Book Reading #26 - Opening Skinner's Box

Chapter 7: Rat Park

Summary:

This chapter is about a psychologist named Bruce Alexander and his research about addiction. He challenged the established theories supporting addiction to narcotic substances. Addiction psychologists like Dr. Herbert Kleber believe that the ease of access to narcotics significantly increase the risk of addiction. However, Alexander firmly believed that there is nothing inherently addictive about any drugs and repeated exposure to even the most enticing drugs do not usually lead to problems. He claims that prior to the temperance movement when opium was legal, the levels of addiction remained at a steady one percent of the population.

In some of the experiments, it was proved that rodents were so addicted to narcotics that they were willing to torture themselves and suffer pain to suck their drug through the straw, which most psychologists believed to be a compelling evidence of addiction. Alexander believed that the rodents became addicts because they were kept in worst conditions, crammed in tiny cages. He felt that if they were kept in a comfortable environment, they would probably not choose the drugs. He proved to be correct. In his experiment called the "Rat Park", he designed a park for lab rats which sufficient space and clean water. The rats that were kept in crammed environment kept striving for drugs while the lab rats in the rat park refrained from any drugs that the experimenters tried to administer. Some of the already addicted rats that were forced to ingest drugs preferred not to take drugs while they were in the happy surroundings.

Thus, Alexander's point was that we are prone to drug addiction if we are surrounded by sad environment, dejection and misery i.e. difficult circumstances lead to addiction. If we are happy in our lives and have almost everything that we desire, we would never get addicted to narcotics.

Discussion:

Alexander indeed had a valid point, however, I think that the mood of the surrounding environment and availability both play a role in addiction. I do agree that if we have nothing to whine for, if there's nothing or very little in our lives to complain about, then we won't be at a risk of a drug addiction. However, most of our lives aren't perfect. We have to often face failures. If drugs were freely available, we would probably use them in a state of mental imbalance like many people drink alcohol when they are upset. The fact that they are illegal and not easily available keeps its usage to low levels.