Monday, February 1, 2016
Little Albert
As I was reading the pages assigned tonight for homework the book brought up this experiment which involved an 11-month baby named Little Albert and a rat. They mentioned how the made Little Albert afraid of the harmless lab rat having him interact with the rat and every time Little Albert got close to the rat, the experimenters would make a loud noise to scare Albert. What immediately came to mind was, is this legal? The experimenters were using this small little baby as a "lab rat" for their experiments. Did the parents allow this? As I kept reading it turns out there is a way to reverse these fears by unlearning the fears. The example the book provided this method seemed to work but once again I asked myself an important question, what if it did not work? What if the experimenters could not reverse the fears that were engraved into these kids minds, what then? These are all questions I hope you guys also have.
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As far as I know, controversial experiments like this were not considered as bad back then, but certainly would now. Perhaps it is not illegal, but rather simply amoral to ingrain such fears in a young child for the sake of experimentation. If the experimenters were not able to reverse the damage that they had inflicted, I suppose that the child in question would have to live with the fears with the rest of his life, and could possibly be able to do nothing to change himself.
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