In a post from me a few minutes ago, I had noted about the claimed true identity of Little Albert that:
> Killjoy that I am, I have to point out that not everyone is convinced > that this is a closed case, as certain inconsistencies have been found > in the identification of Little Albert with Douglas Merritte. A bit more browsing took me to another recent article, notable because it expresses the opinion of the respected historian Ben Harris, who first raised the question in print back in 1979, "Whatever happened to Little Allbert?" He weighs in on the question again this year, in an entertaining, rambling account of his experiences with the Little Albert issue since his publication. It also contains some pretty neat illustrations (and mentions _The Psych Files_). Although he spends little time refuting the identification, Harris does clearly state his opinion. Given his previous excellent work on the Little Albert story, I think we should give it some attention. He says: "Unfortunately for those hoping for a tidy end to a 90-year-long saga, Beck, Levinson, and Irons are likely to have picked the wrong mother and child. Unable to access the relevant patient/orphanage records at Johns Hopkins University, the authors were unable to rule out the strong possibility that Douglas Merritte had a medical condition that ruled him out as the healthy baby that Watson filmed and showed to the world ." And cruelly, he calls the claim that the identity of Little Albert has been discovered, "a myth". The article is: Harris, B. (2011). Letting go of little Albert: Disciplinary memory, history, and the uses of myth. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 47, 1-17. Free on-line access at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jhbs.20470/pdf Stephen -------------------------------------------- Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Emeritus Bishop's University Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada e-mail: sblack at ubishops.ca --------------------------------------------- --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=12465 or send a blank email to leave-12465-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
