Little Albert _ John B Watson

"Little Albert" was the nickname that, John B Watson, the father of behavior psychology, gave to the 11-month-old infant he experimented on. 🧠🧠 In the year 1920, John Watson, along with his future wife, Rosalind Rayner, deliberately attempted to instill certain phobias into a young baby.
🧠🧠 Watson assumed that fear is learnable.
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Experiments began by placing 'little Albert' on a mattress and encouraging him to play with neutral object (such as cotton wool or a white bunny rabbit). The experimenter would hit a metal bar with a hammer every time the baby touched the play object.
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Little Albert showed stress and started to cry and attempted to crawl away at the sudden loud noise. Very quickly, anything white and fluffy would put fear into the heart of little Albert, even if Watson didn’t slam the hammer on the metal.
This proved that phobias can be instilled with conditioning.
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Watson had planned to remove Albert's phobia, but reportedly did not have time. Skinner however assumed that we don’t forget behavior, we just suppress it. So it’s entirely possible that Little Albert had this form of trauma stored in his brain for life. 🧠

The mother of little Albert was a nurse at the hospital the experiments took place in. According to some accounts, she was not told about the experiments, or even coerced, and handed in her resignation shortly after.
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This experiment has since become notorious for being one of the most unethical studies of all time. The identity of little Albert remains a mystery. No one knows if he grew up with his phobias.
What are your thoughts?