Walden Two By B. F. Skinner

Psychology has revealed how the learning perspective is concerned with the environment and experiences leading to effects on a person’s actions. Within this perspective, behaviorists focus on the environmental rewards and punishers that maintain or discourage specific behaviors. B.F. Skinner once stated, I am sometimes asked, ‘Do you think of yourself as you think of the organisms you study?’ The answer is yes. So far as I know, my behavior at any given moment has been nothing more than the product of my genetic endowment, my personal history, and the current setting. (Skinner, 1983). In the average college classroom, behaviorism effects students’ way of learning in that their behavior is shaped by either positive or negative reinforcement.

You may be dead now, but you left a huge impact on the world and on the lives of high school and college students reading your essay Walden, for school. You spent two years at Walden Pond. Why you spent exactly that much time, why you got away from society, why you lived in a small house, will be cryptic to us. You say that this lifestyle was to avoid materialism and find yourself in nature to achieve transcendence. And, this was true in your large essay, for the most part. I began to learn from your writings (Walden, Civil disobedience), however confusing and metaphorical they are. I respect you and what you have taught society. But, you always contradict yourself. Also, I want to tell you know that in your essay of Walden you said that ‘’As you simplify live your life, the laws of the universe will be simple; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness will be weakness.’’ I agree with you but considering that in the light of these modern days it is almost impossible to keep up with simplicity even though I know that to keep up with simplicity is a good thing. like I said, it is almost impossible for our generation to live without technology, without light, and without any facilities because in today’s modern world technology is one of the most important parts of each of the individual lives. Technology is like our soul, and we (the people) can’t live

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.

A long-debated argument in the field of Psychology has been which theory or explanation of human behavior is the most important and the most viable. Is B. F. Skinner’s theory that behavior is the result of man’s response to external stimuli or is Carl Rogers’ theory that man’s behavior is the result of his determination to achieve self-actualization the best explanation? After much research and thought, I will argue in favor of Carl Rogers’ Humanistic Theory that “emphasizes the unique qualities of humans, especially their freedom and their potential for personal growth” (Weiten, 2016, p. 9).

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

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’s theory of Operant Conditioning has at its foundation a desire to demonstrate a “cause and

In B.F. Skinner’s novel called “Walden Two” he shows his ideology of a utopian kind of society. The story starts off with Rodge and Steve coming home from service in the Philippines after the end of WWII. Disenchanted with the American Life, they stopped by the office of Professor Burris (a former professor of Rodge) to ask about a certain person named Frazier, and a new society that this certain person Frazier is trying to build. Professor Burris remembers that Frazier is one of his classmates from graduate school. When Rodge mentions his interest in a utopian community that was showed by Frazier, Burris was shocked. He immediately looked up to his old directory and saw that Frazier is living in a place called “Walden Two”. Burris agreed to

Behaviorism on learning and memory occupies an important position in the history of psychology. John B. Watson is the father of behaviorism while B.F. Skinner is the most famous behaviorist of the twentieth century. Watson’s methodological behaviorism means that it is only the behaviors of an individual that can be objectively observed. Skinner’s radical behaviorism emphasized that behaviors of human and animals are blindly influenced by environment. In this case, Watson and Skinner share similar views of behaviorism. For instance, they believe that the proper objectives of behavioral research include prediction and control (Staddon and Bueno, 1991). However, there are remarkable discrepancies in their views of human equality and freedom. Watson promoted the progressive process of human equality by maintaining concept of “tabula rasa”, whereas Skinner insisted that freedom is an illusion, so that he provided the adverse effect to the dictatorial institution. The fact is that the potential ambiguity produces a strong influence on people’s thinking and has a practical significance on society.

B. F. Skinner’s Walden Two is a fictional account of a utopia set after World War II built on psychological techniques and behavioral engineering. Its creator, T. E. Frazier, is indicative of Skinner himself, who was a well-known behaviorist and psychologist in the mid-20th Century. “Give me the specifications, and I’ll give you the man!” he boasts in his novel. Although the words are really Frazier’s, they best summarize Skinner’s behaviorist model. Given enough knowledge about man’s behavior, one can manipulate him however he chooses through careful experimentation.

Three major events in the early twentieth century greatly influenced Skinner’s work: Darwin’s theory of evolution, Freud’s psychoanalysis, and Pavlov’s approach to conditioning. Darwin asserted that all life forms evolved from simple forms and that the selection of characteristics contribute to the survival of each individual. Skinner believed that Darwin’s ideas could be applied to behaviorism and coined the idea of “selection by consequences” to explain why people act how they act. Psychoanalysis began in the early 1900s and Freud focused on the idea that people are driven by their unconscious and that adult behaviors are formed in childhood. Skinner agreed with a few of Freud’s ideas; both psychologists believed that behavior has predictable effects and is not a result of free will. However, Skinner rejected Freud’s idea that the id, ego, and superego cause behavior. Pavlov’s

B. F. Skinner revolutionized the field of psychology through his numerous writings on behaviorism. However, he began his collegiate life as an English major, and his education in literary techniques and devices clearly shows through in the manipulation of metaphor in his famous novel Walden Two. Although Skinner rarely diverges from the incessant description of behavioral engineering through his mouthpiece in the novel, Frazier, he occasionally digresses from the theory and application of scientific experimentation to the literary elements that are essential to any novel. One of these elements, the metaphor of the sheep that appears at the beginning and

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

According to Boeree, C, George (2006), B. F. Skinner’s “entire system is based on ‘operant conditioning’”. Behaviourism is determined by the environment and is “concerning with the effect of external events such as reward or punishment for behaviour” (Duschesne,

In the field of child development, many psychologists, sociologists, and behaviorists contributed and came up with different theories that helped to form our current education system. One of those is B.F. Skinner’s theory of behaviorism, which had a great impact on many strategies we use today for teaching and training. In his theory, operant conditioning is the most famous and influential idea that helped people to understand the behaviors of children and even adults. Skinner focused on how the environments, in the form of reinforcement and punishments, influence behaviors. Thus, his theory cannot explain the higher cognitive functions such as problem solving and critical thinking. Despite his theory’s critiques, Skinner stood strong on his ideas and theories.