Download BF Skinner And Behaviorism

B. F. Skinner And Behaviorism
B.F. Skinner was a controversial and interesting psychologist who founded
behaviorism and made important contributions to learning theory and
principles of behavior modification
Burrhus Frederic Skinner was a well-known and controversial 20th century researcher
and teacher who is associated with a school of psychology known as behaviorism.
Fred, as his family called him, was born on March 20, 1904 in Susquehanna,
Pennsylvania, a small railroad town just south of the New York state border.
His parents were Grace and William Skinner, a couple quite concerned with outward
appearances and social respectability. William was an attorney for the Erie Railroad.
Grace was actively involved with numerous civic organizations, primarily to promote the
family image. According to her son, she derived little pleasure from them.
Of the couple's two sons, Fred's younger brother Edward was the more obedient,
charming and socially adept. Edward's misdeeds were often overlooked, while Fred's
were always punished.
Despite this apparent favoritism, Fred enjoyed great freedom to wander about doing
whatever he liked. He was resourceful, creating imaginative gizmos as playthings or as
solutions to his youthful problems. One such gadget helped him avoid his mother's
displeasure, making a sign pop up when he forgot to hang up his pajamas.
In later years, Fred would have opposed the use of words like "curiosity", "intelligence",
or "creativity", to characterize his childhood ingenuity. Fred believed that his
resourcefulness was an acquired behavior "shaped" gradually by the environment around
him. Accidental successes and discoveries "reinforced" his continued experimentation.
In 1922, Fred graduated as salutatorian from Susquehanna High School and was admitted
to Hamilton College in Clinton, New York in 1922. The liberal arts college placed a great
emphasis on writing skills, and Fred felt that he would like to become a writer.
He continued to be socially awkward, often appearing aloof and pretentious to his
classmates. He was uncomfortably aware of his inability to fit in with the other students,
and later remarked that he had turned his entire freshman class against him with a critical
remark. Adding to his difficulties adjusting to school, Fred's younger brother Edward
suddenly died of a cerebral hemorrhage.
Fred graduated from Hamilton in 1926, again as salutatorian of his class. At about the
same time, his grandfather passed away. Fred wrote a dispassionate, clinical account of
his grandfather's death. He was unable to involve his emotions in his writing, - a
profound handicap for a would-be author. He found himself questioning his life
philosophy, and casting about for new answers to his questions about life and death.
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In August, he read about the founder of behaviorism, John B. Watson, for the first time.
Behaviorism was the late 19th century's answer to the criticism that psychology was not a
true science.
Watson eliminated the study of motivation, mental processes and emotions from
behavioral psychology, focusing instead on the study of observable, measurable behavior.
Fred Skinner's mind was primed for a change. Increasingly, the perspective put forth by
behaviorists made sense to him.
In the fall of 1928, Skinner returned to school, this time entering Harvard University for
graduate studies in psychology. In the informal atmosphere at Harvard, Skinner at last
began to come into his own.
There he built a device capable of precisely measuring and recording the number of times
a rat pressed a bar to receive a food pellet. This box, along with the attached recording
equipment, provided a way to collect more objective data about behavior than scientists
had been able to gather before. The device came to be known as the "Skinner box"
Skinner's innovations were viewed with both admiration and suspicion by Harvard
faculty. Introspective psychology was dominant at Harvard, and behaviorism appeared to
belittle studies of the inner workings of the mind. The head of the Harvard psychology
department, Edwin Boring, was uncomfortable with the direction in which Skinner's
studies were going. To Boring's credit, he consciously tried not to be an obstacle to
Skinner's advancement.
In 1931, Skinner received his PhD from Harvard. He remained there for several more
years, conducting research. In 1937, he was offered a teaching/research position at the
University of Minnesota at Minneapolis. He had met Yvonne Blue, his future wife, the
previous year. In November of 1937, shortly before moving to Minneapolis to begin his
new career, the two were married.
Skinner's brand of behaviorism was becoming more radical with time. It was fortunate
that the University of Minnesota was not dominated by any particular school of
psychology, and was therefore somewhat open to his brand of behaviorism.
Basically, Skinner modified the tenets of behaviorism to fit his own discoveries, which
involved what he called "operant conditioning." "Conditioning" is the scientific term for
learning. "Operant" refers to Skinner's idea that any organism "operates" on his
environment - that is, performs actions that change the environment around it for better or
for worse.
Operant psychology is based on the idea that an action taken by a person or an animal
often has consequences that occur naturally in the environment. This principal is called
"operant conditioning". Reinforcement is something that makes it more likely that a
given behavior will be repeated. The consequences of a given action either reinforce the
behavior or do not.
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For example, if a child makes faces at the teacher in school, the laughter of the other
children may serve to reinforce his behavior. If the teacher punishes him by making him
write, "I will not make faces" one hundred times on the chalkboard, the child may avoid
such antics in the future. Thus, the child initiates the behavior, and factors in the
environment either reward or punish his behavior.
Skinner did not worry much about which consequence was the stronger one. He believed
that if a behavior was reinforced, it was apt to be repeated. Skinner believed that positive
reinforcement was more effective than punishment. He also believed that the
reinforcement must come swiftly.
Experimenters using Skinner's techniques have taught birds and animals to perform any
number of unnatural actions. We have all seen chickens playing toy pianos or dogs
climbing ladders, acting like firemen. These peculiar behaviors are taught through a
process called "shaping."
For example, a chicken is at first rewarded if it turns slightly in the direction of the piano.
As it begins to turn toward the piano more frequently, it begins to be rewarded only when
it looks directly at the piano or moves toward it. Eventually it is rewarded only when it
touches the piano, and so forth.
