Study Guide to Walden Two by B. F. Skinner

Intelligent Education

• Publisher: Dexterity
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781645420392
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Studienhilfen
• Subtopic: Studienführer

A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for B. F. Skinner's Walden Two, the behavioral psychologist's only published attempt at fiction.

As a novel of the 1940s, Walden Two has been thought of as science fiction due to the fact that science-based methods of modifying human behavior did not yet exist. Moreover, its controversial discussion of the rejection of free will can baffle readers. This Bright Notes Study Guide explores the context and history of B.F. Skinner's classic work, helping students to thoroughly explore the reasons it has stood the literary test of time. Each Bright Notes Study Guide contains:

- Introductions to the Author and the Work

- Character Summaries

- Plot Guides

- Section and Chapter Overviews

- Test Essay and Study Q&As

The Bright Notes Study Guide series offers an in-depth tour of more than 275 classic works of literature, exploring characters, critical commentary, historical background, plots, and themes. This set of study guides encourages readers to dig deeper in their understanding by including essay questions and answers as well as topics for further research.

INTRODUCTION TO B. F. SKINNER

B. F. Skinner intended his utopian novel, Walden Two (1948), to be read as a serious and positive image of “the good life.” Immediately upon publication, the work was alternately praised and condemned by critics. Many readers felt that Skinner’s Walden Two community was indistinguishable from such famous anti-utopian patterns as Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World. Life magazine called it “a travesty of the good life,” and Joseph Wood Krutch in his book The Measure of Man (1954) attacked Skinner’s novel vigorously as an “ignoble utopia which describes the contented life led by inmates of an institution.” Others admired Walden Two as an imaginative discourse on the possibilities of social organization. In fact, in 1967, a group of dedicated young communalists set up a community based on the principles of Skinner’s novel. This community, Twin Oaks, still exists today and we shall later consider some of the difficulties and successes that this community has experienced.

Today Walden Two continues to arouse sharp, passionate and often divisive reaction. It is seemingly impossible to remain neutral toward the image of life inside Skinner’s behaviorally engineered society. On the one hand, Skinner projects a vision of what life could be inside utopia: happy, secure, productive, creative; on the other hand, this vision has come to be feared as a nightmare depicting a potential dictatorship in which human beings are completely conditioned,, controlled, and reduced to automatons without even a conscious life.

WHY SUCH PASSIONATE REACTIONS?

What is it about Walden Two that has aroused such division and hostility? What is it about ourselves that Skinner is challenging, or perhaps revealing? And why does this image of “the good life” produce such anxiety and fear in many critics?

Skinner remains puzzled by the negative reactions to his blueprint for utopia. In his view, Walden Two is simply a proposal for a more rational world. In applying the findings of his scientific analysis of behavior to the problems of communal living, Skinner thinks he is providing us with the real possibility of a world which is peaceful, constructive, and efficient. Walden Two, after all, depicts a society which provides the basic necessities of life without violence, aggression, or exploitation. It is a community in which the arts, sciences, and education flourish, in which everyone performs rewarding work, and in which the members are cooperative, content, and live in a pleasant environment.

What is it about Walden Two, then, that has aroused such hostile criticism? Is Walden Two a proposal for totalitarian thinking? What fundamental human values is Skinner questioning? We will address ourselves to these and other questions surrounding the controversy over Skinner’s views. Since there seems to be a great deal of misunderstanding about the implications of Skinner’s novel on both sides of the argument, we will try to maintain an objective, critical perspective. We will point out where Skinner’s critics may be have overreacted in the past, but we will also stress shortcomings and weaknesses that we detect in Skinner’s premises.

PROFESSOR BURRHUS FREDERICK SKINNER

is probably the most influential contemporary academic psychologist. His contributions to the field of behavioral science include such basic textbooks as Science and Behavior (1953), Verbal Behavior (1957), and many others. His own unique psychology of “operant behaviorism” has made him in the eyes of many people the most prominent figure in contemporary Behaviorism. Skinner’s brand of behavioral psychology has evolved from the early days of John B. Watson, generally considered the founder of Behaviorism, who in 1913 published the manifesto for the movement, Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It. Since then Behaviorism has become the dominant school of American Psychology. Although Skinner acknowledges the influence of Watson on his own views, he has also expressed criticism of this early period. Skinner feels that these early behaviorists expended too much time and effort in repudiating the introspective study of man and made extreme claims for their own science.

