...important of these was Burrhus Frederic Skinner. Although, for obvious reasons he is more commonly known as B.F. Skinner. Skinner's views were slightly less extreme than those of Watson (1913). Skinner believed that we do have such a thing as a mind, but that it is simply more productive to study observable behavior rather than internal mental events. The work of Skinner was rooted in a view that classical conditioning was far too simplistic to be a complete explanation of complex human behavior. He believed that the best way to understand behavior is to look at the causes of an action and its consequences. He called this approach operant conditioning. Operant Conditioning deals with operants - intentional actions that have an effect on the surrounding environment. Skinner set out to identify the processes which made certain operant behaviours more or less likely to occur. Skinner's theory of operant conditioning was based on the work of Thorndike (1905). Edward Thorndike studied learning in animals using a puzzle box to propose the theory known as the 'Law of Effect'. BF Skinner: Operant Conditioning Skinner is regarded as the father of Operant Conditioning, but his work was based on Thorndike’s law of effect. Skinner introduced a new term into the Law of Effect - Reinforcement. Behavior which is reinforced tends to be repeated (i.e. strengthened); behavior which is not reinforced tends to die out-or be extinguished (i.e. weakened). Skinner (1948) studied operant conditioning...
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...B. F Skinner Burrhus Frederic Skinner was best known as BF Skinner, American behaviorist, author, inventor, social philosopher and poet. He discovered and advanced the rate of response as a dependent variable in psychologist. He invented the cumulative recorder to measure the rate of response as part of his influential work on schedule of reinforcement. While F.B Skinner was at the University Of Minnesota he invented the operant conditioning chamber to measure the responses of organisms and their orderly interactions with the environment useful devices like the cumulative recorder, even in his old age he invented a thinking aid to help with writing. Skinner showed the positive reinforcement by placing a hungry rat in the Skinner box. This box contained a lever with food as the rat moved inside the box the lever would drop the food to a container next to it. The consequence was that the rat would repeat the behavior again and again. A good example to picture this would be thinking of a daily basis situation every time you do something good you get a reward, so then the same action becomes a daily thing so you can get rewarded more often. The negative side is that if one day you don’t do the right thing then you won’t get reward and then the habit might be broken. The opposite of reinforcement is punishment this can also work directly by doing something unpleasant stimulus. For example if the children don’t behave then they get put in time out and...
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...the past decade have helped form the foundation of knowledge. In this paper, this writer will compare two of the most talented theorists of the time. Abraham Maslow and B.F. Skinner are just two of the many theorists that have formed the organization in today’s classrooms. This paper will address the differences in the theories and the similarities. It will describe how each theory can be implemented in the learning environment of an early childhood classroom. Lastly, it will describe each theory that will be compared supported by research. Comparison of two Theories Operant Behavior Conditioning of Burrhus Frederic Skinner (1904-1990) BF Skinner renowned for his theory of Operant Behavior (Maslow and Skinner: n.d.). He is known for, his leadership in the field behavior modification through conditioning. This states that behavior is affected by the consequence that follows the behavior. This is a practice teachers, utilize in the classrooms every day as part of the classroom management process: if the behavior of the child or children is unacceptable, the consequence will not be favorable. If the behavior is positive, the consequences will also be positive. Really, Skinner's theory states that good behavior is reinforced while bad behavior is reprimanded (Maslow and Skinner, n.d.). Ultimately, Skinner believed that in order to change behavior there had to be a positive stimulus to reinforce that behavior. Added onto this is the theory of Operant Conditioning. This states...
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...been given by the environment and gaining a further insight into becoming an outcome of the situation, but before that you will need your brain to tap into the long term memory stores, which then leads into the third stage of the cognitive approach theory. The memory stage compares the current information given by the environment to the old information that’s in the long term memory to come up with a response to solve the problem. After all these stages have been completed, the problem solving is the last stage and this is where the brain has come up with the best possible response to solving the problem. The behaviourist approach consists of someone’s behaviour towards someone or something before and after reinforcement has taken place. BF...
