The American Psychological Association has regulations that ensure maintenance of ethics in psychological experiments; however, this was always not the case which is how experiments such as The Little Albert Experiment, The Bystander Effect and Learned Helplessness. The Little Albert experiment was performed at John Hopkins Hospital by John Watson. He tested B.F Skinner’s classical conditioning on 9-month-old baby Albert, the child was conditioned to love animals specifically a white rat and slowly Watson began alternating the rat with the high pitched thud of a hammer (Danko, 2013). The child developed a phobia for the rat and other furry animals and objects. The research was unethical since the baby was not desensitized to the phobia Watson produced in him. The experiment would not be carried out today due to the child’s inability to give informed consent. The experiment does not provide a clear benefit to the society instead it exposes the subject to more risks. The child definitely suffered during the experiment and might suffer for the rest of their life on exposure to a stimulus that invokes conditioned fear. The Bystander effect experiment used crime witness who failed to take action while a crime happened. John Darley and Bibb Latane put a participant in a room to fill out a survey then let smoke fill the room after a short time (Danko, 2013). The crime witness was quick to respond to the smoke than participants who had the same witness in a similar group. The study was unethical since the participants were deceived and put at risk of psychological harm.
In the Learned Helplessness experiment, Martin Seligman utilized dogs as test subjects to show how individuals perceive control. The experiment required that dogs jump over a barrier to avoid administration of shock. The experiment was unethical since it involved the mistreatment of animals (Schuler, 2013) The Little Albert experiment violated the ethical consideration of informed consent, exposing the subject to psychological harm. The current code of ethics does not allow psychologists to evoke fear response from human participants without consent (Schuler, 2013) The other ethical consideration violated was the fact that Watson failed to desensitize the child of the phobia; although it was never established the experience might have caused the child’s death. If I were to conduct the experiment, I would enroll children within the age of consent for the experiment. Alternatively, I would utilize more humane methods to elicit the response of fear. At the end of the experiment I would ensure that the subjects have been desensitized to the phobias established during the experiment.
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References
Danko, M. (September 20, 2013). 10 Psychological Experiments That Could Never Happen Today. Retrieved from https://mentalfloss.com/article/52787/10-famous-psychological-experiments-could-never-happen-today
Schuler, H. (2013). Ethical problems in psychological research . Academic Press.
