HORRIFYING footage in which a helpless baby is conditioned to FEAR fluffy animals and Santa Claus has emerged online – in what is considered to be one of early twentieth century psychology’s most unethical experiments. Before there was a code of conduct for psychological research which ensured the subject’s consent and mental well-being, John Watson of John Hopkins University Hospital performed the “Little Albert” experiment in 1919. The aim of the perverse experiment was to show that an emotionally stable nine-month-old infant – referred to as “Albert B” – could be trained to have a phobia of something he wasn’t scared of before. In the chilling video, Watson and his graduate student Rosalie Rayner are seen traumatizing a baby into fearing fluffy animals and Santa Claus – until the child is visibly terrified of them. Today the ‘Little Albert’ tests are arguably one of psychology’s most morally dubious experiments. However the research was also groundbreaking for the time and is considered the first modern-day experiment of its kind to show that a human could be classically conditioned.

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