that has its roots in John Watson’s school of behaviorism.

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Finding Little Albert: a journey to John B. Watson's infant laboratory

Affiliation.

• 1 Department of Psychology, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC 28608, USA. [email protected]
• PMID: 19824748
• DOI: 10.1037/a0017234

In 1920, John Watson and Rosalie Rayner claimed to have conditioned a baby boy, Albert, to fear a laboratory rat. In subsequent tests, they reported that the child's fear generalized to other furry objects. After the last testing session, Albert disappeared, creating one of the greatest mysteries in the history of psychology. This article summarizes the authors' efforts to determine Albert's identity and fate. Examinations of Watson's personal correspondence, scientific production (books, journal articles, film), and public documents (national census data, state birth and death records) suggested that an employee at the Harriet Lane Home was Albert's mother. Contact with the woman's descendents led the authors to the individual they believe to be "Little Albert."

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• Little Albert still missing. Powell RA. Powell RA. Am Psychol. 2010 May-Jun;65(4):299-300; discussion 301-3. doi: 10.1037/a0019288. Am Psychol. 2010. PMID: 20455632 No abstract available.
• Regarding Little Albert. Reese HW. Reese HW. Am Psychol. 2010 May-Jun;65(4):300-1; discussion 301-3. doi: 10.1037/a0019332. Am Psychol. 2010. PMID: 20455633 No abstract available.

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• Little Albert: A neurologically impaired child. Fridlund AJ, Beck HP, Goldie WD, Irons G. Fridlund AJ, et al. Hist Psychol. 2012 Nov;15(4):302-27. doi: 10.1037/a0026720. Hist Psychol. 2012. PMID: 23397921
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Inside The Horrifying Little Albert Experiment That Terrified An Infant To The Point Of Tears

In 1920, the two psychologists behind the little albert experiment performed a study on a nine-month-old baby to determine if classical conditioning worked on humans — and made him terrified of harmless objects in the process..

In 1920, psychologists John Watson and Rosalie Rayner performed what’s known today as the Little Albert Experiment. In an attempt to prove that classical conditioning worked on humans as well as animals, they trained an infant to show fear toward completely harmless objects, a concept that goes against all modern ethical guidelines.

YouTube The nine-month-old subject of the Little Albert Experiment.

Twenty years earlier, Ivan Pavlov had conditioned dogs to drool upon hearing the sound of a dinner bell, even when no food was presented to them. Watson and Rayner wanted to similarly condition a human to react to a stimulus, but their idea quickly went wrong.

The Johns Hopkins University psychologists were able to train Little Albert to react negatively to objects like a white rat, a Santa Claus mask, and even his own family pets. However, the boy’s mother pulled him out of the study before Watson and Rayner could try to reverse the conditioning, leaving parts of their hypothesis unproven.

What’s more, critics were quick to point out that the Little Albert Experiment had several flaws that may have made it scientifically unsound. Today, it’s remembered as a profoundly unethical study that may have traumatized an innocent child for life — all in the name of science.

What Was The Little Albert Experiment?

Even people who aren’t in the psychology field know about “classical conditioning” thanks to the infamous experiment conducted by Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov. The psychologist proved that it was possible to teach animals to react to a neutral stimulus (that is, a stimulus that produced no natural effect) by conditioning them.

According to Verywell Mind , Pavlov made a metronome tick every time he fed his canine test subjects. The dogs soon associated the sound of the metronome (the neutral stimulus) with food.

Soon, Pavlov could make the dogs salivate in expectation of food simply by producing the ticking sound, even when he didn’t actually feed the dogs. Thus, they were conditioned to associate the sound of the metronome with food.

YouTube Little Albert showed no fear toward the white rat at the beginning of the experiment.

Watson and Rayner wanted to try to reproduce Pavlov’s study in humans, and the Little Albert Experiment was born. The researchers presented a nine-month-old boy they called “Albert” with fluffy animals like a monkey, a rabbit, and a white rat. Albert had no negative reaction to them, and he even tried to pet them.

Next, the psychologists struck a hammer against a steel pipe every time they presented Albert with the creatures. The sudden, loud noise made the baby cry.

Soon, Albert was conditioned to associate the loud noise with the fuzzy animals, and he began crying in fear whenever he saw the creatures — even when Watson and Rayner didn’t strike the pipe.

Albert became terrified of not only the monkey, rabbit, and rat, but also anything furry that looked like them. He cried when he saw a Santa Claus mask with a white beard and grew scared of his own family’s dogs.

YouTube Throughout the course of the study, Little Albert became frightened of a Santa Claus mask.

Watson and Rayner intended to attempt to reverse the conditioning performed on Little Albert, but his mother pulled him from the study before they had the chance. Thus, there is a chance the poor child remained scared of furry objects for life — which raises countless questions related to ethics.

