Skinner`s Influence Essay, Research Paper

B.F. Skinner was one of the most influential theorists in modern psychology. His

work was very important and has been studied by many for years. Skinner was a

very straightforward man and a very educated man. His theories have helped

mankind in many ways. He has studied the behavior patterns of many living

organisms. Skinner was a well-published writer. His work has been published in

many journals. He also has written many books on behaviorism. His most important

work was the study of behaviorism. First began by John B. Watson, behaviorism is

one of the most widely studied theories today. B.F. Skinner and His Influence in

Psychology B.F. Skinner was one of the most famous of the American

psychologists. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1904. Skinner was the father of

modern behaviorism. Skinner did not get into psychology until he was in graduate

school at Harvard. He was driven to Psychology after reading about the

experiments of Watson and Pavlov. He received his doctoral degree in three years

and taught at the University of Minnesota and the University of Indiana and

finally returned to his alma mater at Harvard. Skinner contributed to

psychological behaviorism by performing experiments that linked behaviors with

terms commonly used to describe mental states. Skinner was responsible for some

famous experiments such as the ?Skinner box?. Skinner also wrote some very

famous books. One of them was ?The Behavior of Organisms?. This book

describes the basic points of his system. Another was Walden Two. This book

describes a utopian society that functions on positive reinforcement. Skinner

was a very productive person until his death in 1990 at the age of 86.

Behaviorism is a school of thought in psychology that is interested in

observable behavior. Skinner said, ?Behaviorism is not the science of human

behavior; it is the philosophy of that science?(Skinner, 1974). There are

various types of behavior, such as innate behavior. Innate behaviors are certain

behaviors that we are born with, such as eating when we are hungry and sleeping

when we are tired. Early Life Burrhus Frederic Skinner was born in Susquehanna,

Pennsylvania on March 20, 1904 to William Arthur and Grace Madge Skinner.

Skinner?s home was a warm and stable place. He lived in the house he was born

in until he went off to college. Skinner also had a younger brother named Edmond

James Skinner, born November 6, 1906. Skinner was very fond of his brother and

loved him very much. At the young age of sixteen, Edmond died of a cerebral

aneurysm. Skinner was a very inventive young man. He always was making or

building things, such as wagons, model airplanes, etc. He also attempted to

invent a perpetual motion machine, but it failed. He also read about animals. He

collected toads, lizards, and snakes. He trained pigeons to do tricks after he

saw them performing one year at a fair. Training the pigeons probably was where

he got his ideas of operant conditioning. He attended Susquehanna High School

just like his mother and father. In his graduating class there were only eight

people including him. He was a very intellectual boy. He reported that he really

enjoyed school. Over the four years in high school Skinner became quite good at

mathematics and reading Latin, but was weak at science. He made up for it

though, because he was always performing physical and chemical experiments while

he was at home. His father was an avid book collector. Skinner always had a good

library of books around his house. Skinner recalled the little collection of

applied psychology journals that his father had bought. Those books could have

been the starting point in his psychology career. Skinner grew up in a very

religious family. His grandmother often reminded him of the concept of hell. His

mother once washed his mouth out with soap literally for saying a bad word. His

father never punished him, but he told him of the punishments that awaited him

if he ever turned out to be a criminal. Overall Skinner had a good and happy

childhood. College Life After graduating high school, Skinner went to Hamilton

College where he majored in English Literature and minored in Romance Languages.

He was drawn toward English when he was in high school by one of his teachers

named Miss Graves. She also was responsible for his enjoyment of art and

sculpting. Skinner never really fit into the campus life and he was not much of

a sportsman. He said ?my shins were cracked in ice hockey and better players

bounced basketballs off my cranium? (Boring, 1967). Skinner?s freshman year

did not turn out to be what he expected. He felt that the college was pushing

him around with unnecessary requirements, such as daily chapel and physical

education. Skinner?s college life became better as the years went on. He was

very comfortable with college life by his senior year. Skinner turned out to be

quite the joker in college. He and a friend once printed up a poster that said

that Charles Chaplin was coming to speak about being in the silent movies. They

printed up some copies and distributed them throughout the campus. The effect of

their actions was more than they expected. A large amount of people showed up to

see the famous star that was not coming. The kicker was that Skinner said that

the presentation was under the direct supervision of Skinner?s English

composition teacher and all of the blame was on him when Mr. Chaplin did not

show up. Skinner graduated soon after that, and it was the start of a new life.

