B. F. Skinner
Burrhus Frederic B. F. Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and social philosopher.[1][2][3] He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974.[4]
Skinner invented the operant conditioning chamber, also known as the Skinner Box.[5] The box had a lever and a food tray, and a hungry rat could get food delivered to the tray pressing the lever. Skinner observed that when a rat was put in the box, it would wander around, sniffing and exploring, and would usually press the bar by accident, at which point a food pellet would drop into the tray. After that happened, the rate of bar pressing would increase dramatically and remain high until the rat was no longer hungry. He was a firm believer of the idea that human free will was actually an illusion and any human action was the result of the consequences of that same action. If the consequences were bad, there was a high chance that the action would not be repeated; however if the consequences were good, the actions that lead to it would be reinforced.[6] He called this the principle of reinforcement.[7]
He innovated his own philosophy of science called radical behaviorism,[8] and founded his own school of experimental research psychology—the experimental analysis of behavior. His analysis of human behavior culminated in his work Verbal Behavior, as well as his philosophical manifesto Walden Two, both of which have recently seen enormous increase in interest experimentally and in applied settings.[9] Contemporary academia considers Skinner a pioneer of modern behaviorism along with John B. Watson and Ivan Pavlov.
Skinner discovered and advanced the rate of response as a dependent variable in psychological research. He invented the cumulative recorder to measure rate of responding as part of his highly influential work on schedules of reinforcement.[10][11] In a June 2002 survey, Skinner was listed as the most influential psychologist of the 20th century.[12] He was a prolific author who published 21 books and 180 articles.
Skinner was born in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania to William and Grace Skinner. His father was a lawyer. He became an atheist after a Christian teacher tried to assuage his fear of the Hell that his grandmother described.[15] His brother Edward, two and a half years younger, died at age sixteen of a cerebral hemorrhage. He attended Hamilton College in New York with the intention of becoming a writer. He found himself at a disadvantage at Hamilton College with many due to his intellectual attitude.[16] While attending, he joined Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity. He wrote for the school paper, but as an atheist, he was critical of the religious school he attended. He also attended Harvard University after receiving his B.A. in English literature in 1926 where he would later research, teach, and eventually become a prestigious board member. While at Harvard, he invented his prototype for the Skinner Box. Also, a fellow student Fred Keller, convinced Skinner he could make an experimental science from the study of behavior. This led Skinner to join Keller and they created different tools for small experiments.[17]After graduation, he unsuccessfully tried to write a great novel while he lived with his parents, which he later called the Dark Years.[18] He soon became disillusioned with his literary skills despite encouragement from widely renowned literary genius Robert Frost and concluded that he had little world experience and no strong personal perspective from which to write. His encounter with John B. Watson's Behaviorism led him into graduate study in psychology and to the development of his own operant behaviorism.[19]
Skinner received a PhD from Harvard in 1931, and remained there as a researcher until 1936. He then taught at the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis and later at Indiana University, where he was chair of the psychology department from 1946–1947, before returning to Harvard as a tenured professor in 1948. He remained at Harvard for the rest of his life. In 1973 Skinner was one of the signers of the Humanist Manifesto II.[20]
In 1936, Skinner married Yvonne Blue. The couple had two daughters, Julie (m. Vargas) and Deborah (m. Buzan). He died of leukemia on August 18, 1990,[21] and is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts.[22] Skinner continued to write and work until just before his death. A few days before Skinner died, he was given a lifetime achievement award by the American Psychological Association and delivered a 15 minute address concerning his work.
A controversial figure, Skinner has been depicted in many different ways. He has been called evil, hateful, but also warm and enthusiastic. Much of Skinner’s professional trouble derived from his penchant for attempting to apply science proven in lab environments at a universal level. His persona was as controversial as his science. In fact, his personality seems to have been quite similar to that of other creative scientists—highly conscientious and open to experience, but also somewhat neurotic.[23]
Theory
Skinner called his particular brand of behaviorism Radical behaviorism.[24] Radical behaviorism is the philosophy of the science of behavior. It seeks to understand behavior as a function of environmental histories of reinforcing consequences. Such a functional analysis makes it capable of producing technologies of behavior (see Applied behavior analysis). This applied behaviorism lies on the opposite side of the ideological spectrum as the field of cognitive science. Unlike less austere behaviorism, it does not accept private events such as thinking, perceptions, and unobservable emotions in a causal account of an organism's behavior
The position can be stated as follows what is felt or introspectively observed is not some nonphysical world of consciousness, mind, or mental life but the observer's own body. This does not mean, as I shall show later, that introspection is a kind of psychological research, nor does it mean (and this is the heart of the argument) that what are felt or introspectively observed are the causes of the behavior. An organism behaves as it does because of its current structure, but most of this is out of reach of introspection. At the moment we must content ourselves, as the methodological behaviorist insists, with a person's genetic and environment histories. What are introspectively observed are certain collateral products of those histories.
