John B. Watson wanted to prove that you could condition a child into becoming irrationally afraid. Why exactly this needed to be proved is not really clear, but apparently it was vital to the advancement of science.
In order to accomplish the task of scaring a child, Watson took an eleven month old baby and showed him a rat, a rabbit and several fuzzy things. Whenever little Albert tried to play with the objects he was shown, a loud noise would be played in the background. This was repeated over and over again until Albert became scared of anything that was white and fuzzy including blankets and beards. In case you were wondering Albert remained terrified of old, like Santa Claus looking, men for the whole duration of the experiment.
Once the baby was terrified of the world around him, Watson returned him to the parents. He didn’t try to erase the results of the conditioning or monitor the child as he grew up. No one knows what happened to little Albert with several theories arguing that he ended up committing suicide. While this is probably an exaggeration, one thing is for sure: that child didn’t enjoy any Christmases for the rest of his life.
Please tell me that this happened a long, long time ago in a land called Faraway and that Mr John B Watson died of a horrible, lingering, painful flesh eating disease. Please?
(via lickystickypickywe)
