THE
MISBEHAVIOR OF ORGANISMS
Keller
Breland and Marian Breland (1961)
Animal Behavior Enterprises, Hot
Springs, Arkansas
First published in American
Psychologist, 16, 681-684.
There seems to be a continuing
realization by psychologists that perhaps the white rat cannot reveal
everything there is to know about behavior. Among the voices raised on this
topic, Beach (1950) has emphasized the necessity of widening the range of species
subjected to experimental techniques and conditions. However, psychologists as
a whole do not seem to be heeding these admonitions, as Whalen (1961) has
pointed out.
Perhaps this reluctance is due in
part to some dark precognition of what they might find in such investigations,
for the ethologists Lorenz (1950, p. 233) and Tinbergen (1951, p. 6) have
warned that if psychologists are to understand and predict the behavior of
organisms, it is essential that they become thoroughly familiar with the instinctive
behavior patterns of each new species they essay to study. Of course, the
Watsonian or neobehavioristically oriented experimenter is apt to consider
"instinct" an ugly word. He tends to class it with Hebb's (1960)
other "seditious notions" which were discarded in the behavioristic
revolution, and he may have some premonition that he will encounter this bete
noir in extending the range of species and situations studied.
We can assure him that his
apprehensions are well grounded. In our attempt to extend a behavioristically
oriented approach to the engineering control of animal behavior by operant
conditioning techniques, we have fought a running battle with the seditious
notion of instinct.[1] It might be of some interest to
the psychologist to know how the battle is going and to learn something about
the nature of the adversary he is likely to meet if and when he tackles new
species in new learning situations.
Our first report (Breland &
Breland, 1951) in the American Psychologist, concerning our experiences
in controlling animal behavior, was wholly affirmative and optimistic, saying
in essence that the principles derived from the laboratory could be applied to
the extensive control of behavior under nonlaboratory conditions throughout a
considerable segment of the phylogenetic scale.
When we began this work, it was our
aim to see if the science would work beyond the laboratory, to determine if
animal psychology could stand on its own feet as an engineering discipline.
These aims have been realized. We have controlled a wide range of animal
behavior and have made use of the great popular appeal of animals to make it an
economically feasible project. Conditioned behavior has been exhibited at
various municipal zoos and museums of natural history and has been used for
department store displays, for fair and trade convention exhibits, for
entertainment at tourist attractions, on television shows, and in the
production of television commercials. Thirty-eight species, totaling over 6,000
individual animals, have been conditioned, and we have dared to tackle such
unlikely subjects as reindeer, cockatoos, raccoons, porpoises, and whales.
Emboldened by this consistent
reinforcement, we have ventured further and further from the security of the
Skinner box. However, in this cavalier extrapolation, we have run afoul of a
persistent pattern of discomforting failures. These failures, although
disconcertingly frequent and seemingly diverse, fall into a very interesting
pattern. They all represent breakdowns of conditioned operant behavior. From a
great number of such experiences, we have selected, more or less at random, the
following examples.
The first instance of our
discomfiture might be entitled, What Makes Sammy Dance? In the exhibit in which
this occurred, the casual observer sees a grown bantam chicken emerge from a
retaining compartment when the door automatically opens. The chicken walks over
about 3 feet, pulls a rubber loop on a small box which starts a repeated
auditory stimulus pattern (a four-note tune). The chicken then steps up onto an
18-inch, slightly raised disc, thereby closing a timer switch, and scratches
vigorously, round and round, over the disc for 15 seconds, at the rate of about
two scratches per second until the automatic feeder fires in the retaining
compartment. The chicken goes into the compartment to eat, thereby auto- [p.
682] magically shutting the door. The popular interpretation of this behavior
pattern is that the chicken has turned on the "juke box" and
"dances."
