Malcolm Gladwell

Lawrence Cole had done his graduate work at Harvard and was part of a psychological movement that studied animals to understand humans. In the 19th century, psychology had largely been based on what people said about how they felt, which was not super reliable. So why not instead observe how animals behave and just extrapolate up the chain from there?

Lawrence Cole had done his graduate work at Harvard and was part of a psychological movement that studied animals to understand humans. In the 19th century, psychology had largely been based on what people said about how they felt, which was not super reliable. So why not instead observe how animals behave and just extrapolate up the chain from there?

But which animal was best for the psychologists to study? Any of them theoretically could work. Scientists were comparing species across tests to see how they'd fare. People had studied chickens, dogs. Cole's advisor liked the idea of studying monkeys, but monkeys are super expensive.

But which animal was best for the psychologists to study? Any of them theoretically could work. Scientists were comparing species across tests to see how they'd fare. People had studied chickens, dogs. Cole's advisor liked the idea of studying monkeys, but monkeys are super expensive.

It would be helpful, though, if there were a kind of consensus, a lingua franca animal that people could generalize from.

It would be helpful, though, if there were a kind of consensus, a lingua franca animal that people could generalize from.

Cole still had to find an experiment of his own to get his PhD. These raccoons seemed promising.

Cole still had to find an experiment of his own to get his PhD. These raccoons seemed promising.

Cole began running tests on the raccoons. He put them in boxes with complicated locks every day for a whole academic year, and he found they were incredible. Any box, it seemed, any puzzle, the raccoon could solve it. And what's more, the animal wasn't just going through the motions. The raccoon seemed curious about what he was doing.

Cole began running tests on the raccoons. He put them in boxes with complicated locks every day for a whole academic year, and he found they were incredible. Any box, it seemed, any puzzle, the raccoon could solve it. And what's more, the animal wasn't just going through the motions. The raccoon seemed curious about what he was doing.

And Cole thought there was evidence that raccoons could hold images in their mind. Nobody was making these kinds of claims about other animals. So Cole started publishing his research, writing to leading figures in psychology, saying, hey, these raccoons are really unusually intelligent, maybe as intelligent as monkeys, which seems to me like it should make them a great model organism for people.

And Cole thought there was evidence that raccoons could hold images in their mind. Nobody was making these kinds of claims about other animals. So Cole started publishing his research, writing to leading figures in psychology, saying, hey, these raccoons are really unusually intelligent, maybe as intelligent as monkeys, which seems to me like it should make them a great model organism for people.

except there was a movement that was growing swiftly within cole's field right around then which was explicitly uncomfortable with any talk of an animal having a mind and it was fast becoming the only show in town it was called behaviorism all this history is documented in an amazing article by michael pettit titled the problem of raccoon intelligence in behaviorist america

except there was a movement that was growing swiftly within cole's field right around then which was explicitly uncomfortable with any talk of an animal having a mind and it was fast becoming the only show in town it was called behaviorism all this history is documented in an amazing article by michael pettit titled the problem of raccoon intelligence in behaviorist america

Which is one of my favorite academic essays of all time. Because the raccoon was indeed a problem.

Which is one of my favorite academic essays of all time. Because the raccoon was indeed a problem.

Bob Bailey. He used to be the top guy at a legendary behaviorist organization called Animal Behavior Enterprises. The founders of that company wrote an infamous paper questioning the fundamentals of behaviorism, the idea that all animals were blank slates you could write whatever you wanted on. A key example? One raccoon they'd trained to put coins in a box.

Bob Bailey. He used to be the top guy at a legendary behaviorist organization called Animal Behavior Enterprises. The founders of that company wrote an infamous paper questioning the fundamentals of behaviorism, the idea that all animals were blank slates you could write whatever you wanted on. A key example? One raccoon they'd trained to put coins in a box.

Eventually, and most of the time, were bad news for people trying to turn psychology into a reputable hard science. That raccoon box situation came later on. But this exact dynamic put a bit of a target on Lawrence Cole, the frontier raccoonist. And if you know anything about the history of psychology, you'll know how the problem of the raccoon was solved. Raccoon erasure.

Eventually, and most of the time, were bad news for people trying to turn psychology into a reputable hard science. That raccoon box situation came later on. But this exact dynamic put a bit of a target on Lawrence Cole, the frontier raccoonist. And if you know anything about the history of psychology, you'll know how the problem of the raccoon was solved. Raccoon erasure.