B. F. Skinner

Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, behaviorist, inventor, and social philosopher. He served as the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1948 until he retired in 1974.

Skinner developed behavior analysis, focusing on the philosophy of radical behaviorism, and founded the experimental analysis of behavior. He used operant conditioning to understand how actions can be strengthened, looking at the rate of response as a key measure. To study this, he invented the operant conditioning chamber, also called the Skinner box, and a tool called the cumulative recorder. With Charles Ferster, he wrote an important book in 1957 titled Schedules of Reinforcement.

Skinner wrote many books and articles, totaling 21 books and 180 articles. He described his idea for a human community in his 1948 book, Walden Two, and later explored how people communicate in Verbal Behavior from 1958. Skinner, along with John B. Watson and Ivan Pavlov, helped shape modern behaviorism. In 2002, a survey named him as the most influential psychologist of the 20th century.

Early life

B. F. Skinner was born in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania to Grace and William Skinner. His father was a lawyer, and Skinner grew up without believing in religion after a teacher tried to help him stop fearing hell, which his grandmother often talked about.

He had a brother named Edward, who was younger but sadly passed away when he was 16. As a boy, Skinner's best friend was Raphael Miller, called Doc because Doc’s father was a doctor. They shared an interest in making gadgets and even set up a line to send messages between their homes, though they usually talked on the phone instead. One summer, they started selling elderberries. They made a clever tool to separate the ripe berries from the unripe ones, using a bent piece of metal to sort them out.

Education

B. F. Skinner went to Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, where he wanted to become a writer. He wrote for the school paper and was part of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. After getting his Bachelor of Arts in English literature in 1926, he studied at Harvard University.

While at Harvard, a classmate named Fred S. Keller encouraged Skinner to study behavior in a scientific way. This idea helped Skinner create a simple tool called the Skinner box for small experiments. After graduating, Skinner tried to write a novel but felt he lacked enough life experience. Learning about John B. Watson's ideas on behaviorism inspired him to study psychology instead.

Career

B. F. Skinner earned a PhD from Harvard in 1931 and stayed there as a researcher for several years. He later taught at the University of Minnesota and was chair of the psychology department at Indiana University before returning to Harvard as a tenured professor in 1948, where he stayed for the rest of his life. In 1973, he signed the Humanist Manifesto II.

Personal life

In 1936, Skinner married Yvonne "Eve" Blue. They had two daughters, Julie and Deborah (who later married Barry Buzan). Yvonne passed away in 1997 and is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Death

B. F. Skinner stayed active even after he retired in 1974. In 1989, he was found to have a serious health problem called leukemia. He passed away on August 18, 1990, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Just before this, he received a special award from the American Psychological Association for his lifetime of work.

Contributions to psychology

Behaviorism

Main articles: Behaviorism and Radical behaviorism

B.F. Skinner studied how behavior changes based on what happens around us. He called this idea "radical behaviorism." Skinner believed that our actions are shaped by past rewards and punishments from our environment. He created something called the Skinner box to test how animals learn through rewards. His work showed that both animals and humans learn in similar ways through consequences. This idea is still important today in fields like teaching and therapy.

Foundations of Skinner's behaviorism

Skinner wrote about his ideas in his first book, The Behavior of Organisms. He described two main types of behavior. The first type, called respondent behavior, happens when a certain signal, like a bell, makes us react in a certain way. The second type, called operant behavior, is when we try something and get a reward or avoid something unpleasant, which makes us more likely to do it again. Skinner showed how these ideas could explain many different actions.

Reinforcement

Main article: Reinforcement

Reinforcement is a big part of behaviorism. It means that actions are strengthened when they lead to good results or avoid bad ones. There are two kinds: positive reinforcement, where a good thing happens after the action, and negative reinforcement, where something unpleasant stops after the action. Skinner also studied how often rewards are given and found that this affects how quickly and consistently people or animals repeat behaviors.

Verbal Behavior

Main article: Verbal Behavior

Skinner also tried to understand how people learn to talk and use language. He wrote a book called Verbal Behavior about this. Some other experts, like Noam Chomsky, disagreed with his ideas, but Skinner’s work helped many people think differently about how language works.

Scientific inventions

Operant conditioning chamber

Main article: Operant conditioning chamber

An operant conditioning chamber (also called a "Skinner box") is a special room used to study how animals behave. Skinner made this box when he was a student at Harvard University. It had a place where rats could press a lever or where pigeons could peck a disk. When the animal did this, it got food, which made it more likely to do the action again. Scientists used this box to study many things, like how often animals act and how they learn from rewards. This helped a lot in learning about how animals, including people, learn and behave.

Cumulative recorder

The cumulative recorder is a tool that makes a paper record of repeated actions, like a rat pressing a lever. Skinner made it to go with the operant chamber. Each time the animal did something, a pen moved across the paper. The slope of the line showed how fast the animal was acting. This was very useful for scientists studying behavior and was used a lot before computers made it easier to record things.

Air crib

The air crib was a special bed Skinner made to keep babies comfortable and healthy. It was like a box with three walls and a glass front. The bed kept the temperature and air just right and made it easier to keep the baby clean. Skinner made it to help his wife and to keep his baby safe and warm where he lived. Some people thought it was strange, but others found it helpful.

