Behavioral Genetics and Animal Science - Genetics and the Behavior of Domestic Animals - page 11

Instincts Learning

Skinner's influence on scientific thinking slowed a bit in 1961 following the
publication of “The Misbehavior of Organisms” by Brelands and Brelands.
Their paper described how Skinnerian behavioral principles collided with
instincts. The Brelands were trained Skinnerian behaviorists who attempted
to apply strict principles of operant conditioning to animals trained at fairs
and carnivals. Ten years before this classic paper, Brelands (1951) wrote,
“we are wholly affirmative and optimistic that principles derived from the
laboratory can be applied to the extensive control of animal behavior under
non laboratory condition.” However, by 1961, after training more than 6000
animals as diverse as reindeers, cockatoos, raccoons, porpoises, and whales
for exhibition in zoos, natural history museums, department store displays,
fairgrounds, trade convention exhibits, and television, the Brelands wrote a
second article featured in the American Psychologist (1961), which stated,
“our background in behaviorism had not prepared us for the shock of some
of our failures.”
One of the failures occurred when the Brelands tried to teach chickens
to stand quietly on a platform for 10

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12 seconds before they received a food
reward. The chickens would stand quietly on a platform in the beginning
of training. However, once they learned to associate the platform with a food
reward, half (50%) started scratching the platform, and another 25% developed
other behaviors, such as pecking the platform. The Brelands salvaged this
disaster by developing a wholly unplanned exhibit involving a chicken that
turned on a jukebox and danced. They first trained chickens to pull a rubber
loop which turned on some music. When the music started, the chickens
would jump on the platform and start scratching and pecking until the food
reward was delivered. This exhibit made use of the chicken's instinctive food-
getting behavior. The first author remembers as a young adult seeing a similar
exhibit at the Arizona State Fair of a piano-playing chicken in a little red barn.
The hen would peck the keys of a toy piano when a quarter was put in the slot
and would stop when the food came down the chute. This exhibit also worked
because it was similar to a Skinner box in the laboratory. It also utilized the
natural pecking behavior of the chicken.
The Brelands experienced another classic failure when they tried to teach
raccoons to put coins in a piggy bank. Because raccoons are adept at manipulat-
ing objects with their hands, this task was initially easy. As training progressed,
however, the raccoons began to rub the coins before depositing them in the
bank. This behavior was similar to the washing behavior raccoons do as instinc-
tive food-getting behavior. The raccoons at first had difficulty letting go of
the coin and would hold and rub it. However, when the Brelands introduced
a second coin, the raccoons became almost impossible to train. Rubbing the
coins together “in a most miserly fashion,” the raccoons got worse and worse
as time went on. The Brelands concluded that the innate behaviors were