Story of Psychology - Morton Hunt [179]
For some years the programmed learning movement had a major influence on teaching; courses and course materials designed to teach through operant conditioning were in use in a large proportion of grade schools and colleges in America, and in many schools in dozens of other countries. But eventually educators recognized that the atomistic methods of programmed instruction provide only part of what human beings need; they also need holistic, hierarchical thought structures. And later research showed that in human beings delayed reinforcement often has better results than immediate reinforcement; thinking about one’s responses may lead to more learning than quickly responding and getting an answer.61 Finally, the observation of other people’s behavior, a highly effective form of learning for humans, even if not for cats, involves no immediate reinforcement. Still and all, Skinner’s doctrine of immediate reinforcement has proven useful, is familiar to most teachers, and is incorporated into many curricula and grade school textbooks.
Skinner also had a measurable effect on the treatment of mental and emotional disorders. It occurred to him that a system of tiny rewards for tiny changes from sick acts toward healthy ones might reshape the patient’s behavior. Beginning in the late 1940s, he and two of his graduate students made the first experimental trials of what came to be known as behavior modification. They set up lever-pressing stations at a state mental hospital near Boston; psychotic patients received candy or cigarettes for operating the machines in an orderly fashion. Once that worked, the therapists gave tokens to patients for appropriate behavior, such as voluntarily attending meals, grooming themselves, and helping with housekeeping tasks. The tokens could be exchanged for candy, cigarettes, or privileges like choosing a dining companion, talking to a physician, or watching TV.62
The rewarding of desired behavior in deeply disturbed people often worked. One depressed woman would not eat and was in danger of dying of starvation, but she seemed to enjoy visitors and the TV set, radio, books and magazines, and flowers in her room. The therapists moved her into a room devoid of all these comforts, and put a light meal in front of her; if she ate anything at all, one of the comforts was temporarily restored. The therapists gradually withheld the rewards unless she ate more and more. Her eating improved, she gained weight, and within two months she was released from the hospital. A follow-up eighteen months later found her leading a normal life.63
The behavior modification movement spread to a number of mental hospitals and reform schools. Psychiatrists and psychologists now consider it a useful component of their therapies for severely disordered patients, though a costly one in terms of time and staff effort. Behavior modification is also used by many psychotherapists in the treatment of less severe problems, like smoking, obesity, shyness, tics, and speech problems. It is a specialized technique within the field of behavior therapy, most of which is based on Pavlov-type conditioning rather than on Skinner’s behavior modification.
Skinner’s best-known work, Walden Two, has not remade American society or even part of it, but it undoubtedly has influenced the thinking and social concepts of its millions of readers. Only one effort has been made to create an actual utopia on the Walden Two model: Twin Oaks Community in Louisa, Virginia, a commune founded by eight people in 1967. After surviving many rocky years, it has grown to a population of eighty-five adults and fifteen children. While still modeled