Psychological Beginning After graduating Skinner started writing, but that did

not work out. Skinner started classes at Harvard University studying for his

Masters Degree in Psychology. Skinner always had been interested in animal

behavior after seeing the performing pigeons when he was younger. He also was

interested in human behavior as well. This began when the man that taught him

how to play the saxophone when he was younger told him how he would entertain

troops. He would write the alphabet forward with his right and backwards with

his left hand, add up some figures given to him and answer questions from the

crowd all at the same time. The man said that it gave him a headache. Skinner

wanted to know how he did all of that. Skinner read some of the works of some

famous psychologists. He read some books on Pavlov and the work that he did with

the dogs and the work of John B. Watson, a famous behaviorist. He really became

interested in behaviorism when he met two men, Fred Keller and Charles Trueblood.

Keller was a strict behaviorist. Skinner saw Trueblood carrying caged rats that

he was working with in the laboratory. After that Skinner really started hitting

the books. He had a complex schedule of waking up, studying during breakfast,

attending classes, study until nine o?clock at night, and then going to bed.

He held this regimen for two years straight. He did not have much of a life

during those two years. When Skinner began working on his doctoral degree, he

was working part of the time at a medical school and the other part in a

subterranean laboratory with his animals. He remained in that laboratory for a

total of five years. While working on his research, Skinner found that Pavlov

had given him the most influence in the experimental method. Pavlov said,

?control the environment and you will see order in behavior? (Boring, 1967).

Skinner first used the term ?operant? when some of his papers came under

attack. He said, ?the term ?operant? was to identify behavior traceable to

reinforcing contingencies rather than to eliciting stimuli? (Boring, 1967).

Behaviorism and Skinner Over the years after receiving his doctoral degree

Skinner became a strict behaviorist. In 1964, Skinner gave a speech on what he

called ?The Science of Behavior and Human Dignity.? The main point of the

speech was that people blame their shortcomings on the environment and take all

the credit for their achievements. This belief wound up being the theme of one

of Skinner?s books. It was called ?Beyond Freedom and Dignity?, published

in 1971.This was a very popular book and a very unpopular book. Many thought

that Skinner did not believe in freedom and dignity. He wanted people to see

that if we could move beyond those things then perhaps our society could move on

to be a more realized one. Skinner believed that the study of behavior depends

on what the organism should and should not do. Skinner also was very productive

in the laboratory. His most famous experiment was the ?Skinner box?. The

?Skinner box? was just a plain looking box that could measure conditioning

in many different ways. Here is how it works. A hungry rat is placed in the box

and left alone. The rat will survey its environment. The rat eventually will

find a lever and when it is pressed, food is delivered. In operant conditioning

terms, the food reinforces the rat?s behavior of pressing the lever. Skinner

explained how this experiment worked in his first major work ?The Behavior of

Organisms: an experimental analysis?. He explained that the type of

conditioning the rat underwent was called ?free operant conditioning?. It

was free because the rat was uninterrupted and free to press the lever as many

times as it wanted. He explained it like this because he wanted to distinguish

himself from Ivan Pavlov and his dogs. One difference that was pointed out was

that the dogs had to hear the bell in order to start salivating. The rat was

given no stimulation; it just pressed the lever because it knew there would be

food. Skinner really wanted to study human behavior. The box did little of that,

but he found that if you change a human?s environment, a behavioral change

would occur just like the rat?s behavior would change, if you change the lever

pressing. So, the main idea of behaviorism is that human behavior is a product

of the stimulus-response interaction and that behavior is modifiable

(Behaviorism, 1997). In another of Skinner?s famous works he talks about his

three-part thesis on human behavior. He believed that biology, genotype, and

conditioning all work together in natural selection, operant conditioning, and

in the development of social environments. Skinner?s life appeared to be very

good. He had a good family, two loving children and wife. He also had a good job

teaching Psychology at his alma mater, Harvard University. America lost a very

important, intellectual man in 1990 when B.F. Skinner died at the age of 86 of

leukemia that he had contracted when he was younger. Even though he was dying he

still delivered a paper to the American Psychological Association. His work and

theories always will be looked at and studied far into the future. Conclusion

B.F. Skinner was one of the most important American psychologists ever. He was

known as the father of operant conditioning. Skinner?s experiments have paved

the way for many ideas and theories that may be developed by future generation

psychologists. He was responsible for writing many books that also have helped

in understanding behaviorism. He tried to explain how human behavior would

change if the environment were manipulated. In my opinion, Skinner was one of

the most well known psychologists of all time. He was a very intellectual man

and will be remembered far into the future.

Behaviorism. (1997). The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved April

07,1998 from the World Wide Web: http://www.utm.edu./research/iep/b/behavior.htm

Boring, E.G. (1967). A History of Psychology in Autobiography. New York:

Irvington Publishers. Retrieved April 07,1998 from the World Wide Web: http://lafayette.edu/allanr/early.html

Skinner, B.F. (1974). About Behaviorism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf Press.