Who was Little Albert and what happened to him?

Question

I've just read Third Spaces fabulous answer about Little Albert and I'm now so intrigued, I'm desparate to find out who Little Albert is/was, and what was done to him. Can someone please enlighten me?

Answer 1

John Watson, a famous American behaviourist did a lot of work in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He did a study with Rosalie Rayner using a little boy of 11 months old, whose mum worked in the hospital where Watson was observing infant behaviour.

Albert was happy playing with a white rat but Watson conditioned him to be scared of the rat; he did this by banging a steel bar behind Albert's head when he was playing with the animal. This produced a fear response. Albert came to associate the fear with the white rat and thus developed a phobia (phobic anxiety).

Not surprisingly, the fear of white rats was generalised to other fluffy white objects including, it is said, beards, cotton wool and similar things. (We know from later research that this can happen with phobias.)

This is a classic 'experiment' with just one person in the field of classical conditioning where the response is a reflex. By using the process of conditioning, a stimulus causing a fear response can be paired with a pleasant stimulus and in this way, the pleasant stimulus becomes scarey.

Compare these processes with those of the Russian physiologist (not psychologist) Pavlov; the general principles are the same.

The study by Watson & Rayner has taught us plenty about the principles of classical conditioning and how a phobia can be induced. By reversing the process, phobias can be removed. Watson & Rayner didn't get the opportunity to do this as Albert's mum (a wet-nurse at the hospital) took him away before the process could be applied. However, it would have been possible - Watson used the technique on other children. Watson & Rayner have been criticised because what they did was grossly unethical according to our standards now.

PS: This is nothing to with Freud; Freud's study was on Little Hans - the two often get mixed up.

Answer 2

Little Albert was used in a psychology expiriment to understand the development of phobias as a learned behaviour, the stimulus and learned response. It was was done by Watson and Roslind in the 1920's. The baby was put through a series of trials in which the boy was first introduced to the stimulus (a white mouse) and then sharp and loud noises. The boy learned to avoid the animals in order to avoid the noise - this became the learned behaviour. Unfortunatly the expierement also made the boy afraid of any kind of white animals, and thus he developed an irrational fear, or a phobia of white animals - including bunnies, and other small rodants.

Answer 3

I don't know if this is the Albert that you're referring to but there was an Albert Ramsbottom who went to Blackpool zoo with his parents and got eaten by a lion.
In a later poem he was regurgitated by Wallace the lion and his father then tried to get him eaten by tigers.
Poems by Marriot Edgar 1932 and 1934
(Stanely Holloway monologues)

Answer 4

Little Albert was a child who's mother worked for a psychologist named freud. Freud had a pet mouse the child loved to play with. Anytime the child touched the mouse Freud would bang a pot really loud. Eventually the child was scared to pick up the mouse or anything elsa white and fluffy

Answer 5

Well, this has to do with the Behavioural model of Abnormality.
He was basically a human that was investigated on. The scientists would run several tests on him to see if Behaviour was Developed or not.
They would do things, but then after a while, his mum said 'No more!!!'
Leave my baby alone!!!

Answer 6

I wish that you hadn't reminded me about poor young Albert Ramsbottom,his mum and dad never forgave Wallace the lion

Answer 7

see link for report

Answer 8

was,nt he the little boy that went to the zoo and got eaten by a lion