Skinner boxes for psychotics: Operant conditioning at Metropolitan State Hospital

Abstract

Between 1953 and 1965, Ogden Lindsley and his associates conducted free-operant research with psychiatric inpatients and normal volunteers at Metropolitan State Hospital in Waltham, Massachusetts. Their project, originally named "Studies in Behavior Therapy," was renamed "Harvard Medical School Behavior Research Laboratory" in 1955. This name change and its implications were significant. The role of the laboratory in the history of the relationship between the experimental analysis of behavior and applied behavior analysis is discussed. A case is made for viewing Lindsley's early work as foundational for the subfield of the experimental analysis of human behavior that formally coalesced in the early 1980s. The laboratory's work is also contextualized with reference to the psychopharmacological revolution of the 1950s. Finally, a four-stage framework for studying the historical and conceptual development of behavior analysis is proposed.