...
In this way we repair the major damage wrought by mentalism. When what a person does [is] attributed to what is going on inside him, investigation is brought to an end. Why explain the explanation For twenty five hundred years people have been preoccupied with feelings and mental life, but only recently has any interest been shown in a more precise analysis of tmehe role of the environment. Ignorance of that role led in the first place to mental fictions, and it has been perpetuated by the explanatory practices to which they gave rise.[25]
Skinner stood at the opposite position from humanistic psychology for his whole career, and denied humans possessing freedom and dignity as well as evidenced in his novel Beyond Freedom and Dignity. Most of his theories were supposed to be based on self-observation, which caused him to become a supporter for behaviorism. Much of this self-observed theory stemmed from Thorndike’s Puzzle Box, a direct antecedent to Skinner’s Box. The psychologist further expanded on Thorndike’s earlier work by introducing the concept of Reinforcement to Thorndike’s Law of Effect.[26] Skinner was an advocate of behavioral engineering and he thought that people should be controlled through the systematic allocation of external rewards.[27] Skinner believed that behavior is maintained from one condition to another through similar or same consequences across these situations. In short, behaviors are causal factors that are influenced by the consequences. His contribution to the understanding of behavior influenced many other scientists to explain social behavior and contingencies.[28]
Reinforcement is a central concept in Behaviorism, and was seen as a central mechanism in the shaping and control of behavior. A common misconception is that negative reinforcement is synonymous with punishment. This misconception is rather pervasive, and is commonly found in even scholarly accounts of Skinner and his contributions. To be clear, while positive reinforcement is the strengthening of behavior by the application of some event (e.g., praise after some behavior is performed), negative reinforcement is the strengthening of behavior by the removal or avoidance of some aversive event (e.g., opening and raising an umbrella over your head on a rainy day is reinforced by the cessation of rain falling on you).
Both types of reinforcement strengthen behavior, or increase the probability of a behavior reoccurring; the difference is in whether the reinforcing event is something applied (positive reinforcement) or something removed or avoided (negative reinforcement). Punishment and extinction have the effect of weakening behavior, or decreasing the future probability of a behavior's occurrence, by the application of an aversive stimulusevent (positive punishment or punishment by contingent stimulation), removal of a desirable stimulus (negative punishment or punishment by contingent withdrawal), or the absence of a rewarding stimulus, which causes the behavior to stop (extinction).
Skinner also sought to understand the application of his theory in the broadest behavioral context as it applies to living organisms, namely natural selection.[29]
Schedules of reinforcement
Main article Reinforcement
Part of Skinner's analysis of behavior involved not only the power of a single instance of reinforcement, but the effects of particular schedules of reinforcement over time.
The most notable schedules of reinforcement presented by Skinner were interval (fixed or variable) and ratio (fixed or variable).
Continuous reinforcement — constant delivery of reinforcement for an action; every time a specific action was performed the subject instantly and always received a reinforcement. This method is impractical to use, and the reinforced behavior is prone to extinction.
Interval Schedules based on the time intervals between reinforcements [30]
Fixed Interval Schedule (FI) An operant conditioning principle in which reinforcements are presented at fixed time periods, provided that the appropriate response is made.
Variable Interval Schedule (VI) An operant conditioning principle in which behaviour is reinforced based on an average time that has expired since the last reinforcement.
Both FI and VI tend to produce slow, methodical responding because the reinforcements follow a time scale that is independent of how many responses occur.
Ratio Schedules based on the ratio of responses to reinforcements [30]
Fixed Ratio Schedule (FR) An operant conditioning principle in which reinforcement is delivered after a specific number of responses have been made.
Variable Ratio Schedule (VR) An operant conditioning principle in which the delivery of reinforcement is based on a particular average number of responses (ex. slot machines).
VR produce slightly higher rates of responding than FR because organism doesn’t know when next reinforcement is. The higher the ratio, the higher the response rate tends to be.[31]
Inventions
Air crib
In an effort to help his wife cope with the day-to-day tasks of child rearing, Skinner thought he might be able to improve upon the standard crib. He invented the 'air-crib' to meet this challenge. An 'air-crib'[32] (also known as a 'baby tender' or humorously as an 'heir conditioner') is an easily cleaned, temperature and humidity-controlled crib Skinner designed to assist in the raising of babies.
