Mick Hartley: Little Albert

A famous psychology study from 1920, the Little Albert experiment was an attempt by behaviourist John Watson to show that fear of previously neutral objects could be instilled in very young children by the methods of classical conditioning, ie associating the object - in this case a white rat - with a frightening stimulus, such as a loud noise. It was all part of Watson's more general efforts to prove his theory that babies are born as blank slates, every aspect of whose behaviour is subsequently learned through the process of conditioning.

Well, it worked, apparently. The poor child, a nine-month-old baby, did indeed develop a fear of the rat, and by extension of other furry animals such as rabbits - and even of Watson himself when he appeared in front of him "wearing a Santa Claus mask with white cotton balls as his beard". Well it had to be the cotton balls, obviously. Why else would the child be frightened?

Though you'd have to say here it's more of a "wtf?" than a scream of terror, and Watson - if that is indeed the great man himself - looks more like Krusty the Clown after a heavy night out.

It's not clear whether Watson tried other masks: a werewolf perhaps, making loud blood-curdling yells as he approached, while the child was jabbed repeatedly with a sharp pin. Or maybe that was the next stage if this one didn't work. It's possible that the child developed a terror of pretty much anything. But Watson was happy enough: he'd proved the point to his satisfaction, and somehow never quite got round to de-sensitising little Albert to remove the conditioned fear.

Albert's identity was uncovered with reasonable certainty in 2010 as one Douglas Merritte, the son of an unmarried wet-nurse named Arvilla Merritte who lived and worked at the campus hospital (Johns Hopkins) where the experiment took place, and received $1 for her baby's participation. And was clearly, as a single mother in a low status job, in no position to turn down a request from such a distinguished man of science.

As if all this wasn't sordid enough, new revelations (via) suggest that poor Albert was far from being a normal child anyway. It was known that he died at the age of six from hydrocephalus. Now it turns out that the hydrocephalus was congenital, and even at the age of a few weeks it was noted that the wee lad had problems. He couldn’t see well, and, according to relatives, never learned to walk or talk. Which clearly should have precluded his participation in any research which claimed to have universal application - never mind the grotesque morality of terrifying a handicapped baby as part of a supposedly scientific experiment.

But maybe that's what John Watson wanted. He must have known the child was abnormal. If Albert was a little nearer the blank slate condition than other babies, well, so much the better. Why risk failure? One of the authors of the latest study, Alan Fridlund, concluded that not only did Watson know of Albert’s condition; he intentionally misrepresented it.

Psychologists, eh? Why is it that so many of the supposed pioneers in the field turn out on closer inspection to be generally dubious characters, prone to taking shortcuts and manipulating data? - or, in other words, charlatans? At the other end of the psychological spectrum from Watson in terms of theory, Freud was notable for his self-aggrandising and cavalier way with the facts, while here in the UK we had the unedifying spectacle of Sir Cyril Burt, one of the leading pioneers in the field, being accused of fabricating data to support his theories on the inheritance of intelligence. The list could go on...

Someone should do some research on it.

Comments

Watson sounds like Dr. Marvin Monroe off "The Simpsons". Here he is describing his special "Monroe Box" to Grampa:

Monroe: It's a special isolation chamber. The subject pulls levers to receive food and water. The floor can become electrified, and showers of icy water randomly fall on the subject. I call it...the Monroe Box!

Grampa: Uh huh. Sounds interesting. How much will it cost to build?

Monroe: Oh, that's the beauty part! It's already built! I need the money to buy a baby to raise in the box until the age of thirty.

Grampa: What are you trying to prove?

Monroe: Well, my theory is that the subject will be socially maladjusted and will harbour a deep resentment towards me.

Grampa: Hmm. Interesting.

Posted by: JC | January 29, 2012 at 01:05 PM