Bf Skinner Research Paper

In behavioral theory, the founder of psychological behaviorism, John Watson believed that internal thinking process could not be observed; therefore, psychologists should not focus on it. An American psychologist, Burrhus Fredric Skinner social philosopher behaviorist, inventor, and author, developed the theory of Operant conditioning believed we learn new behavior through traditional or operant conditioning and all behavior is learnt from the environment.

Burrhus Frederic Skinner was born on March 20, 1904 in Pennsylvania. His dad was a lawyer and his mother was a housewife Most of his childhood he spent building things. Often times he would build gadgets for example a cart with steering that worked backwards by mistake. He then went to Hamilton College, where he developed a passion for writing. He tried to make writing a profession after graduating but he had no success in it. When Skinner was the age of 24 he enrolled in Harvard University to study Psychology. In his time there he constructed the cumulative recorder, a mechanical device that recorded every response as an upward movement of a horizontally moving line.

He removed the pellets as a reinforced and found that the rats would eventually stop pressing the lever. He also decided to reward the rats intermittently. He found that irregularly rewarded behavior was the hardest to eradicate. He was then able to explain why we do dumb things even when we are not consistently rewarded. Skinner’s experiments were amazing and disturbing at the same time.

Skinner conducted a series of research experiments with rats and pigeons under controlled laboratory conditions using a specially designed cage. By doing so he sought to demonstrate that behaviour can be created and reinforced by external factors. The puzzle box he created for his experiments has become so widely used that it is now known as the “Skinner box”. Animals would be placed in a cage which had a bar lever mechanism used to dispense food; Skinner would measure the frequency of the bar pressing and introduce different variables into the experiments. This led to his discovery of 'partial reinforcement' and its correlation to the slower extinction of shaped behaviour. When food pellets would only be dispensed once in a while (as opposed to every pressing) Skinner noticed that it took longer for the learnt behaviour to become extinct. The powerful phenomenon of partial reinforcement can be noticed in gambling establishments; a player on a slot machine is more likely to keep up their behaviour of playing if the rewards are unpredictable and occasional. The player becomes more persistent in their gambling in the hope that the next coin will be the winner (Hunt, 1993).

I remember learning about B.F. Skinner as an undergrad. There was something about the Behaviorism that got my attention. As an aspiring teacher, the sheer idea that anyone could make an impact on a person’s life for good or bad was captivating to me. I wanted intervene in education in someway because I had been pretty successful with children and I wanted to continue in a scholarly way.

B.F. Skinner tested all his theories with an abundance of different gadgets and tests. A few were more harsh than others, others were supported while a handful were disappointed in, and others were overlooked. He went through with everything to understand and prove why humans and animals acted the way they did when exposed to a certain stimuli. The Skinner Box is the most commonly known and that test included rats and pigeons to examine if they could and would adapt to their new environment. It also made it easier to keep track of variables that were being tested. This machine has helped with medicine and helped improve testing. Eventually there was the Teaching Machine which was adapted later on computers and that was to help students other

   First began by John B. Watson, behaviorism is one of the most widely studied theories today. B.F. Skinner and His Influence in Psychology B.F. Skinner was one of the most famous of the American psychologists. He was

Skinner illustrated positive reinforcement by placing a hungry rat in his Skinner box (Appendix 2). The box contained a lever in the side and as the rat moved about the box it would accidentally knock the lever. As the lever move, a food pellet would drop into a container next to the lever. The rats quickly learned to go straight to the lever after a few times of being put in the box. The consequence of receiving food if they pressed the lever ensured that they would repeat the action again and again.

He used the example that (Skinner 1972 as cited in Robins, G (2012)) if a person moves into the shade because it is hot, he is more likely to repeat this behavior the next time the sun is hot. He described this phenomenon as ‘operant conditioning’. The cooling down reinforces the behavior. He argued that if the students are consistently praised, rewarded and acknowledge for learning or having in a certain way, they would behave in the same way again, this creating ‘conditions which are optimal for producing the changes called ‘learning’ (Skinner 1969: 10 as cited in Robins, G (2012)) and allowing the teacher to influence the behavior of pupils at will without resorting to

B. F. Skinner is famous for his Behaviorism Theory and has invented new ideology in thinking and learning. While creating his behaviorism theory, Skinner has explained his ideology in different part using few experimental method. He grouped his founding in 7 different category such as doing things, sensing things, changing things (learning), staying changed (remembering), wanting, thinking and using mind.

Skinner’s methods for operant conditioning relied on reinforcement and punishment, with an emphasis on positive reinforcement. As pointed by Peters(2013) “ Of course, Skinner didn’t invent the ideas of punishment and reward, but he conceptualized them scientifically and conducted experiments to determine how to use them most effectively, based on various schedules of frequency (Behavioral Conditioning, para. 4).”

B.F. Skinner (1904-1990) was an American psychologist who was a leading proponent of behaviorism, which had significant influences on philosophy. He was an advocate of his own school of thought called radical behaviorism, and conducted experimental analysis of behavior.

Burrhus Frederic Skinner was born in 1904 “Pennsylvania. After graduating Hamilton College, he wanted to become an author, but without any avail. Pavlov and Watson’s work encouraged him to attend Harvard graduate school where he studied behavior. “He made changes in the rate of behavior a standard measure of learning: made the individual, rather that the group, the object of experimental study; and suggested ways that a natural science of behavior could be applied to medicine, work, child rearing, education and other fields” (Learning and Behavior pg#136-137). Skinner worked with rats by placing them in boxes and providing them with different reinforcements. He would teach them a different behavior by providing obstacles in order to shape those behaviors. “Positive reinforcement strengthens a behavior by providing a consequence an individual finds rewarding” (simplypsychology.org). The reinforcement was the food “The rats quickly learned to go straight to the lever after a few times of being put in the box. The consequence of receiving food if they pressed the lever ensured that they would repeat the action again and again (simplypsychology.org).

Skinner’s is regarded as the father of Operant conditioning while his work was based on Thorndike’s law of effect (Kaiga, 2012, para. 6). Reinforcement is a term that Skinner introduced to the law of effect in which behavior that is reinforced tends to be repeated while

Before psychology consolidated it self as the school of thought we have come to know today, it went through a number of theoretical adjustments. Freud and Watson became pioneers of two different approaches. Psychodynamics and Behaviorism could be argued to be two of the most pivotal influences on psychology. To really grasp their value we have to understand their individual philosophical influences, founders and their theories. Both have expanded the growth of psychology as a science, but with comparable views of what that science should represent.