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The Controversy Surrounding The Little Albert Experiment

Many of the ethical debates regarding the Little Albert Experiment involved not only the methods that Watson and Rayner deployed to “condition” the infant but also the way in which the psychologists conducted the study. For one, the experiment had only a single subject.

What’s more, according to Simply Psychology , creating a fear response is an example of psychological harm that’s not permitted in modern psychological experiments. While the study was conducted before modern ethical guidelines were implemented, criticism of how Watson and Rayner executed the experiment was raised even at the time.

Wikimedia Commons John Watson, the psychologist behind the Little Albert Experiment.

Then there was the issue of the scientists’ failure to deprogram the child after the experiment was over. They initially intended to attempt to “uncondition” Little Albert, or remove the irrational fear from the poor child’s mind. However, since his mother withdrew him from the experiment, Watson and Rayner were unable to do so.

As such, the fear was potentially firmly embedded in the child’s brain — a fear that was previously nonexistent. Because of this, both the American Psychological Association and the British Psychological Society would ultimately deem this experiment unethical.

The Unknown Fate Of Little Albert

After criticism arose, Watson tried to explain his behavior, claiming that Little Albert would have been exposed to the frightening stimuli later in life anyway. “At first there was considerable hesitation upon our part in making the attempt to set up fear reactions experimentally,” he said, according to GoodTherapy .

Watson continued, “We decided finally to make the attempt, comforting ourselves… 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.”

The true fate of Albert remained unknown for decades, however, and experts still aren’t positive about his actual identity.

YouTube Little Albert was conditioned to become frightened of furry creatures.

One study, as reported by the American Psychological Association , posited that Little Albert was a pseudonym for Douglas Merritte, the son of a nurse at Johns Hopkins named Arvilla Merritte. Arvilla was reportedly paid one dollar for her son’s participation in the study.

Sadly, young Douglas died of complications from hydrocephalus when he was just six years old. If he was indeed the true Little Albert, his medical condition adds another layer of questionability to the experiment. If he was born with hydrocephalus, he may have reacted to the stimulus differently than a typical baby would have.

Other research, however, suggests the true Albert was a little boy named William Albert Barger. Per New Scientist , Barger lived a long, happy life and died in 2007. However, his relatives report that he had an aversion to animals — and they even had to put the family dogs away when he came to visit.

If the Little Albert Experiment has taught scientists nothing else, it’s this: While it’s important to make discoveries in order to understand the human condition better, it’s vital to remember that the test subjects are human beings who may carry the impacts with them for the rest of their lives.

Now that you’ve read all about the Little Albert Experiment, go inside the Milgram experiment , which proved that everyday people are capable of monstrous acts. Then, discover the tragedy of David Reimer , the boy who was forced to live as a girl for a doctor’s experiment.

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Solving the mystery of ‘Little Albert’

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He is one of the most famous babies in history, but until recently his real name was unknown. Almost every undergraduate who takes a psychology course has met “Little Albert,” the pseudonymous infant who was the subject of a famous experiment by John B. Watson (1879-1958). Watson founded the theoretical school of “behaviourism,” which sought to reduce psychology to observable laws, excluding interior mental states altogether, and considered the mind to be infinitely suggestible and plastic. In the “Little Albert” experiment, filmed in 1920, Watson and his assistant, Rosalie Rayner, showed how a baby who was unafraid of a white rat could be conditioned to fear it; they showed “Albert” the rat several times while clanging an iron bar behind his head. After a few repetitions of this, the sight of any white fur would make Albert wail.

Albert is still in the textbooks, though nowadays he is used as often to discuss ethics as he is to introduce the concept of conditioning. Watson’s marriage and career exploded just weeks after he filmed Albert, when it became public that his assistant was also his girlfriend. Forced to flee Johns Hopkins University, Watson did not “decondition” Albert or follow up the experiment. Toward the end of his life he even burned his personal papers in a fit of nihilism.

So what happened to Albert? Anyone who reads about the experiment has surely wondered. Did he go on to live a long life, cringing at mink coats throughout?

Read the whole story: Macleans

Too bad that the claims by Beck and Fridlund in 2009 and 2012 turn out to be false. See:

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Search-for-Psychologys/146747/

Will the APS cover this debunking of the latest Albert myth?

nothing happened to albert …

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• Psychology , Psychology Experiments

Little Albert Experiment: Oh, Rats!

Introduction

You're headed to the park when you see someone walking a massive German Shepherd. You make eye contact with the dog as you're about to cross each others' paths. Suddenly, there's a nearby car's engine that backfires, producing a painfully loud sound. You jump at the noise as you're passing the dog and its owner, but calm down and go on your way. Finally, you arrive at the park and can enjoy your day. But every time you see a large dog, your heart races and you instinctively take a step back. Are you afraid of big dogs now? 

