little albert

Whatever Happened to Little Albert?

BEN HARRIS Vassar College

ABSTRACT: John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner's1920 conditioning of the infant Albert B. is a well-known piece of social science folklore. Using pub-lished sources, this article reviews the study's actualprocedures and its relationship to Watson's career andwork. The article also presents a history of psycholo-gists' accounts of the Albert study, focusing on thestudy's distortion by Watson himself, general textbookauthors, behavior therapists, and most recently, aprominent learning theorist. The author proposes pos-sible causes for these distortions and analyzes theAlbert study as an example of myth making in thehistory of psychology.

Almost 60 years after it was first reported, Watsonand Rayner's (1920) attempted conditioning ofthe infant Albert B. is one of the most widelycited experiments in textbook psychology. Under-graduate textbooks of general, developmental, andabnormal psychology use Albert's conditioning toillustrate the applicability of classical conditioningto the development and modification of humanemotional behavior. More specialized books focus-ing on psychopathology and behavior therapy (e.g.,Eysenck, 1960) cite Albert's conditioning as an ex-perimental model of psychopathology (i.e., a ratphobia) and often use Albert to introduce a dis-cussion of systematic desensitization as a treat-ment of phobic anxiety.

Unfortunately, most accounts of Watson andRayner's research with Albert feature as muchfabrication and distortion as they do fact. Frominformation about Albert himself to 'the basic ex-perimental methods and results, no detail of theoriginal study has escaped misrepresentation in thetelling and retelling of this bit of social sciencefolklore.

There has recently been a revival of interestin Watson's conditioning research and theorizing(e.g., MacKenzie, 1972; Seligman, 1971; Weimer& Palermo, 1973; Samelson, Note 1), and in themythology of little Albert (Cornwell & Hobbs,1976; Larson, 1978; Prytula, Oster, & Davis,1977). However, there has yet to be a completeexamination of the methodology and results of the

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Albert study and of the process by which thestudy's details have been altered over the years.In the spirit of other investigations of classicstudies in psychology (e.g., Ellenberger, 1972;Parsons, 1974) it is time to examine Albert's con-ditioning in light of current theories of learning.It is also time to examine how the Albert studyhas been portrayed over the years, in the hope ofdiscovering how changes in psychological theoryhave affected what generations of psychologistshave told each other about Albert.

The Experiment

As described by Watson and Rayner (1920), anexperimental study was undertaken to answer threequestions: (1) Can an infant be conditioned tofear an animal that appears simultaneously witha loud, fear-arousing sound? (2) Would such feartransfer to other animals or to inanimate objects?(3) How long would such fears persist? In at-tempting to answer these questions, Watson andRayner selected an infant named Albert B., whomthey described as "healthy," and "stolid and un-emotional" (p. 1). At approximately 9 monthsof age, Albert was tested and was judged to showno fear when successively observing a number oflive animals (e.g., a rat, a rabbit, a dog, and amonkey), and various inanimate objects (e.g.,cotton, human masks, a burning newspaper). Hewas, however, judged to show fear whenever along steel bar was unexpectedly struck with a clawhammer just behind his back.

Two months after testing Albert's apparentlyunconditioned reactions to various stimuli, Watsonand Rayner attempted to condition him to fear a

Preparation of this article was aided by the textbookand literature searches of Nancy Kinsey, the helpful com-ments of Mike Wessels, and the bibliographic assistanceof Cedric Larson. The author also thanks Bill Wood-ward and Ernest Hilgard for their comments on earlierversions of this work.

Requests for reprints should be sent to Ben Harris,Box 368, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York 12601.

AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST • FEBRUARY 1979 • 151Copyright 1979 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.

0003-066X/79/3402-01Sl$00.75

white rat. This was done by presenting a whiterat to Albert, followed by a loud clanging sound(of the hammer and steel bar) whenever Alberttouched the animal. After seven pairings of therat and noise (in two sessions, one week apart),Albert reacted with crying and avoidance whenthe rat was presented without the loud noise.