Skinner designed this initial, preliminary prototype of the Air-Crib for his first child because he thought it would help parents who were awakened by their crying babies at night due to cold temperatures, and a need for essential clothing, or sheets. Despite allegations to the contrary, Skinner’s daughter Deborah claims to never have felt abused or neglected by use of the Air-Crib.[26] He thought doing so would alleviate “troublesome” environmental issues.[33]
It was one of his most controversial inventions, and was popularly mischaracterized as cruel and experimental.[34] The crib was often compared to his operant conditioning chamber, crudely known as the Skinner Box. This association with a system of experimentation and pellet rewards quashed any success. It was designed to make early childcare simpler (by greatly reducing laundry, diaper rash, cradle cap, etc.), while encouraging the baby to be more confident, mobile, comfortable, healthy and therefore less prone to cry. (Babies sleep and will sometimes play in air cribs but it's misleading to say they are 'raised' in them. Apart from newborns, most of a baby's waking hours will be spent out of the crib.) Reportedly it had some success in these goals.[34] Air-cribs were later unsuccessfully commercially manufactured by several companies. After companies had attempted to sell this product to a large market, they had failed in their marketing strategies.[34]
The Skinner Box was also used as a box with a lever and a food tray accommodated for rats. A rat would get inside the box sniff, explore around and press a bar by accident which would drop food to the tray Experiencing such an easy way of getting food prompted the rat to repeat the process of pressing the bar until being completely full. Skinner saw evidence for what he called the principle of reinforcement which states that the consequences of a behavior determine whether it will be more or less likely to occur again. This idea became the foundation for Skinner's new approach to behaviorism.[35]
A 2004 book by Lauren Slater, entitled Opening Skinner's Box Great Psychology Experiments of the Twentieth Century [36] caused much controversy by mentioning the common rumors that Skinner had used his baby daughter Deborah in some of his experiments and that she had subsequently committed suicide. Although Slater's book immediately afterwards stated that the rumours were false, Slater also allowed the reader to believe that Deborah had disappeared, thus doing little to quash the rumors (apart from her own denial of their truth). A reviewer in The Observer in March 2004 then misquoted Slater's books as supporting the rumours. This review was read by Deborah Skinner (now Deborah Buzan, an artist and writer living in London) who then in turn wrote a vehement riposte in The Guardian.[37]
Operant conditioning chamber
Main article Operant conditioning chamber
While a researcher at Harvard,[38] B. F. Skinner invented the operant conditioning chamber, popularly referred to as the Skinner box,[39] to measure responses of organisms (most often, rats and pigeons) and their orderly interactions with the environment. Skinner discovered that consequences for the organism played a large role in how the organism responded in certain situations.[40] For instance, when the rat would pull the lever it would receive food. Subsequently, the rat made frequent pulls on the lever.[41] Negative reinforcement was also exemplified by Skinner placing rats into an electrified chamber that delivered unpleasant shocks. Levers to cut the power were placed inside these boxes. By running a current through the “operant conditioning chamber,” Skinner noticed that the rats, after accidentally pressing the lever in a frantic bid to escape, quickly learned the effects of implementing the lever and consequently used this knowledge to stop the currents both during and prior to electrical shock. These two learned responses are known as Escape Learning and Avoidance Learning.[26] The operant chamber for pigeons involves a plastic disc in which the pigeon pecks in order to open a drawer filled with grains.[42] The Skinner box led to the principle of reinforcement, which is the probability of something occurring based on the consequences of a behavior.[43]
This device was an example of his lifelong ability to invent useful devices, which included whimsical devices in his childhood[44] to the cumulative recorder to measure the rate of response of organisms in an operant chamber. Even in old age, Skinner invented a Thinking Aid to assist in writing.[45]
Cumulative recorder
The cumulative recorder is an instrument used to automatically record behavior graphically. Its graphing mechanism consisted of a rotating drum of paper equipped with a marking needle. The needle would start at the bottom of the page and the drum would turn the roll of paper horizontally. This cumulative recorder was used for the Skinner box to record the rat's behavior.[38] This apparatus produced consistent and accurate records of behavior.[38]
Teaching machine
The teaching machine, a mechanical invention to automate the task of programmed instruction
The teaching machine was a mechanical device whose purpose was to administer a curriculum of programmed instruction. In one incarnation, it housed a list of questions, and a mechanism through which the learner could respond to each question. Upon delivering a correct answer, the learner would be rewarded.[46]
Skinner advocated the use of teaching machines for a broad range of students (e.g., preschool aged to adult) and instructional purposes (e.g., reading and music). Another of the multiple machines he envisioned could teach rhythm
A relatively simple device supplies the necessary contingencies. The student taps a rhythmic pattern in unison with the device. Unison is specified very loosely at first (the student can be a little early or late at each tap) but the specifications are slowly sharpened. The process is repeated for various speeds and patterns. In another arrangement, the student echoes rhythmic patterns sounded by the machine, though not in unison, and again the specifications for an accurate reproduction are progressively sharpened. Rhythmic patterns can also be brought under the control of a printed score. (Skinner, 1961, p. 381).
