CONDITIONING

A standard unit of investigation of learning principles in animal learning experiments is something called a "skinner box." Basically, it is a box that contains a bar which when pressed results in a reinforcement being dropped down a chute to the laboratory animal. When this device was fairly new, a cartoon appeared on the Harvard Lapoon which showed a very sophisticated looking rat inside a skinner box talking to a more naïve looking rat, and pointing out the experimenter hovering above the apparatus. The sophisticated rat was saying, "Boy, have I got this guy conditioned. Every time I press this bar, he gives me a pellet of food."

The point of course was while the experimenter thinks of himself as conditioning the behavior of the rat, he is in every way just as controlled by the rat's behavior as the rat is controlled by the experimenter's. Behavioral interaction is indeed like that. Each of us who are concerned about training our children, shaping their behavior into acceptable social patterns or affecting the behaviors of others should recognize that when we attempt to do so, we are engaged in a mutually dependent pattern of behavior with each side being dependent on the other.

Occasionally, in my work I will see a child who is not doing well in school even though test data suggests no reason for the difficulty. I will sometimes ask the student if he would like to improve his grade by shaping the behavior of his teacher into a more positive role where the student is concerned. The student of course agrees. Then I set up a simple framework where the student will go to class and count the number of times in an hour that the teacher makes eye contact with the student. For the next two or more times that the student goes to class, he is to watch for the teacher's eye contact, and when contact is made the student is to give the teacher positive reinforcements through two social reinforcers, a slight head nod and smile. This will reinforce the teacher's behavior of making eye contact with that particular student. As the teacher's behavior changes toward attending to this particular student, her attitudes about the student must also change in order to match the increase in attention. Therefore, there is very predictable improvement in the teacher's attitudes toward this student including his interest in her class, his knowledge of the subject, etc., etc. This procedure always works and is worth at least a letter grade for the student who to utilize this procedure.

Is this devious? Is it unfair? Absolutely not. Because as the student becomes concerned about controlling his teacher's behavior, he is also changing his own behavior and is in fact being more attentive, being more aware of what the teacher is saying, and through these procedures becomes much more responsive to the activities in the classroom. These are exactly the kinds of changes that the teacher wants to see brought about in the student. So this simple suggestion will work out no matter who we identify as being the experimenter and who we identify as the subject. Behavior is indeed linked.

There was a popular commercial for FTD flowers that ran on television a few years ago. The scene showed a husband hurrying home from a busy day's activities and the researcher with her pad and pencil asked if he could answer a few questions. The hurrying man said no, he was too busy and scurried off down the street. The researcher hollered after him, "when was the last time you sent your wife flowers?" The hurrying man hollered back "about six months ago." The researcher then hollered out to the now quickly departing man, "when was the last time she fixed your favorite meal?" The hurrying man now slowed noticeably, appeared to become thoughtful and hollered back "…about six - months - ago."

I try to encourage my patients to pay attention to these interactive behavior patterns because I think that all of us should be concerned about having a positive and effective role in shaping our environments. I also will argue that it is impossible to improve the environment for one person's life without improving it for everyone's. The teacher and the student is an excellent example of this effect.

Think about it.