In order to test the generalization of Albert'sfear response, 5 days later he was presented withthe rat, a set of familiar wooden blocks, a rabbit,a short-haired dog, a sealskin coat, a package ofwhite cotton, the heads of Watson and two assist-ants (inverted so that Albert could touch theirhair), and a bearded Santa Glaus mask. Albertseemed to show a strong fear response to the rat,the rabbit, the dog, and the sealskin coat; a "nega-tive" response to the mask and Watson's hair; anda mild response to the cotton. Also, Albert playedfreely with the wooden blocks and the hair ofWatson's assistants.

After an additional 5 days, Watson recondi-tioned Albert to the rat (one trial, rat paired withnoise) and also attempted to condition Albert di-rectly to fear the previously presented rabbit (onetrial) and dog (one trial). When the effects ofthis procedure were tested in a different, largerroom, it was found that Albert showed only aslight reaction to the rat, the dog, and the rabbit.Consequently, Watson attempted "to freshen thereaction to the rat" (p. 9) by presenting it withthe loud noise. Soon after this, the dog began tobark loudly at Albert, scaring him and the experi-menters and further confounding the experiment.

To answer their third question concerning thepermanence of conditioned responses over time,Watson and Rayner conducted a final series oftests on Albert after 31 days of neither condition-ing nor extinction trials. In these tests, Albertshowed fear when touching the Santa Claus mask,the sealskin coat, the rat, the rabbit, and the dog.At the same time, however, he initiated contactwith the coat and the rabbit, showing "strife be-tween withdrawal and the tendency to manipulate"(Watson & Rayner, 1920, p. 10). Following thesefinal tests, Albert's mother removed him from thehospital where the experiment had been conducted.(According to their own account, Watson andRayner knew a month in advance the day thatAlbert would no longer be available to them.)

The Context of Watson andRayner's StudyWhat was the relationship of the Albert experi-ment to the rest of Watson's work? On a per-

sonal level, this work was the final publishedproject of Watson's academic career, although hesupervised a subsequent, related study of the de-conditioning of young children's fears '(M. C.Jones, 1924a, 1924b). From a theoretical per-spective, the Albert study provided an empiricaltest of a theory of behavior and emotional de-velopment that Watson had constructed over anumber of years.

Although Watson had publicly declared himselfa "behaviorist" in early 1913, he apparently didnot become interested in the conditioning of motorand autonomic responses until late 1914, when heread a French edition of Bekhterev's ObjectivePsychology (see Hilgard & Marquis, 1940). By1915, Watson's experience with conditioning re-search was limited to this reading and his collabora-tion with his student Karl Lashley in a few simplestudies. Nevertheless, Watson's APA PresidentialAddress of that year made conditioned responsesa key aspect of his outline of behaviorism andseems to have been one of the first American ref-erences to Bekhterev's work (Hilgard & Marquis,1940, p. 24; Koch, 1964, p. 9; Watson, 1916b).Less than a year after his APA address, two ar-ticles by Watson (1916a, 1916c) were publishedin which he hypothesized that both normal de-fense mechanisms and psychiatric disorders (e.g.,phobias, tics, hysterical symptoms) could be under-stood on the basis of conditioning theory.

Six months later, the American Journal of Psy-chology featured a more extensive article by Wat-son and J. J. B. Morgan (1917) that formulateda theory of emotion, intended to serve both ex-perimentalists and clinicians. Its authors hypothe-sized that the fundamental (unlearned) humanemotions were fear, rage, and love; these emotionswere said to be first evoked by simple physicalmanipulations of infants, such as exposing them toloud sounds (fear) or restricting their movements(rage). Concurrently, they hypothesized that "themethod of conditioned reflexes" could explain howthese basic three emotions become transformedand transferred to many objects, eventually result-ing in the wide range of adult emotions ithat isevoked by everyday combinations of events, per-sons, and objects. In support of these theoreticalideas, Watson and Morgan began to test whetherinfants' fears could be experimentally conditioned,using laboratory analogues of thunder and light-ning. In the description of this work and therelated theory, a strong appeal was made for itspractical importance, stating that it could lead toa standard experimental procedure for "bringing

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the human emotions under experimental control"(p. 174).

