Contingency Management Retrospective

Abstract

Here are some selective recollections of early efforts to apply principles of operant conditioning to people in a systematic, responsible fashion. Let us first explore some of the setting factors involved in my early acquaintance with the field. During the early 1940's I was working my way through college and studying the physical sciences and engineering. Some campaigns in General Patton's Third Army in the ETO, some hospital time, and the preparation for the invasion of Japan-cappeq by the dramatic end of WWII following the use of the atomic bombs-resulted in the alteration of my motivation from physical science to social and political issues. Consequently, in September, 1945 I re-enrolled at the University of Oklahoma and earned a BA in Political Science and another in Psychology. A well-developed science of Psychology seemed an absolute necessity for the development of any improvement in government and political philosophy. I was fortunate to study with outstanding scholars in both fields. Dr. L.B. Hoisington, an outstanding student of E. B. Titchener, was my first professor for General Psychology and also for my first course in Experimental Psychology. He exposed us to the careful, thorough, constrained approach of elementarism, the detailed introspective reports of sensory experience alias receptor processes. In an advanced course on Systems of Psychology, Dr. Hoisington did an equally thorough job of explaining the various systems then extant-including Behaviorism. Other significant influences were Rohrer and Stone. G. Raymond Stone had recently received his Ph.D at Indiana University. He and Dr. John Rohrer explained the merits of Professors Kantor, Bijou, and particularly, B.F. Skinner who had recently become chairman of the department. Although I had already been accepted by some other excellent departments, I left O.U. inunediately after graduation to enroll in the Clinical Psychology graduate program at Indiana University. I never regretted this decision. There were many other wonderful faculty members in addition to the three mentioned previously.