Topical Article
Psychology’s Lost Boy: Will the Real Little
Albert Please Stand Up?
Teaching of Psychology
2015, Vol. 42(1) 14-18
ª The Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/0098628314562668
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Richard A. Griggs1
Abstract
This article is concerned with the recent debate about the identity of psychology’s lost boy—Little Albert, the infant subject in Watson
and Rayner’s classic experiment on fear conditioning. For decades, psychologists and psychology students have been intrigued by the
mystery of Albert’s fate. Now two evidentiary-based solutions to this mystery have been proposed. Given the present absence of coverage in introductory textbooks, the purpose of this article is to provide a cornerstone resource for teachers to use as an advance
organizer to the literature on this debate. Synopses of the search and resulting evidence for each candidate are provided. A summative
comparison of the evidence indicates that Albert Barger is likely Little Albert and that Douglas Merritte is not.
Keywords
Little Albert, introductory psychology, history of psychology
According to Jarrett (2008), psychology’s foundation as conveyed in its introductory textbooks is arguably not built of theory but with the rock of classic experiments, such as the
Stanford Prison Experiment and Milgram’s obedience experiments (see also Smyth, 2001a, 2001b). This article is concerned
with one of these classic experiments, Watson and Rayner’s
(1920) Little Albert experiment. More specifically, it is concerned with the recent controversy about the true identity of the
infant subject of that study—Little Albert, ‘‘psychology’s lost
boy’’ (Beck, Levinson, & Irons, 2009). For decades, psychologists and psychology students have been intrigued by the mystery of Albert’s identity, his fate, and whether there were
lasting effects of his fear-conditioning experiences.
Until recently, there were no evidentiary-based answers to
questions about Albert’s fate but rather only facetious ones,
such as ‘‘Albert is probably a successful furrier’’ (Murray,
1973, p. 5). This search for answers was made even more difficult because Watson, late in his life, burned all of his research
notes and papers, which may have included information about
Little Albert (Buckley, 1989). Now, however, there are two
competing evidentiary-based answers as to Albert’s identity—Douglas Merritte (Beck & Irons, 2011; Beck et al.,
2009; Beck, Levinson, & Irons, 2010; Fridlund, Beck, Goldie,
& Irons, 2012a, 2012b) and Albert Barger (Digdon, Powell, &
Harris, 2014; Digdon, Powell, & Smithson, 2014; Powell, Digdon, Harris, & Smithson, 2014). Because the supporting publications for each proposed Albert are so new, a discussion of
this identity debate is not available in current introductory textbooks. In fact, given the recency of the relevant publications,
Griggs (2014) found that less than 40% of the current introductory textbooks in his text sample even mentioned the first proposed candidate, and only one text mentioned the possibility
that Albert was neurologically impaired at the time of the
experiment. In addition, given the 3-year revision cycle for
introductory textbooks (Griggs, 2006), it will be a few years
before the current set of introductory textbooks are able to
update their coverage of the Little Albert identity debate.
It is the purpose of this article to provide an up-to-date discussion of the debate to be used as a cornerstone resource by
psychology teachers (and textbook authors) for their classroom
presentations on (or textbook coverage of) the Little Albert
identity saga.1 My synopses of the searches that identified the
two candidates only provide the highlights of each search. For
the full details, the cited references should be consulted. Hence,
this article should be used as an advance organizer for reading
the articles relevant to this debate. The two Albert candidates
will be discussed separately, but some comparison of the evidence for the two candidates will be provided in the discussion
of the second candidate, Albert Barger. I will discuss Douglas
Merritte first because the articles advancing his candidacy were
published first.
Before discussing either candidate, I need to preface these
discussions with some general background material important
to solving this almost 100-year-old cold case. It concerns the
foundation from which the search for Albert began. Watson and
Rayner’s (1920) published account of the Little Albert experiment, a movie that Watson made of his research with infants
1
Department of Psychology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
Corresponding Author:
Richard A. Griggs, 4515 Breakwater Row West, Jacksonville, FL 32225, USA.
