Little Albert Watson and Rayner (1920)

Little Albert Watson and Rayner (1920)

1. aim

   • To investigate whether an emotional response such as fear could be conditioned in a human being.

2. method

   • Albert was 11 months old when the study began. he was presented with a white rat and when he reached for the rat, Watson would simultaneously hit a metal bar with a hammer. this pairing of the stimuli occurred several times during a number of weeks

3. results

   • Watson found that when the rat alone was presented to Albert, he immediately became frightened and showed an attempt to move away from it.

4. conclusion

   • Watson and Rayner successfully demonstrated that behaviour is learnt and that a phobia of rats could be conditioned in a baby.

5. evaluation

   • The experimental design and process was not carefully constructed. Watson and Rayner did not develop an object means to evaluate Albert's reactions, instead relying on their own subjective interpretations.
   • The experiment raised a lot of ethical concerns. Albert was subjected to a lot of uneccessary harm and distress that he wouldn't experience in normal day to day life. also, he could not have given his own informed consent and so his parents should have been fully warned about the true nature of the experiment.
   • This study was based on one case and one person so it cannot be generalised to the wider population because we cannot be sure that all other people would react in the same way.