Rayner's Little Albert Experiment

Little Albert Experiment

Who were the experimenters?

The experimenters were John B. Watson and his student and wife Rosalie Rayner. John B Warner first studied at Furman University then with the help of his professor, Gordon Moore, moved to the University of Chicago. He started developing interest in the field of comparative psychology and studying animals. In 1903 he received his doctorate and later became an associate professor of psychology at Johns Hopkins University. In 1913 he came up with the idea of “behaviorism”. Behaviorism explains the ability to predict and control people’s actions (Watson, 1999). Rosalie Rayner graduated from Vassar College in 1919 and enrolled at Johns Hopkins University for graduate studies. At Johns Hopkins she became an assistant to John B. Watson and embarked on the now infamous “little Albert” experiments which resulted with an affair between Watson and Rayner. As a result of this Watson was forced to leave the University, Rayner also left, without completing her degree. They then moved to Connecticut and had two children who they raised using the behaviorist principles (Smirle, 2013).

What was the hypothesis?

The hypothesis was that little Albert could be taught to fear certain things, he would acquire a fear response to a white rat through classical conditioning after the white rat had been paired with a loud noise.

Who were the participants?

The participant was a little boy who they decided to name “little Albert”, or “Albert B”. However recent discoveries have said to find the real identity of the boy, who according to them was named Douglas Merritte. There was a preconditioning period, almost from birth up to the age of nine months when the real tests began. The last recorded observatio...

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...ert meaning it could be biased. There is also no informed consent on any data base. The study caused severe distress in the child. It is also known that the child known to be little Albert, Douglas Merritt, was diagnosed with hydrocephalus and it is thought that Watson knew about this. Regardless of whether or not Warner knew about it, Albert’s temperament and behavior were not within the normal range for his age. Retardation, and autism spectrum disorder might have been the reason why Albert responded in such ways during the experiment. However there is a different theory that his disorder was caused after the study due to the frigid temperatures and bright lights, however this is very unlikely (Fridlund, Hall, Williams, 2011)

What were the contributions to the science of psychology?

Classical conditioning was proven to work and behaviorism was a proven theory now.