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B F Skinner Box Summary

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B.F. Skinner believed the most effective way to understand behavior is to look at the causes of action and its consequences; this is what he called operant conditioning. Skinner thought it would be more beneficial to study observable behavior as opposed to internal events such as thinking and emotion. His work is based off of Edward Thordike’s Law and Effect theory, which he renamed as Reinforcement. It was Skinner’s findings that behavior that was reinforced tends to be strengthened and repeated opposed to behavior that is not reinforced tends to be weakened and extinguished. Skinner studied this behavior by conducting experiments using animals, such as lab rats, which he placed in what he called a “Skinner Box.” B.F. Skinner came up with …show more content…
When a favorable outcome, event, or reward occurs after an action, that particular response will be strengthened. An easy way to remember positive reinforcement is to think of it as something being added. Skinner was able to show how positive reinforcement worked by first placing a hungry rat into his “Skinner Box.” Inside the box was a lever, as the rat moved about it would accidently hit the lever and immediately a pellet would drop. The rats learned quite quickly and after just a few minutes they were going straight for the lever once placed in the box. Knowing that they would receive a pellet when pressing the lever ensured that the rats would repeat this behavior over and over …show more content…
Negative reinforcement strengthens behavior because it stops or removes an unpleasant experience. A good way to remember negative reinforcement would to think of it as something being subtracted from the situation. Skinner showed how negative reinforcement worked by placing a rat into his “Skinner Box” and exposing it to an unpleasant electric current. The lever placed inside the box, when pressed, would switch the electric current off. As soon as the rats were placed in the box they learned quickly and would go straight for the lever to turn off the electric current.
Punishment is the opposite of reinforcement. Punishment is designed to weaken or eliminate a response rather than increase it. There are two kinds of punishment, positive punishment and negative punishment. Positive punishment is when unfavorable events or outcomes are given in order to weaken the response that follows. Negative punishment is when a favorable event or outcome is removed after the undesired behavior occurs. In both cases of punishment the behavior

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