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...B. F Skinner Burrhus Frederic Skinner was best known as BF Skinner, American behaviorist, author, inventor, social philosopher and poet. He discovered and advanced the rate of response as a dependent variable in psychologist. He invented the cumulative recorder to measure the rate of response as part of his influential work on schedule of reinforcement. While F.B Skinner was at the University Of Minnesota he invented the operant conditioning chamber to measure the responses of organisms and their orderly interactions with the environment useful devices like the cumulative recorder, even in his old age he invented a thinking aid to help with writing. Skinner showed the positive reinforcement by placing a hungry rat in the Skinner box. This box contained a lever with food as the rat moved inside the box the lever would drop the food to a container next to it. The consequence was that the rat would repeat the behavior again and again. A good example to picture this would be thinking of a daily basis situation every time you do something good you get a reward, so then the same action becomes a daily thing so you can get rewarded more often. The negative side is that if one day you don’t do the right thing then you won’t get reward and then the habit might be broken. The opposite of reinforcement is punishment this can also work directly by doing something unpleasant stimulus. For example if the children don’t behave then they get put in time out and...
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...specific and clear, as well as realistic yet challenging. Appropriate feedback of results directs employee to behave and contribute to a better performance. Feedback will gain reputation will develop clarification of a goal as well as regulate difficulties. (Sayer, S) Employee participation of setting goals is more acceptable and lead to more involvement. According to Sameed Sayer, the advantages of Goal Setting theory are as follows: * Goal setting theory is a technique used to raise incentives for employees to complete work quickly and effectively. * Goal setting leads to better performance by increasing motivation and efforts, but also through increasing and improving the feedback quality. Reinforcement Theory of Motivation of BF Skinner states that a person’s behavior is a direct relationship to the function of consequences. For instances, if a manager immediately praises an employee for a...
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...B. F. Skinner Burrhus Frederic (B. F.) Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and social philosopher.[1][2][3][4] He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974.[5] Skinner believed that human free will is an illusion and that any human action is the result of the consequences of the same action. If the consequences are bad, there is a high chance that the action will not be repeated; however if the consequences are good, the actions that led to it will become more probable.[6] Skinner called this the principle of reinforcement.[7] The use of reinforcement to strengthen behavior he called operant conditioning. As his main tool for studying operant conditioning Skinner The Skinners’ grave at Mount Auburn Cemetery invented the operant conditioning chamber, also known as the Skinner Box.[8] Skinner developed his own philosophy of science called radical behaviorism,[9] and founded a school of experimental research psychology—the experimental analysis of behavior. His analysis of human behavior culminated in his work Verbal Behavior, as well as his philosophical manifesto Walden Two, both of which still stimulate considerable experimental research and clinical application.[10] Contemporary academia considers Skinner a pioneer of modern behaviorism along with John B. Watson and Ivan Pavlov. Skinner emphasized rate of response as a dependent variable in psychological...
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...| | History of B.F Skinner "The consequences of behavior determine the probability That the behavior will occur again"- B.F. Skinner Burrhus Frederick Skinner is one of the most important person's in the history of psychology. He was very popular and well known by seeing humans as no different to animals. He was also well known by his unique and well expressed quotes and by operant conditioning and schedules of reinforcement theories. Burrhus was a young boy that was interested and attracted in observing and spotting the world. To begin with, Skinner was born on March 20, 1904 in small town in the hills of Pennsylvania. At that time his father was prestigious lawyer and his mother was a housewife. Skinner grew up in a peaceful home with a warm and stable family. He had one younger brother that died when he was 16 years old from cerebral aneurism, and he had no sisters. During his childhood, he took pleasure of building and experimenting things, an ability and talent he would shortly use in his own psychological experiments in his career path. As a young boy, he build things like roller scooters and steerable wagons that worked backwards. Corrales 2 At later years, Burrhus decided to attend Hamilton College in New York, where he soon graduated with a BA degree in English. His passion was to become a writer, but later he noticed it wasn't working for him. After some ventures and some traveling, he decided to go back to school. Skinner enrolled in the Psychology...
