borås Frederick Skinner March 20th 1904 to August 18 1990 commonly known as BF Skinner was an American psychologist behaviorist author inventor and social philosopher he was the Edgar Pierce professor of psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974 Skinner considered freewill an illusion and human action dependent on consequences of previous actions if the consequences are bad there is a high chance the action will not be repeated if the consequences are good the probability of the action being repeated becomes stronger Skinner called this the principle of reinforcement to strengthen Behavior Skinner used operant conditioning and he considered the rate of response to be the most effective measure of response strength to study operant conditioning he invented the operant conditioning chamber also known as the Skinner box and to measure rate he invented the cumulative recorder using these tools he and CB firster produced his most influential experimental work which appeared in their book schedules of reinforcement 1957 Skinner developed behavior analysis the philosophy of that science he called radical behaviorism and founded a school of experimental research psychology the experimental analysis of behavior he imagined the application of his ideas to the design of a human community in his utopian novel Walden 2 and his analysis of human behavior culminated in his work verbal behavior Skinner was a prolific author who published 21 books and 180 articles contemporary academia considers Skinner a pioneer of modern behaviorism along with John B Watson and Ivan Pavlov a June 2002 survey listed Skinner as the most influential psychologist of the 20th century topic biography Skinner was born in Susquehanna Pennsylvania to Grace and William Skinner his father was a lawyer he became an atheist after a Christian teacher tried to assuage his fear of the hell that his grandmother described his brother Edward two-and-a-half years younger died at age 16 of a cerebral hemorrhage Skinner's closest friend as a young boy was Rafael Miller whom he called doc because his father was a doctor doc and Skinner became friends due to their parents religiousness and both had an interest in contraptions and gadgets they had set up a telegraph line between their houses to send messages to each other although they had to call each other on the telephone due to the confusing messages sent back and forth during one summer doc and Skinner started an elderberry business to gather berries and sell them door-to-door they had found out that when they picked the ripe berries the unripe ones came off the branches too so they built a device that was able to separate them the device was a bent piece of metal to form a trough they would pour water down the trough into a bucket and the ripe berries would sink into the bucket and the unripe ones would be pushed over the edge to be thrown away he attended Hamilton College in New York with the intention of becoming a writer he found himself at a social disadvantage at Hamilton College because of his intellectual attitude while attending he joined Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity Hamilton was known for being a strong fraternity College Skinner had thought that his fraternity brothers were respectful and did not haze or mistreat the newcomers instead they helped out the other boys with courses or other activities freshmen were called Slimers who had to wear small green mid hats and greet everyone that they passed for punishment the year before Skinner entered Hamilton there was a hazing accident that caused the death of a student the freshman was asleep in his bed when he was pushed onto the floor where he smashed his head resulting in his death Skinner had a similar incident where two freshmen captured him and tied him to a pole where he should have stayed all night but he had a razor blade in his shoe for emergency and managed to cut himself free he wrote for the school paper but as an atheist he was critical of the traditional mores of his college after receiving his Bachelor of Arts in English literature in 19:26 he attended Harvard University where he would later research teach and eventually become a prestigious board member while he was at Harvard a fellow student Fred Keller convinced Skinner that he could make an experimental science from the study of behavior this led Skinner to invent his prototype for the Skinner box and to join Keller in the creation of other tools for small experiments after graduation he unsuccessfully tried to write a great novel while he lived with his parents a period that he later called the dark years he became disillusioned with his literary skills despite encouragement from the renowned poet Robert Frost concluding that he had little world experience and no strong personal perspective from which to write his encounter with John B Watson's behaviorism led him into graduate study in psychology and to the development of his own version of behaviorism Skinner received a PhD from Harvard in 1931 and remained there as a researcher until 1936 he then taught at the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis and later at Indiana University where he was chair of the psychology department from 1946 1947 before returning to Harvard as a tenured professor in 1948 he remained at Harvard for the rest of his life in 1973 Skinner was one of the signers of the humanist manifesto – in 1936 Skinner married Yvonne Eve blue