The Dark Side of Science: The Little Albert Experiment (Short Documentary )

phobias are a fascinating part of the psyche some are completely understandable and possibly even evolutionary as being scared of dangerous things and creatures is pretty beneficial for survival but a question has eluded psychologists how are phobias present in some people but not others and can you condition a fear in a human test subject this question would lead psychologist john b watson and his assistant graduate student rosaline rayner down a very ethically questionable path not only was experimenting on a human controversial but the test subject would be a nine-month-old baby today we're looking at the controversial heartbreaking and morally questionable baby albert experiments welcome to the dark side of science nothing about the statement experimenting on a nine-month-old baby sounds good and the idea to deliberately scare an infant is very off-putting the experiment is even more controversial than the monkey mother studies as long-term effects could be scarring for an otherwise healthy human child as such i'm going to rate the experiment here eight on my ethical scale as a subject had no say in becoming part of the study and to the alleged sourcing of the child was not shall we say the most praiseworthy way but before we get to baby albert we need a little background to the person behind the experiment john b watson john broadus watson was born in travellers rest south carolina on the 9th of january 1878. he was brought up in a strict christian family but things would change in a teenager's home life when his alcoholic father left the family this would cause jon to become apathetic towards religion the family later moved to greenville south carolina where watson would get a chance to meet people of different backgrounds igniting his interest into psychology his secondary education was marred with run-ins with the law for fighting and bizarrely discharging a firearm within city limits however he was still able to gain a place at greenville's furman university at the age of 16. his time at university was difficult having to work several jobs he didn't excel and did not create many social bonds which left people to think of him as lazy and anti-social but he persisted and at the age of 21 gained a master's degree he managed to get into chicago university a couple of years later and finally his career started to take a more positive turn studying under some notable professors including john dewey and james roland angel watson began to develop an interest in behaviouralism during his time at chicago he read up on the work of ivan pavlov known for his classic conditioning a discipline which would directly influence watson's later experiments as a side note this is the same pavlov with the dribbling dog i should say that during this time watson had got married and was the father of two children but his marriage would break down but this will come a bit later on in our story in 1902 watson gained his phd whilst working as a research professor at the university of chicago in 1908 watson accepted a faculty position at john hopkins university being promoted to chair of the psychology department not long after starting he continued to study behaviouralism releasing a paper in 1913 named psychology as the behaviouralist views it a manifesto of sorts laying out the goals of the new discipline behaviouralism as watson saw it sought to understand behavior by only measuring observable behaviors and events and that these actions were influenced from external stimuli as a consequence of that individual's history and learned behavior from reinforcement or punishment this new form of psychological study wasn't initially accepted by the wider scientific community but gradually the new discipline would make inroads to be a recognized field the discipline would be expanded upon by scientists like b.f skinner aka the guy who made a pigeon guided bomb which i made a video about a long time ago check it out if you want to see a even worse produced playing difficult video in 1915 watson served as the president of the american psychological association watson would continue to produce papers expanding on his views into behaviourism which would reject the study of consciousness with his important later career 1924 book behaviouralism but before that we need to look at a couple of very turbulent years for watson which brought about the baby albert experiment in 1919 watson released a paper called a schematic outline of the emotions during this study he observed a number of infants which revealed three fundamental emotions fear rage and love each caused by a set of conditions watson used various animals to observe the reaction from the test subjects in most cases especially when introduced to dogs and cats the infant showed a neutral or an inquisitive reaction but when introduced to a pigeon flapping its wings most subjects showed surprise or even fear of the motion and sound to induce fear some of the test subjects were placed in a dark room or in a room on their own needless to say the children became distressed now these tests are pretty mild and generally yielded predictable results but what if you can get an infant to fear something that had initially yielded a neutral response for example one of the cuddly animals from his 1919 study this will be done by introducing a neutral stimulus like a rabbit with a scary stimulus for example from a loud banging sound they tried to answer the following questions that if a fear stimulus could be transferred to other animals or other inanimate objects once a fear of being conditioned in a test subject they also went to find out for how long right this is where the study in my opinion crosses the line as a sourcing of the test subject and finding a parent willing to allow their child to be given a phobia would be understandably difficult baby albert was a child of a wet nurse at the harriet lane home a pediatric facility on the john hopkins campus now it's not 100 known how albert was found clearly a major contributory factor was the convenience as harriet lane was adjacent to the phipps clinic where watson's infant laboratory was housed there are three possible ways watson got hold of albert that have been considered the first is for a paid study the second is by using his connections at the hospital to coerce and