Explanation

What you're really afraid of is loud sounds, like an engine backfiring. Your experience during your walk caused you to associate big dogs with the unpleasant noise, provoking your fear response. A similar instance of classical conditioning took place during the Little Albert Experiment.

Little Albert Experiment

The Little Albert Experiment was a classical conditioning experiment conducted on a little boy named Albert. Experimenters classically conditioned Albert by repeatedly pairing neutral stimuli, such as rats and rabbits, with feared stimuli, like loud noises. Albert developed a phobia of similarly white and fluffy stimuli.

The Experiment

John B. Watson wanted to see if Ivan Pavlov's classical conditioning could be used on humans. He, along with his graduate student Rosalie Rayner, carried out the infamous Little Albert Experiment. 

They began by exposing Albert to stimuli such as a white rat, monkey, and rabbit. Albert showed no fear of these objects. Then, Watson and Rayner paired one of these neutral stimuli, the white rat, with an unconditioned feared stimulus. Like many children, Albert was afraid of loud sounds - they provoked an unconditioned fear response. The experimenters left Albert alone with the rat, but each time he reached for it, they would hit a hammer against metal, causing a banging noise. After several pairings, experimenters only showed Albert the rat. This sight alone caused Albert to cry, which was his standard reaction to loud sounds. Thus the experimenters were able to turn the neutral stimulus of the white rat into a conditioned stimulus and provoke a conditioned response of fear.

After the initial trials, Little Albert went back home. A week passed, and Little Albert was brought back in and exposed to other animals this time. When presented with a white rat, any other furry animal, or even a fur coat, he burst into tears and attempted to crawl away. This is known as stimulus generalization because Albert began to fear other white furry objects due to their similarity to the white rat. 

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. Despite knowing the child's health condition, Watson continued the experiment. Today, an experiment like this would not be approved by the Institutional Review Board, which protects the rights of human research subjects in studies. The experiment caused a young child a lot of discomfort and fear. Albert's health condition might've deteriorated faster by undergoing this stressful experiment. 

There are also some inherent flaws with the Little Albert Experiment. The experiment was supposed to test classical conditioning theories on humans, but they only used one subject. This sole subject was an infant who wasn't even one year of age who may have had brain damage. Therefore this experiment only proved that one white, male baby with hydrocephalus could be classically conditioned. The results should not be generalized across people of different age, gender, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, race, disabilities, or other identities without more test subjects. 

Furthermore, the researchers didn't thoroughly explain how they collected their data, which makes the experiment difficult to replicate. There are still photographs of Little Albert's reaction to the stimuli, but it seems the researcher mostly relied on their subjective personal observations. Their interpretations of Little Albert's neutral and fear reactions can be heavily biased, so it's difficult to assess whether their data is reliable. On top of not having objective data collection methods, the experiment has very low external validity because it isn't generalizable to others. 

The Little Albert Experiment is used to explain classical conditioning because it's a vivid, powerful example, but that's not all it helps explain. Overall, this experiment shows that ethical issues and scientific flaws are interconnected. Ethical flaws can directly create general, experimental design flaws, and vice versa. It's essential to take such experiments as learning lessons in more than one way—they're helpful to learn more about psychology, but it's also necessary to identify the flaws, differentiate right from wrong, and understand the repercussions of such experiments.

Think Further

• Can you think of anything you’ve been classically conditioned to perceive as a phobia? Explain. 
• What do you think the researchers could have done to avoid ethical mishaps and make this experiment as harmless as possible?
• How could researchers have made this experiment stronger and clearly prove whether humans could be classically conditioned?

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Psychologenie

Understanding the Little Albert Experiment

Summary of the Little Albert experiment is presented in this PsycholoGenie article. This experiment was based on the concept of classical conditioning. It was conducted by John B. Watson and his assistant Rosalie Rayner, and involved the process of evoking a fear response in a 9-month-old baby named Albert.

Unethical Experiment

Albert was the first and last child to have been subjected to a psychological experiment, which involved the process of evoking a fear response. Since an experiment involving inducing fear in the mind is unethical, such an experiment would not have been allowed in today’s world.

Ivan Pavlov, a physiologist from Russia, had conducted experiments on dogs, that demonstrated the conditioning process in them. Inspired by the success of the experiments by Pavlov, John B. Watson began studying the process of conditioning. The objective behind conducting the experiments was to test whether conditioning of emotional reactions in humans could be brought about.

It is said that Watson may have conducted the conditioning experiment on Albert, despite knowing that he was mentally impaired. Whether or not Watson took the baby’s mother’s permission before conducting the experiment, is a matter of debate.

The objective of the experiment conducted by Watson was to induce phobias in an emotionally stable child, through the process of conditioning.