By the early months of 1919, Watson appearsnot yet to have found a reliable method for experi-mentally eliciting and extinguishing new emotionalreactions in humans. However, by this time hehad developed a program of research with infantsto verify the existence of his hypothesized threefundamental emotions. Some early results of thiswork were described in May 1919, as part of alengthy treatise on both infant and adult emotions.Anticipating his work with Albert,1 Watson(1919b) for the first time applied his earlier prin-ciples of emotional conditioning to children's fearsof animals. Based on a case of a child frightenedby a dog that he had observed, Watson hypothe-sized that although infants do not naturally fearanimals, if "one animal succeeds in arousing fear,any moving furry animal thereafter may arouse it"(p. 182). Consistent with this hypothesis, theresults of Watson and Rayner's experiments withAlbert were reported 9 months later.

Although Watson's departure from Johns Hop-kins prematurely ended his own research in 1920,he continued to write about his earlier findings,including his work with Albert. In 1921, he andRayner (then Rosalie Rayner Watson) summa-rized the results of their interrupted infant re-search program, concluding with a summary oftheir experience with Albert. Although this wasa less complete account than their 1920 article, itwas the version that was always referenced inWatson's later writings. These writings includeddozens of articles in the popular press (e.g., Wat-son, 1928b, 1928c), the books Behaviorism (1924)and Psychological Care of Infant and Child(1928a), and a series of articles in PedagogicalSeminary (Watson, 192Sa, 192Sb, 1925c). Manyof these articles retold the Albert story, oftenwith photographs and with added comments elabo-rating on the lessons of this study.

Introductory-Level TextbookVersions of Albert

A selective survey of textbooks2 used to introducestudents to general, developmental, and abnormalpsychology revealed that few books fail to referto Watson and Rayner's (1920) study in somemanner. Some of these accounts are completelyaccurate (e.g., Kennedy, 197S; Page 1975; White-hurst & Vasta, 1977). However, most textbookversions of Albert's conditioning suffer from in-accuracies of various degrees. Relatively minor

details that are misrepresented include Albert'sage (Calhoun, 1977; Johnson & Medinnus, 1974),his name (Galanter, 1966), the spelling of RosalieRayner's name (e.g., Biehler, 1976; Helms &Turner, 1976; McCandless & Trotter, 1977; Pa-palia & Olds, 1975), and whether Albert was ini-tially conditioned to fear a rat or a rabbit (CRMBooks, 1971; Staats, 1968).

Of more significance are texts' misrepresenta-tions of the range of Albert's postconditioningfears and of the postexperimental fate of Albert.The list of spurious stimuli to which Albert's fearresponse is claimed to have generalized is ratherextensive. It includes a fur pelt (CRM Books,1971), a man's beard (Helms & Turner, 1976),a cat, a pup, a fur muff (Telford & Sawrey, 1968),a white furry glove (Whittaker, 1965), Albert'saunt, who supposedly wore fur (Bernhardt, 1953),either the fur coat or the fur neckpiece of Albert'smother (Hilgard, Atkinson, & Atkinson, 1975;Kisker, 1977; Weiner, 1977), and even a teddybear (Boring, Langfeld, & Weld, 1948). In anumber of texts, a happy ending has been addedto the story by the assertion that Watson removed(or "reconditioned") Albert's fear, with this pro-cess sometimes described in detail (Engle & Snell-grove, 1969; Gardiner, 1970; Whittaker, 1965).

What are the causes of these frequent errorsby the authors of undergraduate textbooks? Pry-tula et al. (1977) cataloged similar mistakes butoffered little explanation of their source. Corn-well and Hobbs (1976) suggested that such dis-tortions, if not simply due to overreliance on sec-ondary sources, can be generally seen as authors'

1 In tracing the development of Watson's ideas aboutconditioning, it would be helpful to know whether theexperiments with Albert had already begun when Watsonwrote his 1919 Psychological Review article. Unfortu-nately, there is no hard evidence of exactly when theAlbert study was completed. Watson and Rayner's origi-nal report was published in the February 1920 Journalof Experimental Psychology, suggesting that the researchwas completed in 1919. Also, M. C. Jones (1975, Note 2)remembers that Watson lectured about Albert as earlyas the spring of 1919 and showed a film of his work withinfants at the Johns Hopkins University (Watson, 1919a).Individual frames of this film published later ("Behavior-ist Babies," 1928; "Can Science Determine Your Baby'sCareer Before It Can Talk'?," 1922; Watson, 1927, 1928a)suggest that at some date this film contained footage ofAlbert's conditioning. Since the work with Albert lastedfor approximately 4 months, there seems to be a strongpossibility that Watson's 1919 prediction was not en-tirely based on theoretical speculation.

