I continue my lonely toil in seach of an answer, in dank and dreary dungeons, amid flickering candles and moldy tomes. And not a cask of Amontillado to spur me on.
On my last attempt I nominated Daniel (1944) as the earliest adopter of the term "Little Albert" to describe Watson's stolid subject. I now push the boundary another 15 years back. The new candidate is: Clarke, Edwin Leavitt (1929). The art of straight thinking: a primer of scientific method for social inquiry. On p, 16, Clarke says this: "In this case of little Albert we have two important phenomena illustrated. First is the conditioning of a stimulus by an unlearred stimulus-response". This is 9 years after the original publication by Watson and Rayner in which we were first introduced to Albert (but not to little Albert). I was not able to discover anything about the author, Edwin Clarke. However, the work is undoubtedly not "juvenile fiction" as Google Books seems to think. A slightly later source is this: Shirley, Mary Margaret (1933). The first two years: a study of twenty-five babies, vol. 3, p. 209. She says: "Whereas Jones saw the babies only once or twice and the Ohio State group observed the baby during only the neonatal period, Watson apparently kept an experimental eye on "little Albert" for more than a year. " [full text at http://tinyurl.com/yhunr7y ] Shirley sounded to me as someone familiar, unless I was confusing her with that kid from Prince Edward Island. Sure enough, the Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science lists her as an American psychologist, born 1899, Ph.D. University of Minnesota 1927, death date unknown. [see http://tinyurl.com/yglwoqz ]. I believe "The first two years" is her major work, and her adoption of the descriptor "little Albert" may have been influential. However, I still think that Eysenck's frequent use of the same term starting in 1959 may have been the impetus for its modern use. Difficult to prove, however. Stephen ----------------------------------------------------------------- Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Emeritus Bishop's University e-mail: sbl...@ubishops.ca 2600 College St. Sherbrooke QC J1M 1Z7 Canada ----------------------------------------------------------------------- --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
