Do You Agree With Skinner's Explanation Of Coincidental Reinforcement?

Is being addicted to drugs just an effect from doing them or is it simply a choice that is made? Drugs have been and still are a part of our world and have been popularized since the 1960s. A drug is a substance which has a psychological effect when ingested into the body. The use of drug addiction can vary depending on the person. For example, it could be out of curiosity, peer pressure, to change their performance around others, reducing stress or depression. In chapter 7 “Rat Park” of Slater’s book Opening Skinner’s Box gives us a brief discussion about figuring how to get people who are hooked on drugs a way out, through the process of using rats in two different experiments. Furthermore, in the article The Likely Cause of Addiction Has Been

Behaviorism is the idea that all behaviors are absorbed through some form of conditioning, and behaviorists generally believe that all behaviors can be changed, trained, or even measured. So what does this mean? It means psychologist are challenging the thoughts that people are born innately good, by exploring the ideas that a person can be persuaded to behave a certain way simply by different forms of conditioning.

“I don’t see any benefit to teaching people the unlucky superstitions…[they] merely increase anxiety(lines 261-265),” Dr. Vyse says as he explains why unlucky superstitions, like the number 13 and black cats, only force people into bad situations. For instance, when a swimmer is walking to their meet, and a black cat passes him, he might think that the black cat is a sign that he isn’t going to do well. He might feel a negative impact and think that he’ll lose his meet just because of a superstition that isn’t really true.

Life is full of superstition, whether you like it or not everybody has some sort of superstition in them. Some people don’t let some things go to their head like others do. Some people can get really stubborn if something suspicious happens. I am one of them people, it is really hard to get suspicion out of your head, it is one of them things that once you do it, it is hard to not have those thoughts in your head. And in the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn you will see the cause and effects of the use of suspicion. The main character, Huck Finn, used superstition as a means to keep him going in search of his true self and find interesting ways to live life the only way he knew.

The word superstition is often used very loosely, and should first be defined, before being used. “Derived from super 'above', and stare 'to stand', the Latin Superstitio signifies a 'standing over' or 'survival', describing an irrational or a credulous

       Likewise, in the essays, "New Superstitions for Old" by Margaret Mead and "Superstitious Minds" by Letty Cottin Pogrebin discussed the superstitious beliefs possessed by individuals as well as the ritual practices that followed with these superstitions. Margaret Mead and Letty Cottin Pogrebin noted every

What is superstition? According to The Little Oxford Dictionary, superstition is "belief in the existence or power of the supernatural; irrational fear of the unknown; a religion or practice based on such tendencies; widely held but wrong idea." Let us examine that definition in depth. First, there is "belief in the existence or power of the supernatural". This means that there is believed to be some force that can influence the events on the Earth. Second, there is "irrational fear of the unknown." This has been endemic to the human race since the early days when a cave man did not know if that cave was safe to enter or if he would be attacked by a bear. Third, "a religion or practice based on such tendencies." This is the belief

Science has relieved so many different kind of mysteries with superstitions and most of these things are believed in in different countries. It is told that many infants have died due to illnesses and there’s family believing that this “magical imagination” will cure them. Even modern day weddings and ceremonies are filled with superstitions, Today some brides wear something old, something burrowed and even put a penny in their shoe for good-luck. The kind of ritual that is mostly common in the Hispanic/latino world, that is you can’t see your birthday cake until you’re ready to blow out your candles because you will receive a couple years of bad-luck. Superstition really comes a long way into almost every culture you endure. This kind of things, is natural to almost everyone you

Burrhus Frederic (B.F.) Skinner was born on March 20, 1904. Skinner lived 86 years passing away on August 18, 1990. He was born in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania to William and Grace Skinner. His father was a lawyer, while his mother stayed home to care for Skinner and his younger brother. Skinner being 18 lost his 16-year-old brother of a cerebral hemorrhage. At a young age, Skinner showed an interest in building different gadgets and contraptions.

Horoscopes, like the one presented to the right, is one of the most commonly known connections to real -life superstition; horoscopes are used to forecast someone’s future. Another superstition that has been around for a long time, is the superstition that if one is to find a four-leafed clover, then they are granted with good luck. The most renowned superstition that is most commonly known in America is, the superstition of Friday the 13th. If the 13th of any month is to land on a Friday it is known as bad luck. People purposely skip any important events on this day (like meetings, socials, banquets, etc.) just to make sure that they are not cursed with bad

Operant conditioning is considered the second learning principle. This type of learning occurs due to the cause-and-effect relationship between a behavior and its consequences. Operant conditioning has a common sense element. When we reward a behavior, it increases. When we punish a behavior, it decreases (Horvath et.al. 2013). Individuals who dislike particular substances have little risk for developing an addiction to those substances. Such dislikes to certain drugs or substances are not uncommon. Some people do not enjoy certain substances so therefore this protects them from developing an addiction simply because those substances are not enjoyable so therefore they are not rewarding (Horvath et. al. 2013), because addiction is considered

Of the five perspectives covered in chapter 2, the Learning perspective would be the most beneficial to a mother trying to teach her child to say “please.” While other perspectives might give more insight into the how and why a child develops in a certain fashion, changing a child’s behavior is best accomplished through operant conditioning.

Behaviorism is by far one of the most interesting fields of psychology in my opinion. B.F. Skinner’s view on behaviorism was that a person’s actions are controlled by rewards and punishments. Relating this to a real life situation, a great example of this would be a parent and a child.

According to Gewirtz and Peláez-Nogueras (1992), “B. F. Skinner contributed a great deal to advancing an understanding of basic psychological processes and to the applications of science-based interventions to problems of individual and social importance.” He contributed to “human and nonhuman behavior, including human behavioral development, and to various segments of the life span, including human infancy” (p. 1411). One of Skinner's greatest scientific discoveries was “single reinforcement” which became sufficient for “operant conditioning, the role of extinction in the discovery of intermittent schedules, the development of the method of shaping by successive approximation, and Skinner's break with and rejection of stimulus-response

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.