THE BEST YEARS : SENIORS : Life in a ‘Box’ : One Santa Barbara couple ages gracefully by following the teachings of B.F. Skinner.
Jerry Shore and Leslie Steinmetz, a retired unmarried couple, have made their Santa Barbara home into a Skinner Box or “self-contained environment of positive reinforcements.”
Before they ever read B.F. Skinner’s book “Enjoy Old Age,” which applies behavioral psychology techniques in the pursuit of aging gracefully, Shore and Steinmetz started putting his theories into practice.
When they bought their retirement house, they surrounded it with the garden Steinmetz had always dreamed of, with blooms at every window. They converted the garage into an artist’s studio, his dream, and covered the house’s walls with his paintings.
“I really do believe Skinner--that punishments and rewards determine human behavior,” says Steinmetz, a former schoolteacher. “That’s why we made an enormous effort to make an environment that’s attractive and welcoming for ourselves and also to keep it comfortable and free of annoyances.
“We opened the kitchen out into the living and dining areas because Jerry likes to cook but doesn’t like to be isolated. And throughout the house we’ve put things in easy reach. There’s nothing that keeps you from activity as much as remembering you got cut or burned last time. . . .”
Not only is their environment in keeping with Skinner’s theories, but the couple have fashioned a schedule for themselves that the behaviorist would approve.
“Time is very structured around here,” Steinmetz says. “Mornings, Jerry paints. I garden. We love every minute of it. We give our afternoons over to things we believe in. Sometimes it’s worked, sometimes it hasn’t.”
Shore, who worked in health care, said he was thrilled to be called in as a consultant to help plan a nonprofit medical center. But soon after starting, he became frustrated because his associates found his ideas old-fashioned. Steinmetz had a similar experience at a school.
“Skinner’s advice,” says Shore, “is to try to avoid doing things as you learned to do them. Old people are more likely to tackle a problem in old ways because they’ve been practicing the old ways longer.”
Yet no matter how they tried, they had trouble accepting new ideas. Finally, they seized upon another bit of Skinner wisdom: “What you feel depends largely on what you do. And what you do is the thing to be changed.”
Shore began working with a political organization, where he edits their newsletter. He also serves on the County Grand Jury, heading one of its committees. Now he describes his work as “time-consuming but a very interesting experience.” Steinmetz joined the Peace Resource Center in Santa Barbara, which she now heads.
“We found we have much more fun exercising our civic responsibility,” she says, laughing. “And when we get tired of that, we’ll play a little. We’re planning to go to the Edinburgh Music Festival in July.”
And, says Shore, the excitement and “positive reinforcements are not just in the house. We make a real effort to have friends, especially young ones. Leslie took a class in horticulture at the university and made friends with a young woman who’s a professional gardener. They do a lot of things together. I found two neighbors, men who, like me, enjoy doing the shopping and cooking. We go on expeditions together to get fresh fish--or buy our fruit and vegetables direct from the farmer.”
He says that Skinner suggests people plan so the imperfections of old age don’t prevent them from enjoying life.
“For example,” Shore pulls out a small piece of paper from his pocket, “memoranda instead of memory. You see,” he goes on. “Now we’re really doing what Skinner advises in the book. We attack old age as a problem to be solved. Then we enjoy solving it. When we just can’t,” he says, “we resort to humor.”