Contemporary behaviorism (neo-behaviorism) is represented by many prominent behaviorists, and there is some diversity in the movement. Skinner is perhaps the most influential and the most radical. He believes unequivocally in the importance and beneficence of his science. Traditional views of man, he argues, have been around for centuries, but they have not helped us much and are mainly responsible for the problems we face today. Skinner is convinced that Behaviorism offers an effective alternative to the mistakes of the past.

To most laymen, however, Skinner is known primarily for the famous Skinner box (a device that allows the experimenter in the laboratory to control the environment of pigeons or rats) and for the equally famous Aircrib or “baby box,” which plays a role in the Walden Two nurseries. Furthermore, Skinner has achieved considerable fame in the design of programmed instruction on teaching machines.

SKINNER’S LITERARY INTERESTS

Although Skinner’s prominence in the field of psychology rests on his development of methods and techniques used in the scientific study of behavior, he has also maintained a continued interest in literature. In high school, he played the piano and wrote poetry, and as an undergraduate he majored in English literature. After receiving encouragement from Robert Frost, Skinner decided on a career as a writer. Unfinished novels and other setbacks induced him to pursue his interests in human and animal behavior.

He plunged into his graduate studies at Harvard University, maintaining rigorous schedules for study and research. After completing his Ph.D. degree (1931), he spent five years in the laboratory doing research under a National Research Fellowship and as a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows. Subsequently, Skinner held teaching positions at the University of Minnesota (1936-1945) and at Indiana University, where he was chairman of the Psychology Department (1945-1948). In 1948, he returned to Harvard University, where he is now Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology.

GENESIS OF “WALDEN TWO”

In his autobiographical sketch, Skinner relates that he never really gave up his interest in literature. After his conversion to science, he began to look at literature as a field for analysis and began work on his book Verbal Behavior on which he labored for twenty-three years. His interest in literature was further reinforced by his marriage in 1936 to Yvonne Blue, who was also a major in English. Subsequently, Skinner taught courses in the psychology of literature. The general idea for Walden Two, Skinner explains, came out of a dinner-party discussion with a friend in 1945. The discussion centered on young men returning from World War II and the kind of society they were returning to. Although he did not take the idea seriously at first, he began to think about the possibilities of applying the experimental attitude to communal living. Soon he found himself completely wrapped up in the project. Usually a slow, painstaking writer, Skinner relates that Walden Two turned into an inspirational experience. He finished the novel in seven weeks. He further describes the experience as a “venture in self-therapy” in which he was trying to reconcile two sides of his own personality as reflected in the fictional Burris and Frazier.

The high point of Skinner’s research career came after Walden Two and after his return to Harvard. In collaboration with Charles B. Ferster he published Schedules of Reinforcement in 1957. Practical applications of their findings led to Skinner’s work with psychotic patients and retardates, a field in which many of Skinner’s findings are still being applied.

ENDS VERSUS MEANS

Throughout his writings, Skinner has expressed and continues to express an abiding faith in his science of man. He claims that it provides him with an “effective experimental approach” to the study of human behavior, and he remains convinced that his position will ultimately triumph. Skinner’s views on the control of behavior and his strong stand on the question of freedom vs. determinism (especially in Beyond Freedom and Dignity, 1971) challenge some of our most cherished beliefs and have aroused passionate attack. Although he has been variously attacked as a Machiavellian, a Communist, and a Fascist, Skinner claims that he favors the ends of a democratic philosophy, although not the means. This is actually the crux of Skinner’s position. He is dismayed at the fact that human behavior continues to be shaped by a system of aversive control (punitive methods), and he feels that if man is to have a future he must replace the present system of negative reinforcement with a technology of positive reinforcement. This is the only hope Skinner sees if we are to maintain our democratic institutions and develop our capabilities. By eliminating aversive control, he believes, we can extend the potentials of an experimental analysis of behavior into a scientific and beneficent program of control. Since man is moved by forces outside himself, Skinner argues, man is controlled anyway, but why leave these forces up to chance? Why not control and manipulate them for man’s benefit? Only in this way, Skinner believes, can we arrive at a new humanism.

