# BF Skinner Operant Conditioning



## themacgregor (Jul 12, 2007)

I'm doing a school project on BF Skinner's rat experiments, and I was curious about other forum member's thoughts on this topic. From what I understand, the rats would be isolated and kept in small box/tanks with grated floors. They would be only fed and watered when they pushed certain levers or performed certain activities/tricks. 

As a rat owner and student interested in psychology, I find this to be both interesting and horrifying. Does anyone else have any experience with this process, any information on potential health risks for the rats, etc? There is no actual experimenting being done, this is just a research project, and I would never subject my rats to this sort of practice.

You opinion and insight is highly appreciated. I will be showing this to my teacher though, so please try to be respectful. Thanks!


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## ema-leigh (Jan 24, 2010)

If you isolate any rat they will be unhappy as they are highly social animals. The stress from living alone can actually make a rat sick and withdrawn.

Being kept in small boxes or tanks would also be what I consider cruelty. Rats require a certain amount of space to keep mentally and physically stimulated. They need excersize, and the females who tend to have the most energy.. they generally need extra room. Also air circulation would be another concern.. amonia can build up on tanks and they have very sensitive respitory systems. 

As for feeding them only when they perform.... Rats are smart, so the majority probably wouldnt have a problem doing this. Saying that, theres always exceptions to every rule and I could think of a few ratties that would starve to death if put in this situation. I also think drinking from a water bottle is kind of the same thing, just not as drastic. I guess it would depend on what was being asked of the rat in exchange for food.

Grated floors are no good. Rats like to run, wrestle and popcorn all over their cages so if the floor isnt solid then theres always a chance they could injure themselves. It can also create pressure sores on their feet and lead to bumble foot.


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## themacgregor (Jul 12, 2007)

Good response 

I'm looking to get some more input from you guys, this will really help! I plan to bring in two of my rats when I present this report to allow my peers the chance to see rats as the intelligent, beautiful animals that they are, not lab experiments.

Some more information on this experiment can be found here: http://www.accessexcellence.org/AE/AEC/AEF/1996/banister-marx_rat.php
http://www.juliantrubin.com/bigten/skinnerbox.html
http://www.sntp.net/behaviorism/skinner.htm


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## LittleShelby (Jan 4, 2010)

I am also a Psych student and when I took Abnormal Psych, my teacher told me this story.

My teacher and some co-workers were conducting an experiment in which was set up similar. The difference was the floor. At one end of the Skinner box was a platform and the other side was where the lever for the food was. The bottom of the box between the platform and the other was was all wire. Here they had set up the wire to give the rat a small shock. Basically, to get to the food they had to run across the wire and push a lever which would send the shock through the wire and drop the food. 
They had a bunch of rats for this experiment and tracked their number of lever presses using a computer. The computer would generate a graph for each rat, even while the researchers were not there. 
So they all left one night and came back the next morning, first checking the graph. Most rats had went down in their number of lever presses, but one went way up! 
They had to see what was going on. Was the lever defective? Was the rat not getting the shock? Well come to find out, the rat was laying on it's back so that the fur would absorb the mild shock and so that the food would drop down into his mouth.

I always use this example to prove to people that rats are smart. The experimenters didn't even think that this could happen. I don't think most people would think that a rat could problem solve that well either.


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## ema-leigh (Jan 24, 2010)

I think shocking the rats for food, is the epiphemy of animal cruelty. I'd love to do the same thing to your Psych teacher.  I prob would of socked him one if he told me he did that to rats.... idiot.


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## ArmyWife3409 (Apr 4, 2010)

The idea of that is really depressing... Every creature has the right to the basic needs (at the very least) and depriving any animal of food, comfort and friends is ignoring that right. What gives? Why is it that people think they have the right to do things like this? You don't see animals running around shocking us to see our reaction.


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## clarry (May 19, 2008)

Its true, and arent rats supposed t have the intelligence of a 2 year old?
Cant imagine anyone ever dreaming of that for an experiment on conditioning. People really dont need to do something like this to find out that rats can be trained by conditioning, their intelligence is quite clear. I am also pretty sure there would be other, less cruel ways of carrying out such an experiment.


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## LittleShelby (Jan 4, 2010)

Very true. I do not support it, I'm just saying this is the story I heard. 
Most people don't believe me when I tell them that rats are smart, so this is the example that I tell them. I feel bad for all of the rats they used. I bet that smarty pants rat would have been a great pet!


