SKINNER’S RADICAL BEHAVIORISM

JULYKA R. PLAZA
PRESENTER
FIND YOUR BARBIE
HUG YOUR BARBIE IF YOU
ALREADY FOUND ONE!
THEN DO WHATEVER YOU
WANT TO YOUR BARBIE, IT
COULD BE IN VIOLENT
WAY OR IN A SWEETEST
WAY BECAUSE IT’S
ALMOST VALENTINES DAY!
LASTLY, SAY I LOVE YOU TO
YOUR BARBIE!!! MAKE
HIM/HER FEEL LOVED
HAPPY VALENTINES DAY TEACHER
HONEY!
 BURRHUS FREDERIC SKINNER
• (1904-1990)

• Insert pic of skinner

RESPONDENT AND OPERANT LEARNING
 BASIC ASSUMPTION
• Skinner started with the absolute conviction
that the causes of behaviour are outside the
person.
3 IMPORTANT CHARACTERISTICS OF
SKINNER’S RADICAL BEHAVIORISM

• The occasion upon which a response occur

• The response itself
• The reinforcing consequences
 RESPONDENT AND OPERANT LEARNING
• Classical conditioning of Pavlov

-Skinner believed that classical conditioning

explained Only a very limited variety of human
and animal behavior.

- He further maintained that the stimuli are often not

important.
• RESPONDENT
BEHAVIOR
- The respondent reacts to the
environment
- It correspond to involuntary
behavior

• OPERANT BEHAVIOR
- It acts on the environment
- More voluntary
PREVALENCE OF OPERANT BEHAVIOR
• Skinner (1938) believed that most of the
important behaviors in which people engage are
operant.
PARLOV’S HARNESS AND SKINNER’S BOX
• Pavlov placed a dog in a harness and injected
food powder or an acid solution into its
mouth, the dog salivated.
• Skinner used highly innovative piece of
equipment now known as Skinner Box

• It is a cage-like structure that can be

equipped with a lever, a light, a food tray, a
food-releasing mechanism, and perhaps an
electric grid through the floor.
 Operant learning
• Operant conditioning explanation says that
when a reinforcer follows a response-
regardless of the conditions that might have
led to its emission- the result will be an
increase in the probability that this response
will occur again under similar circumstances
 REINFORCER
• An event that follows a response and that
changes the probability of a response’s
occuring again
 REINFORCEMENT
• Simply the effect of reinforcer.
Let us meet Arnold!
“I WILL SHOW YOU A VIDEO”
2 TYPES OF REINFORCEMENT

Positive and Negative

Reinforcement
POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT (reward)

- “Satisfying” according to Thorndike

- Skinnerian terms positive reinforcement is

similar to “Reward”

- It involves positive contingency

Example…..
NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT (relief)

- Involves a response that results in

the elimination or prevention.

- “Annoying” outcome according

to Thorndike

- it involves the removal of a

negative contingency.
ILLUSTRATIONS OF REINFORCEMENT
AND PUNISHMENT
Positive Reinforcement
 BEHAVIOR OF RAT

• If the consequences of Arnold’s depressing

a lever in a skinner box is that the food
mechanism releases a pellet of food into the
tray, the effect may be an increase in the
probability that bar-pressing behavior will
occur again.
 BEHAVIOR OF JAZON
• If Jazon offers to kiss his mother one morning, and
she praises him for this touching filial gesture, there
may be an increase in the probability of this kind of
behavior in the future.

• Mama’s praise is a positive reinforcer

 RAT’S BEHAVIOR

• If the current is on continuously in the

grid but is turned off every time the
rat presses the lever, there will again
be an increase in the probability of
bar-pressing behavior.
 JAKE’S BEHAVIOR

• If Jake is later isolated in his room while

having a temper tantrum or crying fit because
his mother insists that “no! you can’t sit on the
cat like on a horse”, allowing him to come out
when he stops crying illustrates negative
reinforcement.
• this event may increase the probability that he
will stop crying when again in this situation.
 PUNISHMENT
• Like reinforcement, punishment is also defined by
effects.
 2 TYPES OF PUNISHMENT

• Positive contingency
-avoidance learning
-escape learning

• negative contingency
 Presentation punishment (castigation)
• If the rat, which must stand on the electric grid
when it depresses the bar, is given a mild shock
every time it does so, it will probably attempt to
avoid the bar in the future. The shock in this case is
one type of punishment.
• If Jake kicks Leward in the posterior and he returns
around and whacks him on the side of the head, he
may be less likely to kick him again in similar
circumstances or places.

• Leward’s whack is a castigation kind of punishment

with respect to Jake’s kicking
 REMOVAL PUNISHMENT OR PENALTY

• Once the rat has been trained, if the

experimeter removes the food pellet unless
the rat gets into it within a specified time after
pressing the lever, the rat may soon stop
drawdling and licking its chops the way to the
food tray.
• If Jazon his jelly beans taken away at
lunchtime because he licked them, rub them
on the wall, ground them into the floor, and
then hurled them at his sister, this is an
example of a penalty punishment.
 PUNISHMENT VERSUS NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT

• Both often involve aversive consequences

(negative contingencies)
 REINFORCEMENT AND PUNISHMENT
Positive Negative
contingency contingency
Jazon is given a million for Jake has his ears pulled for
behaving well misbehaving
(positive reinforcement/reward) (presentation punishment/
castigation)

Jazon has his million taken Jake’s ears are released when
away for misbehaving he behaves well again
(removal punishment/ penalty) (negative reinforcement/ relief)
 CONSEQUENC
BEHAVIOR E

REINFORCEMEN
PUNISHMENT T

POSITIV NEGATIVE
E
 SAFE DRIVING

FREE GAS BUZZ

REINFORCEMENT
 OVER SPEEDING

TICKET LICENSED

PUNISHMENT
PRIMARY AND SECODARY REINFORCERS
 PRIMARY REINFORCER
• Primary reinforcer includes events that are
reinforcing without any learning having taken place.

Example: unlearned needs

 SECONDARY REINFORCEMENT

• Are event that are not reinforcing to begin with but

become reinforcing as a result of being paired with
the reinforcers.

• Ex. Light in skinner box

 GENERALIZED REINFORCER

• These are learned reinforcer that appears to

reinforce any of wide of variety of behaviours.

• Example: human’s desire

 SHAPING

• Shaping is the technique used to train animals to

perform acts that are not ordinarily in their
repertoire.
• It is sometimes referred as the method of
successive approximations or as a method
involving the differential reinforcement of
successive approximation.
 CHAINING
• The linking of sequences of responses

• Ex. Combing your hair

 CHAINS IN SHAPING

• When a behavior is shaped, chains are

established.