For this weeks blog i am going to be evaluating the research methods used within a dated yet interesting study carried out by Watson & Raynor (1920) entitled ‘Conditioned Emotional Responses. The focus of this study was on conditioning and the idea that two different stimuli can be paired together resulting in certain responses depending on the nature of the stimuli used.
To begin il go through the method of the experiment for anyone who isn’t already familiar with the study. Watson & Raynor initially recruited Albert, a 9 month old orphan from a hospital in which he was raised. To test whether Albert held any fears to certain stimuli prior to the experiment he was presented with a number of stimuli (e.g. a white rat, a dog and cotton wool), his reactions were carefully recorded an proved that Albert showed no fear towards any of them. The next phase of the experiment was carried out when Albert was 11 months old and involved the pairing of the certain stimuli. Albert was first presented with a white rat, meanwhile a steel bar 4 feet in length was struck with a hammer behind him startling Albert and making him cry. This process was repeated a number of times and as a result as the white rat was presented to Albert alone he reacted with extreme fear, crawling away and crying. This showed Watson & Raynor that a certain response had been conditioned to an stimuli that was not originally feared. A further phase of the experiment took place in which the experimenters tested to see if the conditioned fear could be evoked by similar stimuli, Albert was accordingly presented with a white rabbit and similar reactions were experienced to those shown when faced with a white rat. These effects were still experienced when Albert was tested again a month later.
Il now move on to the evaluation of Watson & Raynor’s experiment. As all of you are probably thinking after reading the methods there is one big problem that clearly arises throughout the experiment and that is of course the treatment of Albert, just an innocent 11 month old infant. Obviously back in the 20’s there was no where near as many ethical guidelines as today and that is why it was able to go on but it is clear that there is a possibility for significant emotional damage to Albert in the long run and his best interests were defiantly not in mind when carrying out the experiment. Watson & Raynor did plan for a recondition stage of the experiment in which the effects would be reversed but as far as their records go this did not take place. As a result we can assume these fears stayed with Albert throughout his life and may have caused him a lot of problems.
A second criticism is to do with the external validity of the experiment. All the phases of the experiment were carried out in a lab rather than in real life settings and environments. This poses questions regarding whether or not Albert would have reacted in the same way in environments he recognized such as the hospital he was used to. Obviously there is no way this experiment could take place today but if it was possible this could be one aspect of the experiment that could be changed.
In conclusion, the study of Little Albert did indeed give us a huge insight into classical conditioning, which at the time was completely unexplored but obviously it holds a number of downfalls which may not have been a problem at the time but in today’s field of psychology would have seen them banned from psychology for a very long time.
Thanks for reading!!!!!!
psucd6psychology 
I think you make a very good point about the bad points of the Little Albert study. I agree that the ethics of the study are very dubious. Little Albert couldn’t consent, was harmed in the sense that fear was evoked and was long lasting and there was no debriefing or reconditioning. There is also little external validity. However, there were some good points to the study. The Little Albert study was the first to show that classical conditioning can occur in humans. Although Ivan Pavlov showed that classical conditioning can be demonstrated in dogs but there were no experiments in this area involving humans. One advantage of this study also is that it was very carefully documented and was very strictly controlled. Only one variable was changed at a time and witnesses helped to document the data. There are many studies that have problems with reliability but Little Albert was very carefully controlled therefore making sure that there was no problem with reliability. (http://www.integratedsociopsychology.net/little_albert.html)
Comment by PSUD00 — March 14, 2012 @ 6:50 pm |
[…] https://psucd6psychology.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/an-evaluation-of-little-albert/#comment-49 […]
Pingback by Homework for my TA | PSUD00 — March 14, 2012 @ 6:52 pm |
Hi there!
Further research has actually found out that, Little Albert had a disability called hydrocephalus, (build up of fluid in the brain). He was not a healthy child and how he behaved and reacted may not reflect children with “normal” development. This makes it difficult to generalise to typical normal developing children.
Another Problem with the study by Watson and Raynor is that it was a case study. The experiment only used one child, so can we really generalise the findings from one baby boy, to baby girls, to children, too all humans? Not really, a large-scale study, with a representative sample would be needed in order to find out whether we can condition emotional responses or not. However if this study was to be repeated today, I very much doubt it would get ethic approval. That does not mean that we cannot study classical conditioning in humans at all, it is just not ethical to condition children or babies to have fears. It produces more negative effects to participants than what they would begin with.
