B. F. Skinner
American psychologist who developed radical behaviourism and the study of operant conditioning
American psychologist at Harvard who studied how consequences shape behaviour using the operant chamber and cumulative recorder, and who argued for applying behavioural methods to education and society.
Why this person matters
Skinner's analysis of reinforcement underlies much applied behaviour analysis and teaching technology. His social proposals and his dismissal of inner mental causes also made him one of the most debated psychologists of the twentieth century.
Main contributions
Operant behaviour
In The Behavior of Organisms (1938) he distinguished respondent behaviour, elicited by stimuli, from operant behaviour, which is emitted and strengthened by its consequences. He studied rats pressing levers and pigeons pecking disks, recording response rates with the cumulative recorder he invented as a graduate student.
Language and teaching
Verbal Behavior (1957) offered an analysis of human language in terms of reinforcement. He also designed a teaching machine for programmed learning, in which a learner answers questions and is rewarded for correct answers.
Social proposals
Walden Two (1948) is a novel about a community run on operant methods. Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971) argued that a technology of behaviour could build a better society and questioned the idea of an autonomous agent.
Context and limits
Noam Chomsky's 1959 review argued that conditioning cannot explain children's novel sentences; Kenneth MacCorquodale's 1972 reply, which Skinner endorsed, said Chomsky attacked a confusion rather than the book. Staddon and Simmelhag (1971) did not support Skinner's explanation of pigeon 'superstition'. Chomsky also criticised Beyond Freedom and Dignity. The enclosed air crib, which Skinner designed partly to simplify care of his baby daughter, drew a largely negative public reaction; rumours that it harmed her were denied by Deborah Skinner in 2004.
In your introductory course
Learning.Appears in the learning chapter for operant conditioning, reinforcement schedules and shaping, and in the history of psychology as the main behaviourist of the mid-century.
Related course reading: Psychology 2e, section 1.2. This is course context rather than a biographical source.
Years of active work
- 1931
Received his PhD at Harvard University.
- 1938
Published The Behavior of Organisms.
- 1945
Introduced the air crib to the public in the Ladies' Home Journal article 'Baby in a Box'.
- 1957
Published Verbal Behavior.
- 1971
Published Beyond Freedom and Dignity.
Sources
- National Academy of Sciences, Burrhus Frederic Skinner: A Biographical Memoir (Rachlin)Society or association. Institutional biography inspected.
- Association for Psychological Science, Observer, Skinner's air cribSociety or association. Text passages inspected.
- Wikipedia, B. F. SkinnerReference work. Reference article inspected.