Email: [email protected]
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Griggs
15
which included some footage of the Little Albert experiment
(Watson, 1923), and the personal information that Watson provided about Albert in other accounts of the experiment (e.g.,
Watson & Watson, 1921) comprised the foundation for the
search. However, it is important to note that there were inconsistencies in Watson’s various accounts of the experiment, further
complicating the search for Albert (Harris, 1979; Samelson,
1980). It is also important to note that Albert was referred to
as ‘‘Albert B.’’ in the experiment. Whether this was a pseudonym or Albert’s actual name was not known. In addition, the fact
that Albert’s mother was a wet nurse at the Harriet Lane Home
for Invalid Children, a pediatric facility at Johns Hopkins, where
the experiment was conducted, is critical to the search. Albert
and his mother lived at the Harriet Lane Home at the time of the
experiment. The Phipps Clinic where Watson and Rayner conducted their research was located next to the Harriet Lane Home
(Fridlund et al., 2012a). This then is the starting point for Hall
Beck and his fellow researchers in their search for the identity
of Albert that culminated with their proposal that Douglas Merritte was Little Albert.
Douglas Merritte
Goaded by student questions about the fate of Little Albert, Hall
Beck became determined to try to find answers (Beck et al.,
2009). A search of the Johns Hopkins archives led to the discovery
of a series of memos exchanged between Watson and the school’s
president. These memos allowed Beck to determine that the first
part of the experiment was likely done in late November or early
December in 1919. Using the age of Albert at the time of this part
of the experiment (given in Watson & Rayner, 1920), Beck determined that Albert was born between March 2 and March 16 in
1919. The next step was to try to identify Albert’s mother.
A check of the Johns Hopkins census of 1920 by Sharman
Levinson, one of Beck’s coinvestigators, revealed that three
women were listed as ‘‘foster mothers’’—Pearl Barger, Ethel
Carter, and Arvilla Merritte—and it seemed plausible that the
title of foster mother would encompass being a wet nurse. Beck
and his research team then spent hundreds of hours checking
various types of records, such as birth, death, and marriage
records, to determine whether any of these three women had
given birth to a boy in March 1919 (Beck et al., 2009). Ethel
Carter was eliminated because she was an African American
and Albert appears to have been Caucasian. Pearl Barger (who
was of particular interest because the B. in Albert B. could very
plausibly have stood for Barger) was eliminated because no
evidence that she had a child was found. However, it was discovered that Arvilla Merritte had given birth to a boy on March
9, 1919, and that both mother and son had lived together on the
Johns Hopkins campus. Next, a genealogical search revealed
that two of Arvilla’s grandchildren were currently living in
Maryland. Gary Irons, one of the grandchildren, confirmed that
his grandmother had worked at the Harriet Lane Home and had
given birth to a son named Douglas Merritte. Thus, Arvilla
would probably still have been lactating and able to serve as
a wet nurse at the time of the Little Albert experiment.
A problematic aspect of these findings concerned the name
that Watson and Rayner assigned to their infant subject, Albert
B. The American Psychological Association did not have an
ethics code at the time of the Little Albert experiment so there
was no need for confidentiality and the use of pseudonyms for
experimental subjects. Watson and Rayner named their infant
subject Albert B. and not Douglas M. However, a conversation
with Charles Brewer, an expert on John Watson, provided Beck
and his colleagues with at least a tenable explanation of why
the infant in the study might have been named Albert B.
According to Brewer, it could have been an instance of Watson’s playful use of names. Watson’s mother and maternal
grandmother were very religious, and Watson was named John
Broadus in honor of a prominent Baptist minister, John Albert
Broadus (Beck et al., 2009). Hence, Watson possibly may have
playfully derived Albert B. from John Albert Broadus.
The next phase of the search began with a fortuitous discovery
of an old trunk with contents from Arvilla Merritte’s life (Beck
et al., 2009). Among the contents was a portrait of Douglas when
an infant. A comparison of a photograph of this portrait and some
enlarged stills that Beck made of Little Albert from Watson’s
movie of the experiment followed. This comparison of images did
not reveal anything substantive, making it clear that a more thorough, expert biometric analysis was warranted. A subsequent biometric analysis, however, only led to the conclusion that the
photograph and stills could be of the same person. Although the
visual and biometric comparisons ruled out a definitive identification of Albert, Beck et al. (2009) argued that these photographic
data in conjunction with their other findings of 10 attributes
shared by Little Albert and Douglas Merritte, such as living with
his mother at the Harriet Lane Home at the time of the experiment
and that Douglas was the same age as Albert when the initial baseline data were collected, strongly supported their hypothesis that
Douglas was Albert.
If Douglas Merritte were Little Albert, then what would that
tell us about Albert’s fate? Sadly, Douglas Merritte died from
hydrocephalus in 1925 at the age of 6. How he acquired it could
not be determined by Beck et al. (2009), but they speculated that
he had contracted meningitis. Fridlund, Beck, Goldie, and Irons
(2012a) later reported that Douglas’s nephew was not sure if
Douglas was ever able to walk during his short, illness-laden life
and that it is unclear as to whether he ever spoke.
