John Watson
The psychologist Watson is controversial in the psychology community because many of his experiments are contrary to morality and ethics, and he did an experiment on fear before ushering in a "new era of behaviorism" in psychology.
Experiments:
Little Albert is a nine-month-old healthy baby. To see if he was afraid of a particular stimulus, the experimenters presented him with white rats, monkeys, dogs, masks with and without hair, and white cashmere wool. Albert was interested in many animals and objects and was willing to touch them, touching them from time to time.
Fear experiment pictures
Then, when Albert was about to reach out and touch the white rat, he suddenly tapped the iron rod, and he showed great fear, and the process was repeated three times. After a week, repeat the same process. After the rat was paired with the sound seven times, there was no sound, and it was presented alone from the mouse, and he also developed an extreme fear of the white rat. So much so that when he saw the white rat, he cried, turned his back to the white rat, and moved away from the self-rat.
Tested again a week later, he was still terrified of white rats. Rabbits, dogs, white fur coats, a bag of cotton, and the gray hair on Watson's head, including a mask of Santa Claus, were then presented to him, all of which he feared.
Fear experiment
In the middle of the experiment, Watson wondered whether learned emotions in the conditioned emotional response would migrate from one scenario to another. The researchers took Albert to a completely different room, where the lights were brighter and there were more people present. In this new environment, he still felt fear of these things, just not as strongly as before.
The experiment ended with an observation of whether Albert's newly acquired emotional responses would persist for some time. As a result, all experiments were terminated for 31 days. 31 days later, when Albert was presented with the original things, he was still terrified of them.
After the experiment, Watson intended to establish a new conditioned reflex for him to dispel his fear of mice. Unfortunately, after the experiment, Albert left the hospital, and the correction experiment did not have a chance to be carried out.
Through the whole experiment, Watson came to the conclusion that human fear can be created.
Historically, the "Little Albert Fear Experiment" has caused extensive discussion in the academic community, mainly from the discussion of the ethical and moral bottom line of the experiment. Since the experiment, the American Association of Psychology and Ethics has stipulated a reasonable scope of experimental ethics, and it is strictly forbidden for anyone to conduct experiments in private that violate moral ethics. Watson had made a promise to desensitize little Albert, but he did not keep this promise until his death at the age of 5.