the couple had two daughters Julie M Vargas and Deborah M boozing Yvonne Skinner died in 1997 and is buried in Mount Auburn cemetery Cambridge Massachusetts Skinner's public exposure had increased in the 1970s he remained active even after his retirement in 1974 until his death in 1989 Skinner was diagnosed with leukemia and died on August 18 1990 in Cambridge Massachusetts ten days before his death he was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Psychological Association and gave a talk in an auditorium concerning his work a controversial figure Skinner has been depicted in many different ways he has been widely revered for bringing a much needed scientific approach to the study of human behavior he has also been vilified for attempting to apply findings based largely on animal experiments to Hume behavior in real-life settings topic contributions to psychological theory you topic behaviorism you Skinner called his approach to the study of behavior radical behaviorism this philosophy of behavioral science assumes that behavior is a consequence of environmental histories of reinforcement see applied behavior analysis in his words the position can be stated as follows what is felt or introspectively observed as not some non-physical world of consciousness mind or mental life but the observers own body this does not mean as I shall show later that introspection is a kind of psychological research nor does it mean and this is the heart of the argument that what are felt or introspectively observed are the causes of the behavior an organism behaves as it does because of its current structure but most of this is out of reach of introspection at the moment we must content ourselves as the methodological behaviorist insists with a person's genetic and environment histories what our introspectively observed are certain collateral products of those histories in this way we repair the major damage wrought by mentalism when what a person does is attributed to what is going on inside him investigation is brought to an end why explain the explanation for 2500 years people have been preoccupied with feelings and mental life but only recently has any interest been shown in a more precise analysis of the role of the environment ignorance of that role led in the first place to mental fictions and it has been perpetuated by the explanatory practices to which they gave rise topic theoretical structure Skinner's behavioral theory was largely set forth in his first book behavior of organisms here he gave a systematic description of the manner in which environmental variables controlled behavior he distinguished two sorts of behavior respondent and operant which are controlled in different ways respondent behaviors are elicited by stimuli and may be modified through respondent conditioning which is often called Pavlovian conditioning or classical conditioning in which a neutral stimulus is paired with an eliciting stimulus operant behaviors in contrast are emitted meaning that initially they are not induced by any particular stimulus they are strengthened through operant conditioning sometimes called instrumental conditioning in which the occurrence of a response yields a reinforcer respondent behaviors might be measured by their latency or strength operant behaviors by their rate both of these sorts of behavior had already been studied experimentally for example respondents by Pavlov and operant by Thorndike Skinner's account differed in some ways from earlier ones and was one of the first accounts to bring them under one roof the idea that behavior is strengthened or weakened by its consequences raises several questions among the most important are these one operant responses are strengthened by reinforcement but where do they come from in the first place – once it is in the organisms repertoire how is a response directed or controlled 3 how can very complex and seemingly novel behaviors be explained topic origin of operant behavior Skinner's answered to the first question was very much like Darwin's answer to the question of the origin of a new bodily structure namely variation and selection similarly the behavior of an individual varies from moment to moment a variation that is followed by reinforcement is strengthened and becomes prominent in that individuals behavioral repertoire shaping with Skinner's term for the gradual modification of behavior by the reinforcement of desired variations as discussed later in this article Skinner believed that superstitious behavior can arise when a response happens to be followed by reinforcements to which it is actually unrelated topic control of operant behavior the second question how is operant behavior controlled arises because to begin with the behaviors emitted without reference to any particular stimulus Skinner answered this question by saying that a stimulus comes to control an operant if it is present when the response is reinforced and absent when it is not for example if lever pressing only brings food when a light is on a rat or a child will learn to press the lever only when the light is on skinner summarized this relationship by saying that a discriminative stimulus eg light sets the occasion for the reinforcement food of the operant lever press this three term contingency stimulus response reinforcer is one of Skinner's most important concepts and sets his theory apart from theories that use only pairwise associations topic explaining complex