Little Albert Experiment

Any introductory Psychology book begins with one of the field’s most famous experiments; The Little Albert Experiment. This experiment, conducted by John Watson in the 1920s, was his pet project to understand the emotional conditioning in humans, especially babies. In order to conduct this experiment, Watson and his graduate student Rosalie Rayner in John Hopkins University chose the son of a wetnurse named Arvilla Merritte who had lived and worked at the campus premises at the time of the experiment. She had also received $1 for allowing her nine-month-old baby to participate.

And thus, Watson and his student embarked on the journey to study emotional conditioning. They called the 9-month old baby “Albert B'' and left him to play with a white rat and other furry objects. After some time, whenever Albert played with the white rat, they would blare a loud sound behind the baby’s head. After numerous conditioning trails, they once again brought back the rat and other furry objects, but this time without the scary noise. However, over the conditioning trials, little Albert had harboured fear for these objects, the very same ones he had enjoyed a while back. Soon enough, Albert began to cry simply at the site of the rat. To quote directly from Watson, "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."

The Little Albert experiment gave solid proof of how classical conditioning works and how it can be used to condition an emotional response. They were also able to observe how “stimulus generalisation” had occurred. After the conditioning trials, Albert feared not just the white rat but also similar white or furry objects.

Despite its central role in guiding psychology studies, the experiment has come under much scrutiny. One is its flawed design, where the critics accuse Watson and Rayner of not developing an objective means to quantify Albert’s reactions. Instead, they relied on their own interpretations. The more glaring shortcoming of this experiment is its ethics. The investigation left Little Albert conditioned to have an intense fear for white, furry objects, which Watson and Rayner did not attempt to address or “un-condition” the child. It could have been possible that a little boy grew up into a man with strange phobias for white and furry objects.

But that remains a mystery to this day, what happened to Little Albert? Who was Little Albert?

To answer these questions, Hall P. Beck, a psychologist, led a seven-year-long search to track down the identity of the mother and the son. Their search led them to Little Albert, whose name is actually Douglas Merrite. But they found that Douglas died at the age of 6 due to hydrocephalus ( a condition where fluid builds up in his brain), something the boy had suffered since his birth. Beck writes,” Our search of seven years was longer than the little boy’s life”. Later in 2012, Beck and Alan J Fridlund revealed convincing evidence of how Watson was aware of this condition and deliberately concealed them. Watson, in his original experiment, had reported that “little Albert” was a normal, healthy child.

A few other scientists have also provided evidence of another boy named William Barger, who might be the real Little Albert. According to his birth records, Barger was also born on the same day as Merritte to a wet nurse who also worked in the same hospital. William was known by his middle name, “Albert”, his entire life.

Hence in the lack of conclusive evidence, it’s impossible to find the true identity of Little Albert. Yet, the child has left an everlasting impression on the field of psychology.