Who was Little Albert? This experiment is one of the darkest pages in the history of psychology

Where did the idea to frighten a child come from? It started with John Watson’s reading Psychology as a behaviorist sees it in 1913. He assumed introspection Consciousness analysis and analysis are too biased methods to be considered scientific, and reliable and authoritative research should focus on what is visible – stimulus and response.

Human research

This reading is considered to be the symbolic birth of a new trend in psychology, and its author – the father of behaviorism. Watson’s inspiration, however, stretched far beyond the walls of John Hopkins University in Baltimore, where he lectured. Ivan Pavlov, a Russian experimental physician, was developing his research at a similar time. Based on the observations of fed dogs, he described the principles of classical conditioning, i.e. learning to respond to specific stimuli. Watson went one step further – he decided to test the theses of the scientist on people.