Radical behaviorism​ and psychology’s public: B F Skinner in the popular press - Rutherford - 2000 - Article

What is this article about?

B.F. Skinner, a Harvard psychologist, wrote a book called ‘Beyond Freedom and Dignity’. This book became very popular, and Skinner became associated with different images, such as fascism. Skinner challenged the traditional American perspective on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He became known as an experimental psychologist and a radical social commentator. To the readers of Skinner’s work, Skinner was seen as a controversial figure. His work elicited strong reactions, ranging from devour to rage.

The authors of the current article state that even though there has been a lot of attention paid to behaviourism in general, there has not been a lot of attention paid to it’s effect on psychology’s public image. Skinner has changed this public image, because of the strong reactions to his work. He also presented himself as a psychologist, so people associated his work with psychology in general. He was one of the best known American psychologists. Some even compare his popularity to that of a celebrity or TV star.

The authors state that by studying the popularization of Skinner, we can understand how psychological knowledge is interpreted, conveyed, and received by a general audience. According to journalistic criteria, usefulness and sensationalism are important in explaining the perceived newsworthiness of scientific topics. Skinner’s work met both of these criteria. Therefore, the authors of this article first present the images of Skinner in the popular press, and comment on the role of these images to understand how psychological knowledge is interpreted by the public. This is important, because psychology is very dependent on the culture and social context in which it is produced and received. The second aim of this article is to examine how the content of Skinner’s behaviorism shaped the public responses to his work. Before Skinner, the prevalent view of psychology was a humanistic and mentalistic view.

What is Skinner’s Radical Behaviorism?

Skinner’s radical behaviorist philosophy arose out of the positivism, which Skinner described as descriptive positivism. Skinner’s work is called radical behaviorism, because it is different from other forms of behaviorism such as methodological behaviorism. Methodological behaviorism is a philosophical notion about the nature of science: events that can not be overtly seen (things that happen in the mind), are not considered to be the subject of science. Skinner, in contrast, did not agree with this notion. Instead, he proposed that the contents of mental processes are ‘physical sensations of the world within the skin’. These sensations are not seen as the cause of behavior. Control over the physical events in our body reside in the physical world, and the ability to report on them result from the verbal community of the organism.

How was Skinner portrayed in the press?

In 1934, the first mention of Skinner in the New York Times appeared. In this mention, they had written a response to one of his articles in ‘The Atlantic Monthly’. In these articles, Skinner reported to the experiments that were conducted by Stein. For example, in one of the experiments, Stein and his colleagues they used a task which required conscious attention (listening to or reading an interesting story), while at the same time allowing their arms to write. They concluded that the ability to write things that make sense, is possible, even without consciousness. The Times referred to Skinner as ‘Mr. Skinner’. According to Skinner, this was nonsense. He stated that he did not believe in the importance of the participant’s unconscious writings. He called it nonsense writing. He thus preferred the conscious writing over the unconscious writing. The New York Times commentator reacted to this, and called Skinner ‘deaf to music, and obdurate to magic’, because he was unable to appreciate the work. However, at that time, Skinner was not yet a formally accepted scientist or psychologist. Thus, in this time, he would not have been associated by the public with either science or psychology. Later, in 1945, Skinner published another article, namely ‘Baby in a Box’. In this article, he said that the ‘baby tender’ was a revolution in child care. In 1946, the New York Times reported that Skinner had been appointed to be a lecturer at the Harvard University. This was probably the time that the public acknowledgement of Skinner as a psychologist was growing. Between 1946 and 1948, Skinner reviewed three different books for the New York Times Book Review. In these reviews, he clearly expressed that the only psychology worth reading for him was scientific psychology, so viewing human nature through a strictly scientific framework. For instance, he reviewed the book by Max Schoen, called ‘Human Nature in the Making’. He attacked Schoen, saying that the author did not use scientific facts, but rather relied on illustrations from literature and anthropology. In another review, of the book ‘The Reach of the Mind’, Skinner was again sceptical. J.B. Rhine, the author of that book, explored scientific evidence for extrasensory perception and psychokinesis (which is the ability to affect physical objects with the mind). He called these ‘psi phenomena’. According to Skinner, these phenomena could not be explored scientifically, since these psi phenomena are not the subject of science. Lastly, he reviewed Stuart Chase’s ‘The Proper Study of Mankind’. Chase was also a behaviorist. This time, Skinner’s review of his book was positive, and he especially liked the fact that Chase wrote “human behavior is not determined so much by the genetic endowment, as by the physical, social environment in which the individual grows and lives”. In reaction to Chase’s work, Skinner said: “A proper study of mankind, if it is to resemble the physical study of nature, will tell us not only what human behavior is like, but how to change and control it at will.” This was the first moment that Skinner said something about predicting behavior. Thus, in summary, based on Skinner’s reviews of books, it was clear that Skinner only accepted work about human behaviour that came from a solely scientific approach.

What is meant by “Skinner as a Machine Psychologist”?

