The Little Albert Experiment
John Watson and Rosalie Raynor decided to take Pavlov's experiment a step further to show that emotional reactions could be classically conditioned in people. Their test subject known as Little Albert was exposed to a series of stimuli including a white rat, a rabbit, a monkey, masks and burning newspapers. The boy showed no initial fear the first time he was presented with the objects but the next time a loud noise was created by hitting a metal pipe with a hammer was paired with the white rat. The boy, being startled, began to cry. After repeating the experiment many time the boy was conditioned to cry the moment he saw the rat.
This experiment was successful because it proved their theory that emotional reactions could be classically conditioned in people. They created a control group by first exposing the boy to only the objects then added in the loud noise. They proved that emotions such as fear can be caused by accidental conditioning in our early lives, a topic that should be studied further. The experiment however did include some errors as all experiments do. Watson and Raynor only used one test subject, Little Albert. There is also the moral issue that questioned in this experiment which is the emotional health of the boy. Albert's guardians did allow for him to be used in the experiment but people question whether they really new the risk they were taking. Albert continued to have many problems as a result of this experiment that carried over into his adult life. |
If I were to conduct this same experiment I would do some things different. I would use several different test subjects to insure my data is as accurate as possible. I would also use older test subjects because I think Little Albert was too young at only nine months. Using older test subjects would show if the emotions of teens and adults can also be classically conditioned the same way as infants and would hopefully not be as harmful to the individual. |