Fridlund et al. (2012a) also argued that a closer examination
of the clips from Watson’s (1923) film in which Little Albert
appeared and the subsequent review of some newly obtained
medical records of Douglas Merritte revealed that Albert
was neurologically impaired at the time of the experiment.2
Fridlund et al.’s detailed analyses of Albert’s behavior in the
film clips suggested to them that Albert had substantial behavioral and neurological deficits. A subsequent examination of
Douglas Merritte’s medical records was consistent with this
hypothesis in that they showed that Douglas suffered from congenital hydrocephalus. The records also indicated that Albert’s
experimental sessions occurred during periods when Douglas’s
medical condition was relatively stable. Fridlund et al. further
argued that there were ample sources of information available
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Teaching of Psychology 42(1)
to Watson that would have almost certainly made him aware of
Douglas’s medical condition. Thus, if Douglas Merritte were
Albert, then these new findings by Fridlund et al. not only contradict Watson and Rayner’s assertion that Little Albert was
‘‘normal’’ and ‘‘healthy’’ but also lead to the conclusion that
Watson and Rayner would have almost certainly had to know
about Little Albert’s medical condition, raising even more serious ethical questions about the already ethically questionable
Little Albert experiment.
Albert Barger
Soon after the publication of Beck et al. (2009), some other
researchers outlined difficulties with the Douglas Merritte
hypothesis and argued that the Little Albert identity case was
far from closed and thus warranted further investigation
(Powell, 2010, 2011; Reese, 2010; but see Beck et al.’s rejoinder, 2010). For example, Powell (2011) pointed out a difficulty
with Beck et al.’s estimated timeline for when the initial baseline session likely took place. The congruence of the reported
age of Albert and Douglas Merritte’s age at the time of the
baseline session was a critical component of Beck et al.’s case.
Powell found evidence that the baseline session could have
been delayed well beyond the time proposed by Beck et al.,
making Douglas older than Albert at that time. Another point
of contention involved a comment by Watson (1925) that
Albert was later adopted, but Douglas Merritte had remained
with his mother and had not been adopted.
Given such difficulties with the Douglas Merritte candidacy
and concerns about the weak evidence for Fridlund et al.’s
(2012a) claim that Little Albert had neurological impairments
and the profound ethical implications of this claim, Russell
Powell, Nancy Digdon, and Ben Harris decided to conduct their
own search for an alternative candidate for Little Albert. To aid
in the search, they enlisted the help of a professional genealogist, Christopher Smithson. They began their search by further
investigating Pearl Barger, the foster mother for whom Beck
et al. (2009) found no evidence of a baby while she resided
at the hospital. Their first break came when they found a
genealogical document on the Internet on the history of the
Martinek family in Baltimore (Powell, Digdon, Harris, &
Smithson, 2014). It revealed that Charles Martinek married
Pearl Barger in 1921, that they had three children, one of whom
was named Albert, and that Charles preferred to use the name
Martin, which led to the discovery that Pearl Barger and
Charles Martin had a baby in 1919, 2 years before their marriage. A search of U.S. census records revealed that Charles
Martin was living in Baltimore in 1940 with three children, the
oldest being William A., who was the same age as the unnamed
son born to the Martins in 1919. Then a search of more birth
and death certificates and the medical archives at Johns
Hopkins, which included the medical records of William A.
Barger and Douglas Merritte, led to more discoveries. Significantly, William A.’s name was recorded in his medical file as
Albert Barger, thereby matching Little Albert’s name in the
experiment—Albert B. This agrees with his niece’s report that
although his given name was William Albert, he was typically
called Albert throughout his life (Digdon et al., 2014).
Powell et al. (2014) also found that Albert Barger, like Douglas Merritte, was the correct age (8 months 26 days) to have
been Little Albert at the time of the initial baseline session. In
addition, Albert Barger was discharged from the hospital at the
age of 12 months 21 days, Little Albert’s age when the final
experimental session took place and when his mother removed
him from the hospital. Douglas Merritte’s medical file, however,
indicated that he was discharged at 12 months 15 days of age,
about a week earlier than Albert Barger and younger than Little
Albert when he left the hospital. Of most significance, Powell
and his colleagues further learned that Albert Barger’s weight
at the time of the initial baseline session was very close to that
reported for Little Albert by Watson and Rayner (1920), 21
pounds 15 ounces versus 21 pounds, respectively. Douglas Merritte, however, only weighed 14 pounds 14 ounces at this time.
Douglas’s extremely low body weight also conflicts with Watson and Rayner’s description of Little Albert as a healthy and
well-developed child.