• Exposure to a White Rat:  To conduct the experiment on Albert, he was exposed to a white rat. The baby played with the rat without exhibiting any kind of fear. When the baby touched the rat, a loud sound was made with a hammer. The sound caused the baby to retract and cry. The action of making a loud sound with a hammer was repeated every time the baby came near the rat, during several trials. There came a time when the baby started crying at the mere sight of the rat. This way, the baby’s mind was conditioned to evoke a fear response on seeing the rat.
• Exposure to Several Creatures and Objects:  The baby, Albert, was exposed to different creatures, including a white rabbit, a monkey, and masks, after being exposed to the white rat. Albert responded to seeing the white rat with crying. Seeing a white rabbit too, evoked a similar response from him. In fact, a generalized response was exhibited by the baby upon seeing furry animals and objects, including a furry, white dog and a seal-skin coat. The baby developed a fear response even for the ‘furry’ Santa Claus mask worn by Watson.

The Little Albert experiment has been criticized on the basis of observations made by some of the researchers who investigated the matter. According to Harris (1979), a critical study of reports of the experiment conducted by Watson and Rayner reveal that the baby, Albert, did not develop rat phobia. There is little evidence to suggest that the sight of these animals evoked a fear response in the child.

As per Alan Fridlund, an associate professor of psychology at the University of California, the reactions of the baby, as seen in the original film, seemed odd. When the baby saw a dog and a monkey, before the conditioning experiment, his behavior was markedly unresponsive. Fridlund believed that such unresponsive behavior could not be observed without the baby suffering from some neurological problem. The above observations raise doubts about the whole idea of conducting a conditioning experiment, since the baby was not healthy.

The Little Albert experiment is one of the most controversial experiments in the history of mankind. It must have had a deep impact on the functioning of the mind of baby Albert.

Hall P. Beck, a psychologist at the Appalachian State University, had stated that Albert was not the real name of the baby on which the experiment was conducted. In fact, his name was Douglas Merritte. It is reported that the boy died at the age of 6, in 1925. He suffered from hydrocephalus in his last days. The evidence of Albert suffering from congenital hydrocephalus was established when medical records were obtained from the John Hopkins University.

As per historical evidence obtained about the medical practices followed in olden days, using poor and sick infants for experiments was commonplace. Therefore, it is quite possible that Albert’s mother, a poor nurse, was forced to make the boy available for experiments.

The truth about the Little Albert experiment, even today, is clouded in mystery. This is because, in the course of time, the facts associated with this experiment got distorted and misinterpreted. Irrespective of what people say about the experiment, the idea of carrying out mental conditioning to evoke fear response in a 9-month-old baby is something one would not support.

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Little Albert

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Conditioned emotional reactions ; Experiment ; Learning ; Watson

John Watson’s experiment on children’s conditioned emotional reactions

Introduction

In 1919, upon Watson’s return from the army, he decided to pursue research, along with Rosalie Rayner, on children’s emotional response and development based on conditioning processes. The first and only study that Watson and Rayner performed on this topic was the study with Albert B. or, most known, as Little Albert, at the laboratory of a hospital. This experiment became one of the most frequently cited in psychology books and magazines and is described as “one of the classic studies of twentieth-century psychology” (Todd 1994 , p. 82).

The Conditions Surrounding the Experiment

Watson’s academic career was built on examining animal learning. He was applying Pavlov’s principles of classical conditioning, where innate bodily reflexes are conditioned with new stimuli to create new learning by association. Thus, conditioning...

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Beck, H. P., Levinson, S., & Irons, G. (2009). Finding Little Albert. A journey to John B. Watson’s infant laboratory. American Psychologist, 64 (7), 605–614.

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Polyxeni Georgiadou

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Georgiadou, P. (2021). Little Albert. In: Shackelford, T.K., Weekes-Shackelford, V.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19650-3_1046

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• John B. Watson
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All The Controversies Surrounding The Little Albert Experiment

In 1920, behaviorist John B. Watson and his eventual wife, Rosalie Rayner - then a graduate student studying under him - set out to prove they could condition a child's feelings. Specifically, they wanted to demonstrate their power to engender a phobia within a living being. Their experiment was based on Pavlov’s conditioning of dogs, which implemented a repetitive action in order to elicit a desired response. 

While Watson and Rayner did technically accomplish their goal, they also clearly yet inadvertently demonstrated the need for ethics in psychological studies. Their actions against their subject, a baby known as “Little Albert,” are now understood to have been abhorrent -- riddled with ethical issues -- and due to the researchers' carelessness, determining the amount of damage they inflicted is practically impossible.

The Experiment Conditioned 'Little Albert' To Fear Any Furry, White Object

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John B. Watson and his assistant, Rosalie Rayner, instilled a genuine and debilitating fear of white, furry objects in their subject, a child known as "Little Albert." Watson wrote that he conditioned the child by creating a loud noise whenever Albert reached out to touch a white rat, leading the boy to become fearful of anything that looked remotely similar to the animal.