2 After this survey of texts was completed, similar re-views by Cornwell and Hobbs (1976) and by Prytula et al.(1977) were discovered. Interested readers should con-sult these articles for lists of additional textbook errors.

AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST • FEBRUARY 1979 • 153

attempts to paint the Albert study (and Watson)in a more favorable light and to make it believableto undergraduates. Certainly, many of the com-mon errors are consistent with a brushed-up imageof Watson and his work. For example, not onetext mentions that Watson knew when Albertwould leave his control—a detail that might makeWatson and Rayner's failure to recondition Albertseem callous to some modern readers.

However, there are other reasons for such errorsbesides textbooks' tendencies to tell ethically pleas-ing stories that are consistent with students' com-mon sense. One major source of confusion aboutthe Albert story is \Watson himself, who alteredand deleted important aspects of the study in hismany descriptions of it. For example, in the Sci-entific Monthly description of the study (Watson& Watson, 1921), there is no mention of the con-ditioning of Albert to .the dog, the rabbit, and therat that occurred at 11 months 20 days; thus Al-bert's subsequent responses to these stimuli canbe mistaken for a strong generalization effect (forwhich there is little evidence). A complementaryand equally confusing omission occurs in Psycho-logical Care oj Infant and Child (Watson, 1928a).There, Watson begins his description of ithe Albertstudy with Albert's being conditioned to a rabbit(apparently the session occurring at 11 months 20days). As a result, the reader is led to believethat Albert's fear of a rat (a month later) wasthe product of generalization rather than the initialconditioning trials. Besides these omissions, Wat-son and Rayner (1920) also made frequent edi-torial comments, such as the assention that fearssuch as Albert's were "likely to persist indefinitely,unless an accidental method for removing them ishit upon" (p. 12). Given such comments, it isunderstandable that one recent text overestimatesthe duration of the Albert experiment by 300%(Goldenberg, 1977), and another states that Al-bert's "phobia became resistant to extinction"(Kleinmuntz, 1974, p. 130).

A second reason for textbook authors' errors, itseems, is the desire of many of us to make experi-mental evidence consistent with textbook theoriesof how organisms should act. According to popu-lar versions of learning theory (as described byHerrnstein, 1977), organisms' conditioning shouldgeneralize along simple stimulus dimensions; manytextbooks list spurious fear-arousing stimuli (forAlbert) that correspond to such dimensions. Toillustrate the process of stimulus generalization,Albert is often said to have feared every white,

furry object—although he actually showed fearmostly of nonwhite objects (the rabbit, the dog,the sealskin coat, Watson's hair), and did noteven fear everything with hair (the observers).But to fit a more simplified view of learning, eithernew stimuli appear in some texts (e.g., a whiterabbit, a white glove) or it is simply asserted thatAlbert's conditioning generalized to all white andfurry (or hairy) stimuli (see Biehler, 1976; Craig,1976; Helms & Turner, 1976). Though it mightseem as if Albert's fear did generalize to the cate-gory of all animate objects with fur (e.g., therabbit) or short hair (e.g., Watson's head), thisis impossible to show conclusively. The only ex-perimental stimuli not fitting this category werethe blocks and the observers' hair. Apparentlythe blocks were a familiar toy (thus not a properstimulus), and Albert's familiarity with the ob-servers is not known (although we may guess thatone might have been his mother).