Fridlund et al.’s (2012a) analysis of the clips with Little
Albert from Watson’s film led them to believe that Albert had
numerous behavioral and social deficits that were consistent
with neurological impairment resulting from hydrocephalus.
In contrast, Digdon, Powell, and Harris’s (2014) analysis of
these clips suggested otherwise. For example, Fridlund et al.
claimed that Little Albert showed no signs of social referencing, the tendency of infants to look toward caretakers when
confronted with novelty. However, according to Digdon
et al., there do appear to be some instances of what appears
to be mutual gaze between Albert and Watson. In addition,
Powell et al. (2014) contend that the selective nature of the film
clips may account for Fridlund et al.’s observation that Albert
seemed focused only on what was in front of him, with little
awareness of the people around him. As they pointed out, the
clips in Watson’s film were selected to show Albert’s reactions
to the stimuli presented to him rather than to the people near him,
so off-task behaviors were likely not included in the film. Digdon et al. further pointed out that these 34 brief clips, averaging
only 9 s (SD ¼ 6 s) in length, cannot be considered a representative sample of Albert’s behavior and that it is certainly questionable that anyone could validly diagnose neurological
impairment from such a limited sample of behavior.3 Thus, in
their opinion, any appraisal of behavioral or neurological deficits
from these film clips of Little Albert would, ‘‘at best, be highly
speculative.’’4 For more detail on Powell and his coinvestigators’ analysis of these film clips and why the clips comprise
an inadequate measure of Albert’s neurological status, see Digdon, Powell, and Harris (2014) and Powell et al. (2014).
If Albert Barger were Little Albert, what could be said about
Albert’s fate? Albert Barger lived a long life, dying in 2007 at
the age of 87.5 Did he grow up to have a fear of furry animals
and objects? Powell et al. (2014) were surprised when they first
learned from Barger’s niece that her uncle had an aversion (but
not a particularly strong one) to dogs and animals in general.
The aversion, however, appears to have been more of a dislike
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of animals than a phobia, but that his aversion was at least partially due to his conditioning experiences cannot be entirely
ruled out. In addition, according to Powell et al, Albert’s conditioning experiences did not appear to have had any adverse
effects on his personality. Sadly, Albert Barger died before
anyone could tell him that it was highly likely that he was the
famous Little Albert in the psychological literature. As far as
his niece knows, her uncle was unaware of the experiment and
did not even know that his mother was once a wet nurse. Hence,
we will never know what his reaction would have been when
learning about the strong possibility that he was Little Albert.
However, when asked what her uncle would have thought
about all of this, his niece said that ‘‘he would have been
thrilled’’ (Bartlett, 2014, p. B10).
Epilogue
As pointed out by Powell et al. (2014), applying Occam’s razor
to this situation would indicate that Albert Barger is far more
likely to have been Little Albert. The evidence for Albert
Barger’s candidacy is more parsimonious than that for Douglas
Merritte. Albert Barger matches Little Albert on all of the key
attributes, so fewer assumptions are needed.
His name matches the Albert B. name assigned to the
infant in Watson and Rayner’s study.
His body weight at the time of the initial baseline phase
of the experiment matches Little Albert’s reported body
weight and his chubby appearance in Watson’s film
clips of the experiment.
His age on the day he left the hospital was the same as
Little Albert’s age on that day.
His general state of health as an infant matches that
described by Watson and Rayner (1920).
Douglas Merritte does not match Little Albert on any of these
key attributes and thus was likely not Little Albert. However,
according to Bartlett (2014), Beck, Fridlund, and Goldie, all
Merritte proponents, still believe Douglas Merritte was Little
Albert.6 In addition, as pointed out by Powell et al. (2014),
although the evidence that Albert Barger was Little Albert is
very strong, it is not entirely conclusive. For example, contrary
to Watson’s statement that Little Albert was adopted shortly
after he left by an out-of-town family (Watson, 1925), it appears
that Albert Barger was not adopted. It is possible though that he
was informally adopted for a short time after leaving the hospital
and then later reunited with his mother, perhaps after her and
Charles Martin married. In addition, it is possible that Watson
(1925) was wrong, and the Little Albert purported adoption was
just a myth because there is no corroborative evidence of such an
adoption (Beck et al., 2010). Regardless, even though the Little
Albert saga has always had characters and plot, it has never had a
credible conclusion. Perhaps now it does.
Finally, if Albert Barger were Little Albert, then Watson
was not guilty of the unethical, fraudulent behavior of knowingly using a neurologically impaired infant in his research.