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...Skinner Article BEH/225 3/20/2013 David Stephensen (Instructor) Axia College of University of Phoenix B.F Skinner, theorist and psychologist. He was born in 1904 in a small town in Pennsylvania, breakthrough research in the field of psychology. Skinner was a famous controversial behavioral scientist who longed to be a writer as a young man. His main aim was to focus on operant conditioning. Operant Conditioning is a type of learning where behaviors are repeated to earn rewards, or avoid punishment (Morris & Maisto 2010). Operant conditioning is when we use consequences to transform or shape behavior, either to increase or decrease a voluntary behavior. According to J. Dinsmoor, “Skinner suggested that it is punishment that people find objectionable and against which they rebel, rather than simply, the fact that our behavior is under external control. Positive reinforcement leads to voluntary cooperation. Hostile reactions to Skinner's message may reflect confusion of his opposition to autonomous action as a scientific concept with opposition to behavior described as autonomous. Negative reactions toward science, psychology, and the use of "lower" animals to understand human behavior may also have played a role. Properly understood, Skinner was much closer to the libertarian than to the totalitarian end of the political spectrum.” You will notice his many contributions that will be brought to your attention so that he can receive the recognition as one of the most...
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...LEARNING PRINCIPLES Training a Dog Eddie has been reading about methods to train his dog to behave and follow commands. He wanted to make his dog more obedient, so he has been reading a lot and trying to implement what he has read. One of the first things he read about was the use of a clicker and reinforcement theory. He read that he should use the clicker and then follow that sound immediately with a dog treat. Eddie did use the clicker a number of times, but sometimes he would make the “click” and fumble around and not give the dog a treat until a minute or so later. Some days he would give the dog a treat and then use the clicker. Eddie also read about positive reinforcement, and he felt that it was a good idea. He decided that treats were a reinforcer, and he also decided that he would give his dog a new toy as a reinforcer. Along with the concept of positive reinforcement, Eddie read about something called schedules of reinforcement. Eddie thought that the best schedule of reinforcement was to give his dog a treat or new toy every time the dog obeyed a command such as “sit”, but after a while it became too much trouble to always give a treat so Eddie tried to just use the clicker instead. Eddie wasn’t content with trying to teach his dog simple one-word commands such as “sit”, he wanted the dog to learn more complex behaviors such as “roll over and play dead”, so he researched the concept of shaping, but he would often get frustrated because his dog...
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...Compare and contrast how Skinner and Harlow have used non-human animals in behavioural research In this essay I plan to compare and contrast the works of both Harlow and Skinner, in relation to their investigative studies with non-human animals in behavioural research. Both of these psychologists conducted influential research on the behaviour of animals and both concluded that their findings could also be applied to the behaviour of humans. I plan to compare the similarities and differences with Skinner’s study of non-human animals in his research on reinforcement and learning (Toates 2010 page 167) and that of Harlow’s study of non-human animals in his attachment study (Toates 2010 page 1960), as the main focus for my reference. Although it is now widely acknowledged that Harlow’s research methods would now be considered as being unethical. It was the subsequent debates in response to these research methods, that has sanctioned improvements in ethical standers and the findings of the research have also influenced the attitudes and practice of Western childcare and child psychology today. (Custance 2010 page 212). By analysing Harlow’s and Skinner’s research, I will review their theories that relate to learning being based upon the idea, that all behaviours are acquired through conditioning which occurs through interaction with the environment. ‘Stimulus-response psychology’ looks at understanding how learning consists of the attainment of the links between stimuli and responses...
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...Bandura and B.F Skinner. Bandura has become the most influential theorist of learning and development. He believes that a significant amount of learning is described by social cognitive learning. “Learning would be exceedingly laborious, not to mention hazardous, if people had to rely solely on the effect of their own actions to inform them what to do. Fortunately, most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling: from observing others one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action (Bandura 1977).” We don’t have to go through an experience ourselves to learn from it, it is learned primarily through observation and not through trail and area, as it is with operant condition. B.F Skinner theory of operant is a form of how we response to life situation whether positive or negative. As an example of this conditioning, my mother was the dominant one in the household. If my brothers, sisters and I did something wrong, she would physically punish us. Skinner has three types of reinforcement: primary reinforcement- instinctive behaviors lead to satisfaction of basic survival needs such as food, water, sex and shelter. Secondary reinforcement – is not reinforcing by itself, but becomes reinforcing when paired with a primary reinforce. Lastly, generalized reinforcement- stimuli become reinforcing through repeated pairing with primary or secondary reinforcement (Skinner 1904-1990). Freud’s...
