Marian Breland Bailey (born Marian Ruth Kruse; December 2, 1920 – September 25, 2001)Clark, C. (2001). Marian Breland (Mouse) Bailey, Ph.D. 1920 – 2001 . The Centre for Applied Canine Behaviour. Retrieved on February 20, 2007. was an American psychologist, an applied behavior analyst who played a major role in developing empirically validated and humane animal training methods and in promoting their widespread implementation. She and her first husband, Keller Breland (1915–1965), studied at the University of Minnesota under behaviorist B. F. Skinner and became "the first applied animal psychologists." Together they wrote the book Animal Behavior which was first published in 1966, after Keller's death.
Childhood and education Born to Christian and Harriet (Prime) Kruse, Marian Ruth Kruse grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Christian, a German immigrant, worked for an automotive supply store, and Harriet was a registered nurse.Bihm, E. M., & J. A. Gillaspy (2006). Marian Breland Bailey (1920–2001). The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. Retrieved on March 10, 2007. Bailey's father and then others called her "Maus" ("mouse"), a common German nickname for little girls.Langley, A., & T. Wiebers (2007). Marian Breland Bailey (1920–2001). Paper presented at the annual Arkansas Undergraduate Research Conference. Henderson State University. Arkadelphia, Arkansas. Proceedings Journal of the Arkansas Undergraduate Research Conference. After graduating from Washburn High School as her senior class's valedictorian,Gillaspy, J. A., & E. M. Bihm (2002). Obituary: Marian Breland Bailey (1920–2001). American Psychologist, 57, pp. 292–293. Bailey went to the University of Minnesota to major in Latin and minor in Greek. Although financial times were difficult as her family had lost everything during the banking collapse of the Great Depression, a full scholarship and a Works Progress Administration award for writers supported her undergraduate education.
Before long, she also became a research assistant for B. F. Skinner. To meet a science requirement, Bailey took psychology because, as she later explained, "I thought it the least painful science."Yin (2000). An Interview with Marian Bailey, Ph.D and Bob Bailey . Nerd Book. Retrieved on September 16, 2007. As a straight-A student, she was recommended for a highly selective psychology class taught by Skinner (the first of what Skinner later called "pro-seminars"), under whom she studied along with George Collier, W. K. Estes, Norman Guttman, Kenneth MacCorquodale, Paul Everett Meehl, and others bound for later fame in their field. With its emphasis on Skinner's new operant training techniques, the course inspired Bailey to major in psychology with a minor in child psychology and to study operant conditioning.Woolf, L. M. (2002). Marian Breland Bailey: December 2, 1920 – September 25, 2001 . Women's Intellectual Contributions to the Study of Mind and Society. Retrieved September 20, 2007.
Bailey worked as Skinner's teaching and laboratory assistant when he published his pivotal work The Behavior of Organisms in 1938.Behavior Analysis in Animal Training. Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies. Retrieved March 9, 2007. She trained rats for Skinner,Burch, M. R., & J. S. Bailey (1999). How dogs learn . Brief History of Clicker Training. Hoboken, New Jersey: Howell Book House. Retrieved on March 17, 2007. typed lecture notes for him, proofread his book, and even babysat his children. Skinner gave her the final galley proof of his book, which she considered a prized possession. While still an undergraduate student, Bailey met her future husband Keller Breland, who came to call her "Mouse" without knowing that her family called her "Maus". Bailey and others soon decided that her name was Mouse.
In 1940, Bailey joined Psi Chi, the national honor society in psychology.Wiebers, T. (2004). Dr. Marian Breland Bailey: A Psi Chi Tribute . Eye on Psi Chi 9 (1), 24–25. Retrieved on September 20, 2007. She graduated with her Bachelor of Arts degree summa cum laude in 1941,Cramer, C. (2000). A pioneer for humane methods in teaching animals . (PDF) Main Connection, 8 (1), p. 8. the only member of her graduating class with an A average.University of Minnesota graduation program, 1941.
Work with Keller Breland
After Bailey earned her bachelor's degree, she married psychologist Keller Bramwell Breland (1915–1965) on August 1, 1941. Together, they had three children: Bradley (1946), Frances (1948), and Elizabeth (1952).
Bailey became the second graduate student to work under the renowned Skinner. Her husband soon came to work with Skinner as well.Gillaspy, J. A., & E. M. Bihm (July 16, 2007). Keller Bramwell Breland (1915–1965). The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. Retrieved on September 20, 2007. While graduate students, they collaborated with Skinner on military research during World War II.A brief history. University of Central Arkansas. Retrieved on September 20, 2007. Their work involved training pigeons for use by the U.S. Navy, teaching the birds to guide bombs. This was never actually used. Although many sources incorrectly refer to the work as Project Pigeon or the Pigeon Project, Bailey assured colleagues that its name had actually been "Pigeon in a Pelican", with pelican referring to the missile each pigeon was to guide.
