Did behavioral psych founder (Watson) commit fraud in Little Albert study?

[Jackpine Radical]

http://chronicle.com/blogs/percolator/a-new-twist-in-the-sad-saga-of-little-albert/28423

In the famous Little Albert experiment, a nearly 9-month-old baby is shown a white rat. The rat crawls up to the baby, on him, and around him. The baby seems interested in the rat and unafraid. Later, researchers again produce the rat and place it next to the baby, but this time the rat’s presence is accompanied by a loud, startling clang — a sound the baby clearly doesn’t like. This is repeated multiple times until the baby starts to cry at the mere appearance of the rat, loud clang or no. The fear extends to other furry things like a dog and a monkey, animals that previously provoked only mild interest. The researchers have taught Little Albert to be afraid.

The experiment was conducted by John Watson in 1920 and was part of the psychologist’s attempt to prove that infants are blank slates and therefore infinitely malleable. It has been recounted in countless papers and textbooks. One of the longstanding mysteries about the experiment, the identity of Little Albert, was apparently solved in 2010 by Hall P. Beck, a psychologist at Appalachian State University. He and his co-authors argued that Little Albert was Douglas Merritte, the son of a wet-nurse who worked at the Johns Hopkins University, where the experiment was carried out. Merritte died in 1925 at age six from convulsions brought on by hydrocephalus (also known as “water on the brain”).

Now comes another twist–one that, if accurate, would change how the Little Albert experiment is viewed and would cast a darker shadow over the career of the researcher who carried it out.

A paper published this month in the journal History of Psychology makes the case that Little Albert was not, as Watson insisted, “healthy” and “normal.” He was probably neurologically impaired. If the baby indeed had a severe cognitive deficit, then his reactions to the white rat or the dog or the monkey may not have been typical–certainly reaching universal conclusions about human nature based on his reactions wouldn’t make sense. The entire experiment, then, would be a case of a researcher terrifying a sick baby for no valid scientific reason (not that using a healthy baby would have been ethically hunkydory).

But what makes it worse, the authors of the paper argue, is that Watson must have known that Little Albert was impaired. This would turn a cruel experiment of questionable value into a case of blatant academic fraud.

[AngryAmish]

1. Does anyone who have actually met children actually believe in the "blank slate"?

I find that hard to believe.

[Jackpine Radical]

2. It was doctrine at one time.

It was in part an overreactive response to earlier theories that postulated all sorts of instincts for this & that. As a theory it's pretty much dead now.

As far as I'm concerned, both perspectives are--as you suggest--literally incredible.

Have you ever read Skinner's Walden II? Same kind of nonsense.

And of course the Soviets bought big-time into behaviorism. They wanted to believe that human nature is infinitely malleable so they could shape their population into ideal citizens for their Socialist State.

The same type of logic spilled over into Lysenkoist neo-Lamarckian theories of biological inheritance, retarding their agricultural science for most of a century.

It's amazing what people will believe despite the evidence in front of their noses. Take, for example, the belief set of the average Republican.

[cthulu2016]

3. excellent summation