Skinner: Behavioral Analysis

Overview of Behavioral Analysis

  • Emerged from animal and human lab studies.
  • Focused on observable behavior, avoiding hypothetical constructs.
  • Behavior is lawfully determined and a product of environmental stimuli.

Biography of B. F. Skinner

  • Born in Pennsylvania in 1904.
  • Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard in 1931.
  • Published The Behavior of Organisms in 1938.
  • Trained pigeons to guide bombs during World War 2.
  • Died in 1990 of leukemia.

Precursors of Skinner’s Scientific Behaviorism

  • E.L. Thorndike: Law of Effect.
  • John B. Watson: Objective study of behavior, prediction, and control through stimulus-response connections.

Scientific Behaviorism

  • Allows interpretation but not explanation of behavior's causes.
  • Values empirical observation and lawful relationships.

Classical Conditioning

  • A response is drawn out of the organism by a specific stimulus.
  • A neutral stimulus paired with an unconditioned stimulus leads to a conditioned response.

Operant Conditioning

  • Shaping: Reinforcing successive approximations of a behavior.
  • Three conditions: Antecedent (A), Behavior (B), Consequence (C).
  • Reinforcement: Strengthens behavior and rewards the person.
    • Types: Positive and negative reinforcement.
  • Punishment: Presentation of an aversive stimulus.
  • Conditioned reinforcers: Stimuli associated with primary reinforcers (e.g., food, water).
  • Generalized reinforcers: Associated with multiple primary reinforcers.
  • Schedules of reinforcement: Fixed-ratio, variable-ratio, fixed-interval, variable-interval.
  • Extinction: Weakening of response due to nonreinforcement.

The Human Organism

  • Includes natural selection, cultural evolution, and inner states (self-awareness, drives, emotions).
  • Complex behavior encompasses higher mental processes, creativity, unconscious behavior, dreams, and social behavior.
  • Control of human behavior involves social and self-control.

The Unhealthy Personality

  • Counteracting strategies: Escape, revolt, passive resistance.
  • Inappropriate behaviors: Excessively vigorous or restrained behavior, blocking out reality, self-deluding responses, self-punishment.

Psychotherapy

  • Therapist reinforces improved changes in behavior.
  • Therapists actively point out positive and aversive consequences of behaviors.

Related Research

  • Conditioning affects personality: Trait terms may reinforce stability in personalities.
  • Personality affects conditioning.

Critique of Skinner

  • High on generating research, guiding action, internal consistency, and falsifiability.
  • Moderate on organizing knowledge.

Concept of Humanity

  • Determinism over free will.
  • Optimism over pessimism.
  • Causality over teleology.
  • Unconscious over conscious.
  • Social influence over biology.
  • Uniqueness over similarity.