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Famous Psychologists: B.F.

Skinner F.A.Q.

 Table of Contents

 Emotional Problems

  Anger

  Anxiety
B. F. Skinner was one of the most influential of American
psychologists. A behaviorist, he developed the theory of   Depression
operant conditioning -- the idea that behavior is
determined by its consequences, be they reinforcements   Frustration
or punishments, which make it more or less likely that the
behavior will occur again. Skinner believed that the only   Grief
scientific approach to psychology was one that studied
  Guilt
behaviors, not internal (subjective) mental processes.
  Lack of Confidence
B.F. Skinner
  Self-Esteem
The following has been adapted from the Webspace
website.   Stress

Skinner was heavily influenced by the work of John B.  Eating Disorders

Watson as well as early behaviorist pioneers Ivan Pavlov
and Edward Thorndike. He spent most of his professional   Anorexia
life teaching at Harvard University (after 9 years in the
psychology department at Indiana University). He died in   Bulimia
1990 of leukemia, leaving behind his wife, Yvonne Blue
and two daughters.   Binge Eating

Burrhus Frederic Skinner was born March 20, 1904 (he   Eating and Weight
died in 1990 of leukemia), in the small Pennsylvania town
of Susquehanna. His father was a lawyer, and his mother   Emotional Eating
a strong and intelligent housewife. His upbringing was
old-fashioned and hard-working.   Excess Weight

Skinner was an active, out-going boy who loved the   Weight Control
outdoors and building things, and actually enjoyed school.
His life was not without its tragedies, however. In  Relationships
particular, his brother died at the age of 16 of a cerebral
aneurysm.
  Co-dependency
B. F. Skinner received his BA in English from Hamilton
  Loneliness
College in upstate New York. Ultimately, he resigned
himself to writing newspaper articles on labor problems,
and lived for a while in Greenwich Village in New York City
and lived for a while in Greenwich Village in New York City   Loved Ones
as a “bohemian.” After some traveling, he decided to go
back to school, this time at Harvard. He got his masters in   Rejection
psychology in 1930 and his doctorate in 1931, and stayed
  Separation / Divorce
there to do research until 1936.

Also in that year, he moved to Minneapolis to teach at the  Addictions

University of Minnesota. There he met and soon married
Yvonne Blue. They had two daughters, the second of   Drug and Alcohol
which became famous as the first infant to be raised in
one of Skinner’s inventions, the air crib which was nothing   Food
more than a combination crib and playpen with glass
sides and air conditioning.   Gambling

In 1945, he became the chairman of the psychology   Internet

department at Indiana University. In 1948, he was invited
to come to Harvard, where he remained for the rest of his   Sex / Pornography
life. He was a very active man, doing research and guiding
hundreds of doctoral candidates as well as writing many   Spending / Shopping
books. While not successful as a writer of fiction and
poetry, he became one of our best psychology writers,   Work
including the book Walden II, which is a fictional account
of a community run by his behaviorist principles. Behavioral Problems

B. F. Skinner’s theory is based on operant conditioning.   ADD

The organism is in the process of “operating” on the
environment, which in ordinary terms means it is   ADHD
bouncing around its world, doing what it does. During this
“operating,” the organism encounters a special kind of   Adjustment Disorder
stimulus, called a reinforcing stimulus, or simply a
reinforcer. This special stimulus has the effect of   Bipolar
increasing the operant -- that is, the behavior occurring
just before the reinforcer. This is operant conditioning: “the   Borderline
behavior is followed by a consequence, and the nature of
the consequence modifies the organisms tendency to   Conduct Disorders
repeat the behavior in the future.”
  Explosive Disorder
The following has been adapted from the Wikipedia and
Webspace websites.   Hypochondria

Skinner conducted research on shaping behavior through   Kleptomania

positive and negative reinforcement and demonstrated
operant conditioning, a behavior modification technique   Mania
which he developed in contrast with classical
conditioning. His idea of the behavior modification   Multiple Personality
technique was to put the subject on a program with steps.
  Obsessive/Compulsive
The steps would be setting goals which would help you
determine how the subject would be changed by
  PTSD
following the steps. The program design is designing a
program that will help the subject to reach the desired   Schizophrenia
state. Then implementation and evaluation which is
putting the program to use and then evaluating the   Sleep Disorders
effectiveness of it.