Bailey and Breland saw the commercial possibilities of operant training. So they left the University of Minnesota without completing their doctorates, and founded Animal Behavior Enterprises (ABE) on a farm in Minnesota. Skinner tried to dissuade the couple from abandoning their graduate education for an untested commercial endeavor.Gillaspy, Arthur Jr. (November 5, 1994). Interview with Marian and Robert Bailey. (Cassette recording). Conway, Arkansas. Classmate Paul Meehl bet $10 they would fail. (His 1961 check for $10 later hung framed on Bailey's office wall.)Bailey, R. E., & Gillaspy, J. A. (2005). Operant psychology goes to the fair: Marian and Keller Breland in the popular press, 1947–1966. (PDF) The Behavior Analyst, 28, 143–159. Retrieved on March 1, 2007.
ABE's first project was training farm animals to appear in feed advertisements for General Mills. Bailey and Breland went on to train "more animals and different species of animals than any other animal trainers" of their time, including animals of the land (cats, cattle, chickens, dogs, goats, pigs, rabbits, raccoons, rats, and sheep), the air (ducks, parrots, and ravens), and the sea (dolphins and whales). At their busiest, they trained "more than 1,000 animals at a given time".Yin, S. (August 2000). Advanced Chicken Training Camp. Cambridge Center of Behavioral Studies. Retrieved on September 18, 2007. In training animals for recreational facilities such as Marineland of Florida, Parrot Jungle, SeaWorld, and Six Flags, they created the very first dolphin and bird shows, a form of program now considered traditional entertainment fare. Most major theme parks' animal programs can be traced back to the couple's pioneering work. They also established the first coin-operated animal shows. The Buck Bunny commercial featured their trained rabbits for a Coast Federal Savings television ad that ran for twenty years and which still holds the record for longest running TV commercial advertisement.Cook-Hasley & Wiebers (1999). Marian Breland Bailey: A Pioneer in the History of Applied Animal Psychology . Henderson State University. Retrieved on September 19, 2007. They trained animals for many other venues including circuses, motion pictures, museums, stores, and zoos.Chapter six learning. polipsy.vip.sina.com. Retrieved on September 20, 2007.
Earlier animal trainers had historically relied primarily on punishment when teaching animals. Bailey and Breland instead followed Skinner's emphasis on the use of positive reinforcement to train animals, using rewards for desired behavior.Fishkoff, S. (November 4, 1999). Pecking order: Whatever happened to the chickens who worked the tic-tac-toe game on Cannery Row? Montery County Weekly. Retrieved on March 9, 2007. Although other students of Skinner's later entered commercial animal training as well, the pair's techniques dominated the field because they found ways to simplify the training of complex behaviors.Bailey, R. (2002). Click for Joy! clickertraining.com. Foreword and Introduction. Retrieved on September 20, 2007. The couple did not just train the animals. They also trained other animal trainers, establishing in 1947 "the first school and instruction manual for teaching animal trainers the applied technology of behavior analysis." Marlin Perkins of Wild Kingdom and Walt Disney were among those who learned from them.
Bailey led ABE's government research, some of which remains classified to this day. Known projects included the development of an avian ambush detection system. In 1950, Bailey and Breland relocated ABE to a farm near Hot Springs, Arkansas. In 1955, they opened the "I.Q. Zoo" in Hot Springs as both a training facility and a showcase of trained animals.(1955-02-28). I.Q. Zoo . TIME. Retrieved on September 20, 2007. "Popular acts included chickens that walked tightropes, dispensed souvenirs and fortune cards, danced to music from jukeboxes, played baseball and ran the bases; rabbits that kissed their (plastic) girlfriends, rode fire trucks and sounded sirens, and rolled wheels of fortune; ducks that played pianos and drums; and raccoons that played basketball."
Bailey and Breland were also "the first to introduce the public to the applied technology of behavior analysis via numerous personal appearances at fairs, exhibitions, and theme parks across the country". They appeared on well known television shows such as The Today Show, The Tonight Show, Wild Kingdom, and You Asked For It. Publications including Colliers, Life, Popular Mechanics, Reader's Digest, Saturday Evening Post, Time, and even The Wall Street Journal featured them and their work. Although Breland was often the public face of ABE with some ads referring to "Keller Breland's I.Q. Zoo," both of them collaborated equally in ABE's endeavors.
The couple stirred controversyHistory of Applied Behavioral Psychology Lab: Misbehavior of organisms controversy. University of Central Arkansas. Retrieved on September 20, 2007. among behaviorists with their 1961 article, "The misbehavior of organisms"Green, C.D. Classics in the History of Psychology: The Misbehavior of Organisms. York University. Retrieved on September 20, 2007.the title of which involved a play on words referring to Skinner's The Behavior of Organisms. Bailey and Breland outlined training difficulties in which instinct or instinctive drift might occur as tendencies biologically inherent in a species intrude into the behaviors a trainer was attempting to teach an animal.Lavin, M. J. Brelands and instinctual drift. St. Bonaventure University. Retrieved on September 20, 2007. The article is recognized as a milestone in the history of psychology.Brewer, C. L. Psychology in an historical context: A timeline . Worth Publishers. Retrieved on September 20, 2007.Miele, F. (2004-06-22). The revival of human nature [not equal to] the denial of human nurture: toward a consilient science of human behavior. Skeptic, 11 (2). Retrieved on 2007-09-20.