behavior most behavior of humans cannot easily be described in terms of individual responses reinforced one by one and Skinner devoted a great deal of effort to the problem of behavioral complexity some complex behavior can be seen as a sequence of relatively simple responses and here Skinner invoked the idea of chaining chaining is based on the fact experimentally demonstrated that a discriminative stimulus not only sets the occasion for subsequent behavior but it can also reinforce a behavior that precedes it that is a discriminative stimulus as also a conditioned reinforcer for example the light that sets the occasion for lever pressing may also be used to reinforce turning around in the presence of a noise this results in the sequence noise turn around light press lever food much longer chains can be built by adding more stimuli and responses however Skinner recognized that a great deal of behavior especially human behavior cannot be accounted for by gradual shaping or the construction of response sequences complex behavior often appears suddenly in its final form as when a person first finds his way to the elevator by following instructions given at the front desk to account for such behavior Skinner introduced the concept of rule governed behavior first relatively simple behaviors come under the control of verbal stimuli the child learns to jump open the book and so on after a large number of responses come under such verbal control a sequence of verbal stimuli can evoke an almost unlimited variety of complex responses topic reinforcement reinforcement a key concept of behaviorism is the primary process that shapes and controls behavior and occurs in two ways positive and negative in the behavior of organisms 1938 Skinner defined negative reinforcement to be synonymous with punishment that is the presentation of an aversive stimulus subsequently in science and human behavior 1953 Skinner redefined negative reinforcement in what has now become the standard set of definitions positive reinforcement as the strengthening of behavior by the occurrence of some event eg praise after some behavior is performed whereas negative reinforcement as the strengthening of behavior by the removal or avoidance of some aversive event eg opening and raising an umbrella over your head on a rainy day is reinforced by the cessation of rain falling on you both types of reinforcement strengthen behavior or increase the probability of a behavior reoccurring the differences in whether the reinforcing event is something applied positive reinforcement or something removed or avoided negative reinforcement punishment is the application of an aversive stimulus event positive punishment or punishment by contingent stimulation or the removal of a desirable stimulus negative punishment or punishment by contingent withdrawal though punishment is often used to suppress behavior skinner argued that this suppression is temporary and has a number of other often unwanted consequences extinction is the absence of a rewarding stimulus which weakens behavior writing in 1981 Skinner pointed out that Darwinian natural selection as like reinforced behavior selection by consequences though as he said natural selection has now made its case he regretted that essentially the same process reinforcement was less widely accepted as underlying human behavior topic schedules of reinforcement Skinner recognized that behavior is typically reinforced more than once and together with CB firster he did an extensive analysis of the various ways in which reinforcements could be arranged over time which he called schedules of reinforcement the most notable schedules of reinforcement studied by Skinner were continuous interval fixed or variable and ratio fixed or variable all our methods used in operant conditioning continuous reinforcement CRF each time a specific action is performed the subject receives a reinforcement this method is effective when teaching a new behavior because it quickly establishes an association between the target behavior and the reinforcer interval schedules based on the time intervals between reinforcements fixed interval schedule by a procedure in which reinforcements are presented at fixed time periods provided that the appropriate response has made this schedule yields a response rate that is low just after reinforcement and becomes rapid just before the next reinforcement is scheduled variable interval schedule V a procedure in which behavior is reinforced after random time durations following the last reinforcement this schedule yields steady responding at a rate that varies with the average frequency of reinforcement ratio schedules based on the ratio of responses to reinforcements fixed ratio schedule F are a procedure in which reinforcement is delivered after a specific number of responses have been made variable ratio schedule V are a procedure in which reinforcement comes after a number of responses that is randomized from one reinforcement to the next X slot machines the lower the number of response is required the higher the response rate tends to be ratio schedules tend to produce very rapid responding often with breaks of no responding just after reinforcement if a large number of responses is required for reinforcement topic scientific inventions you topic operant conditioning chamber an operant conditioning chamber also known as a skinner box is a laboratory apparatus used in the experimental analysis of animal