Question

Create a 1 page mini debate transcript for these two students: Imagine this scenario: You are attending a local psychology conference and you find two graduate level psychology students entered in a hot debate, with a crowd of people around them. You are curious and come closer to see what everyone is interested in. You find that they are debating the work and personality of BF Skinner. One of the students, Rick Nilsen claims that Skinner was a cool headed scientist who based his opinions about the human being only on observable behavior. The other student, Blanca Alvarez, says that Skinner was not just as simple as he seemed. He believed in behaviorism, just like other people believed in Marxism or any other –ism. • What points would each one make?

Answer 1

Blanca Alvarez

B.F. Skinner believed in behaviorism and he followed it thoroughly. He was also following whatever is been part of a particular ism. So Skinner was not as simple as he seemed to be but he was only part of something that already existed. Ian Pavlov started behavioral study and John. B. Watson made it official, then why should B.F. Skinner be given any credit. He only built on whatever was readily available.

Rick Nilsen

B. F. Skinner is one of the best in the behaviorism school of thought. He was a simple psychologist who introduced radical behaviorism, where he advocated that behavior is affected by different reinforcements. These reinforcements include positive and negative and also punishment. John. B. Watson after Ian Pavlov’s famous classical conditioning experiment introduced behavioral psychology that focused on human behaviors but he advocated classical conditioning. B.F. Skinner brought a paradigm shift in the way behaviorism was thought to be. Skinner introduced his radical theory of behaviorism where he says an organism’s behavior is greatly affected positively or negatively by the reinforcements given. Punishment eliminates an undesired behavior.

Although Skinner belonged to behavioral school, he was not part of the old school instead he established his own theory. His theory influencedthe 20^th and 21^st century psychologists, sociologists and academicians to rethink their strategies in eliciting or bringing out the necessary behavior.