TY  - BOOK
AU  - McConnell,James V.
AU  - Finlay,Virgil
TI  - Learning Theory
T2  - Produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, December 1957
AV  - PS 
PY  - 2019///
CY  - Salt Lake City, UT
PB  - Project Gutenberg
KW  - Science fiction
KW  - Short stories
KW  - Psychological fiction
KW  - Diary fiction
KW  - Human-alien encounters -- Fiction
KW  - College teachers -- Fiction
KW  - Experiments -- Fiction
KW  - Psychologists -- Fiction
N1  - Release date is 2019-10-05; Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net; Original publication data not identified
N2  - "Learning Theory" by James V. McConnell is a science fiction novel written during the late 1950s. The book explores themes of psychology and behaviorism through a unique narrative that examines concepts of learning, an important topic in the field of psychology. The protagonist, a psychologist, finds himself unwittingly studying his own behavior after being abducted and placed in a series of experimental tests reminiscent of the Skinner Box.  The story unfolds as the main character grapples with his identity and circumstances after being taken aboard an alien spaceship. He realizes that he has become a subject in an experiment designed by an alien psychologist, where he must navigate various learning tasks—including pressing levers for food and solving mazes—while dealing with the psychological implications of his situation. As he experiences the trials imposed by his captor, he reflects on the nature of learning and behavior, ultimately trying to thwart the alien’s expectations by manipulating the results of his own performance. The novel challenges the reader to consider the ethical dimensions of experimentation and the limits of scientific understanding in the realm of behavior. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
UR  - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60434
ER  -