BF SKINNER AND HIS THEORY
10:45 PM
Hey guys! I just wanna share to you my recent report on my Advanced Theories of Personality class. It's about BF Skinner and his contributions to Psychology. In case your studying his theory I think this can help.
Credits goes to Feist & Feist "Theories of Personality"
Here's the Summary of my report:
Credits goes to Feist & Feist "Theories of Personality"
Here's the Summary of my report:
BURRHUS FREDERIC
SKINNER: RADICAL BEHAVIORISM
Introduction:
- In the early years of the 20th century, behaviorism emerged
- Early pioneers of behaviorism – Edward Lee Thorndike and John B. Watson
- Skinner is known for Behavioral Analysis and Radical Behaviorism
- As a determinist he rejected the notion of free will – behavior is lawfully determined and can be studied scientifically
- As an environmentalist he stated that psychology must not explain behavior on the basis of physiological and constitutional components of the organism but rather on the basis of environmental stimuli
- Functional Analysis – there is no need to talk about mechanism operating with in the organism. Behavior can be explained and controlled purely by the manipulation of the environment that contains the behaving organism and there is no need to take the organism apart or make many inferences about the events that are going on inside the organism
Fred’s Timeline
March 20, 1904
v
Burrhus Frederic Skinner was born on
Susquehanna, Pennsylvania ,
the 1st child of William Skinner and Grace Marge Burrhus Skinner
v
Fred grew up in a comfortable upper middle class
home
1906
-
when he was 2 ½ years old his brother Edward/Ebbie was born and he felt that his
parents loved his brother more
-
as a child he was inclined to music and literature and
he was interested in becoming a professional writer
-
Ebbie died when he was in 1st year college
making it hard for his parents to let him go
-
his parents wanted him to become a “family boy”
-
he finished a bachelor’s degree in English at Hamilton College
in Clinton New York
-
he wrote to his father that he wanted to stay home
working at nothing except writing
-
but nothing happened which leads to his first “dark
year” – identity confusion which lasted for 18 months
-
he started to look for a new career – he became
interested in Psychology after reading works of Pavlov and Watson
-
Harvard accepted him as a graduate student in
Psychology
1931
-
Fred finished his Ph.D.
-
He received an invitation from the National Research
Council to continue his research at Harvard
1933
-
his fellowship ended and he had to look for a job but
then he was selected as a Junior fellow and continue his Experiments
1936
-
he was again looking for a job and found a teaching and
research position at the University
of Minnesota
-
he married Yvonne Blue
1938
-
their first child “Julie” was born
-
he was also able to publish his first book: “The
Behavior of Organism”
-
he started 2 ventures: Project Pigeon – pigeon guided
missiles and Baby tender for their second baby
1944
-
their second daughter Deborah or “Debbie” was born
-
he prepared a film for government officials showing
them pigeons that can track a moving target but some of them laughed about it
-
this leads to his second “identity crisis” at the age
of 40 – brought about his struggle to write a book and his negative experiences
over Project Pigeon and Baby tender and the fact that he is still dependent on
his father for financial help
1945
-
Skinner wrote “Walden Two” – Utopian novel that portrayed
a society in which problems are solved through behavioral engineering –
benchmark of Skinner’s professional career
1948
-
he returned to Harvard and taught in the college of Education
1974
-
he retired as a professor in Psychology but remained
professor emeritus
-
he wrote 6 more books on human behavior making become “America ’s
Best-known Living Psychologist”
August 18, 1990
-
Skinner died of Leukemia – one week after his emotional
address at the APA Convention
-
he received “Citation for Outstanding Lifetime
Contribution to Psychology” – only one who received that award
Influences
- Edward L. Thorndike’s law of effect – Skinner agreed with Thorndike that the effects of rewards are more predictable than the effects of punishment in shaping behavior
- John B. Watson – like Watson he insisted that human behavior should be studied scientifically
The Development of
Personality
According to Skinner human behavior is shaped by three
forces:
- Natural Selection
- Cultural Practices
- History of Reinforcement
Natural Selection
- Natural selection plays an important role in our personality.
- Behaviors that were beneficial to the species tend to survive throughout history while those that were idiosyncratically reinforcing tend to drop out.
- He suggested that the process of evolution shapes the innate behaviors of a species just as an individual’s learned behaviors are shaped by the environment.
Cultural Practices
“People do not observe particular practices in order that
the group will be more likely to survive; they observe them because that
induced their members to do so survived and transmitted them.”
Reinforcement
l
Two Types of Conditioning
l
Classical conditioning
l
Operant conditioning
Classical Conditioning – pairing a neutral
stimulus with an unconditioned
stimulus a number of times until it is capable of bringing about
previously unconditioned response called conditioned response
Operant Conditioning – the immediate reinforcement of a response; the organism first does
something then it is reinforced by the environment
Reinforcement
– increases the probability that the same behavior will occur again
- Effects of Reinforcement:
- It strengthens the behavior
- It rewards the person
Two Types of Reinforcement:
- Positive reinforcement – any stimulus
that can increase the probability that a given behavior will occur
- Negative reinforcement – removal of an
aversive stimulus that will also increase the probability that the
preceding behavior will occur
Schedules of Reinforcement
Continuous Schedule
- organism is
reinforced for every response
Intermittent Schedule
-produce responses
that are more resistant to extinction
- Fixed-ratio – the organism is reinforced
intermittently according to the number of responses it makes
- Variable-ratio – reinforces after the
nth response on the average
- Fixed-interval – reinforced for the 1st
response following a designated period of time
- Variable-interval – one of which the
organism is reinforced after the lapse of random or varied period of time
Punishment
The presence of aversive
stimuli; impose to prevent people from acting in a particular way
Punishing Stimulus – an aversive stimulus, which when occurring after an operant response,
decrease the likelihood of a response
Effects of
Punishment:
·
Suppress
the behavior
·
Conditioning
of a negative feeling
·
Spread
of its effects
Social Control
– written rules, laws or customs of a culture
Societies exercise
control over its members through 4 principal methods:
- Operant conditioning
- Describing contingencies
- Deprivation and satiation
- Physical restraint
Self–Control
According to Skinner
and Vaughan
- Use of physical aids to alter
environment
- Change their environment
- Arrange environment to escape from
aversive stimuli
- Take drugs
- Simply do something else
The Unhealthy Behavior
Counteracting
Strategies
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Escape
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Revolt
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Use
passive resistance
Psychotherapy
l
Psychotherapy
is one of the chief obstacles blocking psychology’s attempt to become
scientific
l
Shaping
behavior has impact on how therapy works
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