B.F. Skinner's Theory of Operant Conditioning  Phobias and Fears

Place a rat in a special cage (called a “Skinner box”) that   Fears and Phobias
has a bar or pedal on one wall that, when pressed, causes
a little mechanism to release a food pellet into the cage.   Acrophobia
The rat is moving around the cage when it accidentally
presses the bar and, as a result of pressing the bar, a food   Agoraphobia
pellet falls into the cage.  The operant is the behavior just
prior to the reinforcer, which is the food pellet.  In a   Claustrophobia
relatively short period of time the rat "learns" to press the
  Monophobia
bar whenever it wants food. This leads to one of the
principles of operant conditioning--A behavior followed by
  Panic Attacks
a reinforcing stimulus results in an increased probability
of that behavior occurring in the future.   Phobias
If the rat presses the bar and continually does not get   Social Phobia
food, the behavior becomes extinguished.  This leads to
another of the principles of operant conditioning--A   Performance Anxiety
behavior no longer followed by the reinforcing stimulus
results in a decreased probability of that behavior   List Of Phobias
occurring in the future.
 Sexual Concerns
Now, if you were to turn the pellet machine back on, so
that pressing the bar again provides the rat with pellets,
the behavior of bar-pushing will  come right back into   Sexual Concerns (M)
existence, much more quickly than it took for the rat to
learn the behavior the first time. This is because the return   Sexual Concerns (F)
of the reinforcer takes place in the context of a
reinforcement history that goes all the way back to the   Bisexuality
very first time the rat was reinforced for pushing on the
  Exhibitionism
bar.  This leads to what are called the Schedules of
Reinforcement.
  Fetishism
Schedules of Reinforcement
  Frotteurism
Continuous reinforcement is the original scenario: Every
  Gay and Lesbian
time that the rat does the behavior (such as pedal-
pushing), he gets a food pellet.   Gender Identity
Issues
The fixed ratio schedule was the first one Skinner
discovered: If the rat presses the pedal three times, say, he   Sadomasochism
gets a goodie. Or five times. Or twenty times. Or “x” times.
There is a fixed ratio between behaviors and reinforcers: 3   Sexual Orientation
to 1, 5 to 1, 20 to 1, etc.
  Voyeurism
The fixed interval schedule uses a timing device of some
sort. If the rat presses the bar at least once during a   List of Paraphilias
particular stretch of time (say 20 seconds), then he gets a
goodie. If he fails to do so, he doesn’t get a goodie. But Helpful Information
even if he hits that bar a hundred times during that 20
seconds, he still only gets one goodie! One strange thing   Aging
that happens is that the rats tend to “pace” themselves:
They slow down the rate of their behavior right after the   Communication Skills
reinforcer, and speed up when the time for it gets close.
  Non-Verbal Comm...
Skinner also looked at variable schedules. Variable ratio
means you change the “x” each time -- first it takes 3   Personal Growth
presses to get a goodie, then 10, then 1, then 7 and so on.
Variable interval means you keep changing the time   Skill Enhancement
period -- first 20 seconds, then 5, then 35, then 10 and so
on.  With the variable interval schedule, the rats no longer Adoption / Infertility
“pace” themselves, because they can no longer establish a
“rhythm” between behavior and reward. Most importantly,
  Adoption
these schedules are very resistant to extinction. It makes
sense, if you think about it. If you haven’t gotten a   For Adoptees
reinforcer for a while, well, it could just be that you are at a
particularly “bad” ratio or interval, just one more bar press,   For Adopting Persons
maybe this’ll be the one time you get reinforced.
  For Birth Parents
Shaping
  Infertility
A question Skinner had to deal with was how we get to
more complex sorts of behaviors. He responded with the
idea of shaping, or “the method of successive Help is Available
approximations.” Basically, it involves first reinforcing a
behavior only vaguely similar to the one desired. Once that   Who I Can Help
is established, you look out for variations that come a little
closer to what you want, and so on, until you have the   How I Can Help
animal performing a behavior that would never show up
in ordinary life. Skinner and his students have been quite   What You Can Do
successful in teaching simple animals to do some quite
extraordinary things.   Fees

