Little Albert
This is the story of the most heinous act "in the name of science" I've ever heard of. No research institution in the world would permit its likes to happen today. Medical ethics weren't then what they are now, and this case is most likely, in large part, why.
When: 1920 Where: The Johns Hopkins University
The perpetrator: John B. Watson
The victim: Little Albert
John Watson and his research assistant, Rosalie Rayner, wanted to test a theory that emotional responses could be taught by conditioning, the same way Pavlov had conditioned bodily responses in his dogs. Rosalie Rayner had earned a Bachelor's Degree from Vassar College, and then enrolled at Johns Hopkins University, but did not take any classes. They secured a 9-month old "healthy, normal" baby, whom they named "Little Albert," from his mother, who worked as a wet nurse at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Their "experiment" with this child lasted two months, after which the mother moved to a different city.
I don't know what the work of a wet nurse consisted of at a hospital in 1920. Whether she knew what the child was in for, is not known. The father appears to have not been involved. There are also questions of whether or not she felt she had any choice in the matter.
Watson and Rayner began by letting Little Albert play with a white rat, which he was perfectly happy to do. Next, they presented the rat again, but this time, when the baby touched it, they banged loudly on metal objects held behind him. It did not take long for him to become terrified whenever that happened — and, later, to become terrified of any furry or fuzzy object even when it didn't happen.
Watson and Rayner published their report to the effect that the "experiment" had been a great success. Just as John Money also published his report that the "John/Joan" experiment with David Reimer had likewise been a complete success.
The two researchers did not undertake to "decondition" the child, to undo what they had done. It is possible the mother left Baltimore because of what they had done.
The more one learns about John B. Watson, the more there is to question.
He was "the father of" behaviorism. He coined the term. The theories he set forth, while significantly different from those of B. F. Skinner and others who came later, held that all human behavior could be explained — and ultimately predicted and controlled — in terms of objectively observable events, consistent with as it were systems of rewards and punishments.
He was fired from Johns Hopkins in December 1920 upon the discovery of an adulterous relationship between him and his research assistant Rosalie Rayner. There followed a divorce from his first wife, Mary Ickes, with whom he had two children, and a marriage to Rosalie Rayner, by whom he would have two more.
Every one of his children, as adults, complained about his reliance upon his behaviorist theories in their childhood. Two of them committed suicide, and a third attempted it.
Something is seriously wrong with any grown man who would terrorize a little boy.
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