B.F. Skinner
Skinner believed in Behavioristic theories. When studying behaviorist theories you investigate the role of learning in the development of personality. The psychologist study conditions and situations that affect the learning of behavior. Skinner defines personality in terms of behavior.
B.F. Skinner was born March 20, 1904, in the small Pennsylvania town of Susquehanna. His father was a lawyer, and his mother a strong and intelligent housewife. His childhood was old-fashioned and hard-working. He wanted to be a writer and did try, sending off poetry and short stories. When he graduated, he built a study in his parents’ attic to concentrate, but it just wasn’t working for him. At Harvard he got his masters in psychology in 1930 and his doctorate in 1931, and stayed there to do research until 1936. He was perhaps the most celebrated psychologist since Sigmund Freud.
His first theory was of reinforcement. When a behavior is reinforced, or rewarded the chances of that happening again are likely. He is saying by reinforcement if the person knows they will get rewarded for it they will continue to do it. Skinner noted that the learning process should be divided into "a very large number of very small steps and reinforcement must be contingent upon the accomplishment of each step." Skinner also stated that by making the steps of learning small, the frequency of reinforcement can be increased and the frequency of being wrong is reduced.
Another theory was that of punishment. He says in this way he does not approve. Skinner says that punishing a child for something will make him not do it again and that is good in some cases, but what if your parents are abusive. He says that the theory of rewarding is the way to go and punishment is not strengthening behavior, it is lessening the likelihood of that behavior to happen again.
Behavior modification is based on the principles of operant conditioning, which were developed by American behaviorist B.F. Skinner. In his research, he put a rat in a cage later known as the Skinner Box, in which the rat could receive a food pellet by pressing on a bar. The food reward acted as a reinforcement by strengthening the rat's bar-pressing behavior. Skinner studied how the rat's behavior changed in response to differing patterns of reinforcement. By studying the way the rats operated on their environment, Skinner formulated the concept of operant conditioning, through which behavior could be shaped by reinforcement or lack of it. Skinner considered his discovery applicable to a wide range of both human and animal behaviors(“Behavior,” 2001).
F. Skinner focuses on behaviorism which primarily deals with what can be observed and measured. B.F. Skinner believes through operant conditioning you can create desired (or undesired) behaviors in anyone. Operant conditioning is changing behavior through the use of reinforcement after the desired action is given; a behavior that is rewarded positively is more likely to continue and a behavior that is rewarded negatively would likely stop occurring (Santrock,2014). In addition to reinforcement, Skinner also talks about punishment. Reinforcement increases the probability an action or behavior will be repeated, while punishment is intended to decrease a behavior (McLeod, 2015). When Laurie was younger, she thought she was being sent to school every day to socialize with her friends and that learning was a secondary, unintentional happenstance. In third grade, compared to the other students in her class, she was falling short in reading and math. She couldn’t pay attention and often disrupted the class by talking with the people around her. Laurie’s third grade teacher got fed up with her behavior, so she placed Laurie’s desk next to her own in front of the class and then slapped Laurie’s desk with the ruler every time she caught her not paying attention. After a couple months, Laurie no longer required a slap on the desk to pay attention. According to Skinner, this behavior modification is punishment, not reinforcement, as the teacher was trying to decrease Laurie’s preference for daydreaming. However, as a result of not daydreaming, Laurie’s grades improved. Her parent’s began to reward her with $3 for every A she earned, using positive reinforcement to get Laurie to continue performing well. Due to operant conditioning, Laurie passed third grade and remained a top student the rest of her life, graduating from college with honors. If you ask Laurie to
At Harvard, B.F. Skinner looked for a more objective and restrained way to study behavior. Most of his theories were based on self-observation, which influenced him to become a enthusiast for behaviorism. Much of his “self-observed” theories stemmed from Thorndike’s Puzzle Box, a direct antecedent to Skinner’s Box. He developed an “operant conditioning apparatus” to do this, which is also known as the Skinner box. The Skinner box also had a device that recorded each response provided by the animal as well as the unique schedule of reinforcement that the animal was assigned. The design of Skinner boxes can vary ...
The typical idea of a dancer is that they are tall, slender, full of energy, and lucky because they dance with all of the “stars”. Much of this is true, however, what many people do not think of are the many hardships that a dancer goes through in order to achieve their high status in the dance world. It takes much hard work and determination along with good direction to become a dancer. However, nothing good comes without a price. Dancers often times have many pressures put on them which can lead to physical and emotional damages. These damages occur through the pressures from the media, parents, teammates, and the stereotype that society has placed on dancers.
...ilderness and the environment. With military action Roosevelt managed to put his string hold on other countries. He took control in Panama so we now have a canal through there. Theodore led his country in the overseas imperialism. He also helped to divide up military troops overseas which helped control the interests of the US. Theodore Roosevelt was an good impacting president but he was “trigger-happy” to start war so the United States could gain an advantage.
