What Ever Happened to Baby Albert?

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If anyone has heard about any experiments concerning psychology, they probably have heard about the Baby Albert experiment. This experiment was constructed by JB Watson and one of his head graduate students in the 1920's on a nine month old child that was called Baby Albert. During this test Watson and his graduate student did many assessments to make Baby Albert scared of white rabbits and rats. By doing this the psychologists made loud noises whenever Albert made contact with any small white furry objects. Through this conditioning process, Albert ended up crying every time a white object would be in the same proximity as him. After the experiment was over, Watson never made contact again with the child to see if he had any side effects or was still frightened by white small animals. This question has been around for a long time the answer was finally revealed. Little Albert died at age six by hydrocephalus which is a condition where fluid accumulates inside the brain. Although the outcome of the patient was tragic, JB Watson still had many highlights in his career. His biggest accomplishment must have been establishing the school of behaviorism. This branch of psychology is still practiced and studied today. Here is video of JB Watson doing the experiment on Baby Albert.


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I'm assuming they never got a change to see if he was still afraid of white animals?

This is one of my favorite research experiments in psychology today and it's such a shame that his mother took him out so they don't exactly know the aftermath of what happened. I think it's very cool that this one experiment could shape the whole school of behaviorism and lead to many psychology discoveries!

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This page contains a single entry by jorge463 published on February 21, 2012 7:57 PM.

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