Little Albert Experiment

Watson and Rayner's conditioning of fear in an 11-month-old, generalizing from a white rat to rabbit, dog, and fur.

Specifications & Metrics

type

Developmental

year

1920

lead

John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner

participants

1 infant

Relative Scale in Studies

Core Principles & Analysis

• Albert B. showed no fear of a white rat at baseline; at 11 months he was conditioned by pairing it with a loud bar strike.
• The fear generalized to a rabbit, a dog, a fur coat, and a Santa mask without further pairings.
• The single-subject study became behaviorism's emblem and an ethics case study; Albert was never deconditioned.

Sources

• Watson & Rayner (1920) — DOI 10.1037/h0069608