the Little Albert experiment

The Little Albert experiment, conducted by John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner in 1920, was a study on classical conditioning. They aimed to show that emotional responses could be conditioned in humans. In the experiment, they exposed a nine-month-old baby named Albert to a white rat, initially showing no fear. However, they paired the sight of the rat with loud, frightening noises. Over time, Albert became afraid of the rat and even generalized that fear to other fluffy objects. This experiment illustrated how emotions can be learned through conditioning, raising ethical concerns about the welfare of subjects in psychological studies.