• iconNews
  • videos
  • entertainment
  • Home
  • News
    • UK News
    • US News
    • Australia
    • Ireland
    • World News
    • Weird News
    • Viral News
    • Sport
    • Technology
    • Science
    • True Crime
    • Travel
  • Entertainment
    • Celebrity
    • TV & Film
    • Netflix
    • Music
    • Gaming
    • TikTok
  • LAD Originals
    • Say Maaate to a Mate
    • Daily Ladness
    • Lad Files
    • UOKM8?
    • FreeToBe
    • Extinct
    • Citizen Reef
  • Advertise
  • Terms
  • Privacy & Cookies
  • LADbible Group
  • UNILAD
  • SPORTbible
  • GAMINGbible
  • Tyla
  • UNILAD Tech
  • FOODbible
  • License Our Content
  • About Us & Contact
  • Jobs
  • Latest
  • Topics A-Z
  • Authors
Facebook
Instagram
X
Threads
Snapchat
TikTok
YouTube

LAD Entertainment

YouTube

LAD Stories

Submit Your Content
Why one of the 'most unethical psychological experiments ever' involving nine-month-old couldn't happen today

Home> Community> Weird

Updated 12:14 21 Feb 2025 GMTPublished 12:12 21 Feb 2025 GMT

Why one of the 'most unethical psychological experiments ever' involving nine-month-old couldn't happen today

Performing psychological experiments on children is typically frowned upon

Brenna Cooper

Brenna Cooper

There's an unsurprising reason why a psychological experiment involving a young child and conditioned fear wouldn't be allowed to happen today.

We've learnt plenty of interesting and unusual facts about the human brain and our psychology through the means of scientific experiments - however, not all of them have been so ethical.

One of these was a study called the 'Little Albert experiment' which was published in 1920.

Advert

The controversial experiment revolved around learning through association (Watson and Rayner)
The controversial experiment revolved around learning through association (Watson and Rayner)

What happened during the 'Little Albert experiment'?

US psychologist John B. Watson had been inspired by Ivan Pavlov's famous 'Pavlov's dogs' experiment and decided to replicate the study himself.

The Russian psychologist had previously discovered classical conditioning - where someone is trained to automatically associate a neutral stimulus with one that elicits an automatic response - after training the canines to salivate at the sound of a bell. Noting Pavlov's success, Watson decided to take things further and test the theory out on a human.

Along with graduate student Rosalie Rayner, the pair attempted to train a nine-month-old baby to associate animals with a negative reaction.

Advert

In order to do this, they presented the child, nicknamed 'Little Albert' with various neutral stimuli, such as a rabbit, monkey, a white rat, and burning newspapers.

After gauging his reaction, the pair then made a loud noise whenever the white lab rat was presented to the child, causing him to associate the animal - and anything which looked similar - with fear and burst out into tears.

'Little Albert' developed a fear of white rats (Getty Stock Image)
'Little Albert' developed a fear of white rats (Getty Stock Image)

After the sight of the rat made Albert cry without even making a noise, Watson declared the experiment a success.

But you can see why it was so controversial.

Would the 'Little Albert experiment' be allowed today?

Unsurprisingly, traumatising a child for a science experiment is something which is frowned upon, with Watson and Rayner's work taking on a negative light in recent years.

Advert

Explaining why such a test would never see the light of day in a modern science lab, HowStuffWorks noted that human test subjects are made well aware of any adverse effects before agreeing to take part.

As a nine-month-old baby, Little Albert would've been unable to give consent to Watson and Rayner.

It's also believed that his mother wasn't fully informed about the nature of the study and stopped Albert being tested on mid-way through.

There was also no way of knowing if they'd be able to decondition Albert from his newfound fear of anything white and fluffy, which again is another major red flag.

Advert

As for what came of Albert after the experiment, not much is known. There are varying reports on his true identity, researchers believe he was either called Douglas Merritte or William Albert Barger.

The boys would go on to have drastically different lives, with Merritte dying at the age of six from hydrocephalus while Barger lived to be an old man and died in 2007.

Featured Image Credit: Watson and Rayner

Topics: History, Health, Science, Animals, Weird

Brenna Cooper
Brenna Cooper

Brenna Cooper is a journalist at LADbible. She graduated from the University of Sheffield with a degree in History, followed by an NCTJ accredited masters in Journalism. She began her career as a freelance writer for Digital Spy, where she wrote about all things TV, film and showbiz. Her favourite topics to cover are music, travel and any bizarre pop culture.

X

@_brencoco

Advert

Advert

Advert

  • Shocking outcome of one of the 'most unethical psychological experiments ever' involving nine-month-old baby
  • Woman suffered one of the most ‘terrifying’ deaths ever after one drop of liquid hit her hand
  • Scientists think they have finally found answer to age-old chicken and egg debate
  • Family forced nine-month-old son to grow up with chimpanzee in 'disturbing' experiment that had tragic ending

Choose your content:

6 hours ago
9 hours ago
11 hours ago
a day ago
  • 6 hours ago

    Man who has spent years studying natural disasters reveals how likely an apocalyptic-level event really is

    The likelihood of a natural apocalyptic-level event wiping us all out has been revealed

    Community
  • 9 hours ago

    Man who visited all 197 countries in world says best he has been to has ‘everything you could want’

    The bloke has seen all sorts on his travels

    Community
  • 11 hours ago

    Images show inside of ‘Black Mirror style’ building that houses 20,000 people

    The place is like its own town

    Community
  • a day ago

    Real reason why Ancient Greek statues all have tiny penises

    Perhaps they're all growers, not showers

    Community