Burrhus Frederic Skinner

A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.

Summary

Burrhus Frederic Skinner (1904 - 1990), Ph.D. was a highly influential American psychologist, author, inventor, advocate for social reform and poet. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until retirement in 1974.

He invented the Operant Conditioning Chamber, innovated his own philosophy of science called Radical Behaviorism, and founded his own school of experimental research psychology - the experimental analysis of behavior.

His work was influential in the creation of the Instincts Theory, although he ended up denying the importance of instinct (see Psychological Aspects of Biodanza).

Ideas

• Skinner invented the Operant Conditioning Chamber to measure organic responses and their orderly interactions with the environment. Reinforcement and punishment are either positive (delivered following a response), or negative (withdrawn following a response),
• Operant Conditioning differs from (classical) Pavlovian Conditioning in that reinforcement occurs only after a predesignated operation, such as pressing a lever or pecking at an illuminated disk, is executed.
• Radical Behaviorism is a philosophy developed by Skinner that underlies the experimental analysis of behavior approach to psychology.
• He believed that as personality develops, our behavior responds only because of external events. In other words, we are the way we are because we were rewarded for being that way.

Operant Conditioning

Operant conditioning (sometimes referred to as instrumental conditioning) is a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior. Through operant conditioning, an association is made between a behavior and a consequence for that behavior.

Key concepts in operant conditioning:

• A reinforcer is any event that strengthens or increases the behavior it follows. There are two kinds of reinforcers:
  • Positive reinforcers are favorable events or outcomes that are presented after the behavior.
  • Negative reinforcers involve the removal of an unfavorable events or outcomes after the display of a behavior.
• Punishment is the presentation of an adverse event or outcome that causes a decrease in the behavior it follows. There are two kinds of punishment:
  • Positive punishment involves the presentation of an unfavorable event or outcome in order to weaken the response it follows.
  • Negative punishment occurs when an favorable event or outcome is removed after a behavior occurs.