The development of this behavioral
exhibit was wholly unplanned. In the attempt to create quite another type of
demonstration which required a chicken simply to stand on a platform for 12-15
seconds, we found that over 50% developed a very strong and pronounced scratch
pattern, which tended to increase in persistence as the time interval was
lengthened. (Another 25% or so developed other behaviors - pecking at spots,
etc.) However, we were able to change our plans so as to make use of the
scratch pattern, and the result was the "dancing chicken" exhibit
described above.
In this exhibit the only real
contingency for reinforcement is that the chicken must depress the platform for
15 seconds. In the course of a performing day (about 3 hours for each chicken)
a chicken may turn out over 10,000 unnecessary, virtually identical responses.
Operant behaviorists would probably have little hesitancy in labeling this an
example of Skinnerian "superstition" (Skinner, 1948) or
"mediating" behavior, and we list it first to whet their explanatory
appetite.
However, a second instance involving
a raccoon does not fit so neatly into this paradigm. The response concerned the
manipulation of money by the raccoon (who has "hands" rather similar
to those of the primates). The contingency for reinforcement was picking up the
coins and depositing them in a 5-inch metal box.
Raccoons condition readily, have
good appetites, and this one was quite tame and an eager subject. We
anticipated no trouble. Conditioning him to pick up the first coin was simple.
We started out by reinforcing him for picking up a single coin. Then the metal
container was introduced, with the requirement that he drop the coin into the
container. Here we ran into the first bit of difficulty: he seemed to have a
great deal of trouble letting go of the coin. He would rub it up against the
inside of the container, pull it back out, and clutch it firmly for several
seconds. However, he would finally turn it loose and receive his food
reinforcement. Then the final contingency: we put him on a ratio of 2,
requiring that he pick up both coins and put them in the container.
Now the raccoon really had problems
(and so did we). Not only could he not let go of the coins, but he spent
seconds, even minutes, rubbing them together (in a most miserly fashion), and
dipping them into the container. He carried on this behavior to such an extent
that the practical application we had in mind - a display featuring a raccoon putting
money in a piggy bank - simply was not feasible. The rubbing behavior became
worse and worse as time went on, in spite of nonreinforcement.
For the third instance, we return to
the gallinaceous birds. The observer sees a hopper full of oval plastic capsules
which contain small toys, charms, and the like. When the SD (a
light) is presented to the chicken, she pulls a rubber loop which releases one
of these capsules onto a slide, about 16 inches long, inclined at about 30
degrees. The capsule rolls down the slide and comes to rest near the end. Here
one or two sharp, straight pecks by the chicken will knock it forward off the
slide and out to the observer, and the chicken is then reinforced by an
automatic feeder. This is all very well - most chickens are able to master
these contingencies in short order. The loop pulling presents no problems; she
then has only to peck the capsule off the slide to get her reinforcement.
However, a good 20% of all chickens
tried on this set of contingencies fail to make the grade. After they have
pecked a few capsules off the slide, they begin to grab at the capsules and
drag them backwards into the cage. Here they pound them up and down on the
floor of the cage. Of course, this results in no reinforcement for the chicken,
and yet some chickens will pull in over half of all the capsules presented to
them.
Almost always this problem behavior
does not appear until after the capsules begin to move down the slide.
Conditioning is begun with stationary capsules placed by the experimenter. When
the pecking behavior becomes strong enough, so that the chicken is knocking
them off the slide and getting reinforced consistently, the loop pulling is
conditioned to the light. The capsules then come rolling down the slide to the
chicken. Here most chickens, who before did not have this tendency, will start
grabbing and shaking.
The fourth incident also concerns a
chicken. Here the observer sees a chicken in a cage about 4 feet long which is
placed alongside a miniature baseball field. The reason for the cage is the
interesting part. At one end of the cage is an automatic electric feed hopper.
At the other is an opening through which the chicken can reach and pull a loop
on a bat. If she pulls the loop hard [p. 683] enough the bat (solenoid
operated) will swing, knocking a small baseball up the playing field. If it
gets past the miniature toy players on the field and hits the back fence, the
chicken is automatically reinforced with food at the other end of the cage. If
it does not go far enough, or hits one of the players, she tries again. This
results in behavior on an irregular ratio. When the feeder sounds, she then
runs down the length of the cage and eats.
