Little Albert Experiment

    Today in psychology we learned about this experiment called the "Little Albert Experiment."  Basically, what happened is this institution took a small child about the age of 2, Albert.  They would show him a small white rat.  And instinctively Albert would reach out for it, to play with this furry white thing.  But every time he reached for it, the scientists would bang an anvil with a hammer behind the child.  Scaring him senseless.  Soon the child would scream and cry whenever he even saw the white rat.  And that fear was soon generalized to other white furry objects, stuffed animals, fur coats, etc.  Nothing was ever done to "fix" this, and who knows what Albert is doing now.

    You are probably thinking who cares?  Well this was a breakthrough for psychology.  It showed that an unconditioned stimuli (the rat) could in fact elicit a conditioned response (crying).  Normally, a child would have the instinct to reach out and touch the rat (unconditioned response).  But the child changed its instincts to immediately cry at the sight of a rat.  It also showed that fears can be generalized.  Probably the reason why many small children do not like scummy looking men.  They generalized their fear of gross things.

    Although this experiment showed things about psychology that had never before been thought about, it is highly debated among psychologists today.  Was it right for these scientists to conduct the experiment?  Today, the ethics review board would never have approved such an experiment.  Yes, a child was emotionally and psychologically harmed, but is the advancement of the field enough reason to justify the experiment?  What do you think?  E-mail me comments and I can post them here or comment in the guestbook.