behavior it was invented by skinner while he was a graduate student at Harvard University as used by Skinner the box had a lever for rats or a disk in one wall for pigeons a press on this manipulandum could deliver food to the animal through an opening in the wall and response is reinforced in this way increased in frequency by controlling this reinforcement together with discriminative stimuli such as lights and tones or punishments such as electric shocks experimenters have used the operant box to study a wide variety of topics including schedules of reinforcement discriminative control delayed response memory punishment and so on by channeling research in these directions the operant conditioning chamber has had a huge influence on course of research and animal learning and its applications it enabled great progress on problems that could be studied by measuring the rate probability or force of a simple repeatable response however it discouraged the study of behavioral processes not easily conceptualized in such terms spatial learning in particular which is now studied in quite different ways for example by the use of the water maze topic cumulative recorder the cumulative recorder makes a pen-and-ink record of simple repeated responses Skinner designed it for use with the operant chamber as a convenient way to record and view the rate of responses such as a lever press or a key pack in this device a sheet of paper gradually unrolls over a cylinder each response steps a small pen across the paper starting at one edge when the pen reaches the other edge it quickly resets to the initial side the slope of the resulting ink line graphically displays the rate of the response for example rapid responses yield a steeply sloping line on the paper slow responding yields a line of low slope the cumulative recorder was a key tool used by Skinner in his analysis of behavior and it was very widely adopted by other experimenters gradually falling out of use with the advent of the laboratory computer Skinner's major experimental exploration of response rates presented in his book with CB first ur schedules of reinforcement is full of cumulative records produced by this device topic air crib the air crib as an easily clean temperature and humidity-controlled enclosure intended to replace the standard infant crib Skinner invented the device to help his wife cope with the day-to-day tasks of child-rearing it was designed to make early childcare simpler by reducing laundry diaper rash cradle cap etc while allowing the baby to be more mobile and comfortable and less prone to cry reportedly it had some success in these goals the air crib was a controversial invention it was popularly mischaracterized as a cruel pen and it was often compared to Skinner's operant conditioning chamber commonly called the Skinner box this association with laboratory animal experimentation discouraged its commercial success though several companies attempted production a 2004 book by Lawrence later entitled opening Skinner's box great psychology experiments of the 20th century caused a stir by mentioning the rumors that Skinner had used his baby daughter Deborah in some of his experiments and that she had subsequently committed suicide although Slater's books stated that the rumors were false a reviewer in The Observer in March 2004 misquoted Slater's book as supporting the rumors this review was read by Debra Skinner now Debra abuse and an artist and writer living in London who wrote a vehement repost in The Guardian topic teaching machine the teaching machine was a mechanical device whose purpose was to administer a curriculum of programmed learning the machine embodies key elements of Skinner's theory of learning and had important implications for education in general and classroom instruction in particular in one incarnation the machine was a box that has a list of questions that could be viewed one at a time through a small window see picture there was also a mechanism through which the learner could respond to each question upon delivering the correct answer the learner would be rewarded Skinner advocated the use of teaching machines for a broad range of students eg preschool age to adult and instructional purposes eg reading and music for example one machine that he envisioned could teach rhythm he wrote a relatively simple device supplies the necessary contingencies the student taps a rhythmic pattern in unison with the device unison is specified very loosely at first the student can be a little early or late at each tap but the specifications are slowly sharpened the process is repeated for various speeds and patterns in another arrangement the student echoes rhythmic patterns sounded by the machine though not in unison and again the specifications for an accurate reproduction are progressively sharpened rhythmic patterns can also be brought under the control of a printed score the instructional potential of the teaching machine stemmed from several factors it provided automatic immediate and regular reinforcement without the use of aversive control the material presented was coherent yet varied a novel the pace of learning could be adjusted to suit the individual as a result students were interested attentive and learned efficiently by producing the desired behavior learning by doing teaching machines though perhaps rudimentary were not rigid instruments of instruction they could be adjusted and improved based upon the