Transcript BF SKINNER

Overview of Behavioral
Analysis
During the early years of the 20th
century while Freud, Jung , and Adler
were relying on clinical practice and
before Eysenck and Costa and McCrae
were using psychometrics to build
theories of human personality, an
approach called behaviourism emerged
from laboratory studies of animals and
humans.
Skinner’s strict adherence to
observable behaviour earned his
approach
the
label
radical
behaviourism, a doctrine that
avoids all hypothetical constructs,
such as ego, traits, drives, needs,
hunger, and so forth.
BF SKINNER
Burrhus Frederic Skinner was born March 20, 1904, in Susquehanna
Pennsylvania. Burrhus received his BA in English from Hamilton College in upstate New
York. After some traveling, he decided to go back to school, and earned his masters in
psychology in 1930 and his doctorate in 1931, both from Harvard University.,
Skinner accepted the model of classical conditioning as
originated by Pavlov and elaborated on by Watson and
Guthrie, but he thought this type of conditioning only
explained a small portion of human and animal behavior.
He thought that the majority of response by humans do
not result from obvious stimuli. The notion of
reinforcement had been introduced by Thorndike, and
Skinner developed this idea much further.
http://www.lifecircles-inc.com/Learningtheories/behaviorism/Skinner.html
Reinforcement: The Basis of
Behavior
• Reinforcement: The act of strengthening a
response by adding a reward, thus increasing
the likelihood that the response will be
repeated.
Skinner believed that an animal or human could
be trained to perform virtually any act and
that the type of reinforcement that followed
the behavior would be responsible for
determining it,
Respondent and Operant Behavior
• Skinner distinguished between two kinds of
behaviour:
Respondent
Behavior
Operant
Behavior
RESPONDENT BEHAVIOR:
• Involves a response made to or elicited
by a specific stimulus.
• A stimulus is applied and the response
occurs. This behavior is unlearned, it
occurs automatically and involuntarily.
• At a higher level is respondent behavior
that is learned, called Conditioning.
OPERANT BEHAVIOR:
• Behavior emitted spontaneously or
voluntarily that operates on the
environment to change it.
• It involves acting in a way that appears to
be voluntarily rather than reacting
involuntarily to a stimulus to which we
have been conditioned.
Through
Operant
Conditioning
the
consequences of a behavior produce changes
in the probability of the behavior’s occurrence.
A behavior followed by a rewarding stimulus is
more likely to recur, where as a behavior
followed by a punishing stimulus is more likely
to not recur. (Theories of Development)
For example: In a nursery class where the
teacher gives a student a reward , maybe a
candy or a nap time, whenever a student does
well in class, that student will most likely
excel knowing that the reward will be given to
him or her.
In Skinner’s view, REWARDS
AND PUNISHMNETS
shape a
person’s
development.
BEHAVIOR is the key aspect to
DEVELOPMENT, not thoughts
and feelings. Behavior consists
of pattern of behavioral changes
that are brought about by
rewards and punishments.
(2009).Theories of Development
SKINNER BOX
It is known as Skinner’s operant – conditioning
apparatus used to demonstrate the operant - conditioning
apparatus. It is also referred to as the operant conditioning
chamber. “A Skinner box, used to study the concepts of
behavior, reinforcement and psychology, is a box that houses
an animal and offers both unconditioned and conditioned
stimuli — such as colored lights and food, respectively — and
response levers or keys that serve to monitor the animal's
behavior.” (Foster)
An example would be a food – deprived rat placed in
the Skinner box. “At some time during this activity, the rat will
depress a lever or bar located on one wall of the Skinner box,
causing a food pellet to drop into a trough. The rat’s pressing
of the lever has operated on the environment and, as a result,
has changed it. The environment now includes a food pellet.”
(Schultz, 2005)
In this situation, the food pellet is also referred to as a
reinforcer for the behavior of pressing the bar. Because it is
provided with more food, it will behave in the same way,
pressing the bar, more frequently. It is seen here that with
everyday that the Rat is placed back in the Skinner box, his
reaction of pushing the lever can be predicted. With this, we
can control the rat’s behavior of pressing the lever through
providing or withholding the reinforcer which is the food
pellet.
