10 Unbelievably Cruel Studies (Done In The Name Of Science)

10. The Skinner Box

BF Skinner is one of the big names in contemporary psychology, and his place in the history books was sealed when he was still just a student. During his time at Harvard University during the thirties the young Skinner became fascinated with the experiments of Jerzy Konorski, and vowed to continue his pioneering research into both operant and classical conditioning. What that is in plain English is modifying people's behaviour either through positive and negative reinforcement or by building an association with certain stimuli, respectively. For operant, think rewarding yourself with a cookie when you do good things as incentive to do more good things. For classical, think Pavlov's dogs, which were fed whenever a bell was rung and then started salivating any time they heard a bell Skinner was mostly interested in the operant side of things, which is why he built his Skinner box. He later became upset at this name, and the associations forthwith, and tried to insist that everyone call it an "operant conditioning chamber" instead, but to no avail. He deserves to have his name attached to it. Because it's pretty messed up. A Skinner box consists of an electrified grid, a loudspeaker, lights, a response lever, and a food dispenser. With this, BF Skinner tortured rats. Well, maybe not tortured, but they certainly didn't have a fun time. They would do a series of tests using the lights, expecting the animal inside - usually a lab rat, although later studies also employed pigeons and primates - to get the "answer" right and push the lever, rewarding them with food. If they failed, they got a swift, sharp electric shock. So this guy built a box to electrocute animals and claimed it was about studying "behaviours". Wow.