Skinner Article

Checkpoint: Skinner Article

Student Name

BEH/ 225 Introductions to Behavioral Science

November 18, 2010

Nancy Stough

Checkpoint: Skinner Article

American psychologist B.F. Skinner developed several psychological theories around reinforcement, punishment, superstitious behavior, and operant conditioning. Skinner has made many great contributions to the psychology world using his theory of operant conditioning; which is voluntary behavior that has been changed by providing punishment and reinforcement. Punishment and reinforcement can cause the behaviors to constantly reoccur depending upon the consequence.

The Skinner box was created my B.F. Skinner. Let’s think about a rat inside of a cage. The Skinner box is not really a box but more of a cage, inside the cage is a bar or petals on one wall that and when it is pressed, it causes a little device to release a food pellet into the cage. The rat just goes around the moves around the cage, and in doing so it bumps into the petal or bar and the little food pellet pops out and lands into the cage! The operant is the rat’s behavior prior to the reinforced; which of course is the pellet. The rat realizes that by peddling he gets food, so be begins to peddle faster at the bar; he then starts to hoard each pellet into a corner of the cage. If the rat is then punished and the reinforced is taken away, the rat will then press the bar a few more times and inevitably it will stop. If this can work on rats then it must work for human beings. Skinner is responsible for discovering behavior modification; today this technique is used not only by psychologist, but parents and teachers as well.

Superstitious behavior is another form of research that B.F. Skinner conducted. In this study Skinner used pigeons to prove his theory. And in this experiment Skinner used reinforcements to change the behaviors of the pigeons, the pigeons started to change their behaviors in order to receive the reinforced. This behavior is known as...