Was Little Albert an orphan? How did John Watson get permission to have him in his study?

Question

I have a psychology textbook that says that Little Albert's mother worked in the same institution as Watson and that she would bring Little Albert to work with her because she had noone else to watch him. Watson then volunteered to watch him during her lunch breaks where he would experiment on him. when the mom found out, she took Little Albert and never came b ack. What's the truth?

Answer 1

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters

My best research shows that Albert was not an orphan and that his mother gave permission. However, I doubt anyone would have called it informed permission.
C. :)!!

Answer 2

That is not the truth. He was adopted and was experimented on back when ethics was not really an issue. After the experiments he was adopted and never finshed his treatment to get rid of his fear, so he was messed up for life pretty much. That is a VERY condensed version.

Answer 3

I've heard of little Albert but non of my textbooks ever even went into that much detail about the situation. But from the alleged story you posted it sounds like Watson was babysitting and conditioned the fear into little Albert without his mother knowing. She didn't give permission b/c she wasn't aware of the situation.

Answer 4

My psych testbook said something to the effect of "no one knows what happened to Little Albert after the study..."\

According to Wikipedia
"Albert B., was picked for this study at the age of nine months from a hospital in which he was an orphan.Before the start of the experiment, when Albert was 9 months old, Watson and Rayner ran Little Albert through emotional tests. "

But there are inconsistancies. In the same article, it says:
"Albert was 11 months and three days old at the time of the first test. Because of his young age, the experiment today would be considered unethical.
By present-day standards, Watson's experiment was unethical for several reasons. Albert's mother was not informed of the experiment. It was performed without her consent."

Source(s):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Albe…