The teaching machine had such instructional potential because it provided immediate and regular reinforcement that maintained students’ interest, as the “material in the machine [was] always novel” (Skinner, 1961, p. 387). In this way, a student’s attention could be maintained without the use of aversive controls. The efficiency of the teaching machine resulted from its automatic provision of reinforcement, individualized pace setting, and a coherent instructional sequence for the student. It engaged students and allowed them to learn by doing.
Teaching machines, though perhaps rudimentary, were not rigid instruments of instruction. They could be adjusted and improved based upon reports of students’ performance. For example, if a student’s report showed numerous incorrect responses, then the machine could be reprogrammed to provide less advanced prompts or questions- the idea being that students acquire behaviors most efficiently when their error rate is minimized. Along these lines, multiple choice formats were not best suited for teaching machines because contingencies of reinforcement would be left to chance; moreover, this format could increase student mistakes and induce erroneous behaviors.
Not only useful in teaching explicit skills, machines could also promote the development of a repertoire of behaviors Skinner called self-management. Self-management refers to how students think- how they attend to the environment with the view of responding appropriately to stimuli. Machines give students the opportunity to first pay attention before receiving a reward as reinforcement. This is in stark contrast with what Skinner noticed as the classroom practice of initially capturing students’ attention (e.g., with a lively video) and delivering a reward (e.g., entertainment) before they have actually done attended- a practice which actually counters the development of self-management and fails to correctly apply reinforcements for correct behavior. What Skinner referred to as a teaching machine would probably be akin to a computer software program today that provided highly structured and incremental instruction. Skinner’s influence on such machines is undeniable. He was the first to pioneer the use of machines in the classroom, especially at the primary level. Today teaching machines such as Language Labs have been incorporated into modern education. Though it was just one of a number of inventions, it embodies much of Skinner’s theory of learning and has wide-reaching implications for education in general and classroom instruction in particular.[47]
There has been a resurgence of interest in the notion of the teaching machine and it's relationship to adaptive learning systems of the early 21st Century [48]
Pigeon-guided missile
Main article Project Pigeon
The US Navy required a weapon effective against the German Bismarck class battleships. Although missile and TV technology existed, the size of the primitive guidance systems available rendered any weapon ineffective. Project Pigeon[49][50] was potentially an extremely simple and effective solution, but despite an effective demonstration it was abandoned when more conventional solutions became available and in particular the radar system. The project centered on dividing the nose cone of a missile into three compartments, and encasing a pigeon in each. Each compartment used a lens to project an image of what was in front of the missile onto a screen. The pigeons would peck toward the object, thereby directing the missile.[51]
Skinner complained our problem was no one would take us seriously.[52] The point is perhaps best explained in terms of human psychology (i.e., few people would trust a pigeon to guide a missile no matter how reliable it proved).[53]
Verbal Summator[edit]
A device for discovering latent speech, Skinner experimented with a device he called the Verbal Summator.[54] Although Skinner was not a supporter of the concepts of personal assessment or projective testing, he eventually created a tool that was similar to an auditory version of the Rorschach inkblots.[54] This was later known as the Verbal Summator. This invention was created in order to project subconscious thoughts, much like the inkblots have done. He used this device to create data for his verbal behavior theory. Other researchers later saw this device as a chance to conduct research and for applied purposes for research and applied purposes. The concept of the verbal summator sparked interest within the scientific community and eventually led to other new tests the “tautophone test, the auditory apperception test, and the Azzageddi test” and has inspired many others.[54]
Verbal Behavior
Main article Verbal Behavior (book)
Challenged by Alfred North Whitehead during a casual discussion while at Harvard to provide an account of a randomly provided piece of verbal behavior,[55] Skinner set about attempting to extend his then-new functional, inductive, approach to the complexity of human verbal behavior. Developed over two decades, his work appeared as the culmination of the William James lectures in the book Verbal Behavior. Although Noam Chomsky was highly critical of Verbal Behavior, he conceded that S-R psychology (which Skinner's system was most certainly not operant conditioning consists of a stimulus (or antecedent) (S) emitting a response (R) which then becomes more or less likely in the future dependent upon its consequence (C))[56] was a reason for giving it a review. Verbal Behavior had an uncharacteristically slow reception, partly as a result of Chomsky's review, paired with Skinner's neglect to address or rebut any of Chomsky's condemnations.[57] Skinner's peers may have been slow to adopt and consider the conventions within Verbal Behavior due to its lack of experimental evidence—unlike the empirical density that marked Skinner's previous work.[58] However, Skinner's functional analysis of verbal behavior has seen a resurgence of interest in applied settings.