John Watson, the founder of the behaviorism movement in Psychology, wanted to demonstrated that seemingly primitive emotions like fear were, in fact, learned and not instinctual. So he prepared a demonstration where a small child, known as Little Albert, was exposed to a number of small animals.
Albert showed no fear, but then Watson made a loud noise, a clang that Albert did fear, whenever Albert was shown the white rat. Soon enough, Albert was upset whenever he was shown the white rat, even without the clang. Watson argued that this was a demonstration of the importance of learning and the environment in child development, a lesson that changed developmental theory for years to come.
But what happened to Little Albert? Was he afraid of white rats, and other furry creatures, for the rest of his life? Was he forever traumatized by the simple experiment?
This article reports on a detective story to find Little Albert.
One of the most famous and most mythologised studies in psychology concerns John Watson’s experiment to condition ‘Little Albert’ to be afraid of a white rat. ‘Little Albert’ and his mother moved away afterwards and no-one knew what happened to him, leading to one of the most enduring mysteries in psychology. Finally, it seems, his identity has been discovered.