student's performance for example if a student made many incorrect responses the machine could be reprogrammed to provide less advanced prompts or questions the idea being that students acquire behaviors most efficiently if they make few errors multiple choice formats were not well suited for teaching machines because they tended to increase student mistakes and the contingencies of reinforcement were relatively uncontrolled not only useful in teaching explicit skills machines could also promote the development of a repertoire of behaviors that Skinner called self-management effective self-management means attending to stimuli appropriate to a task avoiding distractions reducing the opportunity of reward for competing behaviors and so on for example machines encourage students to pay attention before receiving a reward Skinner contrasted this with the common classroom practice of initially capturing students attention eg with a lively video and delivering a reward eg entertainment before the students have actually performed any relevant behavior this practice fails to reinforce correct behavior and actually counters the development of self-management skinner pioneered the use of teaching machines in the classroom especially at the primary level today computers run software that performs similar teaching tasks and there has been a resurgence of interest in the topic related to the development of adaptive learning systems topic pigeon guided missile during World War two the US Navy required a weapon effective against surface ships such as the German Bismarck class battleships although missile and TV technology existed the size of the primitive guidance systems available rendered automatic guidance impractical to solve this problem Skinner initiated project pigeon which was intended to provide a simple and effective guidance system this system divided the nose cone of a missile into three compartments with a pigeon placed in each lenses projected an image of distant objects onto a screen in front of each bird thus when the missile was launched from an aircraft within sight of an enemy ship an image of the ship would appear on the screen the screen was hinged such that pecks at the image of the ship would guide the missile toward the ship despite an effective demonstration the project was abandoned and eventually more conventional solutions such as those based on radar became available Skinner complained that our problem was no one would take us seriously it seemed that few people would trust pigeons to guide a missile no matter how reliable the system appeared to be topic verbal scimitar early in his career Skinner became interested in latent speech and experimented with a device he called the verbal semadar this device can be thought of as an auditory version of the Rorschach inkblots when using the device human participants listened to incomprehensible auditory garbage but often read meaning into what they heard thus as with the Rorschach blots the device was intended to yield overt behavior that projected subconscious thoughts Skinner's interest in projective testing was brief but he later used observations with the Scimitar in creating his theory of verbal behavior the device also led other researchers to invent new tests such as the Tata phone test the auditory Apperception tests and the a ziggity test topic verbal behavior challenged by Alfred North Whitehead during a casual discussion while at Harvard to provide an account of a randomly provided piece of verbal behavior Skinner said about attempting to extend his then new functional inductive approach to the complexity of human verbal behavior developed over two decades his work appeared in the book verbal behavior although Noam Chomsky was highly critical of verbal behavior he conceded that Skinner's SR psychology was worth a review behavior analysts reject a sr characterization operant conditioning involves the omission of a response which then becomes more or less likely depending upon its consequence see above verbal behavior had an uncharacteristically cool reception partly as a result of Chomsky's review partly because of Skinner's failure to address or rebut any of Chomsky's criticisms Skinner's peers may have been slow to adopt the ideas presented in verbal behavior because of the absence of experimental evidence unlike the empirical density that marked Skinner's experimental work however in applied settings there has been a resurgence of interest in Skinner's functional analysis of verbal behavior topic influence on education you Skinner's views influenced education as well as psychology Skinner argued that education has two major purposes one to teach repertoire zuv both verbal and nonverbal behavior and two to interest students in learning he recommended bringing students behavior under appropriate control by providing reinforcement only in the presence of stimuli relevant to the learning task because he believed that human behavior can be affected by small consequences something as simple as the opportunity to move forward after completing one stage of an activity can be an effective reinforcer Skinner was convinced that to learn a student must engage in behavior and not just passively receive information Skinner 1961 P 389 Skinner believed that effective teaching must be based on positive reinforcement which as he argued more effective at changing and establishing behavior than punishment he suggested that the main thing