Watson further wrote that the baby became distressed whenever he saw a rabbit, a dog, or a rudimentary Santa Claus mask with a cotton-ball beard. As far as Watson could determine, the boy's fear only extended to objects that were both furry and white.

No Objective Parameters Were Imposed To Evaluate Albert's Reactions

A scientific experiment should record  objective observations and employ multiple subjects as a control group. Essentially, other scientists should be able to step into the laboratory and find similar results. Rather than employing these experimentation methods, Watson and Rayner carried out their experiment on only one child without any means to objectively evaluate his reactions.

In the experiment, Watson and Raynor introduced Albert to a small white rat. Once Albert was comfortable with the animal and began to reach out for it, Watson struck a metal bar with a hammer, creating a loud noise. Watson continued this cycle until Albert was not only afraid to reach out for the creature, but was also afraid of the rat itself. 

Watson and Rayner concluded that they could train Albert to fear the rat by making noise, though this conclusion was  far from objective .

Researchers Failed To Reverse Albert's Conditioning Once The Experiment Ended

Once Watson and Rayner's experiment concluded, they failed to reverse any of the psychological damage they inflicted upon Albert. Supposedly, the duo didn't have time to extinguish the child's fears because Albert's mother left town the moment the study was finished. 

Rather than reaching out to Albert's mother, Watson and Rayner assured their study's readers that Albert would grow out of his fear thanks to his time in the "rough and tumble" world.

Watson May Have Known About And Hid Albert's Poor Health

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According to Watson, the child used in the Little Albert experiment was a normal, docile child who could represent the "children of the world."  Watson wrote in 1920 :

Albert's life was normal: he was healthy from birth and one of the best developed youngsters ever brought to the hospital, weighing 21 pounds at nine months of age. He was on the whole stolid and unemotional. His stability was one of the principal reasons for using him as a subject in this test. We felt that we could do him relatively little harm by carrying out such experiments as those outlined below.

Albert likely wasn't as healthy as Watson claimed - he may have even been mentally impaired. Modern researchers debate whether or not Watson knew about Albert's possible impairment, although some believe he actually sought out a child with an infirmity.

Watson Burned All Of His Research Before He Passed

After the Little Albert experiment, Watson went on to publish books on child-rearing, but he never shared his research on the Little Albert investigation. Before Watson passed in 1958,  he burned all of his notes on the experiment, limiting the possibility of anyone tracking down the child at the center of the analysis.

No record exists of Watson publishing any additional information on the experiment or discussing his role in the child's conditioning.

Watson May Have Chosen A Passive Child To Procure The Desired Results

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Modern scholars believe Watson specifically chose a baby for his experiment who was more passive than active. One theory claims that Albert suffered from a neurological disorder, and that in the film footage of the experiment, he's "alarmingly unresponsive."

Even if Albert did not have such a disorder, he displayed antisocial behavior. William Goldie, a pediatric neurologist, studied the footage in 2012 and noted that the child barely acknowledges Watson or Rayner:

No evidence is provided of mutual gaze or that Albert sees Watson or is responding to any of Watson’s specific actions. Albert’s temperament and behavior are not within the normal range for his age, and the abnormalities observed on film cannot solely be attributed to the hospital environment or the physical context of filming.

John B. Watson (Psychologist Biography)

Looking for information on John B. Watson and his contribution to psychology? You're in the right place. We have created biographies for all of the most prominent psychologists in modern history!

Who Was John B. Watson? 

John B. Watson was an American psychologist, researcher and author who played a crucial role in the development of behaviorism. In a 2002 report, the  Review of General Psychology  ranked Watson as the 17th most eminent psychologist of the 20th century.

He emphasized the need for psychologists to focus on environmental events and behavior that can be observed and measured. Watson’s research directly contributed to behaviorism becoming the dominant psychological school of thought in the United States from the 1920s to the 1930s. 

John B. Watson's Early Life

John Broadus Watson was born on January 9, 1878 in Travelers Rest, South Carolina. His parents were Pickens Butler Watson and Emma Kesiah Watson. Watson’s older siblings were Edward, Thomas Stradley, and Mary Alice. His parents would have two more children after he was born.

Pickens and Emma Watson lost most of their wealth during the American Civil War. As a result, Watson and his siblings lived a simple life on the family farm. Watson’s grandfather, James Madison Watson, helped to establish one of several Baptist churches in the area. Most of his family members were devout fundamental baptists and did not smoke, drink, or dance.

Watson's mother, Emma, was a beautiful, strong, intelligent woman who was known for her devotion to her children and her religion. In fact, she named Watson after John Albert Broadus—an influential Baptist pastor in nearby Greenville who rose to national prominence. As a young boy, Watson was called “Broadus” rather than “John” or “John B.” Emma hoped that Watson would grow up and become a Baptist minister.

