The story of little Albert is one of the most puzzling and controversial in psychology, his origin was the very famous John B Watson, considered the father of the behavioral school.
In general, this school proposes that human behavior is made up of stimuli and responses.
- What behaviorism is basically saying is that human behavior can be shaped or “trained.
- “Unlike other schools.
- For behaviorists.
- An older person’s happiness in China is exactly the same as that of a baby in Mexico.
- No matter what happens inside each other.
- What matters is observable behavior.
To test his basic hypothesis, John Watson used a series of experiments, the most famous of which was that of little Albert, a 9-month-old baby.
After Watson’s tests, we never knew what the boy’s fate was, however, some researchers have taken the trouble to find out what would have happened to him and faced many surprises.
“I won’t be satisfied until I have a lab where I can raise children from birth to three or four years under continuous observation. “John B. Watson
Before we mention what happened to Watson, let’s briefly mention what little Albert’s experience was about.
According to Watson’s notes, the baby was the son of an orphanage nurse, and was chosen for the experiment for his calm personality and relatively indifferent to external stimuli.
What Watson did was expose the baby to different stimuli: a monkey, a white mouse, a burning paper, etc.
When these beings and objects were presented to the child, he showed attention, but was fundamentally emotionally indifferent to them, expressing only a small dose of curiosity.
Later in the experiment, Watson introduced an additional stimulus: each time the white rat appeared, he would hit a hammer on a surface to make a loud noise that frightened the baby.
In this way, the child began associating the sound with that of the mouse and, after a while, was afraid to see the animal, then spread his fear to rabbits and other furry animals.
Little Albert’s experiment allowed Watson to demonstrate that stimuli could shape behavior.
In his notes, he said the experiment ended because the child had been adopted, however, it was never known whether or not the fear behavior remained there after the end of the experiment.
Over time, some researchers have been interested in knowing the child’s fate, one of those who wanted to know the truth was psychologist Hall Beck.
According to Watson’s notes, research and other documents, he believed he had found the child and, in 2009, published his findings.
In them, he claimed that Albert was actually Douglas Merritte, a boy who had suffered from hydrocephalus since he was born and died at age 6.
His findings contradicted all of Watson’s work and also gave the experiment a more monstrous character, as Watson had used a disabled child to prove his theory.
Another psychologist, Russell A Powell of Grand McEwan University in Canada, questioned Beck’s findings, also opened his own research and, in 2012, published his findings.
According to them, Albert was actually William Albert Barger, a normal boy who grew up healthy and died at 88, feeling some aversion to animals.
Beck and Powell’s assumptions are very strong, but inconclusive. In addition, in June 2014, researcher Tom Bartlett published a new article concluded that two children had participated in the experiment.
The topic, in essence, involves a debate about the validity of conductism, a school that has been criticized for its reductionism.
Added to this is a certain aversion to the figure of John Watson. This man was repudiated for divorcing his wife to be with Rosalie Rayner, a student who worked as an assistant.
John Watson was expelled from college and lost his college degrees. With his assistant, he had two sons, who were educated in a strictly behavioral manner. Both the suicide attempt as an adult and the eldest, William, tried to successfully commit suicide.
However, all of his titles were returned in the 1950s, when he had already focused on another interest: advertising.