Behavior Therapists' Views of Albert

Unfortunately, misrepresentations of Watson andRayner's (1920) work are not confined to intro-ductory-level texts. For proponents of behavioraltherapies, Albert's conditioning has been a fre-quently cited reference, although its details haveoften become altered or misinterpreted. JosephWolpe, for example, is well known for his condi-tioned-anxiety model of phobias and his treatmentof various neurotic disorders by what was origi-nally termed "reciprocal inhibition" (Wolpe,19S8). According to Wolpe and Rachman (1960):

Phobias are regarded as conditioned anxiety (fear) reac-tions. Any "neutral" stimulus, simple or complex, thathappens to make an impact on an individual at about thetime that a fear reaction is evoked acquires the abilityto evoke fear subsequently, (p. 145)

In support of .this model Wolpe and Rachmancited the Albert study to "indicate that it is quitepossible for one experience to induce a phobia"(p. 146). Also, Eysenck (1960) asserted that"Albert developed a phobia for white rats and in-deed for all furry animals" (p. 5). Similar inter-pretations of Watson and Rayner's (1920) experi-ment are found in subsequent writings by Wolpeand other behavior therapists (e.g., Rachman,1964; Sandier & Davidson, 1971; Ullman & Kras-ner, 1965; Wolpe, 1973).

Critical reading of Watson and Rayner's (1920)report reveals little evidence either that Albertdeveloped a rat phobia or even that animals con-


sistently evoked his fear (or anxiety) during Wat-son and Rayner's (1920) experiment. For ex-ample, 10 days after the completion of the initial(seven-trial) conditioning to a white rat, Albertreceived an additional trial of conditioning tothe same rat. Immediately following this, hisreaction to the rat was described as: "Fell over tothe left side, got up on all fours and started tocrawl away. On this occasion there was no crying,but strange to say, as he started away he beganto gurgle and coo, even while leaning far over tothe left side to avoid the rat" (p. 7 ) .

On the same day as this, Albert received a trialof conditioning to the rabbit he had seen previ-ously (using the clanging steel bar). When shownthe rabbit itwice again, he whimpered but did notcry. Immediately after this, his reactions weretested in a different (larger) room. When shownthe rabbit, Albert's response was described as:"Fear reaction slight. Turned to left and keptface away from the animal but the reaction wasnever pronounced" (p. 9).

Finally, 31 days later and after having receivedan additional conditioning trial to the rat at theend of the preceding session, Albert's reactions tothe (same) rat were:

He allowed the rat to crawl towards him without with-drawing. He sat very still and fixated intently. Rat thentouched his hand. Albert withdrew it immediately, thenleaned back as far as possible but did not cry. When therat was placed on his arm he withdrew his body andbegan to fret, nodding his head. The rat was then al-lowed to crawl against his chest. He first began to fretand then covered has eyes with both hands, (p. 11)

Not only does Albert's response seem lacking inthe strength that we associate with phobia (pos-sibly due to Watson's alternation of acquisitionand extinction trials) but on a qualitative basisit seems unlike the classically conditioned anxietyon which some behavior therapists base theirtheoretical models of phobias.

Of course, it might be argued by proponents ofa two-factor theory of phobias that Albert's re-actions to the rat and the rabbit were successfulescape responses from the anxiety-arousing stimuli,thus explaining Albert's relative calm (no rapidbreathing, crying, etc.). However, Albert did notconsistently avoid the animals to which he wasconditioned. On his final day of testing, for ex-ample, Albert initially did not avoid the rabbit towhich he had been conditioned; he then attemptedto avoid it, but then "after about a minute hereached out tentatively and slowly and touched

the rabbit's ear with his right hand, finally manip-ulating it" (Watson & Rayner, 1920, p. II).3

A more serious problem' with clinicians' citingof the Albert study is the failure of Watson's con-temporaries to replicate his work. Although H. E.Jones (1930) subsequently demonstrated persistentgalvanic skin response (GSR) conditioning withan infant (using a mild electric current as an un-conditioned stimulus, and a light and varioussounds as conditioned stimuli), attempts to repli-cate the Albert study using variations of Watson'sown method were unsuccessful. Valentine (1930),for example, used extensive naturalistic observa-tion and failed to find conditioned fear of infantsto loud noises; he criticized both Watson's meth-odology and his simplistic theory of emotional de-velopment. Bregman (1934) was also unsuccess-ful in her attempts to condition even 1 of IS in-fants to fear wooden and cloth objects, using adisagreeable noise as an unconditioned stimulus(see Thorndike, 1935). Finally, whatever our ret-rospective view of Albert's conditioned reactions,a conditioned-avoidance model of phobias (withfear as a necessary component) is not consistentwith more recent experimental and clinical litera-ture (see Costello, 1970; Hineline, 1977; Marks,1969,1977).

