In the 1920's, John B. Watson and his assistant (with whom it was rumored he was having an affair) wanted to see if fear responses were primarily associated with noise. Little Albert's shitty mom got paid to let Watson use her baby for the experiments.
When he was eight or nine months old, Watson took Albert into his lab and sat him on top of a table.
Watson showed Little Albert things like a rat, a bunny, a scary mask, and such and such. The baby did not respond with fear to any of these things.
Then Watson showed Little Albert all of the same objects, but when the bunny came up, his assistant would make a giant noise with a metal pipe out of Albert's line of vision, scaring the shit out of Albert.
They did this over and over again, and when they stopped making the loud noise for the bunny, Albert was distressed when he saw the bunny regardless of whether or not there was a loud noise at the same time.
The experiment was a success - Albert was classically conditioned to respond with fear to the bunny. A bunny! A cute, sweet, little, soft, nonthreatening animal that co-existed with Albert in the world.
Because of time constrains, no experiment to un-condition the baby took place.
So then Albert's shitty mom had a baby who was terrified of cute, sweet, little, soft, nonthreatening animals. I imagine the baby would also have developed some anxiety disorders as he grew up, not to mention the issues he would have with his mom if he ever found out that she let some sadistic asshole fuck with him in the name of science and a few extra bucks.
No one would ever know, though, because Little Albert died a few years later from hydrocephalus, a condition that can be activated by head trauma.
Learn more about Little Albert on Wiki
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