The “Little Albert Experiment”, The Most Unethical Experiment Conducted In Psychological History

5The child was exposed to more objects

The child would be exposed to even more such incidents to induce fear within him. One also wonders why would scientists conduct experiments on fear. Would it help them gain insight into treating abuse, panic disorders, trauma and depression in adults? It doesn’t take a scientist to know that childhood insecurity and abuse does give way to adult fears and panic disorders later on in life.

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6Albert’s fears slowly grew in number

As expected little Albert soon learnt to associate fear with a number of objects. He displayed fear and distress each time he saw a furry object. By the end of the experiment, Albert displayed identical responses to objects as harmless as cotton balls and a white rabbit.  Even when he saw an image of Santa Claus, he associated the beard with fear of a white furry object. Albert’s responses proved to the scientists that fear was firmly entrenched into his mind and locked into his memory. Little Albert was seen several times crawling away or trying to hide even from the Santa Claus mask. Their experiment was successful.

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7One of Watson’s comments

Watson recorded his observations and interpreted his experiments in his own way. Here is one of his observations describing how the child would react

"The instant the rat was shown, the baby began to cry. Almost instantly he turned sharply to the left, fell over on [his] left side, raised himself on all fours and began to crawl away so rapidly that he was caught with difficulty before reaching the edge of the table."

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8The most notorious experiment in modern history

The evil and unethical experiment was frowned upon by many in psychological circles. According to some reports, Albert’s mother also worked in Hopkins University and had no inkling of what was going on with her baby although there are reports disputing that fact. Original notes uncovered stated that the mother was a wet nurse at the hospital who may have been coerced into consenting to Watson’s experiments on her child.

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