Religious Background

As an influential figure in the local church, Emma was determined to keep her children physically and morally clean. As a result, Watson was subjected to strict religious training. When he was still very young, Watson’s nurse told him that if he ever went out walking at night, the devil would snatch him away to hell. His mother approved of the story because it helped to keep him under control, but it caused Watson to develop an intense fear of darkness that stayed with him for the rest of his life. 

Watson’s father, Pickens, was a good-looking man who was impulsive, lazy and irresponsible. He did not share any of his family’s strict religious beliefs or moral standards. Pickens was well-known in the community as an alcoholic and a womanizer. After Watson was born, he would sometimes leave his family for weeks to spend time in the backwoods with his two Cherokee “wives.”

Despite his many shortcomings as a father, Pickens made time to teach Watson the hands-on skills that were needed to keep the farm running. Watson started attending school at age six and was milking cows and using tools by age nine. By the time he was twelve years old, Watson was a pretty decent carpenter. These skills would serve him very well as an adult when he was working on his various construction projects.

Adolescence 

When Watson was thirteen years old, his father left the family for good. Watson was deeply hurt and never forgave his father for abandoning them. This caused Watson to become more dependent on his mother and the two grew much closer. At school, he became more violent and rebellious and would often get low grades.

Soon after Pickens left,  Emma sold the farm to keep her family out of poverty and moved to nearby Greenville. She believed Greenville would offer Watson better opportunities and schooling than was possible in the rural town of Travelers Rest. During high school, Watson was arrested twice—once for fighting and once for firing a gun within city limits. However, Watson soon settled down after he realized that doing well in college was important if he wanted to become a successful man.

Educational Background

Watson entered Furman University in 1894 when he was sixteen years old. Furman was a Southern Baptist school that generally produced Baptist ministers. Watson was able to gain admission due to his mother’s influence and connections. He also managed to convince university officials that he had changed his rebellious ways.

While at Furman, Watson began to put more effort into his studies. But although he was improving academically, none of his grades were distinguished. After two years, he managed to get a job as an assistant at the university’s chemistry lab to help pay for his school expenses. He was also a member of the Kappa Alpha fraternity, however his poor social skills contributed to him making few friends in college.

When Watson was seventeen years old, he met Gordon Moore at Furman University. Moore was a stern clergy member and psychology professor who took the young Watson under his wing. During Watson’s senior year at Furman, Moore gave him a failing grade for his final paper, which caused Watson to stay at the institution for a fifth year. When 21 year old Watson completed the additional year of studies, he was awarded a master’s degree from the university rather than a bachelor’s degree.

Moore’s liberal religious views eventually led to him being fired from Furman University. When reflecting on his time at Furman, a 72 year old Watson claimed that Moore was an inspiration to him and that the only sermon he listened to at Furman was one delivered by Moore because “there wasn’t much religion in it.”

After graduating from Furman University, Watson chose to stay at home to help care for his sick mother. He began teaching children at a one-room school that he called the Batesburg Institute. Although he assumed the role of principal, he also served as the school’s handyman and janitor. His mother passed away in late 1900.

Discovering Psychology

A few weeks after his mother died, Watson determined that he needed to continue his education. He wanted to study philosophy and two preferred options were Princeton University and the University of Chicago. When he discovered that he needed to be able to read Greek and Latin to get admission to Princeton’s philosophy program, he focused on getting into the University of Chicago. A letter of recommendation from Furman professor Gordon Moore and a petition from Watson himself to the University of Chicago’s president saw him admitted in 1900 to study philosophy under the supervision of John Dewey.

It didn't take long for Watson to realize that a career in philosophy wasn’t for him. In addition to his philosophy courses, he decided to take classes on experimental psychology, neurology, physiology and animal behavior. He soon became interested in designing experiments to study animals in the laboratory. Watson earned his PhD in experimental psychology in 1903.

Watson stayed at the University of Chicago after receiving his doctoral degree because the institution was considered an intellectual hotbed. He accepted a teaching position at Johns Hopkins University in 1908 and was promoted to the chair of the psychology department soon after.

Watson’s Theory of Behaviorism

Watson first published his theory of behaviorism in 1913 in an article entitled Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It . In that article—sometimes called the “Behaviorist Manifesto”—Watson argued against the study of consciousness and other unobservable phenomena which had been the focus of psychology up to that time. In Watson’s view, psychology’s concern with such matters prevented it from being recognized as a legitimate science. The focus of the field, he insisted, should not be on unseen internal states that have to be inferred, but on external, observable behavior that can be directly measured. As such, he saw no value in studying covert events such as thoughts, perceptions, and sensations.

