1. Biography of B.F Skinner
Skinner, was born Burrhus Frederic Skinner in Susquehanna, Pa. His interest in psychology rose while at Harvard University. Skinner was inspired by Bertrand Russell's articles on behaviorism. Also, Skinner was deeply influenced by the ideas of Francis Bacon. In 1931 he received a Ph.D. from Harvard and then continued to do research there until 1936. While there he developed the Skinner box. In 1936, Skinner joined the faculty of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, where he wrote 'The Behavior of Organisms' in 1938. From 1945 to 1948 he was a professor of psychology at Indiana University in Bloomington. During this period Skinner wrote an article discussing his air crib--a large, soundproof, germfree, air-conditioned box designed to provide an optimal environment for the first two years of a child's life. He joined the faculty of Harvard in 1948, where he remained until his retirement in 1974. He was awarded by the American Educational Research Association for his remarkable contribution in the field of educational research and development in 1978. He died in Cambridge, Mass., on Aug. 18, 1990. .
Throughout his career Skinner was a strong supporter of behaviorism. He advocated the use of controlled, scientific methods in studying human behavior through a person's response to the environment. Skinner elaborated on the works of Thorndike and his principle of the law of effect. He employed the methods of shaping in his experiments. Skinner is well known for his study with pigeons that led to the Skinner box. The Skinner box is a controlled environment for studying the behavior of organisms. He developed it to test the effects of behavior modification on laboratory animals.
Skinner experimented on pigeons and attempted to prove that he could condition them to do anything in his will. Skinner even succeeded in training his pigeons to open elevator doors. He did this by reinforcing them with feed.
B. F. Skinner On a day to day basis, people do many actions without realizing it, and most of the time, they don't know why they do them. Certain reinforcements, some positive, and some negative have conditioned their actions and thoughts. All organisms, including humans, are greatly influenc...
Doing research on these theories one of them really stood out to me and that is the one of B.F. Skinner. ... Reinforcement is the key element in Skinner's theory. ... Generalization is the last element made up in Skinners theory. ... From his theories, Skinner developed the idea of "shaping....
B.F. Skinner's Walden Two On the first day of the visit by the author's group of six to the utopian community, Walden Two, there is a brief break from the lecture/tour given by the community's founder, Frazier. ... (Page 49) The fate of democratic government in the utopian world depicted in behaviorist B.F. Skinner's imaginative work, Walden Two, might well trouble the visitors, and indeed the readers of the book. ... Skinner's utopia actually has little in common with our modern cults, or even the primitive Christian communities where humility and abstin...
Skinner B. ... Skinner was born on March 20, 1904 in Susquehanna, a small town in the hills of Pennsylvania. ... Skinner attended Hamilton college where he decided he would go on to become a writer. ... Now 24 years old, Skinner enrolled in the Psychology Department of Harvard University. ... In 1943, Skinner was confronted with a problem that hit a little closer to home. ...
Determinism and Free Will A very interesting conversation took place last night at my house. In the living room were Dr. Carl Rogers, Dr. Sigmund Freud, and Dr. B.F. Skinner. They were discussing the different interpretations of determinism and free will. Dr. S...
B.F. Skinner came up with the theory that operant conditioning is a change or changes in behavior which are the result of an individual's response to events or stimuli that can occur in the environment. ... Reinforcement is the key element in Skinner's stimulus-response theory. ...
Best put by the psychologist known as B.F Skinner who claimed that freedom was a myth. ... Skinner also stated that freed is just a "rather pleasant emotion". ... Terms such as "There is not enough time to do that today or "If I only had the time", give credence to Skinner's thoughts of time and freedom. ... Without these time would not exist, thus adding credence to Skinners theory. ...
Their names were Sigmund Freud and Frederick Skinner, between the two of them they have contributed greatly to the psychology world (Crux, 2006). ... Skinner said that it was useless to speculate about things that were private and unobservable in the cognitive process. Unlike Freud, Skinner made no provision for internal personality structures like Freud did. ... Skinner liked to focus on how the outside environment mould and affects our behavior. ... Skinner referred to this as operant conditioning. ...