In Opening Skinner's Box By Lauren Navarrette Jr.

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.

Burrhus Frederic (B. F.) Skinner, an American behavioral psychologist who believed the idea that human free will was an illusion and any human action was the result of the consequences of that same action, developed an experiment to verify if superstition was present in pigeons. Skinner’s beliefs led him to conduct this research experiment which ultimately declared him as one of the top psychologists of his era. Skinner believed that the best way to understand behavior was to look at the causes of an action and its consequences. He called this approach operant conditioning.

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.

Thereby, Skinner produced experiments whereby rats would navigate through mazes to achieve the goal of a box containing food. His interest was the behaviour of the rat, taking the right turn to achieve the desired result, food. To begin with the rats would take the wrong turn but with experience, they became more skilful. The rats learning behaviour was measured in two ways, firstly the length of time it took from start to end and secondly, the reduction in errors. This was a lengthy experiment which led Skinner to produce ‘the Skinner box’. Whereby, rats learnt to press a lever and pigeons learnt to peck a key in order to attain food, also known as behaviour shaping. This experiment lacks ecological validity as the animals are kept in a controlled environment which is dissimilar to their natural habitat. However, the results which were attained could not have been possible in natural circumstances. Skinner wanted to observe if behaviour could be learned through reaching a desired outcome such as positive reinforcement which needed to be

Skinner created the theory of Operant Conditioning as he believed that all behaviour can be controlled by rewards or reinforcement. This is very different from Pavlovs theory of Classical Conditioning as Skinner is trying to control voluntary behaviour. This is done by giving the subject a positive or negative reaction to an action with the theory that a negative response will discourage the subject to repeat the action. A good example of this is house training a dog, as the dogs natural reaction is to relieve itself, however it must be taught to wait until it is outside. The more the dog waits until he is outside, the more praise he receives therefore it is less likely to wish to instigate a negative reaction by relieving himself inside the house.

So when Abigail Fisher wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps and attend the university she would have to make it on her own, with no special consideration (Nieli, 2013). The state of Texas has enacted the Top Ten Percent Law that gives students graduating in the Top Ten Percent of their high school automatic admission to any Texas public school. Unfortunately, Fisher failed to meet this requirement, and hoped to get admitted through this alternative admission track that takes academic achievement, extracurricular activities, and numerous other things including race and ethnicity. Considering her GPA and SAT scores were higher than most of the students admitted in this fashion, she felt she would easily gain admission this way. When that didn’t happen she felt if she had been a black or Hispanic student and had her same credentials she would have easily been accepted. Fishers’ attorney argued that the University had not been in compliance with the constitutional review. (Nieli, 2013)After losing two appeals, both in the district court and circuit court they appealed to the Supreme Court. The University of Texas gave great transparency in its admission process and gave other universities an outline on how to justify the need for their Affirmative Action Policies. In regards to their policy the University of Texas highlighted the need to deal with students feeling racially isolated or alone. In 2013, the time of Fishers’ litigation African American Students made up less than 5% while Latinos made up about 15% of the student body as compared to Latinos 38% state representation (Hawkins, 2016)Texas’s argued institutions need to leverage the educational benefit of diversity, the need for polices such as affirmative action exists as a result of the lingering effect of discrimination, and that these policies are helping the underrepresented minority groups

Since race has been allowed to be a factor in decision making for admittance into the school, admissions in minorities has increased due to the favor on diversity. Abigail Fisher (a caucasian female) applied for UT in 2003, but was denied admittance into the university. She filed a lawsuit against the University of Texas at Austin claiming that she was not admitted because of her race which violates the Equal Protection Clause. Nikole Hanna- Jones speaks on how Fisher felt wrongfully denied her admittance in the university. In her article What Abigail Fisher’s Affirmative Action Case Was Really About “But she was cheated, they say, her dream snatched away by university that closed its doors to her because she had been born the wrong color: White (2016, p. 1).” Reflecting on this case, Fisher’s affirmative action of feeling like she was denied, because of her race is understandable. Her denial of admittance brought light into the subject for not only UT, but for other universities in how their decision making processes can affect students personally by lowering their self-esteem and it also diminishes a university

“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 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.

This chapter is centered on researcher B.F Skinner, who was known for highlighting rewards and reinforcements through animal experiments. He also demonstrated operant conditioning through positive reinforcements. Today, many individuals possess both a negative and a positive view of Skinner and his experiments (ranging from evil to highest esteem respectively). This may be due to the difficulty of “separating content from controversy”(8). Skinner was born in 1904 and can be identified for many quirks such as working only on a cluttered desk. He went onto go and study psychology at Harvard in 1928, rather than taking up his desire of becoming a novelist. Despite initially avoiding the softer psychology fields, Skinner came across a psychology workshop

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.

A positive aspect of Skinner's theory is that it has made practitioners, parents and carers more aware on how to manage the child's behaviour. It also is used in many school and family settings to help manage a child's behaviour. This can be seen in settings by practitioners rewarding children when they have done something positive such as completing work by giving them a sticker or saying well done or when practitioners are punishing the child when they have done something negative such as throwing something across the room by giving them a time out. Another positive aspect is that when children are punished for doing something negative they are less likely to repeat that behaviour again. It is also useful for parents and carers when raising

Not only did Skinner not believe in personality, he had his own opinion on personality. (Introduction.) He believed that if children are not properly reinforced or engaged in school, the children may drop out. (B. F. Skinner on Education.) Modifying a child’s learning behavior begins with a classroom environment that involves a rewarding atmosphere. This way, the child will be rewarded by coming to school and learning something. The problem with the reward system is that you want to slowly wean the children off of the reward system over time, in a way conditioning the children to be positively reinforced without having to be rewarded.

Burrhus Frederic Skinner was born on March 20, 1904 in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. Skinner was an American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and a social philosopher. Skinner is known for his discovery of the theory of operant conditioning (Wikipedia). Skinner was a graduate from Harvard University. Although he understood the importance of classical conditioning, he noted that, “principles of classical conditioning account for only a small portion of learned behaviors” (Woolfolk 250). Skinner expressed that through operant conditioning, behavior is strengthened or weakened by antecedents or consequences. Both theorists’ work have a major influence on learning/behavioral concepts.

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’. Within this box he discovered that a rat or a bird could be trained to obtain food by pressing a button. This he called ‘Operant Conditioning’ and ‘Negative Reinforcement’. According to Martin Fiebert, Professor of clinical