Our problems began when we tried to
remove the cage for photography. Chickens that had been well conditioned in
this behavior became wildly excited when the ball started to move. They would
jump up on the playing field, chase the ball all over the field, even knock it
off on the floor and chase it around, pecking it in every direction, although
they had never had access to the ball before. This behavior was so persistent
and so disruptive, in spite of the fact that it was never reinforced, that we
had to reinstate the cage.
The last instance we shall relate in
detail is one of the most annoying and baffling for a good behaviorist. Here a
pig was conditioned to pick up large wooden coins and deposit them in a large
"piggy bank." The coins were placed several feet from the bank and
the pig required to carry them to the bank and deposit them, usually four or
five coins for one reinforcement. (Of course, we started out with one coin,
near the bank.)
Pigs condition very rapidly, they
have no trouble taking ratios, they have ravenous appetites (naturally), and in
many ways are among the most tractable animals we have worked with. However,
this particular problem behavior developed in pig after pig, usually after a
period of weeks or months, getting worse every day. At first the pig would
eagerly pick up one dollar, carry it to the bank, run back, get another; carry
it rapidly and neatly, and so on, until the ratio was complete. Thereafter,
over a period of weeks the behavior would become slower and slower. He might
run over eagerly for each dollar, but on the way back, instead of carrying the
dollar and depositing it simply and cleanly, he would repeatedly drop it, root
it, drop it again, root it along the way, pick it up, toss it up in the air,
drop it, root it some more, and so on.
We thought this behavior might
simply be the dilly-dallying of an animal on a low drive. However, the behavior
persisted and gained in strength in spite of a severely increased drive - he
finally went through the ratios so slowly that he did not get enough to eat in
the course of a day. Finally it would take the pig about 10 minutes to
transport four coins a distance of about 6 feet. This problem behavior
developed repeatedly in successive pigs.
There have also been other
instances: hamsters that stopped working in a glass case after four or five
reinforcements, porpoises and whales that swallow their manipulanda (balls and
inner tubes), cats that will not leave the area of the feeder, rabbits that
will not go to the feeder, the great difficulty in many species of conditioning
vocalization with food reinforcement, problems in conditioning a kick in a cow,
the failure to get appreciably increased effort out of the ungulates with
increased drive, and so on. These we shall not dwell on in detail, nor shall we
discuss how they might be overcome.
These egregious failures came as a
rather considerable shock to us, for there was nothing in our background in
behaviorism to prepare us for such gross inabilities to predict and control the
behavior of animals with which we had been working for years.
The examples listed we feel
represent a clear and utter failure of conditioning theory. They are far from
what one would normally expect on the basis of the theory alone. Furthermore,
they are definite, observable; the diagnosis of theory failure does not depend
on subtle statistical interpretations or on semantic legerdemain - the animal
simply does not do what he has been conditioned to do.
It seems perfectly clear that, with
the possible exception of the dancing chicken, which could conceivably, as we
have said, be explained in terms of Skinner's superstition paradigm, the other
instances do not fit the behavioristic way of thinking. Here we have animals,
after having been conditioned to a specific learned response, gradually
drifting into behaviors that are entirely different from those which were
conditioned. Moreover, it can easily be seen that these particular behaviors to
which the animals drift are clear-cut examples of instinctive behaviors having
to do with the natural food getting behaviors of the particular species.
The dancing chicken is exhibiting
the gallinaceous birds' scratch pattern that in nature often precedes
ingestion. The chicken that hammers capsules is obviously exhibiting
instinctive behavior [p. 684] having to do with breaking open of seed pods or
the killing of insects, grubs, etc. The raccoon is demonstrating so-called
"washing behavior." The rubbing and washing response may result, for
example, in the removal of the exoskeleton of a crayfish. The pig is rooting or
shaking - behaviors which are strongly built into this species and are
connected with the food getting repertoire.
