Behaviorism – B.F. SkinnerQuick RecapB.F. SkinnerSlide 4Slide 5Slide 6Slide 7Slide 8B.F. Skinner’s Daily RoutineSkinner’s WritingsSkinner’s BehaviorismSlide 12Slide 13Operant ConditioningSlide 15Slide 16Slide 17Schedules of ReinforcementSlide 19The Real Reason Though…A Famous StudyEliminating BehaviorsAnother Schedule of ReinforcementA Real Life ExampleSuccessive ApproximationSpeaking of babies…Serious Messenger PigeonsWalden Two – A Behaviorist SocietyWalden TwoBehavior ModificationBehavior Modification TechniquesWhat About Punishment?Criticisms of Skinner’s BehaviorismThe IQ ZOOLanguageSkinner’s Contributions to PsychologySlide 37Discussion QuestionsSlide 39Slide 40Slide 41Slide 42MONDAY, MARCH 23RD, 2015BEHAVIORISM – B.F. SKINNERQUICK RECAP•E.C. Tolman: purposive behaviorism, intervening variables•His learning theory: the repeated performance of a task strengthens the learned relationship between environmental cues and the organism’s expectation•Clark Hull: hypothetico-deductive method, drives•His learning theory/law of primary reinforcement: when a stimulus-response relationship is followed by a reduction in a bodily need, the probability increases on subsequent occasions the same stimulus will evoke the same responseB.F. SKINNER•http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0qZaoNJHNIB.F. SKINNER•“One of the giants of our discipline” (Fowler, 1990, p. 1203)•The “leading figure in behavior science of this century” (Keller, 1991, p. 3)•Was the perfect combination of a brilliant researcher, a good leader of a band of faithful, a talented writer, and a notable public figureB.F. SKINNER•Had a happy childhood – in contrast to Watson!•Liked physics, animals, and building things during his small-town upbringing•He would later attribute much of his theorizing to the reinforcements he had in his childhoodB.F. SKINNER•Went to college to be a writer, but he was mostly dissatisfied there•Seemed kind of socially awkward, wrote that he didn’t fit in and that “better players bounced basketballs off my cranium” (Skinner, 1967, p. 392)•Graduated with his English major and impressed Robert Frost with his writing!B.F. SKINNER•Sounds promising, right?•Nope, he eventually realized that he had nothing to write about•The ladies weren’t loving him•He got pretty depressedB.F. SKINNER•Decided to give Pavlov a quick read and became very interested in this aspect of human nature•Managed to get into Harvard’s PhD program without having taken a single psychology class•Things have gotten a liiiiiittle more competitive since then•Credited Descartes’ work on the reflex arc and wrote his dissertation on the correlation between stimulus and response as simply a reflex and nothing moreB.F. SKINNER’S DAILY ROUTINE•Up at 5 am – worked for three hours•8 am – went to his office to work more•Listened to music as his reinforcement to get him through the day•10 pm – went to bed•1 am – woke up to work for an hour•2 am – went back to bedSKINNER’S WRITINGS•Skinner loved to write and considered that a positive reinforcement•Was cited more than Freud! •Diagnosed with leukemia in 1989•Gave an APA address in 1990 in which he attacked the growth of cognitive psychology•Was working on his final paper, Can Psychology Be a Science of Mind?” (1990) the night before he diedSKINNER’S BEHAVIORISM•Hull emphasized the importance of theory, but Skinner was less concerned with theory and more concerned with empirical research•Wasn’t too interested in research that had already been done, hypothesis testing, or any fancy deductive methods•A good way to think of it is that he wanted to describe behavior, not explain it •To Skinner, the purpose scientific inquiry was to establish functional relationships between the stimulus (controlled by the experimenter) and the response of the subjectSKINNER’S BEHAVIORISM•Didn’t care about what was going on inside the organism•And therefore, he didn’t care about intervening variables, drives, or physiological processes•This was called the “empty organism” approach, puts all emphasis on the environment•He did not deny that they existed, he denied their USEFULNESS for the scientific study of behaviorSKINNER’S BEHAVIORISM•Statistical methods as introduced by guys like Galton allowed for greater sample sizes and generalizability•Skinner preferred the case study method•Didn’t think the average individual was helpful or of interest•An interesting point of view…generalizability of results is thought to be better with a greater sample size, and yet he felt that results from a group would not generalize to an individualOPERANT CONDITIONING•Pavlovian, or classical conditioning, examines a respondent behavior to a known stimulus•Operant conditioning on the other hand is more concerned with reinforcement’s influence on behavior•In other words, there doesn’t have to be an observable stimulus when the response occursOPERANT CONDITIONING•Skinner used an “operant conditioning apparatus” to test operant conditioning, but Hull would call it a “Skinner box,” and the name stuck•http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_ctJqjlrHAOPERANT CONDITIONING•Skinner believed this was a much more realistic learning environment than the experiments of Pavlov•The behavior of the pigeon or rat was operating in the environment to produce reinforcers •The dependent variable of this manipulation is very objective – the rate of response•Law of acquisition: the strength of an operant behavior is increased when it is followed by the presentation of a reinforcing stimulusOPERANT CONDITIONING•How is this different from what Thorndike was doing with the puzzle box?•Thorndike was too open to the ideas of mental processes and subjective experiences like pleasure or satisfaction•Hull was too interested in developing a theory and reducing reinforcement to intervening variables like drives•Skinner’s theory is simply descriptive – if you do a, then bSCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT•At first, Skinner would reinforce the subject every time it did what he wanted it to do•However, this is not always realistic in the environment•“We do not always get a good meal in a particular restaurant because cooks are not always predictable. We do not always get an answer when we telephone a friend because the friend is not always at home…The reinforcements characteristic of
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