people learn from being punished as how to avoid punishment for example if a child is forced to practice playing an instrument the child comes to associate practicing with punishment and thus learns to hate and avoid practicing the instrument this view had obvious implications for the then widespread practice of rote learning and punitive discipline in education the use of educational activities as punishment may induce rebellious behavior such as vandalism or absence because teachers are primarily responsible for modifying student behavior Skinner argued that teachers must learn effective ways of teaching in the technology of teaching Skinner has a chapter on why teachers fail pages 93 to 113 he says that teachers have not been given an in-depth understanding of teaching and learning without knowing the science underpinning teaching teachers fall back on procedures that work poorly or not at all such as using aversive techniques which produce escape and avoidance and undesirable emotional effects relying on telling and explaining unfortunately a student does not learn simply when he is shown or told P 103 failing to adapt learning tasks to the students current level failing to provide positive reinforcement frequently enough skinner suggests that any age-appropriate skill can be taught the steps are clearly specify the action or performance the student is to learn break down the task into small achievable steps going from simple to complex let the student perform each step reinforcing correct actions adjust so that the student is always successful until finally the goal is reached shift to intermittent reinforcement to maintain the students performance Skinner's views on education are extensively presented in his book the technology of teaching they are also reflected in Fred s Keller's personalized system of instruction and Ogden are Lynne's Lee's precision teaching topic Walden to and beyond freedom and dignity you Skinner is popularly known mainly for his books Walden 2 and Beyond freedom and dignity for which he made the cover of Time magazine the former describes a fictional experimental community in 1940's United States the productivity and happiness of citizens in this community as far greater than in the outside world because the residents practice scientific social planning and use operant conditioning and raising their children Walden – like Thoreau's Walden champions a lifestyle that does not support war or foster competition and social strife it encourages a lifestyle of minimal consumption rich social relationships personal happiness satisfying work and leisure in 1967 cat Kincaid and others founded the Twin Oaks community using Walden 2 as a blueprint the community still exists and continues to use the planner manager system and other aspects of the community described in Skinner's book the behavior modification is not a community practice in beyond freedom and dignity Skinner suggests that a technology of behavior could help to make a better society we would however have to accept that an autonomous agent is not the driving force of our actions Skinner offers alternatives to punishment and challenges his readers to use science and modern technology to construct a better society topic political views Skinner's political writings emphasized his hopes that ineffective in human science of behavioral control a technology of human behavior could help with problems as yet unsolved and often aggravated by advances in technology such as the atomic bomb indeed one of Skinner's goals was to prevent humanity from destroying itself he saw political activity as the use of aversive or non aversive means to control a population Skinner favored the use of positive reinforcement as a means of control citing jean-jacques Rousseau's novel Emil or on education as an example of literature that did not fear the power of positive reinforcement Skinner's book Walden 2 presents a vision of a decentralized localized society which applies a practical scientific approach and behavioral expertise to deal peacefully with social problems for example his views led him to oppose corporal punishment in schools and he wrote a letter to the California Senate that helped lead it to a ban on spanking Skinner's utopia is both a thought experiment and a rhetorical piece in Walden – Skinner answers the problem that exists in many utopian novels what is the good life the books answer is a life of friendship health art a healthy balance between work and leisure a minimum of unpleasantness and a feeling that one has made worthwhile contributions to a society in which resources are ensured in part by minimizing consumption if the world is to save any part of its resources for the future it must reduce not only consumption but the number of consumers Skinner described his novel s my new Atlantis in reference to Bacon's utopia when Milton's Satan falls from heaven he ends in hell and what does he say to reassure himself here at least we shall be free and that I think is the fate of the old-fashioned liberal he's going to be free but he's going to find himself in hell topic superstition in the pigeon you one of Skinner's experiments examined the formation of superstition in one of his favorite experimental animals the pigeon Skinner placed a series of hungry pigeons in a cage attached to an automatic mechanism that delivered food to the pigeon at regular intervals with no reference whatsoever to the birds behavior he discovered