Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Susan M. Schneider, PhD (Stockton, CA), a biopsychologist and naturalist, has an international reputation in nature-nurture relations, mathematical modeling of animal behavior, and the principles of learning from consequences. She was a friend of B. F. Skinner, who mentored her at the start of her academic career. Schneider is currently a visiting scholar at the University of the Pacific. She has been a professor at St. Olaf College, Auburn University, and Florida International University, and a visiting research fellow at the University of Auckland.

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The Science of Consequences

Prometheus Books

Contents

Preface............................................................................................................13CHAPTER 1. CONSEQUENCES EVERYWHERE.................................................................................19CHAPTER 2. CONSEQUENCES AND EVOLUTION: THE CAUSE THAT WORKS BACKWARD...............................................31CHAPTER 3. GENES AND CONSEQUENCES..................................................................................47CHAPTER 4. NEUROSCIENCE AND CONSEQUENCES...........................................................................59CHAPTER 5. CONSEQUENCES ON SCHEDULE: SIMPLE PRINCIPLES WITH SURPRISING OUTCOMES....................................75CHAPTER 6. THE DARK SIDE OF CONSEQUENCES...........................................................................87CHAPTER 7. CHOICES AND SIGNALS.....................................................................................99CHAPTER 8. PAVLOV AND CONSEQUENCES: AN ESSENTIAL PARTNERSHIP.......................................................111CHAPTER 9. OBSERVING AND ATTENDING.................................................................................125CHAPTER 10. THINKING AND COMMUNICATING.............................................................................141CHAPTER 11. EVERYDAY CONSEQUENCES..................................................................................161CHAPTER 12. FIGHTING THE IMPULSE: SELF-CONTROL, ANYONE?............................................................177CHAPTER 13. ENDANGERED SPECIES, UNDERCOVER CROWS, AND THE FAMILY DOG: APPLICATIONS FOR ANIMALS.....................191CHAPTER 14. THE REWARDS OF EDUCATION AND WORK......................................................................205CHAPTER 15. HELP FOR ADDICTION, AUTISM, AND OTHER CONDITIONS.......................................................225CHAPTER 16. CONSEQUENCES ON A GRAND SCALE: SOCIETY, THE LONG TERM, AND THE PLANET..................................243Glossary...........................................................................................................261Acknowledgments....................................................................................................267Notes..............................................................................................................269Bibliography.......................................................................................................305Index..............................................................................................................359

Chapter One

"An elderly male chimpanzee [was] observed in the field by Dr. A. Kortlandt of Amsterdam's Zoological Laboratorium. It was the chimpanzee's custom to go to a certain place where he could see the sun go down. He went every evening and he would stay until the sun had set and the color was gone from the sky. Then he would turn away and find his place to sleep." —Sally Carrighar, Home to the Wilderness, 1973

Consequences provide the motivation that sends butterflies to flowers and people to the moon. The pursuit of happiness means the pursuit of consequences, large and small, sunsets included.

And consequences are everywhere. Some are immediate; others loom on the horizon to be anticipated or evaded. They're good, they're awful, they're everything in between. They work for tigers and for turtles—and for us. How ironic, then, that consequences and the science that focuses on them are so often overlooked.

Every day we work toward goals, goods, and incentives—consequences—for this minute, tomorrow, next year. Many rewards are obvious and immediate; others are subtle and easily missed. Some take a lifetime to achieve. Most are mundane, like paychecks and movies and smiles on friends' faces. Few remain unchanged in value, instead routinely transforming over time. Their variety seems infinite, far beyond biological drives like food, shelter, and sex. This chapter introduces that variety.

ORIGINS AND DEFINITIONS

Like most things, consequences started simple. We can't know what animal first learned from consequences, but flatworms, like the tiny planaria found in ponds, are reasonable candidates. Certainly both invertebrates and vertebrates are capable of this type of learning, and ancient planaria are considered common ancestors of both lines. On the planet for over 500 million years, they're the most primitive biological group to have "higher" neural features like brains (miniature ones, to be sure). Accordingly, their abilities have been researched extensively.

Despite looking like baby matchsticks that have taken to swimming, planaria can learn to work for consequences. In one study, some planaria had to move past an "electric eye" to shut off an unpleasant, intense light—which was a powerful reward. Others in a matched group were given the same intervals of light on and light off, but the intervals were independent of what these planaria did. Only the planaria with the light-off reward dependent on their behavior dramatically increased their interceptions of the electric eye—thus showing that this was truly learning from consequences and not just an effect of the light and dark alternation itself. These flatworms can even learn to work only when a signal is present: no signal, no reward.

This research illustrates what reinforcers are: By definition, reinforcers both depend on behaviors and sustain them. If a behavior gets going and keeps going because of a consequence, that consequence is a reinforcer. If a behavior declines because of a consequence, that consequence is a negative (a punisher).

Things that seem like rewards sometimes aren't: what matters is what actually happens, not the intention. Your Uncle Pete used to think that chucking you under the chin was rewarding. Wrong. Similarly, classroom reprimands sometimes function as reinforcers because of the attention that goes with them (from classmates as well as from the teacher). If a "reward" has no effect on a behavior, then it's not a reward: Again, it's what actually happens that matters. I will use reward and reinforcer interchangeably in this book.

Because planaria are very simple animals, the consequences that are effective for them are limited. More complex invertebrates like the octopus show more sophisticated learning, influenced by a greater variety of reinforcers. However, the range of effective consequences has mainly been explored in vertebrates, and it's large indeed.

WALTZING PIGEONS AND ROLLER-COASTER FISH: CONSEQUENCES ACROSS SPECIES

We love our pets when they behave like us—witness the dogs that enjoy watching TV and the owners who leave Spot's favorite program on. It may be harder to imagine common city pigeons doing something along these lines, but as a child, author and animal lover Gerald Durrell had a hand-raised pigeon that loved music and would snuggle close to the speaker of an old-fashioned record player. What's more, the bird performed distinctive dances to marches and waltzes.

Later, scientists found that pigeons not only distinguish between different types of music, they also categorize unfamiliar tunes in the same way that people do, down to different eras of classical music. And a number of species...