These
patterns to which the animals drift require greater physical output and
therefore are a violation of the so-called "law of least effort." And
most damaging of all, they stretch out the time required for reinforcement when
nothing in the experimental setup requires them to do so. They have only to do
the little tidbit of behavior to which they were conditioned - for example,
pick up the coin and put it in the container - to get reinforced immediately.
Instead, they drag the process out for a matter of minutes when there is
nothing in the contingency which forces them to do this. Moreover, increasing
the drive merely intensifies this effect.
It
seems obvious that these animals are trapped by strong instinctive behaviors,
and clearly we have here a demonstration of the prepotency of such behavior
patterns over those which have been conditioned.
We
have termed this phenomenon "instinctive drift." The general
principle seems to be that wherever an animal has strong instinctive behaviors
in the area of the conditioned response, after continued running the organism will
drift toward the instinctive behavior to the detriment of the conditioned
behavior and even to the delay or preclusion of the reinforcement. In a very
boiled-down, simplified form, it might be stated as "learned behavior
drifts toward instinctive behavior."
All
this, of course, is not to disparage the use of conditioning techniques, but is
intended as a demonstration that there are definite weaknesses in the
philosophy underlying these techniques. The pointing out of such weaknesses
should make possible a worthwhile revision in behavior theory.
The notion of instinct has now
become one of our basic concepts in an effort to make sense of the welter of
observations which confront us. When behaviorism tossed out instinct, it is our
feeling that some of its power of prediction and control were lost with it.
From the foregoing examples, it appears that although it was easy to banish the
Instinctivists from the science during the Behavioristic Revolution, it was not
possible to banish instinct so easily.
And if, as Hebb suggests, it is
advisable to reconsider those things that behaviorism explicitly threw out,
perhaps it might likewise be advisable to examine what they tacitly brought in
- the hidden assumptions which led most disastrously to these breakdowns in the
theory.
Three of the most important of these
tacit assumptions seem to us to be: that the animal comes to the laboratory as
a virtual tabula rasa, that species differences are insignificant, and
that all responses are about equally conditionable to all stimuli.
It is obvious, we feel, from the
foregoing account, that these assumptions are no longer tenable. After 14 years
of continuous conditioning and observation of thousands of animals, it is our
reluctant conclusion that the behavior of any species cannot be adequately
understood, predicted, or controlled without knowledge of its instinctive
patterns, evolutionary history, and ecological niche.
In spite of our early successes with
the application of behavioristically oriented conditioning theory, we readily
admit now that ethological facts and attitudes in recent years have done more
to advance our practical control of animal behavior than recent reports from
American "learning labs."
Moreover, as we have recently
discovered, if one begins with evolution and instinct as the basic format for
the science, a very illuminating viewpoint can be developed which leads
naturally to a drastically revised and simplified conceptual framework of
startling explanatory power (to be reported elsewhere).
It is hoped that this playback on the theory will be behavioral technology's partial repayment to the academic science whose impeccable empiricism we have used so extensively.
It is hoped that this playback on the theory will be behavioral technology's partial repayment to the academic science whose impeccable empiricism we have used so extensively.
Footnotes
References
BEACH, F. A. The snark was a boojum. Amer. Psychologist,
1950, 5, 115-124.
BRELAND, K., & BRELAND, M. A
field of applied animal psychology. Amer. Psychologist, 1951, 6,
202-204.
HEBB, D. O. The American revolution.
Amer. Psychologist, 1960, 15, 735-745.
LORENZ, K. Innate behaviour
patterns. In Symposia of the Society for Experimental Biology. No. 4. Physiological
mechanisms in animal behaviour. New York: Academic Press, 1950.
SKINNER, B. F. Superstition in the
pigeon. J. exp. Psychol., 1948, 38, 168-172.
TINBERGEN, N. The study of
instinct. Oxford: Clarendon, 1951.
WHALEN, R. E. Comparative
psychology. Amer. Psychologist, 1961, 16, 84.
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