Skinner Article Beh-225

An extremely influential American psychologist Burrhus Fredrick Skinner’s (also references as B.F. Skinner), teachings have made humongous affects and progress which have benefited and influenced the world of Psychology that we know of today. With such influential contributions why does he not receive more recognition you might be asking, which is why I’m giving credit where it’s due.

Burrhus is known for his invention of the “Skinner Box” where his Operant conditioning theory is not only put to the test but displayed as well. You place a rat in a “Skinner box” and “it doesn’t take long for an active, hungry rat to happen to step on the bar, thereby releasing food pellets into the cup, which reinforces the rat’s bar-pressing behavior” (Morris & Maisto, 2002, p. 202). So this Operant conditioning within the Skinner box enables the interaction between the subject and its environment by using a form of punishment to reinforce a particular instinctual behavior, which results in a positive consequence also referred to as a reward which motivates the subject to continue with this particular behavior or action.

The superstitious behavior which is another theory that Skinner is known for configures the idea that when rewards or positive results come specimen tend to reenact their recent activities to produce another reward, which Skinner labels as superstitious behavior. “He found that the pigeon began to repeat whatever it had been doing just before it was given food: standing on one foot, hopping around, or strutting around with its neck stretched out. None of these actions had anything to do with getting the food—it was pure coincidence that the food appeared when the bird was standing on one foot, for example, but that action would usually be repeated. Skinner labeled the bird’s behavior superstitious”, (Morris & Maisto, 2002, p. 198).

These theories and observations not only have assisted the understanding of the behavior of creatures but the behavior of us...