Albert and Preparedness Theory

One of the reasons that Albert is so well knownis that he is rediscovered every S or 10 years by anew group of psychologists. In the early 1960s,Wolpe and Eysenck were the curators and analystsof the Albert myth. Ten years later, Wolpe andEysenck were supplanted by M. E. P. Seligman,

3 Another model that has been applied to the Albertstudy is that of operant or instrumental conditioning.For example, Larson (1978) and Reese and Lipsitt (1970)cited a paper by R. M. Church (Note 3) on this point(see also Kazdin, 1978). Such an interpretation is ap-parently based on Watson's notes indicating that at leastfor the first two trials, the loud noise was contingent onAlbert's active response (i.e., touching the rat). Also, theone trial of conditioning to the rabbit occurred whenAlbert had begun "to reach out and manipulate its furwith forefingers" (Watson & Rayner, 1920, p. 8). Theattractiveness of an (aversive) instrumental model of Al-bert's conditioning is that it would not necessarily predictany emotional reaction by Albert and would help ex-plain his reluctance to touch the experimental animals.Strong support for this model is lacking, however, withWatson and Rayner describing at least four conditioningtrials on which the loud sound was not contingent onAlbert's instrumental response, and a number of trialsthe character of which is uncertain.


who has seized control of the Albert story anduses it (in slightly revised form) to attack theviews of its former proponents. At the same time,Seligman both challenges traditional theories oflearning and proposes his own reformulation,known as "preparedness theory."

Briefly stated, preparedness theory (Seligman,1970, 1971; see also Schwartz, 1974) posits thattraditionally held laws of learning cannot be uni-formly applied to all stimuli interacting with allorganisms. In a classical conditioning paradigm,organisms may be physiologically or cognitively"prepared" to form certain conditioned stimulus-unconditioned stimulus associations and "contra-prepared" to develop others. In the former case(e.g., rats learning taste aversion to food causingillness) the association is easily formed, but inthe latter case (e.g., rats learning taste aversion tofood paired with footshock) it is difficult if not im-possible to form. Similarly, Seligman (1970) sum-marized evidence from instrumental-learning para-digms to suggest that for a particular organism,certain behaviors differ in their potential to besuccessfully conditioned (see Shettleworth, 1973).

Relevant to Albert, Seligman (1971) hypothe-sized that the strength of human phobic reactions(i.e., their resistance to extinction) is due to thehigh degree of preparedness of certain stimuli (e.g.,snakes). This conditioning to phobic objects oc-curs very quickly, whereas conditioning to otherstimuli (assumed to be of low preparedness orcontraprepared) results in fear reactions that areless intense, take longer to establish, and extinguishmore quickly. As Marks (1977) noted, there issome evidence that objects differ in their abilityto produce conditioned GSR in humans over time(e.g., Ohman, Erixon, & Lb'fberg, 1975). It alsomakes sense that evolution 'may have made iteasier for humans to learn some responses thanothers (see Herrnstein, 1977). However, much ofSeligman's (1971) discussion of human phobias isbased on an erroneous interpretation of Watsonand Rayner's (1920) work.

As described in his article "Phobias and pre-paredness," Seligman's version of Albert's condi-tioning is generally consistent with the exaggeratedclaims for the study made by Watson (e.g., Wat-son, 1924). According to preparedness theory,the existence of strong animal phobias in the hu-man clinical literature is evidence that "furrythings" (Seligman, 1971, p. 315) are stronglyprepared phobic stimuli for humans. If furrythings are highly prepared and Watson and Rayner

(1920) used furry things in their study, then Al-bert must have quickly developed a strong fearof animals and other furry things. Consistent withthis logic is Seligman's (1971) assertion that "Al-bert became afraid of rats, rabbits, and otherfurry objects" (p. 308, italics added) and thatWatson "probably did not" become an aversivestimulus to Albert. In fact, Albert was "com-pletely negative" to Watson's hair (Watson &Rayner, 1920, p. 7), and of course, Albert's fearwas only tested to a single rat, a single rabbit, andto no previously neutral, nonfurry objects.

