Burrhus Frederic Skinner - the Theorist

Burrhus Frederic Skinner the Theorist

Behaviorism is the branch of psychology associated today with numerous psychologists but one of the most prominent behavioral psychologists of all time, B.F. Skinner really taught people that any behavior is usually immediately affected by its consequences. I having a young child I have seen Skinners theories work in many different facets during my short stint of being a parent. Skinner is a theorist who made his reputation by studying how an individual's behavior might change by responding to his/her environment. The great Skinner wrote "Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten",(Skinner, 1964) thus basically meaning that most over and over again behaviors we as people have learned and made habits are from the trials and consequences we suffered through to understand them.

Behaviorism is a different breed of psychology to study; Skinner after logging long hours at Harvard and the University of Minnesota often wrote rather then taught. His primary way of relaying his idea's and studies to people was through many of his books including the book Walden II, which is still read as a fictional account of a small knit town that is was completely run by his behaviorist idea's and principles. He as a young and upcoming psychologist, who loved to write, really focused his attention in books to help people understand that his ultimate goal of psychology was to improve our species through conditioning. His theory was he wanted us as people to understand that any everyday behavior that was immediately followed with continued positive reinforcement, would almost 100 percent of the time lead to us doing the same ordinary everyday behavior over, and over again, but if this reinforcement were negative such as touching a hot stove and burning your finger were to happen you wouldn't ever do this same behavior over because it lead to a unwanted pain. His idea's also mention that if this reinforcement was drawn out or slowed down that the likelihood of this occurrence happening at over and over, would most likely slow down as well, but if the process were to sped up so would the likely hood of this reoccurring event. For example if I sit at a slot machine at Thunder Valley and after gambling for 1 minute I quickly hit a decent size payout. The chances of me continuing to play the same machine are going to be significantly higher then because of the reward I just received. Not only are my chances of me playing going to increase, but my rate and speed will stay high paced or continue to speed up hoping for another payout, only because I am trying to make this same positive reinforcement happen again. If my payouts were to come at long intervals or come at a slow rate or not at all, then I am most likely going to play at a slower rate or even not at all because it's effecting my negatively. As I mentioned Skinner named this theory as the "operant conditioning theory", with a definition of "A behavior that is followed by a consequence, and the nature of the consequence modifies the organisms tendency to either repeat or not to repeat the behavior in the future" (Skinner, 1945) Now Skinner's theory wasn't only known by the process of his writing habits, his fame came through some of his special devices that he created and put to use during different experiments. One device, called the Air-Crib, was designed to be the ideal environment for the first two years of a child's life. This "baby tender" was a sound proof, air-conditioned, germ-free setting where the child slept comfortably and still had usual freedom of movement. Unfortunately, it seems this wasn't a very good idea and never really caught on. His most commonly known product was his use of "Skinners Box",( Kerry W. Buckley,1989) This box contraption was used as an study aide for most of his research that I discussed above. Skinners Box showed how one's behavior is changed due to