How Did John B Watson Use Little Albert

Set against the backdrop of the psychology school of behaviourism, John B. Watson was an innovative character in the field. His school of thought related to the study and measurement of behaviours of human beings. Prior to Watson’s theory, researchers used animal behaviour traits to draw conclusions in respect of human behaviour. However, Watson’s primary focus was on human emotions (Discovering Psychology). Watson used an infant, named Albert, in his experiments. This sparked a dispute about whether or not it was ethical to use ‘Little Albert’ in his experiment.
Watson based his own theory around Ivan Pavlov’s theory of classical conditioning, which entails learning through association. In his experiments he used animals, however, Watson

He had associated them with the rat. This showed that generalisation, comparing similar objects to the rat, had occurred. Therefore, Watson and Rayner concluded that they had conditioned a phobia inside of him in relation to the white rat and fury objects.
This experiment was his most famous one; however, it heralded much controversy. It seems as if Watson went against many of the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. This was established in order to provide ethical direction for experimenters, in order to protect the human subject. As a result, the ethics of the ‘Little Albert’ experiment is still under harsh critique today.
The ethical issues pertaining to the ‘Little Albert” experiment are as follows: first, the International Code of Medical Ethics states that the physician may only work according to the patient’s interest if the experiment could affect the physical and mental state of the subject. However, the experiment did affect his mental health. It is recorded that Albert had mental breakdowns as a result of the experiment. But Albert’s interests were not taken into consideration because he was an infant and so Watson treated Albert