斯金纳的女儿博德拉是否真的自杀了

57号 梁树欣

    斯金纳是行为主义学派最负盛名的代表人物——被称为“彻底的行为主义者”。也是世界心理学史上最为著名的心理学家之一，直到今天，他的思想在心理学研究、教育和心理治疗中仍然被广为应用。

    在进行操作性条件反射作用的实验时，斯金纳设计了一种动物实验仪器，即著名的斯金纳箱。关于斯金纳箱有一些广为流传的关于斯金纳及其次女的谣言，在《20世界最伟大的心理学实验》一书中，作者斯莱特在开篇《打开斯金纳箱》一文中就写到，声称斯金纳为了证明自己的理论，把他的女儿，德博拉，每天有几个小时放在一个实验箱子里面，在箱子中她的需求都被控制和塑造着。被关在箱子里整整两年的博德拉，长大后饱受精神疾病的折磨，31岁那年她向法庭控告父亲虐待，但被判败诉，最终用手枪结束了自己的生命。这使得斯金纳的骂声不断，说斯金纳没有人性。

    但事实上，博德拉活得很好，而且成为一名艺术家。斯金纳的两个女儿，朱莉和博德拉都深深地依恋和崇拜父亲。而博德拉呆的那个箱其实也就是育婴箱，里面严格地控制着温度、湿度和噪音，而且还有很多玩具，婴儿呆在里面相当的舒服。

后来，德博拉阅读到关于斯莱特写的那本书的一篇评论，于是她在英国《卫报》上发表文章，愤怒地写到：“我不是一只实验室老鼠！”指责斯莱特不仅仅改编了旧谣言材料，还制造了新的谣言。这也是德博拉多年来不断遭到别人索问其成长经历之后发出的最强声音。下面就是那篇文章：

I was not a lab rat

By the time I had finished reading the Observer this week, I was shaking. There was a review of Lauren Slater's new book about my father, BF Skinner. According to Opening Skinner's Box: Great

Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century, my father, who was a psychologist based at Harvard from the 1950s to the 90s, "used his infant daughter, Deborah, to prove his theories by putting her for a few hours a day in a laboratory box . . . in which all her needs were controlled and shaped". But it's not true. My father did nothing of the sort.

I have heard the lies before, but seeing them in black and white in a respected Sunday newspaper felt as if somebody had punched me hard in the stomach. Admittedly, the facts of my unusual upbringing sound dodgy: esteemed psychologist BF Skinner, who puts rats and pigeons in experimental boxes to study their behaviour, also puts his baby daughter in a box. This is good fodder for any newspaper. There was a prominent Harvard psychologist whose daughter was psychotic and had to be institutionalised; but it wasn't my father.

The early rumours were simple, unembellished: I had gone crazy, sued my father, committed suicide. My father would come home from lecture tours to report that three people had asked him how his poor daughter was getting on. I remember family friends returning from Europe to relate that somebody they had met there had told them I had died the year before. The tale, I later learned, did the rounds of psychology classes across America. One shy schoolmate told me years later that she had shocked her college psychology professor, who was retelling the rumour about me, by banging her fist on her desk, standing up and shouting, "She's not crazy!"

Slater's sensationalist book rehashes some of the old stuff, but offers some rumours that are entirely new to me. For my first two years, she reports, my father kept me in a cramped square cage that was equipped with bells and food trays, and arranged for experiments that delivered rewards and punishments. Then there's the story that after my father "let me out", I became psychotic. Well, I didn't. That I sued him in a court of law is also untrue. And, contrary to hearsay, I didn't shoot myself in a bowling alley in Billings, Montana. I have never even been to Billings, Montana.

My early childhood, it's true, was certainly unusual - but I was far from unloved. I was a much cuddled baby. Call it what you will, the "aircrib" ,"baby box", "heir conditioner" (not my father's term) was a wonderful alternative to the cage-like cot. My father's intentions were simple, and based on removing what he and my mother saw as the worst aspects of a baby's typical sleeping arrangements: clothes, sheets and blankets. These not only have to be washed, but they restrict arm and leg movement and are a highly imperfect method of keeping a baby comfortable. My mother was happy. She had to give me fewer baths and of course had fewer clothes and blankets to wash, so allowing her more time to enjoy her baby.

I was very happy, too, though I must report at this stage that I remember nothing of those first two and a half years. I am told that I never once objected to being put back inside. I had a clear view through the glass front and, instead of being semi-swaddled and covered with blankets, I luxuriated semi-naked in warm, humidified air. The air was filtered but not germ-free, and when the glass front was lowered into place, the noise from me and from my parents and sister was dampened, not silenced.

I loved my father dearly. He was fantastically devoted and affectionate. But perhaps the stories about me would never have started if he had done a better job with his public image. He believed that, although our genes determine who we are, it is mostly our environment that shapes our personality. A Time Magazine cover story ran the headline "BF Skinner says we can't afford freedom". All he had said was that controls are an everyday reality - traffic lights and a police force, for instance - and that we need to organise our social structures in ways that create more positive controls and fewer aversive ones. As is clear from his utopian novel, Walden Two, the furthest thing from his mind was a totalitarian or fascist state.

His careless descriptions of the aircrib might have contributed to the public's common misconception as well. He was too much the scientist and too little the self-publicist - especially hazardous when you are already a controversial figure. He used the word "apparatus" to describe the aircrib, the same word he used to refer to his experimental "Skinner" boxes for rats and pigeons.

The effect on me? Who knows? I was a remarkably healthy child, and after the first few months of life only cried when injured or inoculated. I didn't have a cold until I was six. I've enjoyed good health since then, too, though that may be my genes. Frankly, I'm surprised the contraption never took off. A few aircribs were built during the late 50s and 60s, and somebody also produced plans for DIY versions, but the traditional cot was always going to be a smaller and cheaper option. My sister used one for her two daughters, as did hundreds of other couples, mostly with some connection to psychology.

My father's opponents must have been gratified to hear - and maybe keen to pass on - the tales about his child-rearing contraption and crazy daughter. Friends who heard an abridged chapter of Slater's book on Radio 4, or read the reviews, have been phoning to ask if I had really sued my father or had a psychotic episode. I wonder how many friends or colleagues have been afraid to ask, and how many now think about me in a different light.

Why shouldn't the reviews give the rumours as facts, since that's what the book did itself? The plain reality is that Lauren Slater never bothered to check the truth of them (although she claims to have tried to track me down). Instead, she chose to do me and my family a disservice and, at the same time, to debase the intellectual history of psychology.

In his Observer review, Tim Adams at least suspected something was amiss with Slater's research. He realised she could have contacted me to confirm or verify what she suspected, but plainly hadn't. His conclusion? I had gone into hiding. Well, here I am, telling it like it is. I'm not crazy or dead, but I'm very angry.