The Controversial Little Albert Experiment Sheds Light on Phobia Creation

The Little Albert was an experiment performed by Watson and Rayner based on a phobia. The hypothesis to this experiment was tested to see would the pairing of a neutral stimulus evoke a response to possibly generate irrational fears in a person. In this case, the neutral stimulus was based solely upon itself, not responding with an unconditional stimulus. Little Albert was a nine month old baby who was tested on his reactions to many different stimuli. He was shown different types of objects like a white rat, rabbit, monkey, and various masks. Albert showed no fear or emotion towards the objects. However, he did become scared when a hammer was struck against a steel bar behind his head. The surprise of the loud noise caused Albert to burst into to tears.

When Albert got a little older the white rat was presented and seconds later the hammer would strike the steel bar. This was completed multiple times over seven weeks. Each time it was done, Albert would burst into tears. When the rat was visible around Little Albert he would suddenly present fever symptoms. He would then start to cry and attempt to crawl away by just seeing the rat instead of hearing the hammer strike the steel bar. Watson and Rayner found that little Albert developed a phobia of objects which shared characteristics with the rat, this process was known as generalization.

Watson and Rayner proved that classical conditioning could be used to create a phobia. Classical conditioning is a learning process that occurs when two stimuli are repeatedly paired; a response that is at first elicited by the second stimulus is eventually elicited by the first stimulus alone. Over the next few weeks and months, Little Albert was closely observed. Ten days after conditioning his fear of the rat, his fear 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 more times. Watson and Rayner came to the conclusion that they had successful succeeded in conditioning an infant's fear of an animal that a child would not usually be scared of.

Order custom essay The Controversial Little Albert Experiment Sheds Light on Phobia Creation with free plagiarism report

450+ experts on 30 subjects Starting from 3 hours delivery

Get Essay Help

Stimulus generalization also claimed that Albert transferred the fear to other similar stimuli. From the fact the conditioned response was still present after thirty-one days, Watson and Rayner then came to the conclusion of the response lasting a lifetime. Later after the experiments, everyone began to wonder what happened to Little Albert. Come to find out, he and his mother moved away from John Hopkins and disappeared. By using financial records, a women by the name of Beck found out where they were located. However, the end of the story ended somewhat sad. Little Albert died at six years of age developing hydrocephalus. Hydrocephalus is basically described as fluid entering the skull, causing the brain to swell.

Palov's dogs and The Little Albert experiment were kind of alike in some aspects and different in some aspects. They are both alike because they both used classical conditioning to produce a new learned response. Only difference is that one used a human and the other used an animal. In Palov's experiment he used a bell as his neutral stimulus, the unconditioned stimulus was the food, which produced an unconditioned response like salivation. Whenever Palov gave the dogs food, he rang the bell. After a number of repeats of the process, he tried to just ring the bell on its own. The bell on its own caused an increase of salivation. As you can see the dogs had learned an association between the bell and the food and a new behavior had been taught, which is called a conditioned response.

Little Albert learned to fear objects that had the same characteristics as the rat. In the Little Albert experiment, the neutral stimulus was the white rat and the unconditioned stimulus was the loud noise. The unconditioned response was fear and the conditioned stimulus was the white rat. The Conditioned Response was Fear. As shown, both experiments had quite a lot in common. The Little Albert experiment was considered unethical for numerous of reasons. The first reason was it created a long-term fear of rats for the child that was later generalized into a fear of other fluffy animals and white fluffy objects. In today's day and time, it would be considered unethical to cause harm to a human in an experiment, except if permission was granted from participant.

The worst part of this experiment was, the infant was not treated for his fears; this is considered unethical as these fears would have led to a miserable life. Also another issue is that Albert's mother appeared not to have given fully-informed consent to experiment on her son. The third reason is the right to withdraw falls under questioning because when Little Albert became clearly distressed, the study continued. Once again, that is a major red-flag because having a child in distress and not doing anything to help is considered as mistreatment. Since this experiment, the American Psychological Association has banned similar studies citing them as unethical.

Citations:

1. Mason, R. (2013, February 04). Copy of Little Albert Experiment. Retrieved October 17,
   2017, from https://prezi.com/or0suf6ikxej/copy-of-little-albert-experiment/
2. McLeod, S. (1970, January 01). Saul McLeod. Retrieved October 17, 2017, from
   https://www.simplypsychology.org/pavlov.html
3. McLeod, S. (1970, January 01). Saul McLeod. Retrieved October 17, 2017, from
   https://www.simplypsychology.org/classical-conditioning.html

Don't let plagiarism ruin your grade

Run a free check or have your essay done for you

Check my essay Hire Writer