B. F. Skinner Essay

In chapter 1, Opening Skinner’s Box, Slater talks about a psychologist named B. F. Skinner. Skinner shows us how easily operant conditioning can be done. He believed that you have a better outcome if you study observable behavior instead of studying mental events. Skinner’s work focused on operant conditioning. People and animals were the subjects of his studies.

Chapter 1 of Opening Skinners Box portrays the life and experiments of one B.F. Skinner. The way this one man researched and spent so many years of his life dedicated to his findings is not only crazy and committed, but encouraging, motivational, and stimulating. Skinner was a neo-behaviorist well-known and notorious for his findings about the behavior animals have when using positive reinforcement and what you can teach them to do with these findings.

Psychologist, born in Susquhanna, Pa. He studied at Harvard, teaching there (1931-6, 1947-74). A leading behaviorist, he is a proponent of operant conditioning, and the inventor of the Skinner box for facilitating experimental observations.

B.F. Skinner, born on March 20th 1904, was an American behavioural psychologist who carried who carried out many experiments based on how behaviour is shaped and that all humans will regurgitate the things they enjoy doing and avoid those they dislike. He understood that creative people will be rewarded positively in order for that person to take an interest in that particular activity and develop further. He based his theories on self-observation,

“The ideal of behaviorism is to eliminate coercion: to apply controls by changing the environment in such a way as to reinforce the kind of behavior that benefits everyone,” stated B. F. Skinner (Brainy, 2014). This is a quote that is very popular and was a prime description of those Skinners experiments were meant to prove along with it being a saying that many people in the psychology world followed. Burrhus Fredrick Skinner was born on March 20, 1904 in the small town Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. Skinners father was a lawyer while his mother was a stay at home mom to take care of him and his younger brother. As a boy, he enjoyed creating a variety of gadgets and coming up with convincing ideas that was his step in stone later on when he go into psychological studies. After graduating from Hamilton College in 1926, Skinner was very undecided on what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. Skinner tried to begin a career as a writer and author, but soon realized he was not making any progress; he decided to pursue psychology at Harvard University. After graduating from Harvard, he continued to work there for the rest of his career. After a year of fighting leukemia, Skinner died on August 18,1990. Skinner left a remarkable imprint on the psychology world; by the time he died Skinner was named to be the utmost influential psychologist in the 29th century, along with publishing a considerable amount of books and articles (Zorn, 2014).

One of the most influential psychologists of all times is Burrhus Frederic Skinner, also known as B. F. Skinner, who was born on March 20, 1904 in a small town called Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. B. F. Skinner was raised in a warm and wealthy home. His father was a lawyer and his mother was a stay at home mom. In Skinner’s early childhood, it was noted that he and his younger brother, Edward James, liked to build things such as arrows and shack in the woods, to name a few ( ). These construction skills would enable an older Skinner to build the equipment invented for his psychology research. As he grew up, he went through all twelve grades at the same school, graduating with less than eight students. Within these years, he developed an interest in art and literature through drawing and later reading Shakespeare (Dews, 1970).

One of the most prominent and influential psychologists of the twentieth century, B.F. Skinner was known as a behavioral psychologist, philosopher of science, and an educational innovator. Throughout his life he did experimental work with animals to discover how patterns of behavior are learned. His initial work was primarily conducted with animals, and later in life he started to work with humans and apply his learning from his pigeon studies to human behavior. He focused on the individual and wrote about how to restructure social systems to improve the quality of life.

Just as Freud is known as the father of Psychoanalysis, B.F. Skinner is often referred to ask the “the father of operant conditioning.” B.F. Skinner is also known for major contributions to the field of psychology (About B.F. Skinner, Sept, 2012). Skinner was a prolific author, publishing nearly 200 articles and more than 20 books. Skinner was most known for his work in behavior psychology. Behavioral psychology is the psychological practice that focuses on learning new behaviors and how to modify our existing behavior and how that takes place (About B.F. Skinner, Sept, 2012). One of his major contributions was his theory of operant conditioning. Operant conditioning means roughly, the changing of behavior by the use of reinforcement, either positive or negative, and which these reinforcements are given after the desired response (About B.F. Skinner, Sept, 2012). Skinner identified three types of responses or operant that can follow behavior.

B.F. Skinner: He was one of the prominent propionates of a theory called behaviourism. He also constructed what became known as the ‘Skinner Box’.

In 1945 Skinner get a job at Indiana University as a leader of psychology Department. But he stayed over here for only two years and then he left and come back to Harvard University as a lecturer. In 1948 skinner became a professor and in this time he interested in education. Skinner he interested in children and he developed a machine to study in children. This is how he began to learn about children and he does a lot of research about children and he also published a lot of theories about child development. By the way B.F Skinner also He explored behaviorism in relation to society in later books, including Beyond Freedom and Human Dignity (1971) (Biography.com Editors, October 9, 2017).

The impacts that B. F. Skinner made were world changing. Imagine this: a world with no reinforcement. Positive reinforcement, negative reinforcements and all forms of punishment might not seem like a big deal, but they are used everywhere,

One of the most renowned psychologist of the 20th century known as Burrhus Frederic Skinner is described to have been a "highly conscientious ,extroverted and somewhat neurotic" man. (article 2). Skinner believed that "our actions are shaped by our experience of reward and punishment" (article 4) a term coined by Skinner himself as operant conditioning. Skinner was born on March 20, 1904 in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania into a "warm and stable environment" (Article 1). Skinner had one younger brother who died of a cerebral aneurysm at the age of 16. His father was a lawyer and his mother was a house wife. During Skinner 's childhood he "showed an interest in building different gadgets and contraptions" (article 5) such as a perpetual motion machine and a cart with a steering wheel. This interest would later serve him well in his research in behaviorism.

The human mind is responsible for nearly every aspect of one’s life. Sadly, it is also one of the most difficult topics to study and understand. Being a field that is so difficult to study, psychology has had many different contributors that have had many different ideas. While William Wundt is known as the father of psychology (Gilbert, et al., 2015), a very overrated contributor to the field is Burrhus Frederick Skinner. BF Skinner and his studies on behaviorism made major improvements on the way that we can study the mind. Skinner influenced the field of psychology through his theory of repetition, which helps the world better understand the mind and also offers practical uses such as token economy.

Skinner created what he called an operant conditioning apparatus that later was referred to as the “skinner box.” The Skinner box is a compartment that enclosed a key that an animal had access to when they wanted water, food, or even reinforcement. Skinner was the number one believer that children react to rewards and gifts. He believed that you had the ability to make a child do whatever you want when you give them things.

Skinner is the reason we train or try to train I should say your pets. Without knowing it, I was skinnerizing while I taught my dog to potty train. Skinners study are very important to this day in my opinion as we do it with out knowing especially with children. The choice you make to reward over punishment to teach a new skill. Skinners view on self control is also a key message, how much do you really control yourself, or is everything a action to things that come before you in life, school, work, family, choices everyday causes you to do something whether you plan it of not. He realized that long before you and I ever