IQ Zoo

This is Where the Magic Happens

This is an original sketch for the piano playing chicken. Courtesy of the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology.

One of the many fascinating collections housed in the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology is the IQ Zoo. Created by psychologists Marian Bailey and Keller Breland, and later co-operated by Bob Bailey, the IQ Zoo grew from an idea in the lab to a legitimate business. They saw the possibilities for marketing operant conditioning and took their chance at creating a circus type-environment where children and parents of all ages could gather around and watch the many talents of chickens, ducks, raccoons, and more.

These psychologists hypothesized that visitors to the IQ Zoo could be so amazed with the tricks these animals performed that they would develop a new sense of encouragement to impact their own lives. If a chicken can learn to play a piano, then maybe I can quit smoking, learn Spanish, or stop eating sweets.

The 1950’s was a time of great progress in psychological science, producing studies that every student learns about in General Psychology (e.g., Asch’s Conformity experiment, Harlow’s Monkey experiment, and the Robbers Cave experiment). The IQ Zoo is one of those experiments because no other psychologists had previously exposed their work through marketing. It was available to parents, children and teachers of Hot Springs, Arkansas.

The purpose of the IQ Zoo was to convince people that operant conditioning was an effective treatment for teaching new behaviors. Operant conditioning is using rewards to change behavior. Some of these specific behavioral techniques are positive reinforcement and errorless teaching, which allow animals to learn in a very natural environment without demerits or punishment. This was more than just animals that were trained to do elaborate tricks. They could have just written an article about their hypothesis, but they were aiming to appeal to a wider population than simply psychologists.

duck

This was an updated version of the piano playing duck in an advertising magazine. Courtesy of the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology.

One of the apparatuses used was a piano playing chicken. Originally, the instructions were written for a duck, but they decided both animals could successfully complete the task. A child would insert a coin into the side of the piano, which would prompt the chicken to peck a light switch and start playing the piano for the time necessary until he received a reward (food).

This is the apparatus of hte chicken playing the piano described in the paragraph above. Courtesy of the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology.

This is the apparatus of the chicken playing the piano described in the paragraph above. Courtesy of the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology.

Psychology is a brilliant way to demonstrate how people and animals learn. The IQ Zoo will remain an influential part of the history of psychology because it promoted the field to go beyond the books and into the real world.

The links below provide extensive information about the IQ Zoo.

http://www3.uca.edu/iqzoo/

http://www.uakron.edu/chp/museum/online-exhibits.dot

1980’s Social Psychology Textbook Explains Today’s Riots

Warning: If read your understand of human interaction will be forever altered--As of 2012 this book is in its 11th edition!

Warning: If read your understanding of human interaction will be forever altered–As of 2012 this book is in its 11th edition!

I am fascinated with the work of Elliot Aronson, so I knew that I’d have to find something in the center by him. Luckily, I found The Social Animal, a social psychology textbook he wrote! After perusing the book, I honed in on the chapter on Human Aggression.

Aronson opens this chapter with a personal anecdote. He describes himself nonchalantly explaining to his son that napalm was a weapon that sticks to a victim and “burns him pretty badly.” (Aronson, 1980, p. 159) He then goes on to express his surprise when he looks back at his son and sees him sobbing. This encounter shocked Aronson, and made him wonder if society was becoming desensitized to violence.

Aronson wrote the chapter while “Living in an age of unspeakable horrors –the war in Vietnam, the mass execution of tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Cambodia and Iran, the mass suicide of over 900 people in Jonestown. And yet, although these events are tragic and dramatic, occurrences of this kind are not peculiar to a present decade.” (Aronson, 1980, 160) Aronson is completely right, these horrors are not exclusive to the past, a textbook published in modern times would have a plethora of atrocities to cite.To me, this is the most compelling aspect of Aronson’s book. Even though the world is rapidly evolving before our eyes, human nature is staying virtually constant. Aronson made commentary on a topic that has not been radically changed, and therefore is still relevant today.

For example, Aronson discusses the environment that sparks riots; a headline we’ve seen all too often in reaction to the Ferguson unrest. Aronson stated that “Aggression can be reduced by eliminating hope–or satisfying it.” He cited an experiment by James Kulik and Roger Brown, in which subjects were asked to make collection calls for charity. A group of the participants were lead to believe that they would have significant success. What Kulik and Brown found was that this group showed significant signs of aggression, such as slamming the phone down, when the confederates repeatedly refused to donate (Aronson, 1980, p. 181). This experiment showed how frustration, or expectation thwarted as Aronson describes it, can create aggression. He notes that the Detroit and Watt (1967, 1965) riots, did not take place in areas of the greatest poverty, rather they took place where there was blatant racial oppression but an opportunity to change the outcome. (Aronson, 1980, p. 183) This is a potential explanation of the riots in Ferguson and Baltimore, the expectation of social justice is what creates the riots, but only because people still have the hope of righting the system.

"Carnage: During the riots in the wake of Freddie Gray's death, police cars were left abandoned and burned out in the middle of the street while protesters jumped on them"

“Carnage: During the riots in the wake of Freddie Gray’s death, police cars were left abandoned and burned out in the middle of the street while protesters jumped on them” -Posted regarding the Baltimore Riots

The Social Animal is a book that is still very applicable to the current generation; while the world might be a radically different place from 1980, the nature of human aggression is virtually the same. Aronson’s book transcends time because his book is centered around topics that, unfortunately in the case of aggression, remain unchanging.

If only Human Agression was as fluffy and cute as the cartoon introducing the chapter lead me to believe.

If only Human Agression was as fluffy and cute as the cartoon introducing the chapter would lead me to believe.

Resources:
Aronson, E. (1980). Human Aggression. In The Social Animal (3rd. ed., pp. 159-193.) San Francisco, California: W.H. Freedman.

Dailymail.com, W. (2015, May 29). Anarchy in Baltimore: Residents claim police have deserted them in wake of Freddie Gray riots as murder rate soars to highest in 15 years, Retreived May 30, 3015. from

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3102433/Anarchy-Baltimore-Streets-turn-bloody-wake-Freddie-Gray-riots-city-sees-homicides-month-15-years-residents-claim-police-deserted-them.html