Behavior: A Skinnerian Innovation: Baby in a Box

IN 1945, when Deborah Skinner was eleven months old, she had a rather dubious distinction: she was the most talked-about infant in America—the famous “baby in a box.” The box, or “air crib” as her father called it, was his own invention, a glassed-in, insulated, air-controlled crib that he thought would revolutionize child rearing and, in line with his behaviorist theories, produce happier, healthier children.

One of the major practical problems in raising a young baby, Skinner reasoned, is the simple one of keeping it warm. The infant is usually covered by half a dozen layers of cloth—shirt, nightdress, sheet and blankets—that not only constrict movement and cause rashes, but sometimes even pose the danger of strangulation. Then there is the mother’s labor in dressing and undressing the child, plus the considerable expense of buying and laundering all those clothes and blankets.

To eliminate those troubles, Skinner designed Deborah’s crib with temperature and humidity controls so that she could be warm and naked at the same time. Besides the hoped-for results—Deborah never suffered from a rash, for instance—the crib provided an unexpected fringe benefit: the Skinners discovered that the baby was so sensitive to even the slightest change in temperature that she could be made happy simply by moving the thermostat a notch or two. “We wonder how a comfortable temperature is ever reached with clothing and blankets,” Skinner wrote in a 1945 issue of Ladies’ Home Journal. “During the past six months Deborah has not cried at all except for a moment or two when injured or sharply distressed—for example, when inoculated.”

The air in the box was passed through filters, keeping Deborah free from germs and so clean that it was necessary to give her only one bath a week. There was the usual diaper change, but little other laundering; a single, 10-yd.-long sheet was stored on a spool at one end of the compartment and rolled through into a hamper on the other end as it was soiled; it had to be laundered just once a week. The box was partially soundproofed, and a shade could be drawn over the plate-glass window.

Skinner was sensitive to criticism that Deborah was isolated. In his articles and lectures, he took pains to stress that she could watch everything that was taking place in the room about her, and that she was frequently taken out for cuddling and play. To many people, however, the air box sounded and looked like an atrocious human goldfish bowl.

The continuing controversy about the box may have partially offset the good effects Skinner hoped for when he designed it. Says Deborah, who is now an art student in London: “It was spread around that because of the box I had become psychotic, had to be institutionalized, and had even attempted suicide. My father was very concerned about these rumors, as was I. He thinks they may have affected me. After college, I had a typical half-year of depression, the sort of identity crisis that everybody I’ve ever known has gone through. At this point my father brought up the idea that I don’t have enough faith in myself, and that the rumors may have had something to do with this.”

In fact, Deborah, a slightly shy and earnest but nonpsychotic young woman of 27, seems to have, survived the rumors rather well. Her 21 years in the box, she thinks, did her only good. “It wasn’t really a psychological experiment,” she says, “but what you might call a happiness-through-health experiment. I think I was a very happy baby. Most of the criticisms of the box are by people who don’t understand what it was.”

Though something like 1,000 of the air cribs are in use today, Skinner’s idea has not caught on with very many parents and has yet to revolutionize child rearing.