Beyond fairly simple examples, shaping also accounts for   About Dr Berger
the most complex of behaviors. We are gently shaped by
our environment to enjoy certain things. What Is a
Aversive stimuli
  Psychologist
An aversive stimulus is the opposite of a reinforcing
stimulus, something we might find unpleasant or painful.    Psychiatrist
This leads to another principle of operant conditioning--A
  Clinical Psychologist
behavior followed by an aversive stimulus results in a
decreased probability of the behavior occurring in the
  Educational Psych...
future.
  Forensic Psychologist
This both defines an aversive stimulus and describes the
form of conditioning known as punishment. If you shock a
  School Psychologist
rat for doing x, it’ll do a lot less of x. If you spank Johnny
for throwing his toys he will probably throw his toys less   Social Worker
and less.
  Life Coach
On the other hand, if you remove an already active
aversive stimulus after a rat or Johnny performs a certain   Personal Coach
behavior, you are doing negative reinforcement. If you turn
off the electricity when the rat stands on his hind legs, he’ll   Executive Coach
do a lot more standing. If you stop your perpetually
nagging when I finally take out the garbage, I’ll be more   Therapist
likely to take out the garbage.  You could say it “feels so
good” when the aversive stimulus stops, that this serves   Mental Health Prof...
as a reinforcer.  Another operant conditioning principle--   Pastoral Counselor
Behavior followed by the removal of an aversive stimulus
results in an increased probability of that behavior   DSM-IV
occurring in the future.
Skinner did not advocate the use of punishment. His main Types of Treatment
focus was to target behavior and see that consequences
deliver responses. From his research came "shaping"
(described above) which is described as creating   Behavioral Therapy
behaviors through reinforcing. He also came up with the
  Biofeedback
example of a child's refusal to go to school and that the
focus should be on what is causing the child's refusal not   Cognitive Behavioral
necessarily the refusal itself. His research suggested that
punishment was an ineffective way of controlling   Desensitization
behavior, leading generally to short-term behavior change,
but resulting mostly in the subject attempting to avoid the   Electroconvulsive
punishing stimulus instead of avoiding the behavior that
was causing punishment. A simple example of this, he   Gestalt Therapy
believed, was the failure of prison to eliminate criminal
behavior. If prison (as a punishing stimulus) was effective   Hypnotherapy
at altering behavior, there would be no criminality, since
the risk of imprisonment for criminal conduct is well   Neurolinguistic
established, Skinner deduced. However, he noted that
individuals still commit offences, but attempt to avoid   Psychoanalysis
discovery and therefore punishment. He noted that the
punishing stimulus does not stop criminal behavior; the   Psychotherapy
criminal simply becomes more sophisticated at avoiding
  Rational Emotive
the punishment. Reinforcement, both positive and
negative (the latter of which is often confused with
  Reality Therapy
punishment), he believed, proved to be more effective in
bringing about lasting changes in behavior.   Family Therapy
Behavior modification   Group Therapy
Behavior modification -- often referred to as b-mod -- is
the therapy technique based on Skinner’s work. It is very  Tests
straight-forward: Extinguish an undesirable behavior (by
removing the reinforcer) and replace it with a desirable   Intelligence (IQ)
behavior by reinforcement. It has been used on all sorts of
psychological problems -- addictions, neuroses, shyness,   Myers-Briggs
autism, even schizophrenia -- and works particularly well
with children. There are examples of back-ward   MMPI
psychotics who haven’t communicated with others for
years who have been conditioned to behave themselves   Neuropsych
in fairly normal ways, such as eating with a knife and fork,
taking care of their own hygiene needs, dressing   Rorschach (inkblot)
themselves, and so on.
 Famous Psychologists
There is an offshoot of b-mod called the token economy.
This is used primarily in institutions such as psychiatric   Allport, Gordon
hospitals, juvenile halls, and prisons. Certain rules are
made explicit in the institution, and behaving yourself   Beck, Aaron
appropriately is rewarded with tokens -- poker chips,
tickets, funny money, recorded notes, etc. Certain poor   Binet, Alfred
behavior is also often followed by a withdrawal of these
tokens. The tokens can be traded in for desirable things   Chomsky, Noam
such as candy, cigarettes, games, movies, time out of the
institution, and so on. This has been found to be very   Ellis, Albert
effective in maintaining order in these often difficult
institutions.   Erikson, Erik
Walden II   Erickson, Milton

In 1948, Skinner published his actual ideas on child-   Freud, Sigmund

rearing in Walden Two, a fictional account of a
behaviorist-created utopia in which carefree young   Fromm, Erich
parents stroll off to work or school while their little ones
enjoy all the comforts of community-run, behaviorist-   Glasser, William
approved daycare.  Skinner's book Walden Two presents a
vision of a decentralized, localized society which applies a   Harlow, Harry
practical, scientific approach and futuristically advanced
behavioral expertise to peacefully deal with social   Jung, Carl
problems. Skinner's utopia, like every other utopia or
dystopia, is both a thought experiment and a rhetorical   Kinsey, Alfred
work.
  Laing, R.D.
In 1971 he wrote Beyond Freedom and Dignity, which
suggests that the concept of individual freedom is an   Leary, Timothy
illusion. Skinner later sought to unite the reinforcement of
individual behaviors, the natural selection of species, and   Lewin, Kurt
the development of cultures under the heading of The
  Perls, Fritz
Selection by Consequences (1981), the first of a series of
articles in the journal Science.
  Maslow, Abraham

Additional Information   May, Rollo

For more information about B.F.Skinner and mental health   Piaget, Jean
treatment, please click on the websites listed below.
  Pavlov, Ivan
Webspace: B.F.Skinner   Rogers, Carl
NNDB: People - B.F. Skinner
  Satir, Virginia
PBS.org: Biography of B. F. Skinner
The B.F. Skinner foundation Website   Skinner, B. F.

  Wolpe, Joseph
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