A Skinner box may be fairly simple, with only one lever
or key, or it may be quite complex, with a variety of stimuli and
ways of monitoring response. The Skinner box has received
criticism because it does not capture every nuance of the
animal's behavior; pushing the lever with a nose or a paw
registers as the same response, for example, and light touches
of the lever may not be recorded. (Foster)
“Skinner believed that most human and animal
behavior is learned through operant conditioning.” (Schultz,
2005)
Added Information about B.F. Skinner:
Did you know???
B.F. Skinner has been accused, notably by author Lauren Slater
and by the Church of Scientology, of raising his daughter in a
Skinner box, leading to her mental illness and suicide, but this
is untrue. Skinner designed a special air-crib intended to make
childcare easier, but he did not conduct psychological
experiments on his daughter or abuse her. Deborah Skinner
Buzan, Skinner's daughter, is still alive and has refuted every
point of these rumors. (Foster)
Schedules of Reinforcement
• Reinforcement Schedules- Patterns or rates of providing
or withholding reinforcers.
• Provides an effective technique for controlling,
modifying, and shaping behaviour.
• Among the rates of reinforcement he tested are the
following:
• Fixed Interval
• Fixed Ratio
• Variable Interval
• Variable Ratio
Fixed Interval
• Reinforcer is presented following the first
response that occurs after a fixed time
interval has elapsed.
• The timing of the reinforcements has nothing
to do with the number of responses.
Fixed Ratio
• Reinforcers are given only after the
organism has made a specified number of
responses.
• Presentation of reinforcers depends on
how often the subject responds.
Variable Interval
• Reinforcers are presented on a variable
basis.
• Reinforcer might appear after 2 hours in
the first instance, 1 ½ hours the next time,
and after 2 hours and 15 minutes the third
time.
Successive
Approximation
Also known as SHAPING
Small steps in behavior,
one after another, that
leads to a particular
goal or behavior
Successive
Approximation
Small steps one after
another that get closer
and closer to the goal
Small steps toward
some ultimate goal are
reinforced until the goal
itself is reached
More
complex
tricks
SHAPING
He never punished the rats
for wrong behavior
He just ignored it and
rewarded the behavior he
wanted
Learning was fast and
painless and the tasks
were increasingly complex
Superstitious behavior
Defined as:
Persistent behavior that has a coincidental and not a functional relationship to the
reinforcement received
Ex: when an athlete does something out
of the ordinary once before a game (ex:
tapping a sign “play like a champion”)
and the athlete suddenly plays better.
The athlete will instinctively look for a
reason, find it and repeat it so he cam
play with the same performance as last
time he did it.
 Superstitions are easily learned; in fact one
occurrence can cause a superstition
 In humans, superstitious behavior can
persist throughout life and only require
occasional reinforcement to sustain them.
Self- Control of Behavior
Defined as:
The ability to exert control over the variables that determine our behavior
To some extend we can control
the external variables that
determine our behavior
Types of self control
 Stimulus avoidance:
Removing yourself from the external variable that affects your behavior
Ex: when something annoys you, you leave or get rid of it
 > Self- administered satiation:
We exert control to cure an addiction by saturating ourselves with it to the point of
disgust, illness or epic boredom (“angang sa super-UMAY sila!”)to traumatize
themselves not to do it anymore…
 Aversive stimulation technique:
Declaring their intentions to the public so that if they do not attain their goal, they
will face embarrassment, ridicule, personal failure and criticism thereby forcing
them to stop a behavior or start a new one to attain a goal.
 Self reinforcement:
One rewards his/herself for doing or displaying good or desirable behavior (selfrewarding)
Works Cited a.k.a. sources!!!! :D
1.Foster, N. (n.d.). Language. Retrieved June 27, 2011, from
Wise Geek: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-skinnerbox.htm
2.Schultz, D. P. (2005). Theories of Personality . Wadsworth .
3. Ciccarelli , S. & White, J. (2009). Psychology. NJ:
Pearson Education, Inc
4. http:/drjimgoldstein.com/site/the-magic-ofsuccessive-approximation./