BASIC PREMISES OF SKINNERIAN PSYCHOLOGY

In order to understand fully the implications of Skinner’s novel, Walden Two, it is very helpful to consider in some detail the basic premises on which Skinner’s “science of human behavior” is based. This will help clarify many of the episodes in the book, and, more importantly, will sketch out the principle of “operant conditioning” on which Skinner’s utopia is founded. A full consideration of Skinner’s psychology is, of course, beyond the scope of this study. The reader who is interested in further reading on the technical aspects should consult the bibliographies at the conclusion of this monograph. We will consider here only those aspects of Skinner’s psychology that will enhance our understanding of the novel.

STRATEGY OF BEHAVIORISM

In general, Skinner feels that psychology has suffered in the past because it has attempted to explain human behavior in terms of feelings, attitudes, and states of mind. Accordingly, Skinner thinks that psychology has wasted a lot of time in constructing theories about mind, personality, subjective concepts of the self, and subjective attitudes of the individual. Skinner suggests a more practical approach: psychology should concern itself only with behavior that is observable in the world in which it occurs. What goes on inside the body and skull, Skinner feels, is the domain of the physiologist and biochemist. Introspection, as a means of finding out what goes on inside a person, has been vastly overrated, in Skinner’s view, and is not a scientifically reliable way to study behavior. Instead, Skinner’s “science of behaviorism” sees the individual as an organism that lives and behaves in an environment, and it is the interaction between the organism and the environment that is of interest in Skinner’s psychology. Skinner has repeatedly stated that human behavior is a product of genetic endowment and environmental influence. The emphasis falls on environmental influence since this aspect is more accessible for observation. Physiology and biochemistry have not yet thoroughly analyzed the processes inside the body, but the role that environment plays in shaping human behavior, Skinner argues, can easily be studied by manipulating the environment and observing the effects on behavior. The aim of Skinner’s behaviorism is twofold: to describe and explain human behavior, and to change and predict behavior.

We can already see that Skinner’s way of doing psychology involves sweeping changes in our traditional image of man and in some of our most cherished ideas about ourselves. Skinner raises many questions about ethics, culture, religion, and human nature itself. Many people are disturbed by his formulations.

Skinner defines his kind of neo-behaviorism as the philosophy of the science of behavior. The questions it asks are: 1) Why do people behave as they do?, and 2) How can a person be brought to behave in a certain way? In trying to answer these questions, Skinner insists that mentalistic explanations (feelings, states of mind) must be by-passed. Only objectively observed facts should be considered, and they should be considered only in relation to the individual’s prior environmental history. It is important to note that Skinner does not say that the “inner life” or “mind” should be entirely disregarded. He simply says that these inner states cannot be described accurately, reliably, scientifically. Hence they cannot be scientifically ascertained. Since we ourselves often do not know why we behave as we do and since this private world is not ascertainable, Skinner’s objection is that the methods of introspection in trying to reveal this “world within the skin” have actually obfuscated the facts and impeded the development of psychology.

OPERANT BEHAVIOR

Skinner class his form of behaviorism “operant behaviorism.” It is important to pinpoint precisely what Skinner means by operant behavior since there seems to be a great deal of misunderstanding of this concept. One should begin by making a distinction between operant behavior and reflex behavior. Reflex behavior is best evidenced in Pavlov’s famous experiment with salivating dogs. Pavlov’s principle was simple enough: the stimulus (food) produces a reaction (salivating) in a hungry dog. By simultaneously ringing a bell with the introduction of the stimulus, the experimenter soon conditions the dog to associate the sound of the bell with food, and the dog will begin to salivate when he hears the bell even if there is no food present. Hence, reflex behavior is essentially involuntary behavior. Skinner stresses that operant behavior is voluntary; that is, it is behavior that is “felt” to be “under the control” of the behaving organism. Furthermore, in Skinner’s operant psychology, the organism “operates” on its environment (by pulling levers, pecking at discs, etc.), as opposed to the passive conditioning of Pavlov’s ex...