In 1958, the New York Times announced a report saying that “Skinner has invented a teaching machine, that is designed to substitute for the human teacher in elementary subjects such as arithmetic, spelling, and reading.” A lot of other newspapers also published articles about this teaching machine. In 1957, Skinner demonstrated the use of this teaching machine at a American Psychological Association convention. After this period, a  lot of articles were published about this teaching machine. For example, there were journalistic articles about the attempts to market, develop, and implement programmed instruction with the use of a teaching machine.  This coverage is important for the persona of Skinner in the popular public’s eyes. Most of the journalistic articles referred to the teaching machine as a ‘mechanical teacher, mechanical tutor, teacher machine, robot teacher, and even mechanical brain’. Thus, they often used a metaphor or human as a machine. This idea of humans as a machine became associated with Skinner and his philosophy. He became known as a psychologist who was more interested in gadgets and machines than in human beings. Boroff criticized Skinner. He clearly expressed his reservations about the mechanization of teaching. He was scared that teachers would oversee students, while the machines were busy teaching. Skinner replied to this saying that, when teachers use machines, they would have more time to teach their students about the social aspects of learning, the philosophy of education, and higher thinking. For example, he wrote: “They will not eliminate the need for teachers, or reduce their status. Instead, they will enable the teacher to save time and labour while taking on a greater job.” Thus, even though Skinner introduced the teaching machine with the goal of making learning more effective, journalistic articles mainly wrote about the negative effects of classrooms having ‘robot teachers’. Boroff also expressed his concerns about the technology, in terms of gaining behavioural control. He named this Pavlovian. He explained this by saying that some psychologists want to use programmed instructions as a device to accomplish ‘cultural conditioning’, as a sort of utopian ideal. Thus, Boroff did not like the idea that machines would be used in the context of ‘human values’.

Seven years after Skinner published the article about teaching machines, he became a hot topic again. In one article of the New York Times Magazine, Skinner was said to be the ‘high priest’ of behavioural psychology. However, this was not only a positive view. Instead, he became known as a cold-blooded scientist who views humans as a simple machine that can be trained to do anything. This was based on Skinner’s work. For example, Skinner often used animals and compared this animal behavior with human behavior. He even said: “pigeons aren’t people, but it’s only a matter of complexity”. He also said that the human environment was comparable to his laboratory, but only a bit more complex. He also published ‘Walden Two’, in which he explained the principles of operant conditioning, which could be used to create a small behaviourally engineered community. This book was reviewed fairly neutral by the New York Times. But, other reviewers were more critical. For example, John K. Jessup said that: “Whereas Huxley calls his utopia a ‘horror’, Skinner presents it as an attraction”. The book was not very popular, until university professors bought the book to promote discussions in their classrooms.

What can be said about Skinner as a social philosopher?

 After the publication of Skinner’s book ‘Behavioural Dignity and Freedom’, the public rage reached its peak. The main idea that Skinner expressed in his book was that freedom or free will is an illusion. According to him, our behavior is actually controlled by subtle and complex systems in the environment. He said that if we want to improve cultural and social survival, these environmental systems need to be recognized and manipulated. He said to be able to control this, people had to give up the believe in the ‘autonomous human’. Journals such as the New York Times published a lot of articles about this idea. For example, in one of these articles, they stated that Skinner’s book was an assault on some of the Western world’s most prized ideals. There were even some concerns about that the ‘power over behavior’ as described by Skinner would end up in the hands of Stalin or Hitler. Several readers also attacked Skinner, in letters written to him. One reader wrote: “I think I would have burnt your book, but that had fascist overtones and besides, I wanted to show it to a few people first. You make me sick. How’s that for subjectivity?”. References to fascism with regard to Skinner were also made by the New York Times, for example in one article titled ‘B.F. Skinner’s Philosophy Fascist? Depends on how it’s used.’ In this article, they reported about panel discussions on Skinner’s work which were held at Yale University. In these discussions, one panel member characterized Skinner’s ideas a ‘a kind of fascism without tears’. Richard Sennet, a sociologist at New York University, also reviewed Skinner’s book. He said that Skinner’s view suggested a life in which hard work and asceticism was valued, and that Skinner was using the technology of behavior to show how this personal vision might be implemented. Other articles expressed their idea of Skinner’s vision as a threat to the American system.

What can be said about Skinner as a Behaviour Modifier?

There were four articles published about behavior modification programs in the New York Times. Skinner was not involved in these behavior modification programs. However, he was always cited as the original developer of these programs. Most of the articles were negative, stating that humans in a ‘Skinnerian system’ were treated as animals or machines. Earl Ubell wrote that “Skinner’s pigeons have come home to roost. You can find them in mental hospitals, prisons, reformatories, schools for the retarded, and schools for ordinary students.” In this statement, he used a metaphor that compared Skinner’s experimental animals (pigeons) to  real people. In the other articles, the use of behavior modification was critiqued. Writers wrote that attempts to control behaviour through manipulation of the environment is antihumanistic and stultifying. For instance, one writer wrote that ‘Behavior modification is turning workers into zombies, and it is destroying people’s minds.”

What can be concluded?

Thus, Skinner’s view in the public eyes changed from a machine psychologist to a cold-blooded scientist to a scientific fascist. He was seen as inhumane, emotionless, and not trustworthy. Skinner clearly expressed his role as a scientist, and he even got an award for his work. Thus, Skinner was publicly identified as a psychologist and a scientist. He was seen as a controversial scientist, because he posed serious questions about what it meant to be human. Journalists presented Skinner’s work in a way in which he seemed to ignore important aspects of humanity. They also portrayed him as someone who viewed humans as no more than complex machines who could be replaced by robots. Thus, journalists engaged a lot in sensationalism. The public audience found this unsettling, and discredited him, as a scientist but more as a psychologist. However, the public opinions of science have remained positive over the years. The author of the current article states that the public representations of Skinner reflect a mistrust in the value of radical behaviorism as a foundation for the psychology of human behaviour, and not a distrust in science in general. In summary, journalists sensationalized Skinner’s work. This affected the credibility of behaviorism, but not science in general.