Teaching machine

The teaching machine was a device Skinner made to help people learn. It showed questions one at a time, and when the person answered right, they got a reward. Skinner thought these machines could help students of all ages learn better by letting them practice and get rewards right away. This idea helped shape how we think about teaching and learning today.

Pigeon-guided missile

Main article: Project Pigeon

During World War II, Skinner worked on a project to guide missiles using pigeons. He trained pigeons to peck at images of enemy ships shown on screens inside the missile. The pigeons' pecking would steer the missile toward the target. Even though it worked in tests, this idea was not used because better technology, like radar, became available.

Influence on teaching

B. F. Skinner's ideas have greatly influenced teaching methods. In his book The Technology of Teaching, he talked about how education should help students learn by doing, not just listening. He believed that learning works best when students are rewarded for doing the right things, like getting to move on after finishing a part of their work.

Skinner thought that teaching should focus on positive rewards instead of punishment. He said that punishment often just teaches people how to avoid getting in trouble, rather than helping them learn. He also said that teachers need to understand how learning really works to be effective. This means breaking tasks into small steps, giving rewards for correct answers, and making sure students feel successful as they learn.

Contributions to social theory

B. F. Skinner became well-known for his books Walden Two and Beyond Freedom and Dignity. In Walden Two, he describes an imaginary community where people live together happily. This community focuses on working together, sharing, and avoiding conflict. Because of this, its members are more productive and content than people in the outside world.

Skinner also started the Twin Oaks Community based on ideas from Walden Two. In his other book, Beyond Freedom and Dignity, Skinner suggested that using science and new technologies could help build a better world. He believed we should look for better ways to encourage good behavior instead of relying on punishment.

Political views

B. F. Skinner believed that understanding how to guide people's behavior could help solve big problems, especially those made worse by new technologies like the atomic bomb. He thought that instead of using punishment, we should use rewards to encourage good behavior. He liked an old book called Emile: or, On Education by Jean-Jacques Rousseau because it showed how positive rewards can work well.

In his book Walden Two, Skinner imagined a small, peaceful community where people use science and understanding to solve problems without fighting. He did not think children should be punished at school and even helped stop spanking in California. His idea of a perfect world included friends, good health, art, and a balance between work and fun. He wanted a place where everyone felt they were helping and where there were enough resources for all, by using less and having fewer people.

"'Superstition' in the Pigeon" experiment

One of B. F. Skinner’s experiments looked at how pigeons can develop habits that seem like magic tricks. Skinner put hungry pigeons in a cage where food appeared at set times, no matter what the pigeon was doing. He noticed that the pigeons started to repeat certain actions when the food appeared. For example, one pigeon would turn around in circles, another would peck at a corner of the cage, and another would bob its head up and down.

Skinner thought this showed how people can also develop habits that feel like they control things, even when they really don’t. For instance, someone might touch wood for luck after winning a few times, even though touching wood doesn’t actually change their luck.

Later scientists studied this more and found that these habits might happen for different reasons than Skinner first thought. They suggested that some of these actions are more about the pigeon simply getting ready for food, rather than thinking it could make food appear.

Criticism

Noam Chomsky

In 1959, the American linguist Noam Chomsky wrote a review of Skinner’s book Verbal Behavior in a journal called Language. Chomsky thought Skinner’s ideas about explaining human language using behaviorism were too simple and did not explain how children can create and understand many different sentences. This review is said to have started a new way of thinking in psychology called the cognitive revolution. Skinner did not formally reply to Chomsky’s criticism, though he later agreed with a response by Kenneth MacCorquodale in 1972.

Chomsky later also reviewed Skinner’s book Beyond Freedom and Dignity, arguing that Skinner’s work in the lab could not be used for humans, and that his approach was not truly scientific.

Psychodynamic psychology

Some people thought Skinner did not like the work of Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis. However, others believe Skinner shared some of Freud’s ideas and was influenced by them, especially in studying certain behaviors.

Temple Grandin

Animal behavior expert Temple Grandin wrote in her 2005 book Animals in Translation that during a meeting when she was about 18, Skinner tried to touch her legs without consent, and she told him to stop. She mentioned this again in interviews in 2006 and 2018. Grandin also said Skinner at first did not agree with her idea that understanding the brain better could help understand behavior more clearly, but changed his mind after having a stroke later in life.

Professional career

B. F. Skinner was a teacher and scientist who worked at many universities. He started as an instructor at the University of Minnesota and later became a professor there. He also taught at Indiana University and spent most of his career at Harvard University, where he became a famous professor.

Skinner received many awards for his work. He was honored with special prizes from groups like the American Psychological Association and the National Science Foundation. He also got important awards from universities and science groups around the world. In addition, he was given special degrees, called honorary degrees, from many universities, showing how much they respected his contributions to psychology.

Publications

B. F. Skinner wrote many books about his ideas on how people learn and behave. Some of his well-known works include:

• The Behavior of Organisms: An Experimental Analysis (1938)
• Walden Two (1948)
• Science and Human Behavior (1953)
• Verbal Behavior (1957)
• Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971)
• Particulars of My Life: Part One of an Autobiography (1976)

These books explore his ideas about learning, behavior, and how we understand ourselves and others.