This is very important because the story alleging such behavior
has already become widespread on the Internet (e.g., DeAngelis, 2012). Hence, many psychology students have likely been
exposed to this story, which has now been shown to be very
unlikely. Given that there are already inaccuracy problems with
the coverage of the Little Albert experiment in introductory
psychology textbooks (see Griggs, 2014), getting the Little
Albert identity saga correctly described in our classrooms and
textbooks becomes of critical importance.
As a beginning point in doing so, I recommend that psychology teachers and textbook authors use this article as a guide for
a careful examination of the articles cited here in preparing
their coverage of the search for Little Albert. This should help
to insure its accuracy. The obvious downside of inaccuracies in
the coverage of the Little Albert story is that students will be
misled into accepting the story as fact, and sadly, it seems that
students seldom question the stories that they are told (Burton,
2011). Thus, it is important to the psychological teaching community to identify inaccuracies in our lectures and textbooks,
so that they can be corrected and we as teachers and textbook
authors do not continue to ‘‘give away’’ false information about
our discipline. Hopefully, this article will help in achieving this
goal, at least with respect to the Little Albert saga.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to
the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.
Notes
1. An article by Tom Bartlett in the Chronicle of Higher Education
(2014) covers content similar to that in this article but in a less formal style without references. I highly recommend that introductory
psychology teachers and textbook authors read Bartlett’s article
because it will serve as an excellent resource for their lecture and
textbook coverage of the Little Albert story. The online version at
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Search-for-Psychologys/146747
includes video footage of the Little Albert experiment and several
historical photos related to the search for Little Albert.
2. The assessments of Little Albert’s behavior in the film by Fridlund,
a clinical psychologist, and Goldie, a pediatric neurologist, were
made before the discovery of Douglas Merritte’s medical records,
but the evaluation by Waterman, a specialist in childhood psychopathology, was made after the discovery of Merritte’s medical
records (H. P. Beck, personal communication, August 12, 2014).
All three assessments were made independently, and Goldie’s
assessment was blind to Fridlund’s assessment just as Waterman’s
assessment was blind to Fridlund and Goldie’s prior assessments
and tentative hypotheses (Fridlund et al., 2012b).
3. Although Digdon, Powell, and Harris (2014) and Powell et al.
(2014) described the film clips of Little Albert edited from Watson’s (1923) film as 5 min in length and divided into three segments, Fridlund et al. (2012a) described the clips that they
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Teaching of Psychology 42(1)
analyzed as 4 min in length and divided into four segments. The
reason for these differences is presently unknown.
4. Fridlund et al. (2012a, pp. 21–22) claimed that signs of Albert’s neurological impairment may have eluded other viewers of Watson’s
film because they were expecting to see the healthy, normal baby that
Watson described repeatedly in his writings. But, as pointed out by
Nancy Digdon, these expectancy effects on perception would also
apply to the observations of viewers who believe that Albert is
neurologically impaired (N. Digdon, personal communication, July
8, 2014). If viewers were led to think that Albert was neurologically
impaired, then they would likely see signs of such impairment. To
illustrate the power of such ‘‘expectancy effects,’’ Nancy suggests the
following classroom demonstration, which involves showing the Little Albert film in class (free clips of this film are readily available on
the Internet). Before presenting the film, give students a brief handout
to prime one third of the class to expect Albert to be impaired, another
third to expect Albert to be exceptionally well developed, and the final
third with no prime. After the film, have students evaluate Albert’s
developmental status. Differences in students’ appraisals of Albert
should prompt a more general class discussion about the subjectivity
of observations and why scientific approaches require strict controls
to ensure that observations are reliable and valid.
5. Albert Barger’s niece still has some photographs of him. One of
these photographs is included in Bartlett (2014). To the best of my
knowledge, it is the only photograph of Albert Barger as an adult that
has been disseminated to the general public. This photo is available
at http://chronicle.com/article/The-Search-for-Psychologys/146747.
6. Beck, Fridlund, and Goldie’s continued belief that Douglas Merritte
was Little Albert may be an example of what McRaney (2013) terms
the ‘‘backfire effect’’—when a deep conviction is challenged by contradictory evidence, your belief gets stronger. Just as confirmation
bias shields you when you seek information, the backfire effect
defends you when contradictory information seeks you. Either way,
you stick to your beliefs and do not question them.
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Author Biography
Richard A. Griggs is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology at the University of Florida. He is the author of over 150 publications, including Psychology: A Concise Introduction, now in its
fourth edition, and 45 articles in Teaching of Psychology.
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