Episode 47: The Little Albert Study: What You Know is…Mostly Wrong
Think you know a lot about the little Albert experiment conducted by John Watson? Well, guess what - you’d be surprised at how much of the story is simply not true. If you’re wondering whatever happened to little Albert, whether the little Albert study created a lasting phobia in a small boy, or even what place this story has in the history of behaviorism, then I suggest you take a listen to this episode of The Psych Files and get the facts on this fascinating part of psychology’s history.
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Notes Regarding Little Albert’s Supposed "Phobia"
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When Albert was conditioned again to the rat, 10 days after the initial trials, Albert,
Fell over to the left side, got up on all fours and started to crawl away. On this occasion there was no crying but strange to say, as he started away he began to gurgle and coo, even while leaning far over to the left side to avoid the rat…
- in addtion, on this same day he was again conditioned to fear the rabbit, alberts response was reported as,
…fear reaction slight. Turned to the left and kept face away from the animal but the reaction was never pronounced.
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31 days after being shown the rat, Watson reports that when in the same room as the rat "He allowed the rat to crawl towards him without withdrawing"
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On the final day of testing when albert was exposed to the rabbit to which he had been conditioned to fear, he did not avoid the rabbit at all. Watson (1920) reports:
..after about a minute he [Albert] reached out tentatively and …touched the rabbit’s ear with his right hand…
Objects Albert was supposedly afraid of, but for which there is no evidence:
- Cats
- Fur muffs
- White furry gloves
- Albert’s aunt (who wore fur)
- Albert’s mother’s fur coat
- A teddy bear
Most overlooked facts:
- The study is not an experiment (an experiment requires at least two levels of an independent variable). It is a pilot study at best.
- The study had only one subject.
- The study has never been replicated.
Resources for This Episode on Little Albert
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Harris, B. (1979). Whatever Happened to Little Albert? American Psychologist, 34 (2), 151-160. Click here to download the article to your desktop.
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Samuelson , F. (1980). J.B. Watson’s Little Albert, Cyril Burt’s Twins, and the Need for a Critical Science. American Psychologist, 35 (7).
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Watson, J.B. & Rayner, R. (1920). Conditioned Emotional Reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 3, 1-14. This article is available online at Christopher Green’s excellent Psych Classics site.
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If you’re interested in learning more about the history of psychology, Chris Green’s excellent podcast (which is no longer being produced but which is still available in iTunes) is called This Week In The History of Psychology.
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Watson’s video of the little albert study is available on YouTube in several versions. Here’s one.
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Continue reading this entry»Episode 28: Is “Time Out” Really Effective?
Everybody advocates the use of time out over forms of punishments like spankings, but how exactly do you administer time out in a way that is effective? Could we be doing it all wrong? Is time out even something we should be doing at all? Join me as I explore this topic.
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Resources and Links for this Episode
- Listen to Jane Nelson (author of Positive Discipline) talk about her views on time out and spanking. This is an mp3 file from episode 28 of the Focusing on Solutions podcast.
- Here is the link to the Positive Discipline website, and here is the link to their podcast.
- Here is a link to the book Positive Time-Out: And Over 50 Ways to Avoid Power Struggles in the Home and the Classroom
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- Here’s the link to 1-2-3 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children 2-12 (123 Magic)
- Here’s the link to Smart Love
- If time out has not worked for you, consider this book: The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children
Quotes of Interest
From Positive Time Out (Nelson):
- Where did we ever get the idea that we have to make children feel bad in order for to act good?
From Smart Love (Pieper and Pieper):
- We believe that discipline makes children miserable without offering them any genuine benefit, because punishing children whose behavior is out of control actually interferes with their ability to learn self governance. We advocate the use of loving regulation, a way for parents to guide their children away from missteps without adding to their unhappiness or interfering with their development of inner happiness.
- The best way to respond to a child’s harmful or dangerous behavior is to stop it without imposing added unpleasantness.
- Parents are frequently advised to tell their child that her behavior makes them angry. But children cannot distinguish between their parent’s anger at the behavior and their parent’s feelings about them. When children repeatedly experience their parents as being angry at them, they copy their parents and develop needs to feel angry at themselves.
- Unfortunately, most people don’t recognize that many of the vulnerabilities and out of control behaviors that children engage in are both temporary and appropriate for their age (you can’t expect children to act like adults).
The Explosive Child:
These authors discuss children whom they refer to as “inflexible-explosive”: children who find it difficult to “go with the flow”. These children get “locked up” and don’t handle change easily. Also, typical disciplinary procedures such as time-out only lead to a deterioration of their condition and probably a “melt-down”. The authors encourage a more problem solving approach to working with such children. I encourage you to take a look at two web sites related to their work:
- Find out more about their approach at the Center for Collaborate Problem Solving.
- The authors have established a non-profit institute called “Think Kids” and I encourage you to visit this site.
Related Episodes
Be sure to listen to the Interview with Stuart Ablon called “Timeout Revisited”: dealing with challenging kids:
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Continue reading this entry»Episode 11: What Does Your Bowling Style Say About You?
In this video episode we look at what your bowling style says about you and about human nature in general. And by the way, why do you keep pressing that elevator button?
Watch episode 11 showing how principles of behaviorism can explain your bowling style. Click the video below.
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Resources for this episode
- Go to the book Forty Studies that Changed Psychology: Explorations into the History of Psychological Research
at Amazon.
- Watch a great video on YouTube which shows how the principles of behaviorism were used to train a parakeet to play golf and basketball.
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Continue reading this entry»Episode #2: Rewards and Punishments
Today’s Question: “Do you believe in spanking children to get to them to behave?”
That’s the question addressed in today’s podcast called “Rewards and Punishments”. We’ll look at this issue, along with a few others in this podcast. Join host Michael Britt in examining this controversial issue and you’ll also learn how to tell the difference between B.F. Skinner’s concepts of positive and negative reinforcement and positive and negative punishment (“positive punishment”? - you’ll have to tune in to figure that one out).
Click to hear episode 2 on Rewards and Punishments.
Related Episodes
Since this podcast I’ve done a number of episodes that address the effectiveness of rewards, punishment, spanking, and timeout on a child’s behavior. If you’re interested in learning more about this topic, check out these episodes:
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Episode 28 called Is Timeout Really Effective?
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Episode 33 on Timeout Revisited: Dealing with Challenging Kids Part 1
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Episode 34, called Timeout Revisited: Dealing with Challenging Kids Part 2.
If you’d like to download the concept map that accompanies this podcast, click the small image below to view the map, then drag it to your desktop (or right click and use “save as”).
3D Concept Map
I made a crazy 3D version of the concepts in this concept map, which you can play with. Let me know what you think. Click on the link below.
Rewards and Punishments 3D Map
I’ve been reading a couple excellent books on the topic of alternative ways to get children to behave (alternatives to spankings that is). The approach is called Positive Discipline. You can find it at Amazon. Excellent advice for both parents and teachers. Positive Discipline
Another one of Jane Nelson’s books on positive discipline techniques has to do with effective ways to do timeout. Check out her book, also on Amazon.Positive Time-Out: And Over 50 Ways to Avoid Power Struggles in the Home and the Classroom
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