Poor Albert “Little Albert” was an 11-month-old baby who developed a fear of rats through his participation in an ethically questionable experiment by John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner (Watson & Rayner, 1920). Watson and Rayner repeatedly showed the child a rat while terrifying him with a loud banging sound. Albert quickly learned to associate the sight of the rat with the scary noise, and his resulting fear of rats is known as a conditioned emotional response.

Archives of the History of American Psychology, The Center for the History of Psychology, The University of Akron