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## clarry (May 19, 2008)

I know you didnt mean you support it, I did psychology and my boyfriend is doing it for a degree, he loves my rats and he said hes heard some pretty horrid stories; I have to ask him not to tell me because it just makes my blood boil. I don't know how people don't get that they are smart; why do they think so many psychological experiments get done on them?! They are such amazing yet unappreciated creatures, I dont think you can actually appreciate how clever they are until you own them. Ive always been against animal testing and experimentation but didnt know a lot about rats as pets until I got them, although I did know they were smart. Ive met dogs who learn slower than rats ive had!


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## ArmyWife3409 (Apr 4, 2010)

I think a lot of the reason that people do tests on rats is because they are so smart... comparable to a 2 year old, they allow for psychologists to see the way that a thinking, reasoning being figures out conditioning. The same reason they like to use them for medical tests; because they are so similar to us in so many ways. It isn't that people see them as stupid and think they can do these tests - its because people KNOW they are smart, and don't care.
In my psych class we had to train a rat using whatever method we thought would be the best way. I know a lot of people trained them using negative reinforcement, but I ended up dropping the class before that experiment, because of my husband's deployment. However, my friends in that class didn't use pain or fear, instead they used a clicker or snapple bottle, and positive reinforcement. Most of the kids I know ended up keeping their rat and another rat who would have been fed out after the trial, and as far as I know, no one was hurt or killed. Most kids kept their rat's at home too... although I can't really vouch for the way they were being kept because I had never seen them...

I really think that the only reason things like this still exist is because many people are too self centered to really CARE about the pain that they inflict on another being - because after all, if it doesn't speak, it isn't as good as us humans, huh. :


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## themacgregor (Jul 12, 2007)

This has been a very interesting thread, I would like to thank everyone who provided their input. Supplementary to my presentation, I will be bringing in two of my rats to give my peers first hand experience with these animals and to show them that rats are not stupid creatures for us to perform testing on, but intelligent, beautiful animals. I really appreciate the response to this! The stories and opinions will really help me out with this project.


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## miosgoldenchance (Oct 30, 2009)

I'm actually going to take a kind of different stance. I'm majoring in psychology, and own two rats who I absolutely adore.

I think that understanding the mind is incredibly important to society, and that the best way to do that is with rats. They are incredibly intelligent animals which makes them a good candidate, and frankly, most of these experiments cannot be done on humans. I guess I see it as a neccessary evil of sorts. However, I do think all caution should be taken in making it as comfortable for the animals as possible, and that experiments should not be repeated more than neccessary! Skinner's Box was a really interesting experiment and has enriched a whole branch of psychology. But is it really neccessary for people to continue doing this experiment over and over? We know what the results were, so why keep putting animals through it?

According to the APA guideleines, experimentors should make a point of being as gentle as possible. I think a lot of experimentors ignore that rule, but at least the APA acknowledges it.


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## ema-leigh (Jan 24, 2010)

Evil is still evil, no matter how you put it. What else do we need to understand about the mind that we couldnt posibly do on humans? And why couldnt it be done on humans?


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## LittleShelby (Jan 4, 2010)

ema-leigh said:


> Evil is still evil, no matter how you put it. What else do we need to understand about the mind that we couldnt posibly do on humans? And why couldnt it be done on humans?


Because there are laws protecting humans and not animals.


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## ema-leigh (Jan 24, 2010)

Exactly. So why does an animal have less rights than a human? Who decieded that?


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## themacgregor (Jul 12, 2007)

> So why does an animal have less rights than a human? Who decieded that?


Clearly it was decided by humans, as no animals has yet been able to voice for itself that, it too, deserves rights and protection. I'm a total fence-sitter in this, I adore reading about psychology and sociology, but I could never conduct these experiments on animals or people.


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## Kiko (Sep 18, 2009)

This is a very touchy topic.
:/
I know it has caused many arguments.


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## clarry (May 19, 2008)

My degree is in Sociology, and in actual fact pretty much all sociological experiments are carried out on people. So they can and do experiment on people, I dont understand why they dont do the same in Psychology. I agree with ema on this one, why is it ok to use rats and not people? People decided that we have more rights than animals because apparently we are more intelligent, and have more knowledge because we communicate in a more advanced way, but along with this comes a larger predisposition for arrogance and evil, if we are so very intelligent how have we managed to kill out some of natures most beautiful creatures? Anyway, thats off track  lol 
I think this is a very interesting topic aswell and I think anythng that can be done on rats should be done on humans, if we want to know about people, study people.


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