Dr. Skinner had just finished his
lecture as the Chair of the Psychology Department at Indian University. He
liked to lecture from time to time,
especially to the best students in his care. It was almost a year since he came
to Bloomington, and it was starting to wear on him. He missed Harvard terribly
and its proximity to the Appalachians. He needed some kind of change in
elevation, large trees that turned gorgeous colors in the fall, and that fresh
Green color in the spring. Bloomington was not blooming at this time of year
and the colors on the trees had faded fast. It was time for another grey winter
with not much to look forward to.
So, he has started to write a book
about the future unofficially named Walden Two. The book was a kind of play on
Thoreau's Walden Pond. While Thoreau expounded on the virtues of self-reliance,
he theorized that the real virtue of self-reliance lay in a community where the
free will of the individual is weak when compared to how environmental
conditions shape behavior. He was very leery about
writing in today’s academic climate about such things no matter how much he
believed in them. His observations and remarks could easily be taken for
communist leanings that he did not possess to any degree, certainly not
Stalin’s version that he had just begun to study.
Also, he was becoming aware of just
how dangerous this new war was. He had heard of tales of rockets and jet fighters, and, of course, the atomic
bomb. He hoped no one would ever place an atomic bomb in a V2-like rocket. Such
a device would lead to total annihilation of the human race if his theories
were correct, and if that did occur, he fervently wished to be wrong.
Skinner’s fertile mind had taken him
far a field in his career. He was still working with his favorite test subjects
and had used some of the principles of his work with them for his work with
children. It all started in 1944 with his daughter. He noticed that his wife
was spending too much time caring for the baby’s physical needs. He wanted to see if he could make her
life easier as well as make a safer crib for his daughter.
So,
he invented what resembled a hospital incubator. He was working at the
University of Minnesota at the time.
He put in a heater and other additions to a crib. These experimental features
allowed his daughter to sleep in total comfort without the need of layers and
layers of blankets. The trouble started when a writer for the Ladies Home
Journal did an article on the crib and titled it “Baby in a Box.” During the interview, the photographer noticed that the
baby had woken up and was looking at the assembled group. He took her picture.
She had just woken up and was using the glass to get her balance. The photo made it look like she was
trying to get out.[i]
Well, the crap hit the fan even though he and his wife explained that
the special crib was just for sleeping.
The fact that he had invented a “lever box” for rats and pigeons to test their
behavior just made the situation worse.
The lever box was used to see if an
animals’ behavior would alter by giving them rewards for doing the behavior you
wanted to them to do. He didn’t go into the punishment side of behaviorism, as some of his colleagues had. He was
all about rewards. When a test subject did the optimal behavior or even took a
step in the right direction, it was
rewarded with a piece of grain, some
seeds, etc. He had used his theories
to teach pigeons to play ping pong and…his mind wandered briefly to another use. But, he quickly turned away from
thinking about what he considered a short-sighted failure of imagination by the
people in charge. He never thought about that project for long, even though it lasted for a good year.
Time to move on. He was used to being
misunderstood by people who…well, thought differently than he. Not better or
worse, just different.
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