allow access to the infant and the final is from doing the experiment without the mother's knowledge but we will never know a hundred percent how albert was found by watson and we don't even know if that is his real name what we do know is that he was selected due to being healthy unemotional child who rarely cried the experiment wasn't just conducted by watson alone but also one of his graduate students rosaline rayner i should say that his relationship with her had caused issues with his breaking down marriage by late 1919. at the start of 1920 and at 8 months and 26 days of age baby albert was entered into the study albert was observed reacting to a number of live animals for example a rat a dog a rabbit and a monkey and various inanimate objects including human masks cotton and a burning newspaper during the initial phase albert showed no elevated signs of distress or major reaction to the stimuli what watson and rosaline did see was elevated distress when a metal bar was hit with a hammer which created a large amount of noise sending little albert into a burst of tears two months would go by after albert's baseline observations before the experimental conditioning would begin watson and rayner attempted to condition him to fear one of the items that had previously garnered a neutral response a white rat was chosen to be an item to condition albert's fear response this was done by presenting the animal to the infant and every time he touched it the metal pole was hit with the hammer creating the scary noise it wouldn't take long for albert to start to fear the cuddly animal after seven pairings of the rat and the noise in two sessions one week apart albert reacted with crying when the rat was presented subsequently with no loud noise although he didn't seem as distressed when he was allowed to suck his thumb which hints at a phobia not actually being created a couple of weeks after the conditioning albert started to fear other similar items that shared similar characteristics with the rats the generalized fear manifested whenever the family dog a fur coat some cotton wool and even a father christmas mask was presented to the infant a couple of weeks after that albert's fear of the rat had died down including the response to the other similar items this prompted watson to recondition the infant by presenting the rat again with the loud noise each reconditioning would only take a few rounds of the scary noises but what of the questions set out by the pair before the experiment how long does the condition last 31 days after no exposure to the test items albert was shown a rat a coat and santa mask he again showed a fear response not long after the final experiment albert's mother withdrew her child from the study and left the hospital for good leaving little trace of what happened to the test subject this had two downsides the first was that albert was unable to be reconditioned to not fear the rat and the linked fear-producing things and the other issue was that the study was incomplete right well taking into account that the experiment happened over a hundred years ago we do have to look at it in the context of the time when experimental psychology was in its infant hood and the study was even one of the first to be filmed at a great cost to the university by today's standards the experiment was morally ethically and even scientifically on shaky ground the first two reasons are pretty obvious as well experimenting on children is just wrong at least in my eyes but the scientific failures are very important to consider the study did not have a control subject involving only one infant which makes the data hard to properly interpret as one result does not make a conclusion it's almost impossible to know longer term effects on baby albert as we may never know if the phobias if any created during the experiment were long lasting we will never know for sure what happened to albert or even if it was his real identity researchers into the experiment have a couple of potential identities with one dying at the age of six and another living until 2007 but we will never know for sure some doubts present as to whether or not the condition fear response was actually a phobia this was due to a reduced response when the infant was allowed to suck his thumb which almost made him be able to ignore the loud sound the experiment was responsible in part for destroying watson's working career but not how you might think what came out later in 1920 was that the psychologist was having an affair with his assistant rosalind rayner the scandal would result in watson's dismissal from his job at john hopkins university the affair became front-page news during the divorce proceedings in the baltimore newspapers destroying the psychologist's reputation and with it his university career not that that was the complete end for him as he released his behaviouralism book in 1924 and also psychological care of infant and child in 1928 he would have another two children and would work for an advertising company from late 1920 he would raise both children to his and roslyn's behaviourist principles and sadly both sons would attempt suicide with one of them being successful in 1954. reyna died on the 18th of june 1935 in norwood hospital in connecticut she had unexpectedly contracted dysentery from eating tainted fruit watson would never remarry and pass away himself in 1958 at the age of 80. this is the plaintiff production all videos on the channel are creative commons attribution share alike licensed play difficult videos are produced by me john in a kind of sunny south eastern corner of london uk help the channel grow by liking commenting and subscribing check out my twitter for all sorts of photos and odds and sods as well as hints on future videos i've got patreon and youtube membership if you fancy supporting the channel financially and always left to say is thank you for watching [Music] hmm

Channel: Plainly Difficult

Views: 5,162,730

Keywords: Albert experiement, John B watson, plainly difficult documentary, scientific documentary, baby albert, fascinating horror, history documentary, Albert experiement behavioralism, The baby Albert experiment, Dark docs, Scientific history, Johns Hopkins University, The dark Side of science, qxir

Id: T-O7iz0Jat8

Length: 13min 40sec (820 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 19 2021