Who was B. F. Skinner?
Hi there, everyone!!!!!!
Today we are going to talk a little bit about who was B. F. Skinner and his contribution to behaviorism theory. I hope you enjoy the reading.
Burrhus Frederic Skinner was born on March 20, 1904, in Pennsylvania. He studied psychology in Harvard, he wanted to be a writer when he was young and loved to invent different devices during his boyhood. He demonstrated huge interess on behavior studies, he was looking for develop a new way to observe how behavior changes happened, the he created an operant conditioning apparatus which became better known as the Skinner box.
The Skinner box helped his creator to study how rats and pigeons interected with its environment, according to him, the best way to understand behavior is to look at the causes and its consequences. In the experiment with rats, it was possible to observe that the animals discovered how to use a level in the box, which dispensed food at varying intervals. In the experiment with pigeons, the birds used to beaked at a disc to get food.These studies provided to Skinner the chance to examine the changes that occured in the animals' behavior patterns.
He supported the idea that every human behavior could be modeled by positive reinforcement and negative reinforment. Skinner is also considered the founder of Radical Behaviorism, which is a school of thought that defened the idea that emotions, thinking and persceptions there are no role in the development of human behavior.
REFERENCE:
http://www.biography.com/people/bf-skinner-9485671#the-skinner-box