Watson’s goal was for psychology to be seen as a “purely objective experimental branch of natural science” with the goal of predicting and controlling behavior. Instead of a science of the mind, Watson pushed for psychology to become a science of behavior. He also argued that the methods being used in psychology (eg., introspection) were far too subjective and unscientific. He advocated for behavior to be studied using strictly objective methods under stringent laboratory conditions.

John B. Watson on Nature vs. Nurture

In the popular nature versus nurture debate, Watson took a firm, radical stance on the side of the environment. He rejected instinctive and genetic theories of human functioning and came to view all behavior as learned responses to environmental stimuli. Watson favored the classical conditioning theory of Ivan Pavlov and it became the cornerstone of his approach. He believed all overt behaviors could be adequately explained in terms of stimulus-response relationships, without the need to consider internal mental processes.

Watson further contended that many behaviors thought to be inherited are actually shaped by early childhood experiences. For example, he did not consider musical and athletic abilities to be inherited but reasoned that they developed through parental encouragement and reinforcement.

John B. Watson's Most Famous Quote 

Watson believed that infants came into the world as blank slates and could be trained to become whatever one wanted them to become, regardless of their genetic make-up. So convinced was he of this that he boldly asserted:

“Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select - doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggarman and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors.”

Watson’s View of Emotions

Watson saw emotions as nothing more than physiological reactions to environmental stimuli. According to this view, when an individual encounters specific stimuli, certain physiological changes are triggered and these changes are associated with overt bodily responses. For example, Watson noted that among infants, fear is associated with catching one’s breath, closing one’s eyes, and crying. In his writings on emotions, Watson gave no consideration to an individual’s perception of the stimuli, internal sensations, or subjective feeling states. These unobservable events were not considered important.

Watson believed that humans are born with just three basic emotions—fear, rage, and love. All other emotions were said to develop from these three. Watson suggested that the basic emotions are unlearned and are elicited by specific stimuli. In infants, fear is triggered by loud noises and a sudden loss of physical support , rage is produced by restrictions in movement, and love is evoked by stroking, rocking, or patting the infant. Watson believed that through the process of conditioning these emotions could later become associated with stimuli that did not elicit them originally.

• The Little Albert Experiment

In order to demonstrate how emotions could become attached to stimuli that did not originally produce them, Watson and his graduate student, Rosalie Raynor , undertook one of the most famous (and controversial) studies in the history of psychology. The subject of the experiment was an 11-month old infant named Albert.

At the beginning of the experiment, a white rat was placed near to Albert, who seemed attracted to it. He displayed no fear in relation to the animal. As he began reaching toward the rat, however, Watson struck a metal bar behind him with a hammer. The loud, sudden noise startled little Albert, causing him to jump and fall forward. As he reached for the rat a second time, the bar was struck again and he began to tremble. When this occurred a third time, Albert started crying.

By the seventh pairing of the white rat with the loud noise, Albert displayed fear in the presence of the rat, even when the noise was absent. Upon seeing the rat, he immediately began to cry and crawl away rapidly. A month later, Albert’s fear was still present. The researchers also found that his fear had been generalized to other white, furry animals and objects, including a rabbit, a dog, a fur coat, and a Santa Claus mask.

How Does John B. Watson's Contributions to Psychology Influence Current Practices?

Of course, a study of this nature would hardly be approved by an ethics committee today. Nevertheless, it clearly demonstrates how individuals can be conditioned to produce emotional responses to previously neutral stimuli. Watson concluded that this is the mechanism by which all adult emotions develop.

Watson and Raynor intended to reverse Albert’s fear but did not get the opportunity to do so as he was removed from the hospital where he had been staying. Under Watson’s supervision, another graduate student, Mary Cover Jones, later demonstrated how a child’s fear could be eliminated successfully using counterconditioning techniques.

Watson’s Thoughts on Child-Rearing

In a book released in 1928, The Psychological Care of the Infant and Child, Watson dispensed his views on the subject of child-rearing. Despite his emphasis on the importance of nurture in human development , his approach to parenting was anything but nurturing. Watson believed children should be treated as young adults and he advised parents against hugging and kissing their children or placing them in their laps. He suggested instead that they shake hands with their children or give them a pat on the head in recognition of their achievements.

Watson had no tolerance for sentimentality in the parent-child relationship and went as far as saying that a mother’s love is “a dangerous instrument which may inflict a never healing wound” on a child. He cautioned parents that if they were overly affectionate, their children would fail to become responsible, independent, or successful in life.

Application of Watson’s Theory

Watson was instrumental in advancing the school of behaviorism and his work has had an enduring impact on the field of psychology. His legacy can be seen in the current emphasis on experimentation and other objective research methods among modern psychologists. He also helped to establish learning as a key area for research and application. Although his extreme stance on the nature vs. nurture debate has been rejected, the importance he placed on experience and the environment during development continues to resonate within the field today.

