How to get the quizzes

If you’re an instructor, you can go to Routledge online cite, drill down to their Instructor Resources Download Hub, and download our quizes from there.

If you’re a student, you can take the course where your instructor is using these quizzes and have the delightful experience of interacting with them first hand.

Rat Lab

Remember how disgusting and weird having sex seemed, the first time you heard about it? Like do people really do that?! And they enjoy it?! Sick!! So, my guess is that several of you have changed your mind since then.

Well, my guess also is that you think playing with Rudolph the Rat in a Skinner box is about as disgusting as you used to think having sex was. And remember how that sex thing has turned out. Same with Rudolph in the Skinner box. Like a week ago, I was at this international conference on behavior analysis, ABAI, in Denver; and this old, retired college professor came up to me and said, “You know, that Skinner Box rat lab you had me take 48 years ago; well that’s the best thing that ever happened to me; that’s what got me turned on to behavior analysis; and that’s why I spent the rest of my professional career teaching behavior analysis to college students.”

And a few years before that, another WMU alum told me much the same thing. Rudolph the Rat’s what turned her on to behavior analysis, why she switched her major from speech path to psych, why she’s been spending her life using behavior analysis to help children with special academic problems, why she’s been teaching special ed. majors to use behavior analysis to help students, and why she’s been one of the most productive research scientists in our field. Yeah, and she started out as just a lost little girl in a rat lab.

(Authors’ Note: What’s behavior analysis? It’s what our book (PoB) is all about. It’s the science, the practice, and the philosophy of following up on Skinner’s little rat in the box! Don’t worry, it’ll all make sense to you before too long.)

OK, if your instructor really loves you, she will have a rat lab for you to work and play in while you read this book. However, she probably doesn’t love you that much. But don’t give up. You can build your own rat lab. Where? In your dorm room or your apartment, of course.

Oh, that’s scary! Silly, I don’t mean one of those nasty rats you catch in the alley; I mean one of those cute little, lovable rats you buy at a pet store.

But they won’t give me permission to have a rat in the dorm, or the apartment building, or the van you may live in down by the river.

Of course not, dummy; that’s why you don’t ask for permission and why you sneak Rudolph in after dark.

The idea of a rat still freaks you out? Ok, get a canary, or a goldfish. Yeah, you can build a little Skinner box for them too. Or your pet doggie or kitty cat. Yes, or even a monkey; I had a friend who did that too, in his apartment in New York City. (You can find all these Skinner box animals on YouTube.) But, if you get in trouble with your dorm or apartment managers, I don’t even know you. However, if you do it, you’ll love it–probably.

Note: The above is not meant to suggest that the rat lab will turn out to be as much fun as sex, at least not for most of you. But it will be fun, it will be cool, and it really might transform your life.

How to get our Rat Lab manual

By the way, we don’t really give a damn whether or not you buy our lab manual. But our experience has been that it’ll really help you get rollin’ with a rat. The main point is that you need to get into a rat lab, whether it’s in your college or in your bed room; go for it!