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John Watson's Experiment: The Little Albert Experiment

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11PSC11C- AT1- 715797T PART B- Explain how this design was undertaken The Little Albert Experiment demonstrated that classical conditioning works in human beings. Albert was a 9-month-old baby who had not previously demonstrated any fear of rats.Psychologist John Watson placed a rat on the table in front of Albert at the beginning of the experiment, and Albert had no reaction. Then on several separate occasions John Watson began making loud noises whilst showing Albert the rat. Following this Albert cried in reaction to the noise and, after a period of conditioning, cried in response to the rat even without the loud noise. This was the start to classical conditioning. When putting aside the fame and fortune of this experiment, Watson violated most ethical standards according to ethical research of today 's time. No approval was provided, no guarantee of the subject’s safety was …show more content…

Nowadays you are given the right that you can withdraw at any stage during a study without consequence (Xavier College, 2018). In saying that participants have to be given as much information about the certain study as possible before it’s conducted so that they can ultimately make a decision about participating based on facts that they know. This is termed “debriefing” (Xavier College, 2018). In the Little Albert Experiment Albert’s mother was unaware of the conditions. Little Albert was harmed during and their was an existing potential that he could have faced life-long harm as a worst case scenario (Alexander Burgemeester, 2017). While there are many former psychologists questioning the behaviour of the father of “behavioral psychology”, the method used in this study was certainly not classed as good psychology and there was poor professional conduct throughout (Xavier College, 2018). Overall there was only one subject and the experiment lacks any form of

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