...ss to the field of behavioral psychology, he did face some criticism regarding the reliability of his experiments. Psychologists who do not support Skinner’s work claim that his research using rats and pigeons does not translate into human behavior. Many people believe that the human mind is much more complex than that of small animals. It is common among those in the psychology field to believe that reinforcement and rewards are not the only causes of behavior.
The attachment theory, presented by Mary Ainsworth in 1969 and emerged by John Bowlby suggests that the human infant has a need for a relationship with an adult caregiver, and without a subsequent, development can be negatively impacted (Hammonds 2012). Ainsworth proposes that the type of relationship and “attachment” an infant has with the caregiver, can impact the social development of the infant. As stated by Hammonds (2012), attachment between a mother and a child can have a great impact on the child 's future mental
Skinner is not a cognitive psychologist because he does not see evidence of an inner world of mental life that is relative to analyzing behavior nor to the physiology of the nervous system. In other words, he does not think the brain and its mental functions have proven enough evidence to verify their effectiveness in analyzing behavior within the field of psychology. Skinner has chosen not to be a cognitive psychology because of his belief that behavior cannot be changed by changing “the minds and heart of men”- yet that is the overarching purpose of cognitive psychology. Skinner believes that there is more to changing behavior such as the inclusion of altering the environments, both physical and social, in which we live. Without doing so, Skinner believes it is impossible to change
Behaviourism main theorist included Skinner, Pavlov and Thorndike who describes this theory as having a ‘stimulus and response’. Petty states, ‘learners are motivated by expected reward of some kind (such as praise or satisfied curiosity); learning will not take place without it’ (Petty, 2009:15-16). In addition, there should be immediate reinforcement otherwise this will cause a delay in learning. Another principle of behaviourism is the learning should be step by step and not all at once and by doing so the learner has successions of successes which increase their motivation that leads ‘to more complex behaviour’. Petty also states that ‘effective teachers stress key points and summarise them at the beginning and at the end of the class and, makes use of old learning in developing new learning’ (Petty, 2009:16).
Goddard, M. J. (2012). ON CERTAIN SIMILARITIES BETWEEN MAINSTREAM PSYCHOLOGY AND THE WRITINGS OF B. F. SKINNER. The Psychological Record, 62(3), 563-575. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1030424426?accountid=458
B.F Skinner developed operant conditioning. It’s the theory that one’s behavior is influenced by the actions that follow afterward. If the actions that follow afterward are consequences, then the behavior according to the theory will fade away. If the actions afterward is a positive action like a reward the behavior will continue on.
When Skinner turned 24, he attended graduate school at Harvard University. As a Psychology student, he teamed up with Physiology Professor, William Crozier. Together, they began to study the relationship between behavior and experimental conditions. During his time at Harvard, Skinner conducted many experiments using rats (B.F.Skinner Foundation, 2002). Skinner’s findings made him “the most influential psychologist of the 20th century” (Roblyer,2003, p.57).
Skinner’s theory operant conditioning is a theory that I feel most can say they agree with or they like the way he thinks. Speaking for myself I think his theory of operant conditioning is right on point. Although as I said in my discussion last week a lot of his theories and experiments were done on animals and not a lot done on humans and I think that plays a big part in his theory of why I agree and disagree with it. I only disagree because of the simple fact that humans are completely different from animals, obviously. What I do agree with in his theory are the positive and negative reinforcements, and the positive and negative punishments because although those were tested on animals as well a lot of that can relate to humans and how we act as far as our behavior. In my own opinion of his theory I feel like his operant conditioning would work rather well on children. I know for instance as positive reinforcement for my son I will give him a snack that he loves if he doesn’t act like a wild monkey in the store. Therefore, I see it working better on children rather than adults. In the video I watched from week 5 of operant conditioning in the first video he talks about how the bird received a reward every time the bird pecked or turned but he also says that this worked very well with the bird because every time he pecked and turn he didn’t get a reward each time only
Applying the tenets of this theory to personality, Skinner felt that our environment and society shapes who we are and the personality traits that we develop. Instead of changing our internal response...
“Punishment is one of the most used, but least understood and badly administered, aspects of learning” (Luthans, 1977, pp.300). As mentioned earlier, punishment is anything which weakens behaviour and tends to decrease it in subsequent frequency. Positive punishment is the method of administering negative consequences upon the occurrence of an action whereas Negative punishment involves the termination of positive consequences. In order to work, either case must weaken and decrease the behaviour which preceded the application or withdrawal of the stimuli. Skinner (1953) stipulated that we must defy the urge to label a form of stimuli as “desired” or “undesired” as a whole but rather to identify them by their effect on the observed subject.