Psychology › Learning & behavior › Classical conditioning (Pavlov's dogs)
The 'Little Albert' fear experiment
1920· Finding or experiment
Weak or failed to replicateFamous but not holding up in careful repeats.
A 1920 study in which John Watson and Rosalie Rayner conditioned an infant to fear a white rat.
See it on the Psychology map →What it says
At Johns Hopkins, Watson and Rayner showed 'Albert B.', about 11 months old, a white rat, then struck a steel bar loudly behind his head as he reached for it. After seven pairings Albert cried at the rat alone, and seemed wary of similar furry things such as a rabbit, a dog and a Santa Claus mask. He left the hospital before any attempt to remove the fear. One child, inconsistent methods, no follow-up: it would be considered unethical today.
Why it matters
It became the textbook example of how fears might be learned, and prompted Mary Cover Jones's 1924 'Little Peter' study, an early version of exposure therapy for unlearning fear.
The evidence
Status: weak. A single, loosely controlled case; Watson's film and paper show inconsistent fear, and textbooks long exaggerated it. Attempts to condition fear in infants in the 1920s and 1930s largely failed.
Open questions
Albert's identity: a 2009 study named Douglas Merritte, who died at six of hydrocephalus; a 2014 study proposed William Barger, who lived to 87.
Connections (2)
▸The 'Little Albert' fear experiment was run by John B. WatsonWell replicated
The connection
Watson designed the Little Albert study with graduate student Rosalie Rayner to show that emotions such as fear could be conditioned, supporting his claim that environment shapes nearly everything. Their 1920 paper became his best-known experiment. That same year their affair became public and Johns Hopkins forced him out; he soon married Rayner.
Who showed it and when
Harriet Lane Home for children at Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, 1919–1920; published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology in 1920.
The evidence
The 1920 Watson and Rayner paper, surviving film footage and university records; Watson's own later retellings, which often changed details.
Open questions
Whether they ever meant to remove Albert's fear: the paper says he left before they could, but historians note they knew his departure date in advance.
▸The 'Little Albert' fear experiment claimed to show fear arises from Classical conditioning (Pavlov's dogs)Weak or failed to replicate
The connection
The study applied Pavlov's method to a human emotion: the rat was the neutral signal, the loud bang the natural trigger for fear, and after pairing the rat alone was said to cause fear. Watson argued adult fears and phobias form the same way. The broad idea has held up better than this experiment.
Who showed it and when
Baltimore, 1920; textbooks spread the story from the 1920s onward, often adding details absent from the original paper, as psychologist Ben Harris documented in 1979.
How solid is it?
Weak. One child and subjective fear ratings; Elsie Bregman's 1934 study of 15 infants failed to condition fear of objects this way.
Open questions
How much fear is conditioned versus prepared: people learn to fear snakes and heights far more easily than flowers, suggesting evolution primes some fears (Seligman, 1971).