that the pigeons associated the delivery of the food with whatever chance actions they had been performing as it was delivered and that they subsequently continued to perform these same actions one bird was conditioned to turn counterclockwise about the cage making two or three turns between reinforcements another repeatedly thrust its head into one of the upper corners of the cage a third developed a tossing response as it placing its head beneath an invisible bar and lifting it repeatedly two birds developed a pendulum motion of the head and body in which the head was extended forward and swung from right to left with a sharp movement followed by a somewhat slower return Skinner suggested that the pigeons behaved as if they were influencing the automatic mechanism with their rituals and that this experiment shed light on human behavior the experiment might be said to demonstrate a sort of superstition the bird behaves as if there were a causal relation between its behavior and the presentation of food although such a relation is lacking there are many analogies in human behavior rituals for changing ones fortunate cards are good examples a few accidental connections between a ritual and favorable consequences suffice to set up and maintain the behavior in spite of many unreinforced instances the bowler who has released a ball down the alley but continues to behave as if she were controlling it by twisting and turning her arm and shoulder as another case in point these behaviors have of course no real effect upon one's luck or upon a ball halfway down an alley just as in the present case the food would appear as often if the pigeon did nothing or more strictly speaking did something else modern behavioral psychologists have disputed Skinner's superstition explanation for the behaviors he recorded subsequent research eg statin and Simmel hug 1971 while finding similar behavior failed to find support for Skinner's vinícius reinforcements explanation for it by looking at the timing of different behaviors within the interval statin and Simmel Hogg were able to distinguish two classes of behavior the terminal response which occurred in anticipation of food and interim responses that occurred earlier in the inter food interval and were rarely contiguous with food terminal responses seem to reflect classical as opposed to operant conditioning rather than adventitious reinforcement guided by a process like that observed in 1968 by Brown and Jenkins in their auto shaping procedures the causation of interim activities such as the schedule induced polydipsia seen in a similar situation with rats also cannot be traced to adventitious reinforcement and it's details are still obscure Statten 1977 topic criticism you topic je are statin as understood by Skinner ascribing dignity to individuals involves giving them credit for their actions to say Skinner is brilliant means that Skinner is an originating force if Skinner's determinist theory is right he is merely the focus of his environment he is not an originating force and he had no choice in saying the things he said or doing the things he did Skinner's environment and genetics both allowed and compelled him to write his book similarly the environment and genetic potentials of the advocates of freedom and dignity caused them to resist the reality that their own activities are deterministically grounded JE are statin the new behaviorism 2nd edition 2014 has argued the compatibilist position Skinner's determinism is not in any way contradictory to traditional notions of reward and Punishment as he believed topic noam chomsky noam chomsky a prominent critic of skinner published a review of Skinner's verbal behavior two years after it was published Chomsky argued that Skinner's attempt to use behaviorism to explain human language amounted to little more than word games conditioned responses could not account for a child's ability to create or understand an infinite variety of novel sentences Chomsky's review has been credited with launching the cognitive revolution in psychology and other disciplines Skinner who rarely responded directly to critics never formally replied to Chomsky's critique many years later Kenneth mccorkadale reply was endorsed by Skinner Chomsky also reviewed Skinner's Beyond freedom and dignity using the same basic motives as his verbal behavior review among Chomsky's criticisms were that Skinner's laboratory work could not be extended to humans that when it was extended to humans it represented scientistic behavior attempting to emulate science but which was not scientific that Skinner was not a scientist because he rejected the hypothetical deductive model of theory testing and that Skinner had no science of behavior topic psychodynamic psychology Skinner has been repeatedly criticized for his supposed animosity towards Sigmund Freud psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychology some have argued however that Skinner shared several of Freud's assumptions and that he was influenced by Freudian points of view in more than one field among them the analysis of defense mechanisms such as repression to study such phenomena Skinner even designed his own projective test the verbal semadar described above topic list of awards and positions 19:26 a/b Hamilton College 1930 mega amperes Harvard University 1930 – 1931 Thayer Fellowship 1931 PhD Harvard University 1931 – 1932 Walker fellowship 1931 – 1933 National Research Council