Little Albert (1920)

• Little Albert experiment


  • Neutral stimulus = white rat
  • Unconditioned stimulus = loud noise
  • Unconditioned response = fear
  • Conditioned stimulus = white rat
  • Conditioned response = fear
• The Little Albert experiment showed that human emotional responses can develop as a result of classical conditioning and that most of our fears are learned rather than inborn
• Little Albert (1920): AIM


  to identify whether or not human emotional responses (i.e. fear) are learned from environmental stimuli (white rat and loud noise of hammer hitting metal bar), proving experimental evidence for classical conditioning
• Little Albert (1920): METHOD

  • 9 months, Watson and Rayner exposed child to a series of stimuli including a rabbit, white rat, a monkey, masks, and burning newspaper and observed me boys reaction
  • no initial fear of stimuli shown
  • Little Albert was known to cry whenever he heard loud noises.
  • The next time Albert was exposed to the rat, Watson made a loud noise by hitting a metal pipe with a hammer.
  • After repeatedly pairing the white rat with the loud noise, Albert began to cry after seeing the rat
  • Albert was then exposed to stimuli that shared the same characteristics of fur /hair.
• Little Albert (1920): RESEARCH DESIGN

  • experimental
  • subjective qualitative
  • written observations of behaviour
• Little Albert (1920): FINDINGS

  • Albert was conditioned to feel fear from the sight of the rat after multiple pairings with the loud noise + touching rat stimulus generalisation occurs
  • Watson monitored Albert for 10 days after the conditioning, Alberts fear of rats was less marked
  • however, even after a full month, still evident and the association could still be renewed by repeating the original procedure a few times
  • demonstration showed that human emotional response...

  1. could develop as a result of classical conditioning and that
  2. most of our fears are learnt rather than inborn
• Little Albert (1920): FINDINGS

  • unconditioned stimulus: hammer struck against a steel bar behind his head.
  • unconditioned response: scared → crying
  • conditioned stimulus: sight of the white rat.
  • neutral stimulus: white rat before being paired with loud noise
  • conditioned response: fear of white rat.
  • neutral stimulus became es which was paired with US which produced CR.
• Little Albert (1920): CONTRIBUTIONS TO PSYCHOLOGY

  • Watson had shown that it was possible to create a phobia using classical conditioning
  • a phobia is an irational fear out of proportion to the threat.
  • classical conditioning works on humans
• Little Albert (1920): CONCLUSION

  • never debriefed Albert
  • died at age 6
• Little Albert (1920): CRITICISMS

  • findings: cannot be generalised to others due to low external validity, Albert had been in a hospital environment since birth and he was unusual. No control subject and no objective measurement of fear response
  • method: not carefully constructed, did not develop an objective measure to evaluate Albert's reactions (instead relying on their own subjective interpretations)
  • ethics: no written informed consent (only verbal), no debrief, no protection from harm, no confidentiality