This article will cover the experiment called the Little Albert Experiment in Psychology, a very important topic from the perspective of psychology students.
The Little Albert experiment was performed on a child named Albert who was just 11 months old.
Albert used to play with rats and other furry animals and he was not afraid of them.
When he used to hold the rat, he was fearless, he just used to hold those rats and throw them here and there.
Little Albert Experiment In Psychology Explained In Detail.
The Little Albert experiment is also known as Watson Experiment because it was performed by John B. Watson.
So, when Watson observed the fearlessness of the child Albert regarding the rats and other furry animals, he kept Albert under his observation and left a lot of rats open with Albert.
But this time things were a little different. So, what he did was when baby Albert used to hold the rat, Watson would just hit the iron rod with a hammer and it produced a loud sound. Watson gave a lot of trials to this and every time Albert would go near a rat and touch it, Watson would produce the sound with the hammer again.
This made Albert feel that the sound is coming because he is touching the rats and thus, he started getting afraid of it. This produced a fear of rats and other furry animals which Albert would otherwise play fearlessly with.
Observation Of the Little Albert Experiment
Here are the observations that Watson analyzed as a result of performing the Little Albert Experiment.
1. Watson developed a feeling of fear inside Albert’s mind.
2. Basically, he concluded that a person can be conditioned.
3. Conditioning is when emotions are changed with the environment.
4. Conditioning means learning new things.
5. Here, conditioning was that his fearless emotion was changed to fear.
6. He proved that through the environment, emotion can be changed.
7. He induced fear in the mind of the child.
Let us also check out the peter and Rabit Experiment in Psychology
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Peter And Rabbit Experiment Explained
The Peter and Rabbit experiment was also performed by JB Watson but it was completely opposite of the Little Albert Experiment. In this experiment, there was a boy named Peter who feared furry animals or objects, like rabbits, rats, dogs, etc.
In a room of 40 feet, Peter was kept where a rabbit was also kept diagonally to his bed in a cage, and day by day, he brought the cage of the rabbit closer to the bed and finally, one day, Watson kept the cage under his bed and then on his bed. Peter was now used to it and understood that it is not harmful and hence, his fear was removed.
He was conditioned that rabbit is not harmful.
These experiments are still applicable to date.
The concept of modeling is used in this experiment. It is a concept in which the child sees his parents playing or doing things that the child fears and his fear is lowered by seeing his parents.
For instance, if a child is afraid of dogs but when he sees his parents play with the dog then his fear also decreases to some extent.
So, in the same manner, Peter’s fear also got removed from modeling but once he returned home with his nurse, a dog bit him and his fear of furry objects came back and this time with much greater intensity than even if some furry object was distant from him, he would still be afraid of it.
Final Words
We hope that you find our content useful. Let us know if there is any other psychological experiment you would like to know about. Till then, you can check out our other articles Origin Of Health Psychology | Research In Health Psychology