Ethics+of+Lil+Albert

=Unit 4=

Dot Point 4.
 **• the extent to which ethical principles were applied to classic research investigations into learning including John Watson’s ‘Little Albert’ experiment ** **The Case of Little Albert – Watson and Rayner 1920 ** The Little Albert experiment was an experiment showing empirical evidence of classical conditioning. It was conducted in 1920 by John B. Watson along with Rosalie Rayner, his assistant whom he later married. The study was done at Johns Hopkins University. **Methodology: **Before the start of the experiment, when Albert was 9 months old, Watson and Rayner ran Little Albert through emotional tests. The infant was confronted briefly and for the first time to a white rat, a rabbit, a dog, a monkey, masks with and without hair, cotton wool, burning newspapers etc. The infant at no time showed any fear. The actual experiment with Little Albert had Watson exposing Albert to a loud sound (made by a bar being banged right behind Albert’s head) while being presented with a white rat. It is important to note that before Albert cried or screamed he thrust his thumb into his mouth, originally. This stimulus made him forget about the loud sound. It took more than 30 times for Watson to finally take Albert’s thumb out to get the required reaction. First Albert was exposed to a rat. He did not cry after reaching it with his left hand. But when he reached for it with his right, he began to whimper. The second time, a week after, after a series of testing, Albert was able to cry by only being presented with the rat. Five days later, Albert showed generalization by reacting to a dog, a fur coat, Watson’s hair and cotton wool. During the whole experiment, Albert was happy to play with blocks at any time. This testing continued, including more of the above objects and more, like a Santa Claus mask. Unfortunately, Albert was taken from the hospital the day the last tests were made. Hence the opportunity of developing an experimental technique for removing the Conditioned Emotional Response was denied. Had the opportunity existed, they would have tried several methods: i) constantly confronting the child with those stimuli which produced the responses, in the hope that habituation would occur ii) trying to “recondition” by showing objects producing fear responses (visual) while simultaneously stimulating the erogenous zones (tactual), first the lips, then the nipples, and, as a last resort, the sexual organs. iii) Trying to “recondition” by feeding him candy or other food just as the animal is shown iv) building up “constructive” activities around the object by imitation and putting the hand through the motions of manipulation. It has also been posited that Watson knew in advance when he would no longer have access to the child and did not plan for any reconditioning. **Be acutely aware of Watson and Rayner’s 1920 study with the infant Little Albert. You should be able to accurately describe the aim, procedures and findings of their study as well as the ethical breaches that occurred. **

** Summary of Ethical Breaches Watson and Raynor made with ‘Little Albert’. **
 * The experiment was designed to condition an emotional response of fear in the participant. It could therefore reasonable by assumed that the participant would be emotionally traumatised by the experiment, and that he may have __suffered lasting psychological harm__ as a result.


 * Watson failed to seek permission from Albert’s mother’ therefore, __no informed consent__ was obtained and __withdrawal rights__ were not explained.


 * Watson did not __debrief__ either Albert or his mother, to __extinguish the conditioned fear__ response, and though no one is sure what became of Little Albert, he was probably left with an irrational fear of anything white and fluffy.

**Resources: **
 * Watson failed to follow the ethical principles of __confidentiality__. He published results of his experiment without ensuring that Little Albert would remain anonymous.