In addition to presenting this inaccurate pictureof how Albert's fear initially generalized, Selig-man's account also misrepresents the ease withwhich Albert was conditioned, the durability of hisreactions, and the details of an attempt to repli-cate the Albert study. According to Seligman(1971), Albert's "conditioning occurred in twotrials" and this "prepared fear conditioning [did]not extinguish readily" (p. 315). In fact, "sevenjoint stimulations were given [to Albert] to bringabout the complete reaction" (Watson & Rayner,1920, p. 5), and there is little if any evidenceeither that the .reactions of Albert were resistantto a formal extinction procedure (or to the pas-sage of time) or that he was tested with validcontraprepared stimuli. Further, in describing asimilar study that actually used a contrapreparedstimulus (a wooden duck), Seligman erred in hisstatement that the experimenter "did not get fearconditioning to a wooden duck, even after manypairings with a startling noise" (1971, p. 315).In fact, the experimenter himself admitted thatthis failure was due to the inadequancy of hisunconditioned stimulus, not to the inappropriate-ness of a wooden duck as a phobic stimulus:

We did not succeed in establishing a conditional fear re-sponse to the duck for the simple reason that the noisefailed to evoke fear. Once only in something over fiftytrials did the child exhibit what might be called a wor-ried look. (English, 1929, p. 222)

One can understand how the Albert study couldbe selectively misperceived by Seligman, since theerrors that he committed result in a historicalaccount that provides more support for the pre-dictions of his preparedness theory than does (sub-sequent) clinical observation (DeSilva, Rachman,& Seligman, 1977; Rachman & Seligman, 1976).It seems ironic that in making his case for thenew theory of preparedness, Seligman first had tostrengthen the old Watsonian interpretation of theAlbert study: that it was a successful laboratory


demonstration of fear conditioning, its generaliza-tion, and resistance to extinction.

Conclusions

What can be deduced from reviewing the manyversions of Watson and Rayner's study of Albert?One somewhat obvious conclusion is that we shouldbe extremely wary of secondhand (and more re-mote) accounts of psychological research. AsCornwell and Hobbs (1976) suggested, 'this may bemost relevant to often-cited studies in psychology,since we may be more likely to overestimate ourknowledge of such bulwarks of textbook knowledge.

What about the process by which secondarysources themselves come to err in their descriptionof classic studies? A simple explanation mightassume that more recent authors, like any recipi-ents of secondhand information (e.g., gossip), aremore likely to present an account of much-citedresearch that has "drifted well away from theoriginal" (Cornwell & Hobbs, 1976, p. 9). Forthe Albert study at least, this relatively passivemodel of communication is an oversimplified view.Not only was Watson quick to actively revise hisown description of his research (e.g., Watson,1928a; W(atson & Watson, 1921) but it took littletime for textbook authors to alter the details ofAlbert's conditioning. For example, within a yearafter Watson's original article, one text (Smith &Guthrie, 1921) had already invented spurious stim-uli to which Albert's initial fear generalized; sucherrors were also contained in early texts by H. L.Hollingworth (1928) and J. W. Bridges (1930).

There has undoubtedly been some distortiondue to the simple retelling of the Watson andRayner study, but a more dynamic influence ontextbook accounts seems to have been the authors'opinions of behaviorism as a valid theoretical view-point. For example, the agreement of HarveyCarr's (1925) text with Watson's overgeneraliza-tions about Albert was consistent with Carr's(1915) relatively favorable review of Watson'searly work. Similarly, as behaviorism's influencegrew, even relative skeptics seem to have beenwilling to devote more attention to the Albertstudy. For example, the fourth edition of RobertS. Woodworth's (1940) text, Psychology, men-tioned that Albert's "conditioned fear was 'trans-ferred' from the rat to similar objects" (p. 379),though the previous edition of the text (Wood-worth, 1934) did not mention this generalizationand was more critical of Watson's theory of emo-

tional development. Woodworth's 1934 text alsohad Albert initially conditioned to a rabbit, whilethe 1940 one correctly described the conditionedstimulus of a rat. This greater accuracy in Wood-worth's later account is an indication of at leastone author's ability to resist any general drifttoward increasing misinformation.

