Author Description

"A new generation of young psychologists are convincing powerful governmental and corporate organizations that humans can be controlled and coerced into almost any pattern of behavior if given the right stimuli and reinforcement. These are the followers of B.F. Skinner, the celebrated (some believe notorious) promulgator of the theory of behaviorism, a theory which denies the existence of free will and maintains that all behavior is programmed from the environment into the human machine. Torture or treatment? It's not always clear when behavior mod is used; it is a method both of hope and horror. Psychologists who use it have an astonishing record of success in treating problems from bed-wetting to the violence of prison inmates to improving a child's IQ score. The method is based on years of laboratory work pioneered by B.F. Skinner, but behavior modification, successful as it often is, is an unusual and sometimes frightening method. It raises fundamental questions about the future of a society in which behavior can be precisely controlled, from without. Whose behavior will be changed? How? And who will do the controlling? The two faces of behavior modification, the, successful treatments and the Orwellian controls, are explored in Philip Hilts's well-documented, easily accessible study of behavior modification and how it is being used in prisons, hospitals, police departments, corporations, and perhaps most importantly in 'problem schools.'"--Jacket.