B.F. Skinner, was born Burrhus Frederic Skinner in Susquehanna, Pa., on March 20, 1904. 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.
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