Any attempted explanation of textbook errorsconcerning Albert raises the question of the roleof classic studies and the nature of historicalchanges in psychology. As discussed by Samel-son (1974) and Baumgardner (1977), moderncitations of classic studies can often be seen asattempts by current theorists to build a false senseof continuity into the history of psychology. Insocial psychology, for example, claiming AugusteComte as a founder of the field (see Allport, 1968)gives the impression that our contemporary mo-tives (especially the wish for a well-developedbehavioral science) have directed the field's prog-ress for almost a century (Samelson, 1974). Tocite another classic "origin," the Army's psycho-logical testing program during World War I istaken by some clinical psychologists as an earlyexample of how the profession of psychology hasalways grown in relation to its increased useful-ness. However, it has recently been shown thatWorld War I intelligence testing was of little prac-tical use at the time (Samelson, 1977).

In reviewing these classic studies or origin mythsin psychology, it should be emphasized that thismyth^making process is not anyone's attempt todefraud the public. Instead, it arises "as largelya byproduct of pedagogy: as a means to elucidate•the concepts of a scientific specialty, to establishits tradition, and to attract students" (Samelson,1974, p. 223).4 This seems a fair explanation ofthe Albert case—one that casts the frequent "re-discoverers" of Watson and Rayner (Garrett,1941; Harlow, 1949; Salter, 1949; Seligman, 1971;Watson, 1928a; Wolpe, 1958) as participants inthe process of building historical support for newtheoretical perspectives (e.g., preparedness theory).

As Samelson (1974) noted, the major difficultywith such reevaluations of classic studies is thatthey obscure the actual factors that determine thecourse of scientific research. In the case of theAlbert study, debate still surrounds the question,How did behaviorism become a dominant force inAmerican psychology (MacKenzie, 1972, 1977;

* Samelson noted that he was paraphrasing T. S. Kuhn(1968) here.


Weimer & Palermo, 1973)? The answer is beyondthe scope of this study, since it involves muchmore than an evaluation of the Albert study.5

However, it is now possible to assent that by itselfthe Albert study was not very convincing proofof the correctness of Watson's general view ofpersonality and emotions. In addition to thestudy's reliance on only one subject, the experi-mental stimuli were insufficient to test for general-ization effects, the observers' accounts were toosubjective, and the technology did not exist topermit reliable assessment of emotional responses(see Sherman, 1927); there was insufficient fol-low-up and there was a confounding of instru-mental and classical conditioning paradigms (seeFootnote 3). These methodological flaws werealso apparent to critical reviewers of the day (e.g.,English, 1929; Valentine, 1930) and surely toWatson and Rayner themselves. However, theyare worth emphasizing here because of continuingattempts to integrate the study into the earlyconditioning literature (e.g., Seligman, 1971). Itmay be useful for modern learning theorists tosee how the Albert study prompted subsequentresearch (i.e., Bregman, 1934), but it seems time,finally, to place the Watson and Rayner data inthe category of "interesting but uninterpretableresults."

5 Other relevant factors include the relation of Watson'stheory to psychoanalysis (Bakan, 1966), the state in 1920of- other theories of emotion, the impact of Watson's popu-lar writing (Buckley, Note 4; Harris & Morawski, Note5), and Watson's national reputation.

REFERENCE NOTES

1. Samelson, F. Reactions to Watson's behaviorism: Theearly years. Paper presented at the meeting of theCheiron Society, Wellesley, Massachusetts, June 1978.

2. Jones, M. C. Personal communication, April 1, 1978.3. Church, R. M. The role of fear in punishment. In

J. R. Braun (Chair), The effects of punishment on be-havior. Symposium presented at the meeting of theAmerican Psychological Association, New York, Sep-tember 1966.

4. Buckley, K. W. Behaviorism and the professionaliza-tion of American psychology: A study of John BroadusWatson (1878-1958). Doctoral dissertation in prepara-tion, University of Massachusetts—Amherst, 1979.

5. Harris, B., & Morawski, J. John B. Watson's pre-dictions for 1979. Unpublished manuscript, Vassar Col-lege, 1978.

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