Behavior: Skinner's Utopia: Panacea, or Path to Hell?

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Some critics, loyal Skinnerians among them, argue that this teaching process bores all but the dullest students, and that there is little solid evidence as to how well programmed instruction sticks. But Skinner insists that his devices teach faster than other methods and free teachers to give personal attention to students who are trying to master complex subjects.

In some mental hospitals, reinforcement therapy inspired by Skinner is helping apathetic or rebellious patients to behave more like healthy human beings. The staffers of one institution, for instance, were troubled by patients who insisted on trailing into the dining room long after the dinner bell sounded. Attendants tried closing the doors 20 minutes after the bell rang, refusing admittance to those who showed up any later. Gradually, the interval between bell and door closing was shortened to only five minutes, and most patients were arriving promptly. "You shift from one kind of reinforcement—annoying the guards and getting attention—to another, eating when you're hungry," says Skinner. To charges that this kind of conditioning is sadism, he replies that "the patients are going in quickly because they want to." That is strange logic; he seems to ignore the fact that the patients are compelled to "want to" unless they care to go hungry.

In yet another practical example of Skinnerism in operation, a point system for good behavior was set up for juvenile offenders—armed robbers, rapists and murderers—in the Robert F. Kennedy Youth Center in West Virginia. Though no requirements were imposed on the delinquents, they earned points if they voluntarily picked up books, or went to lectures and managed to learn something from them. With the points, they could then buy such rewards as better food, a private room, or time in front of the TV set.

"All their lives," says Skinner, "these boys had been told that they couldn't learn and that they were useless. But under conditions that reinforced them every time they progressed, their morale improved enormously. Moreover, the return rate to the school dropped from 85% to 25% after the method was instituted."

The same kind of positive reinforcement was tried a few years ago by Emery Air Freight of Wilton, Conn. To reduce the breakage that resulted when goods were packed in the wrong boxes for shipping, supervisors began complimenting packers when the correct boxes were chosen. Taking new pride in their work, the employees made virtually no mistakes, breakage ceased, and the company saved $600,000 in a year.

Mothers who practice Skinnerism—knowingly or by instinct—have an easier time with their youngsters when they reward good behavior instead of punishing bad. Explains Skinner: "If a mother goes to her baby only when he yells, she reinforces fussing. But when she goes to him while he's happy and perhaps saying 'Mama' softly, the baby will always speak to her that way."

Uncompromising View

Though such apparent successes persuade Skinnerians that reinforcement is eminently practical, critics find the technique philosophically distasteful and morally wrong.

Many of their objections center around the ancient, crucial argument over free will v. determinism: is man in charge of himself and his destiny, or is he not?