The study actually goes against a main ethical principle of today, beneficence and non- maleficence. Even though ethical principles such as this one were not around in the 1920’s, it shows a weakness of their study, as nowadays this research would not be able to be repeated. Beneficence and non-maleficence, is that, research should contribute to societal good and should be beneficial and not harmful. I think that we can all agree that the study was both harmful and stressful for Little Albert. Furthermore, individuals should sustain direct and immediate help. Again Little Albert didn’t receive this, and he also didn’t receive the help to have the phobias unconditioned. It states that individuals should outweigh societal benefits, however it looks as though here, research outweighed the welfare of Albert.
Another problem to highlight is that Watson and Raynor recorded detailed descriptions of little Albert’s behaviour themselves, and therefore some criticise the results as being highly subjective. Watson and Raynor could have written what they wanted people to know and not what actually happened. To further add to this, it came to the attention of Beck, that Watson was aware that the child (little Albert) suffered from health problems from birth but purposely misrepresented the condition. This seems to support the idea that Watson wanted the public to know about his experiment and the idea of conditioning emotional responses, even at the cost of leaving important information such as the boy’s health and welfare out.
Here is a useful link about the study of Little Albert: http://psychology.about.com/od/classicpsychologystudies/a/little-albert-experiment.htm
Comment by rgjblog — March 14, 2012 @ 6:56 pm |
[…] https://psucd6psychology.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/an-evaluation-of-little-albert/#comment-51 […]
Pingback by Homework for my TA 14.3.12 « rgjblog — March 14, 2012 @ 7:50 pm |
So upon reading your blog I started to research the area due to the previous comments about Little Albert, that Albert was not actually being a ‘healthy child’. The BPS claim that Little Albert was identified and that he died at age 6 because if his illness. (http://www.thepsychologist.org.uk/blog/blogpost.cfm?catid=48&threadid=2178) However, critically analysing the research If the child was not ‘healthy’ it could be argued that the research would not be generalizable to the public. Also, more issues with this research is that it was only one child used in this study, this doesn’t account for the individual differences in the child, such as the health and temperament etc. Further, I agree about the ecological validity, this research was indeed carried out in a research lab so in the real world the results could be differently. This research did prompt further conditioning research such as B.F Skinners (1948) skinner box, so although the original Watson and Rayners (1920) research has flaws, it gave way for more research on the subject. Also, when I read your blog I thought of a book called ‘The Brave New World’ (by Aldous Huxley, 1932) which is a fictional book about reproductive technology which talks of conditioning children so not only did it develop further research it prompted the imagination of an author, it’s a great read if you haven’t read it.
Comment by psuc28 — March 14, 2012 @ 10:12 pm |
There were no ethical guidelines around in the 1920s (they were developed by the APA even after Milgram’s prolific experiment in 1968). Like you have said, there is no way Watson and Raynor would have been able to conduct an experiment like this nowadays even if there were some ends to their means. The fact they applied classical conditioning to a young child is bad enough as it is until it is discovered that they conditioned an irreversible phobia in young Albert. What might have made it more ethical would be to apply similar methods to reduce the phobic behaviours (Rimm, D. C., & Masters, J. C. (1987). Behavior therapy: Techniques and empirical findings. New York: Academic Press), which have been proved effective when trying to overcome specific phobias.
Like the comment above me has also found, I was reading this article from the BPS over the weekend about the identity of Little Albert and the apparent tragedy surrounding the study http://www.bps.org.uk/news/another-twist-little-albert-tale. The fact that the infant was apparently suffering from the brain condition, hydroencephalous at the time of the experiment makes the whole thing seem even more unethical than we had originally considered. The conduct of Watson therefore becomes questionable, as he surely would have been aware of the infants medical history and neurological impairment.
Despite being one of the pioneering studies for classical conditioning and the behaviourism paradigm, the new evidence combined with the fact it was only a case study makes it extremely difficult to generalise to a further population. We will never know whether the child was neurologically impaired or not and what effects this had the on the ability to condition a phobia. The possibility of the impairment also makes it even harder to generalise the results and replication would be virtually impossible due to the unethical nature of the experiment. Finally, the subjective analyses by Watson and Raynor appropriately suit their own theories, which opens up the study for further criticism as there is risk for biased interpretation.
Comment by psucc2 — March 14, 2012 @ 10:32 pm |
I usually do not drop a comment, but I read a few fadcecegddkakgdk
Comment by Smithd819 — October 16, 2016 @ 10:22 pm |
Taking A Break In A Relationship
An evaluation of Little Albert | psucd6psychology
Trackback by Taking A Break In A Relationship — August 10, 2020 @ 4:22 am |