Little Albert Essay

401 Words2 Pages
Watson carried out an experiment on Albert who was 9 months of age, to demonstrate the fact that classical conditioning could create fear in human babies of which none had existed before.(Levine & Munsch,2010). Classical conditioning basically refers to when we learn from the environment. "In this process, a particular stimulus, or event in the environment, is paired with another stimulus over and over again'' (Levine & Munsch,2010;38). He attempted and actually did succeed in conditioning fear of a rat by striking a metal bar with a hammer until Albert was traumatised enough for him to burst out into tears.(Levine & Munsch,2010). Scientific concerns Albert was said to have suffered from hydrocephalus. This is when there is build up of pressure in the brain and swelling of the head later leading to retardation. This is one of the main scientific concerns because the experiment was carried out on a child who was not physically and mentally healthy, thus the results acquired were not very reliable and accurate as compared to if a normal healthy child was experimented on.(Weiten, 2011). Ethical Concerns (Flanagan,2001;154) "Ethics are a set of moral principles used by professionals, such as doctors. Ethical issues include damage to individuals, questions regarding privacy and also damage to the profession." The first and foremost ethical concern about this experiment was that Watson used the boy as an experimental subject without taking into consideration the possible ill effects.(Rock & Page, 2009).This statement basically implies that there is no difference between animals and humans since methods used to experiment on animals were used on the infant. "High esteem is accorded this experiment despite its intentionally traumatizing an infant, a far greater ethical breach than the distress caused adults in the much maligned obedience studies
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