April 23, 2021

The Misbehavior of Organisms: The Brelands' Impactful Article on "Instinctive Drift" (Plus: Reminder about this weekend's special film screening with Bob Bailey!)

37 minutes

This weekend (Saturday April 24th at 4PM ET) we are hosting a screening of the short film Patient Like The Chipmunks, by Drs. Bob Bailey and Miriam Breland-Bailey, followed by a conversation and Q and A session with Dr. Bailey himself.

In advance of this event, Annie has recently read aloud some of Dr. Bailey's work. Today, she reads a famous essay written not by him, but by his business partners: the late Keller Breland and Marian Breland (who would later married Dr. Bailey, hence the hyphenated name). This article, The Misbehavior Of Organisms, first appeared in American Psychology in 1961, and was titled in response to BF Skinner's book, The Behavior Of Organisms. The Brelands had worked closely with Skinner as graduate students, and were the first to bring his laboratory work into the commercial realm. There, working with over 100 species of animals, they discovered that it just isn't always possible to operantly condition a behavior. The reason? Sometimes, an animal's baked-in instincts take over and can't easily be overcome.

Dr. Bailey's site: http://www.behavior1.com/

Other episodes about Dr. Bailey

Training Wisdom From Page 9 of Dr. Bob Bailey's Website

https://anchor.fm/dogs/episodes/Bonus-Training-wisdom-from-page-9-of-Dr--Bob-Baileys-website-Plus-Join-Annie-for-a-film-screening-and-Q-and-A-with-Dr--Bailey-on-April-24th-eu9mmo

The ABC of Behavior By Marian Breland-Bailey and Bob Bailey

https://anchor.fm/dogs/episodes/Bonus-Annie-reads-from-The-ABCs-of-Behavior-by-Marian-Breland-Bailey-and-Bob-Bailey-from-The-Dog-Trainers-Resources-by-The-APDT-Chronicle-Of-The-Dog-euonns

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Partial Transcript:

Annie:

Hello humans. So I’ve posted a few Bonus episodes in the last few months that are me reading things relating to dog training and animal behavior, the science of behavior. Reading aloud short things that have impacted the way I think about behavior.

And I have read a couple of things in the last few weeks by Dr. Bob Bailey in anticipation of the screening and Q and A we are doing with Bob Bailey this weekend. You can still sign up at schoolforthedogs.com/Bailey. It is taking place this Saturday, April 24th, at 4:00 PM Eastern. We will be showing this rarely seen, really interesting short film by Bob Bailey called Patient like the Chipmunks. And he will then be joining us after that for a conversation with me and a Q and A.

Bob Bailey really is a Titan in the field of animal training. And this film talks about his rather extraordinary career, his business Animal Behavior Enterprises, which he started with his late wife, Marian Breland Bailey, and her late husband Keller Breland. And talks about sort of the history of operant conditioning from BF Skinner’s lab through today.

And it shows off some of the really entertaining and inspiring work that came out of Animal Behavior Enterprises, including their IQ Zoo, which was basically an amusement park they created of trained animals. It talks about some of their work with the military. Anyway, just really fascinating stuff.

Full Transcript available at SchoolfortheDogs.com/Podcast

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By Annie Grossman

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