Question

Why was B.F Skinner considered more of a behaviorlist than a scientist?

Answer 1

B.F. Skinner gave us concepts like "conditioned behavior," "positive reinforcement," and even "time-outs" for children. But he was also a radical among psychologists who cast aside notions of dignity and free will. Here's why Skinner continues to be relevant — and even a bit dangerous

B. F. Skinner’s theory is based on operant conditioning. The organism is in the process of “operating” on the environment, which in ordinary terms means it is bouncing around its world, doing what it does. During this “operating,” the organism encounters a special kind of stimulus, called a reinforcing stimulus, or simply a reinforcer. This special stimulus has the effect of increasing the operant -- that is, the behavior occurring just before the reinforcer. This is operant conditioning: “the behavior is followed by a consequence, and the nature of the consequence modifies the organisms tendency to repeat the behavior in the future.”

Skinner's positive and negative reinforcement. Although Thorndike developed the basic law of effect, Skinner took this law and constructed a research program around it. He based this program on the experiments he had conducted in his study of punishment and reward. According to Skinner, the behavior caused by the law of effect was called operant conditioning because the behavior of an organism changed or operated on the environment. There were no real environmental stimuli forcing a response from an organism as in classical conditioning. Operant conditioning consists of two important elements, the operant or response and the consequence. If the consequence is favorable or positively reinforcing, then the likelihood of another similar response is more than if the consequence is punishing (Mischel, 1993, pp. 304-308).

For instance, in Skinner's experiment a rat was put into a box with a lever. Each time the lever was depressed, food was released. As a result, the rat learned to press the lever to receive favorable consequences. However, when the food was replaced with shocks, the lever depressing stopped almost immediately due to punishing consequences. Similar results were produced by stopping the positive reinforcement of food altogether in a process called extinction, but the operant conditioned response decreased at a much slower rate than when punishment was used. This kind of operant conditioning occurs in the rewarding or punishing discipline action taken towards a child