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...Madeline Clausell ABA "The consequences of behavior determine the probability that the behavior will occur again" --B. F. Skinner. B. F. Skinner was born March 20, 1904. B.F. Skinner described his Pennsylvania childhood as "warm and stable." As a boy, he enjoyed building and inventing things; a skill he would later use in his own psychological experiments. Skinner married Yvonne Blue in 1936, and the couple went on to have two daughters, Julie and Deborah. Burrhus Frederic (B.F.) Skinner majored in literature at Hamilton College in New York. He went to New York City in the late 1920s to become a writer, but he wasn't very successful. So he decided to go back to school, and went to Harvard to study psychology, since he had always enjoyed observing animal and human behavior. For the most part, the psychology department there was immersed in introspective psychology, and Skinner found himself more and more a behaviorist. He worked in the lab of an experimental biologist, however, and developed behavioral studies of rats. He had always been a tinkerer, and loved building Rube Goldberg contraptions as a kid; he put that skill to use by designing boxes to automatically reward behavior, such as depressing a lever, pushing a button, and so on. His devices were such an improvement on the existing equipment; they've come to be known as Skinner boxes. Skinner received his PhD in 1931. In 1936 he took an academic position at the University of Minnesota where he wrote The Behavior of Organisms...
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...was introduced in 1938 by B.F. Skinner. The principles of operant conditioning can be used to modify an existing behavior, either an undesirable behavior that you would like to eliminate or a desirable behavior that you would like to strengthen. The desirable behavior that I have decided to strengthen is the regularity of which I exercise. I will generate a plausible explanation for why the problem exists, describe one reason why I want to change the behavior, and provide one benefit that the change will bring. To conclude part A of my assignment, I will provide a carefully designed program for strengthening the behavior, making sure to include all relevant conditioning principles incorporated within my plan; which will include the use of positive and negative re-enforcers, and shaping. In part B, I will design a series of test items that would indicate the difference intelligences according to Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. I will provide one original of how you would test each of the eight differences. Howard Gardner developed a theory of multiple intelligences in (1983, 2004) according to Gardner there are eight different types of intelligence. Each of the eight intelligence is distinct from the others, which means that we may be very talented in some of these areas and completely untalented in others. Skinner showed how positive reinforcement worked by placing a hungry rat in his Skinner box. The box contained a lever in...
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...Management in Human and Social Development - MGMT 8010 June 28, 2014 Understanding Burrhus Frederic Skinner B. F. Skinner was one of the most influential of American psychologists. A radical behaviorist, he developed the theory of operant conditioning, the idea that behavior is determined by its consequences, be they reinforcements or punishments, which make it more or unlikely that the behavior will be repeated again, (NNDB, 2014). His principles are still incorporated within treatments of phobias, addictive behaviors, and in the enhancement of classroom performance as well as in computer-based self-instruction, (NNDB, 2014). Skinner believed that the only scientific approach to psychology was one that studied behaviors, not internal (subjective) mental processes, (NNDB, 2014). He denied the existence of a mind as a thing separate from the body, but he did not deny the existence of thoughts, which he regarded simply as private behaviors to be analyzed according to the same principle as publicly observed behaviors, (NNDB, 2014). According to Michael (2013) Burrhus Frederic Skinner is very famous for developing his own philosophical studies around animal and human behavior. Once I had realized that this Theorist had caught my attention, I really became very excited about this research project so I started finding information about the man called B.F. Skinner, (NNDB, 2014). I am not sure if you’ve heard of him before but he is one of the most famous psychologists...
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