Chapter 15

Skinner: Behavioral Analysis

During the 1920s and 1930s, while Freud, Adler, and Jung were relying on clinical practice
and before Eysenck and McCrae and Costa were using psychometric procedures to build
personality theories, a number of behaviorists were constructing models based on laboratory
studies of human and nonhuman animals. Early behaviorists included E. L. Thorndike and J. B.
Watson, but the most influential of the later theorists was B. F. Skinner. Behavioral models of
personality avoided speculations about hypothetical constructs and concentrated almost
exclusively on observable behavior. Skinner rejected the notion of free will and emphasized the
primacy of environmental influences on behavior.

Skinner argued that psychologists should be concerned with determining the conditions under
which human behavior occurs. By discovering these conditions, psychologists can predict and
control human behavior. Skinner held that science has three principal characteristics: its findings
are cumulative, It rests on an attitude that values empirical observation, It searches for order and
reliable relationships. Skinner recognized two kinds of conditioning: Classical a conditioned
stimulus is paired with an unconditioned response, which will be called conditioned response. And
operant is responsible for most human behaviors. The organism operates on the environment to
produce specific effect. In addition, desired behavior is too complex to be shown without shaping
from the environment. Reinforcement has two effects: It strengthens the behavior and it rewards
the person. Reinforcement and reward, therefore, are not synonymous.

Shaping is a procedure in which the experimenter of the environment first rewards gross
approximations of the behavior, then closer approximations, and finally the desired behavior itself.
Punishment is a presentation of an aversive stimulus. Unlike negative reinforcement, this does not
strengthen nor weaken a response. Effects of punishment include the Suppressed behavior,
Conditioning of a negative feeling, and Spread of its effects. Continuous schedule is reinforced for
every response. Intermittent schedule is not only because they make more efficient use of the
reinforcer but because they produce responses that are more resistant to extinction. There are
four basic intermittent schedules: Fixed-ratio, Variable-ratio, Fixed-interval and Variable interval.

Those societies that evolved certain cultural practices tended to survive. Currently, the lives of
nearly all people are shaped, in part, by modern tools and by their use of language. However,
humans do not make cooperative decisions to do what is best for their society, but those societies
whose members behave in a cooperative manner tended to survive. Skinner recognized the
existence of such inner states as drives and self-awareness, but he rejected the notion that they
can explain behavior.

Skinner was not a psychotherapist, and he even criticized psychotherapy as being one of the
major obstacles to a scientific study of human behavior. Nevertheless, others have used operant
conditioning principles to shape behavior in a therapeutic setting. Behavior therapists play an
active role in the treatment process, using behavior modification techniques and pointing out the
positive consequences of some behaviors and the aversive effects of others.

On the six criteria of a useful theory, Skinner's approach rates very high on its ability to generate
research and to guide action, high on its ability to be falsified, and about average on its ability to
organize knowledge. In addition, it rates very high on internal consistency and high on simplicity.
Skinner's concept of humanity was a completely deterministic and causal one that emphasized
unconscious behavior and the uniqueness of each person's history of reinforcement within a
mostly social environment. Unlike many determinists, Skinner is quite optimistic in his view of
humanity.