This shaping of behavior, or "successive approximation" has proven to be a very
successful teaching technique. It has been adapted to teach people to overcome phobias
or other disruptive behaviors.
Skinner's beliefs and techniques were not radical enough in themselves to cause the storm
of controversy that eventually began to swirl around him. One factor contributing to this
storm was the "baby tender".
The baby tender was a device Skinner invented to keep his second daughter, Deborah in a
safe, thermostatically controlled environment while he worked. It was the high-tech
equivalent of a playpen, but was misunderstood and construed as a diabolical device that
Skinner was using to experiment upon his hapless child. He was accused of keeping
Deborah, who became known as "the baby in the box" inside the baby tender for three
years, depriving her of fresh air and human companionship. Although this was far from
the truth, magazine articles painted Skinner as an unfeeling, inhumane parent.
In 1971, Skinner published a book that would prove to be even more shocking to the
American public. In "Beyond Freedom and Dignity", Skinner challenged the very
foundation of the American belief system. He dismissed the notion that individual
freedom existed. Man's actions were nothing more than a set of behaviors that were
shaped by his environment, over which he had no control.
Such views, even if they had been completely understood in the context of Skinner's
work, flew in the face of what most Americans held dear. They removed admired
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attributes from man -- free will, dignity, and conscious thought -- and replaced them with
behaviors that were shaped by an environment over which individual man had little or no
control.
Skinner's penchant for substituting his own special vocabulary for words that he felt
might be misunderstood probably contributed to the controversies that flared up around
him. Since most people had no idea what he was talking about, these words did not
clarify his ideas, but rather confused his listeners.
When he advocated the use of operant conditioning techniques to control and engineer
human behavior, the idea smacked of tyranny and abuse of power. Skinner responded
that all behavior is already controlled by factors in the environment, and that society
needed to manage some of those factors.
Therapists have taken Skinner's ideas and used them to help people overcome phobias
and other maladaptive behavior. They are helping people control their actions without
using the emotionally charged language that got Skinner into so much hot water.
Psychologists have disproved the idea that a cat can always be trained to perform the
same tasks as a pigeon. Instead, certain species seem to be pre-wired to perform certain
types of tasks, while other species may be unable to learn them, despite their physical
ability to do so.
Immediate rewards are no longer considered to be the best reinforcers under all
conditions, although they play an important role in many types of learning. Today,
scientists acknowledge that learning involves more complicated combinations of factors.
Sometimes a delayed reward is more effective than an immediate one. A combination of
reward and punishment can also speed learning.
Programmed teaching materials providing immediate feedback to students' responses are
utilized in today's classrooms to effectively teach certain types of material. Skinner's
ideas have also been adopted to teach mentally retarded and autistic children, are used in
industry to reduce job accidents, and are used in numerous applications in health-related
fields.
B. F. Skinner died of leukemia on August 18, 1990, at the age of 86.
In spite of some flaws in B.F. Skinner's views, the principles of operant conditioning still
play an important role in the way we approach learning and behavior modification today.
Bibliography:
Carpenter, Finley. The Skinner Primer: Behind Freedom and Dignity. New York: The Free Press, a
Division of Macmillan Publishing Company, Inc., 1974
Bjork, Daniel W. B. F. Skinner: A Life. New York: BasicBooks, a Division of Harper Collins Publishers,
Inc., 1993
Hunt, Morton. The Story of Psychology. New York: Doubleday, 1993.
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Questions & Answers for B.F. Skinner and Behaviorism
Please complete this work on a separate page. In this case, please do write the
question first.
1. What does reinforcement do? (Increase the likelihood that a given behavior will be
repeated)
2. Skinner adopted the use of the word “shaping” for a description of a method in
behaviorism. Describe the method and an example. (Reinforce increments of behavior that
lead toward a desired behavior.)
3. Who was the founder of behaviorism? (John B. Watson)
4. What did Watson and the Behaviorists try to eliminate from behavioral psychology?
(motivation, mental processes and emotion)
5. Describe a Skinner box and its purpose. (Track bar press data)
6. What was the dominant form of psychology at Harvard University when Skinner arrived?
(Introspective psychology)
7. Describe operant conditioning. (A process of behavior modification in which the likelihood
of a specific behavior is increased or decreased through positive or negative reinforcement)
8. Successive approximation has been successfully employed to treat what kind of
psychological problems? (Phobias and other disruptive behaviors)
9. What was Skinner’s Baby Box? (Climate controlled play pen)
10. How was the purpose of the Baby Box misunderstood? (Thought it was a Skinner Box for
his kid)
11. Children with what specific diagnoses have been helped by Skinner’s ideas? (Autistic and
mentally retarded)
12. What was the title of Skinner’s book and what was so shocking about it? ("Beyond
Freedom and Dignity", dismissed the concept of individual freedom)
13. Do you think that Skinner’s ideas are employed in the development of video games? If so,
how?
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Questions for B.F. Skinner and Behaviorism
Please complete this work on a separate page. In this case, please do write the
question first.
1. What does reinforcement do?
2. Skinner adopted the use of the word “shaping” for a description of a method
in behaviorism. Describe the method and an example.
3. Who was the founder of behaviorism?
4. What did Watson and the Behaviorists try to eliminate from behavioral
psychology?
5. Describe a Skinner box and its purpose.
6. What was the dominant form of psychology at Harvard University when
Skinner arrived?
7. Describe operant conditioning.
8. Successive approximation has been successfully employed to treat what kind
of psychological problems?
9. What was Skinner’s Baby Box?
10. How was the purpose of the Baby Box misunderstood?
11. Children with what specific diagnoses have been helped by Skinner’s ideas?
12. What was the title of Skinner’s book and what was so shocking about it?
13. Do you think that Skinner’s ideas are employed in the development of video
games? If so, how?
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