Ethical violations in Watson's Little Albert experiment and modern APA standards

The main issue that needs to be considered in the case of the Little Albert experiment conducted by Watson and Raynor at Johns Hopkins University with results published in 1920 is that the study would not pass the ethical criteria of today's standards because of the possibility of long-term psychological trauma that could potentially result for the human child participant known as "Albert" and the fact that informed consent was not obtained. The child was the subject of an operant conditioning in humans and the conditioned fear that the child developed was not extinguished upon the experiment's termination. While it is not likely that the child would have developed long-term psychological damage as a result of this, the ethical considerations of today's American Psychological Association would not permit such chances to be taken with a human life. Indeed, both legislation and an ethical code of conduct exist to prevent such possibilities from occurring. As Vollmann and Winau (1996) note, the study lacked "informed consent" -- a permission that the subject must give to the researcher before experimentation can be conducted (i.e., the subject must be informed about what he or she is to be tested on). In this case, the subject had no sense of the test. The APA Code of Conduct is clear about the necessity of obtaining informed consent in today's research: Rule 3.10 states that "when psychologists conduct research or provide assessment, therapy, counseling or consulting services in person or via electronic transmission or other forms of communication, they obtain the informed consent of the individual or individuals using language that is reasonably understandable to that person or persons."

The meaning of the APA's Code of Conduct on the matter of informed consent is that a human test subject is entitled by right to knowing why he or she is being tested and what the test is about. Psychologists must be able to explain to the subject in reasonable terms the purpose of the study so that the subject can determine for his or herself whether or not he or she would like to take part in it. In the case of Albert, the legal guardian would be the one responsible for making this decision on Albert's behalf. The risk of Albert developing an inordinate fear and being psychologically traumatized by the study would have been needed to be made known to Albert's guardian, following today's APA Code of Conduct.

The potential harm of conducting the study involving Albert is still argued today, as Powell, Digdon, Harris and Smithson (2014) show. They state that there have been very many misleading accounts of the case and its aftermath that are not grounded in fact and that the actual identity of Albert (and later psychological after-effects) remains unknown. From the standpoint of whether the information learned from the study was worth the risk and unethical approach, the answer can be said that it was not -- for the study itself lacked a control, as Albert was the only test subject. Thus, while the study produced interesting findings, the findings themselves were not measured against a control and therefore were not verified or validated in a scientific manner.

In conclusion, the lack of informed consent gained for the study and the potential harm that the study might have caused the subject are two ethical concerns that today the APA Code of Conduct helps psychologists to guard against.