fellowship 1933 – 1936 junior fellowship Harvard Society of fellows asterisk 1936 1937 instructor University of Minnesota 1937 – 1939 assistant professor University of Minnesota 1939 – 1945 associate professor University of Minnesota 1942 Guggenheim Fellowship postponed until 1944 1945 1940 – Howard Crosby warren medal Society of experimental psychologists 1945 – 1948 professor and chair Indiana University 1947 – 1948 William James lecturer Harvard University 1948 – 1958 professor Harvard University 1949 – 1950 president of the Midwestern Psychological Association 1954 – 1955 president of the Eastern Psychological Association 1958 distinguished scientific contribution award American Psychological Association 1958 – 1974 Edgar Pierce professor of psychology Harvard University 1964 – 1974 Career Award National Institute of Mental Health 1966 Edward Lee Thorndike award American Psychological Association 1966 – 1967 president of the Pavlovian Society of North America 1968 National Medal of Science National Foundation 1969 overseas fellow in Churchill College Cambridge 1971 gold medal award American Psychological foundation 1971 Joseph P Kennedy jr.

Foundation for mental retardation international award 1972 humanist of the Year American Humanist Association 1972 creative leadership in education award New York University 1972 career contribution award Massachusetts Psychological Association 1974 – 1990 professor of psychology and social relations emeritus Harvard University 1978 distinguished contributions to educational research award and development American educational research Association 1978 National Association for retarded citizens award 1985 award for excellence in psychiatry Albert Einstein School of Medicine 1985 President's Award New York Academy of Science 1990 William James fellow award American Psychological Society 1990 Lifetime Achievement Award American psychology Association 1991 outstanding member and distinguished professional achievement award Society for performance improvement 1997 scholar Hall of Fame Award academy of resource and development 2011 committee for skeptical inquiry pantheon of skeptics inducted topic honorary degrees Skinner received honorary degrees from Alfred University Ball State University Dickinson College Hamilton College Harvard University Hobart and William Smith Colleges Johns Hopkins University ko University Long Island University CW post campus McGill University North Carolina State University Ohio Wesleyan University Ripon College Rockford College Tufts University University of Chicago University of Exeter University of Missouri University of North Texas Western Michigan University University of Maryland Baltimore County topic in popular culture writer of The Simpsons John viddy named the Principal Skinner character after behavioral psychologist BF Skinner topic bibliography the behavior of organisms an experimental analysis 1938 ISBN one five eight three nine oh oh oh seven one is bno eight seven four one one four eight seven x walden to 1948 ISBN Oh 872 207 seven 9x revised 1976 edition science and human behavior 1953 ISBN oo – nine – nine oh four oh six a free copy of this book in a one point six megabytes dot PDF file may be downloaded at the BF Skinner foundation website BF Skinner org schedules of reinforcement with CB first er 1957 is B&O one three seven nine two three oh nine oh verbal behavior 1957 ISBN one five eight three 900 to one seven the analysis of behavior a program for self-instruction with James G Holland 1961 ISBN 0:07 Oh two nine five six five four the technology of teaching 1968 New York appleton-century-crofts library of congress card numbers six eight one two three four OAD 1290 ISBN oh one three nine oh two one six three nine contingencies of reinforcements a theoretical analysis 1969 is B and O three nine oh eight one two eight oh three beyond freedom and dignity 1971 is B and O 3 9 4 4 to 5 5 5 3 about behaviorism 1974 is B and O 3 9 4 for 92013 is B and O three nine four seven one six one eight three particulars of my life part 1 of an autobiography 1976 is B and O 3 9 4 400 7 1 2 reflections on behaviorism and society 1978 ISBN doe 1 3 7 700 5 7 1 the shaping of the behaviorist part 2 of an autobiography 1979 is B and O three nine four five oh five eight one six notebooks edited by Robert Epstein 1980 ISBN oh one three six two four 106 nine Skinner for the classroom edited by our Epstein 1982 ISBN Oh 8 7 8 2 2 2 6 1 8 enjoy old age a program of self-management with M Yvonne 1983 is B and O 3 9 301 805 9 a matter of consequences part 3 of an autobiography 1983 ISBN o 3 9 4 5 3 2 2 6 o ISBN o 8 1 4 7 7 8 4 5 3 upon further reflection 1987 ISBN doe one three nine three eight nine eight six five recent issues in the analysis of behavior 1989 ISBN 0 to 675 206 1759 1961 1972 in 1999 is cumulative record definitive edition this book includes a reprint of Skinner's October 1945 Ladies Home Journal article baby in a box Skinner's original personal account of the much misrepresented baby in a box device ISBN oh eight seven four one one nine six nine three paperback topic see also applied behavior analysis back to freedom and dignity

As found on YouTube

Discover the First-To-Market Revolutionary SPR “Static” Conversion Tech Which Dramatically Speeds Up & Secures Existing WordPress Sites & Cloud Affiliate Pages With Just A Few Clicks Lightning Fast Built-In Hosting Included For Converted Clone Of Your Site Or Affiliate Page