Watson was the first to demonstrate that many of our emotional reactions are learned, particularly through the process of classical conditioning. If such reactions are learned, they can also be unlearned, as he and Mary Cover Jones later demonstrated. Psychologists today have applied this knowledge to their work with clients who are experiencing phobias and other negative emotions. Through counterconditioning techniques such as systematic desensitization , the anxiety experienced in the presence of the feared object is replaced with more positive emotions. In cases where positive emotions are associated with unwanted behaviors (eg., smoking), counterconditioning may also be employed. In aversion therapy , for example, the unwanted response is repeatedly associated with something unpleasant, eventually resulting in an avoidance of that behavior.

The type of learning demonstrated by Watson has also been applied by advertisers to enhance people’s view of their products and services. For example, advertisers for a car company may include an attractive female in commercials geared toward males. The idea is that the positive emotions naturally triggered by an attractive female will come to be associated with the car, prompting viewers to perceive the car itself in a positive light.

Criticisms of Watson’s Theory

Despite the profound impact Watson has had on the field of psychology, much of his work has been heavily criticized. Among the most common criticisms are the following:

Watson’s work with Little Albert, though significant, was ethically questionable on several grounds: (1) It is still not clear whether Watson and Raynor obtained informed consent from Albert’s mother, (2) The infant was exposed to severe stress at a very tender age, (3)The researchers did not extinguish the fear they had conditioned, and (4) There was no follow-up after the study to ensure the well-being of the child. There is also some evidence to suggest that Albert was not entirely healthy to begin with, which would limit the extent to which the results of the study can be generalized.

Watson’s overemphasis on observable behavior caused him to neglect the many internal processes that play a key role in human functioning. His view of human behavior has therefore been called mechanical and one-dimensional.

Watson’s position on the nature vs nurture controversy was quite extreme. He accounted for variations in human behavior solely on the basis of environmental factors, totally rejecting the influence of hereditary and instinctive factors. We now know that both nature and nurture play a role in shaping behavior.

Watson’s views regarding child-rearing were unscientific and according to some critics, bordered on dangerous. Watson later regretted writing his book on child-rearing, admitting that he did not know enough on the subject and that his views were not adequately supported by existing data.

John B. Watson's Books, Awards, and Accomplishments

Watson wrote several books based on his research. Some of his more well-known works include:

• Behavior: An introduction to comparative psychology,  1914
• Psychology from the standpoint of a behaviorist, 1919
• Conditioned Emotional Reactions, 1920
• Behaviorism, 1924
• Psychological Care of Infant and Child, 1928

Watson was elected president of the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1915. In 1957 he received the Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions from the APA.

Personal Life

John Watson married Mary Ickes in 1901 while he was pursuing his graduate studies. Mary was a student in one of his classes at the University of Chicago and had developed a crush on him. The couple had a son and a daughter who were named John and Mary respectively. However the couple divorced years later due to Watson’s ongoing affair with his research assistant Rosalie Rayner at Johns Hopkins University.

Watson’s affair made front page news as his wife Mary and his lover Rayner both had political connections. After Mary found love letters from Watson in Rayner’s bedroom, excerpts from the letters were published in the Baltimore newspapers. The affair became such a distraction that the university asked Watson to choose between his job or his lover. After his divorce from Mary was finalized, he left Johns Hopkins and married Rayner in 1920. At the time, Watson was 42 years old and Rayner was 21.

Watson’s affair with Rayner brought a sudden end to his academic career. He eventually went into the advertising industry. Watson and Rayner had two boys together. Their names were William and James. Sadly, Rayner passed away in 1935 at the age of 36.

Watson was often criticized by family members for raising his children according to his behaviorist principles. Of his four children, three of them (Mary, William, and James) attempted suicide. William eventuallly died of suicide in 1954 after a second attempt. Later in his life, Watson burned a very large portion of his personal papers and letters. This act robbed later scholars of the opportunity to better understand the early history of behaviorism and the type of person Watson was.

When Did John B. Watson Die? 

Despite his old age, Watson was still strong willed and opinionated. He was also still bitter about the criticism he had received from his detractors. In 1957, Watson was awarded the American Psychological Association’s highest honor for his contributions to the field of psychology. He died on September 25, 1958 at the age of 80.

Aalai, A. (2015). Rethinking John B. Watson’s legacy . Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-first-impression/201511/rethinking-john-b-watsons-legacy

Encyclopedia Britannica. (n.d.). John B. Watson. In Encyclopedia Britannica . Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-B-Watson

Hergenhahn, B. R. (2005). An introduction to the history of psychology (5th ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth.

Kimble, G. A., Wertheimer, M. & White, C. L. (1991). Portraits of pioneers in psychology. Psychology Press

Schultz, D. P., & Schultz, S. E. (2016). A history of modern psychology (11th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.

Sheehy, N. (2004). Fifty key thinkers in psychology. London: Routledge

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