Editing John B. Watson (section)

=== "Little Albert" experiment (1920) ===
One might consider the experiment Watson and his assistant [[Rosalie Rayner]] carried out in 1920 to be one of the most controversial in psychology. It has become immortalized in introductory psychology textbooks as the [[Little Albert experiment]]. The goal of the experiment was to show how principles of, at the time recently discovered, [[classical conditioning]] could be applied to condition fear of a white rat into "Little Albert", a 9-month-old boy. Watson and Rayner conditioned "Little Albert" by clanging an iron rod when a white rat was presented. First, they presented to the boy a white rat and observed that he was not afraid of it. Second, they presented him with a white rat and then clanged an iron rod. "Little Albert" responded by crying. This second presentation was repeated several times. Finally, Watson and Rayner presented the white rat by itself and the boy showed fear. Later, in an attempt to see if the fear transferred to other objects, Watson presented Albert with a rabbit, a dog, and a fur coat. He cried at the sight of all of them.<ref name=":9">{{cite journal|last1=Watson|first1=John B.|last2=Rayner Watson|first2=Rosalie|year=1921|title=Studies in Infant Psychology|journal=The Scientific Monthly|volume=13|issue=6|pages=493–515|bibcode=1921SciMo..13..493W}}</ref> This study demonstrated how emotions could become conditioned responses.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Watson|first1=J. B.|last2=Rayner|first2=R.|year=1920|title=Conditioned emotional reactions|url=https://zenodo.org/record/1429108|journal=Journal of Experimental Psychology|volume=3|pages=1–14|doi=10.1037/h0069608|hdl=21.11116/0000-0001-9171-B|hdl-access=free}}</ref> As the story of "Little Albert" has made the rounds, inaccuracies and inconsistencies have crept in, some of them even due to Watson himself.{{Citation needed|date=January 2012}} Analyses of Watson's film footage of Albert suggest that the infant was mentally and developmentally disabled.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Irons|first1=Gary|s2cid=23547614|year=2012|title=Little Albert: A Neurologically Impaired Child|journal=History of Psychology|volume=15|issue=4|pages=302–327|doi=10.1037/a0026720|pmid=23397921}}</ref> An ethical problem of this study is that Watson and Rayner did not uncondition "Little Albert".<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Harris|first1=B|s2cid=53390421|year=1979|title=Whatever happened to Little Albert?.|journal=American Psychologist|volume=34|issue=2|pages=151–160|doi=10.1037/0003-066x.34.2.151}}</ref>

In 2009, Beck and Levinson found records of a child, Douglas Merritte, who seemed to have been Little Albert. They found that he had died from congenital [[hydrocephalus]] at the age of 6. Thus, it cannot be concluded to what extent this study had an effect on Little Albert's life.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Beck|first1=H. P.|last2=Levinson|first2=S.|last3=Irons|first3=G.|year=2009|title=Finding Little Albert: A journey to John B. Watson's infant laboratory|url=http://libres.uncg.edu/ir/asu/f/Beck_Hall_2009_Finding_Little_Albert.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://libres.uncg.edu/ir/asu/f/Beck_Hall_2009_Finding_Little_Albert.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live|journal=American Psychologist|volume=64|issue=7|pages=605–614|doi=10.1037/a0017234|pmid=19824748}}</ref> On January 25, 2012, Tom Bartlett of ''[[The Chronicle of Higher Education]]'' published a report that questions whether John Watson knew of cognitive abnormalities in Little Albert that would greatly skew the results of the experiment.<ref>{{cite web|title=A New Twist in the Sad Saga of Little Albert – Percolator – The Chronicle of higher educacionalismo|url=http://chronicle.com/blogs/percolator/a-new-twist-in-the-sad-saga-of-little-albert/28423|last=Basken|first=Paul|date=January 25, 2012|publisher=Chronicle.com|access-date=October 21, 2012}}</ref> In 2014, however, the journals that initially endorsed Beck and Fridlund's claims about Albert and Watson (the ''[[American Psychologist]]'' and ''[[History of Psychology (journal)|History of Psychology]]'') published articles debunking those claims.<ref>Powell. R. A., N. Digdon, B. Harris, and C. Smithson. 2014. "Correcting the record on Watson, Rayner and Little Albert: Albert Barger as 'Psychology's lost boy'." ''[[American Psychologist]]''.</ref><ref>Digdon, N., R. A. Powell, and B. Harris. 2014. "Little Albert's alleged neurological impairment: Watson, Rayner and historical revision." ''[[History of Psychology (journal)|History of Psychology]]''.</ref>

==== Deconditioning ====
Because "Little Albert" was taken out of town, Watson did not have the time to decondition the child. This obviously has ethical implications, but Watson did put in place a method for deconditioning fears. He worked with a colleague, Mary Cover Jones, on a set of procedures aimed at eliminating the fears of another little boy, Peter. Peter seemed to fear white rats and rabbits. Watson and Jones put Peter in his highchair and gave him a nice afternoon snack. At the same time a white rabbit in a cage was put in a distance that did not seem to disturb the child. The next day the rabbit was put slightly closer until Peter showed signs of slight disturbance. This treatment was repeated days after days until Peter could serenely eat his snack with the rabbit being right next to him. Peter was even able to play with the rabbit afterwards. This form of [[behavior modification]] is a technique today called [[systematic desensitization]].<ref name="crain2010" />

==== Limitations of the conditioning paradigm ====
The conditioning paradigm has certain limitations. Researchers have had a hard time conditioning infants that are just a few months old. This might be because they have not yet developed what Piaget calls "primary circular reactions". Because they cannot coordinate sensory motor actions they cannot learn to make different associations between their motoric behaviors and the environment. Another limitation concerns the kind of conditioned stimuli humans can learn. When researchers attempt to condition children to fear things such as curtains or wooden blocks they have had great difficulty. Humans may be "innately disposed to fear certain stimuli."<ref name="crain2010" />