Commentary On Opening Skinner's Box By Lauren Slater

He attended Harvard where he studied psychology and received his doctorate. B.F. Skinner was diagnosed with leukemia in 1989 at the age of 85, and he lost the fight with leukemia the following year in 1990. B .F. Skinner is best known for his

Opening Skinner’s Box by Lauren Slater tells of experiments conducted by a physiologist named B.F. Skinner and controversies that surrounded them. Since some people did not agree with Skinner and his experiments, legends were created regarding him. One of these legends being that, “He built a baby box in which he kept his daughter Deborah for two full years in order to train her, tracking her progress on a grid.” (Slater 7) Skinner strived to shape the behavior of people, so while he did build his daughter, Deborah, a baby box to test out theories and experiments, she did not spend a full 2 years of her life in this “baby box” as the legend says. However, since there was some controversies surrounding Skinner’s experiments legends such as these

In the book “Opening Skinner’s Box”, Lauren Slater discusses many complicated ideas relating to certain experiments of recent times. In every chapter, she focuses on one specific experiment and poses many controversial thoughts. One of the chapters I found most interesting was the second chapter titled “Obscura”. In it she walks readers through the experiments of Stanley Milgram and questions the purpose, results, usefulness, and morality of the experiments.

Operant conditioning is accredited to a psychologist named B.F. Skinner. He is well known for his operant box experiment, also known as the Skinner Box. The Skinner Box is this experiment was used to train rats to tap a lever to collect some type of recompense, like a sugar pellet. Skinner discovered with his rat experiment, that animals could be trained to

" It is best summed up by the following quote from Watson, who is often considered the "father" of behaviourism: "Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I 'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select—doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors." Several thinkers influenced behavioural psychology. In addition to those already mentioned, there are a number of prominent theorists and psychologists who left an indelible mark on behavioural psychology. Among these are Edward Thorndike, a pioneering psychologist who described the law of effect, and Clark Hull, who proposed the drive theory of

Behaviorists believe that anything to do with cognition is outside the study of psychology and they define psychology as the study of observable behavior whereas Freud placed much emphasis on mental life. Freud divided the mind into three parts the conscious, the preconscious and the unconscious. He believed that the unconscious mind contained desires, inaccessible memories and impulses that are responsible for human behavior. Skinner embraced psychology as a science by using experiments and observations to prove his theories.

Skinners experiment was based on operant conditioning, using the concept of discrimination learning, he carried out experiments on animals with the idea that their behaviour is predetermined by their environment and using a well controlled environment would allow him to in turn control their behaviours using a range of triggers. Using reinforcement and expectancy, the animal associates acting out certain behaviours with rewards. (Toates, F., 2010, pp. 165-167) After performing a number of experiments on rats using mazes, he subsequently designed the Skinner box.

Then, it was B.F. Skinner who made the concept became popular and well-known throughout the world and even pinned the name of operant conditioning to this concept That is why, he is called the Father of Operant Conditioning and his famous experiment, the Skinner Box. Operant conditioning determinants’ are reinforce, nature response and time interval between response and reinforcement. On the other hand, classical conditioning is a learning way that connects between two stimuli which produce natural response. It measures one stimulus that

Skinner mastered. Some think that using Operant conditioning with positive and negative punishment and negative reinforcement works better than positive reinforcement. The positive reinforcement has consequences and comes with a rewarding outlook. This is a consequence that causes a behavior to increase. It would work out better if the adult explains to the child what was done and how to fix it than to punish with negative reinforcement.

Fearing he would be fired due to the growing rumors he left Chicago and pursued different jobs. Later that year, he decided to move his family to Maryland further his career at John Hopkins University. There, he would the chairman for the psychology department until 1920 (Weiland). It was at John Hopkins University where Watson did some of his most influential work, like the Little Albert experiment. Unfortunately, Watson yet again was forced to leave his place of work due to familial conflict.

Skinners experiment was standardised and controlled it made the study more reliable because there were no influences from other factors like extraneous variables/confounding variables. This shows that researchers could have compromised ecological validity for other factors that are just as important in psychological

The Positive and Negative of Operant Conditioning and The Most Effective Method There are many ways we can come about in behavior. An American psychologist, B.F. Skinner, introduced the theory of operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is known as associative learning and a learning process. The theory is made up of two factors in which behavior is modified through either reinforcement and or punishment.

Between 1964-1965 she was a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow with the Committee on Mathematical Biology at the University of Chicago. In 1966 she took a teaching position with Loyola University at Chicago. In 1973 she began teaching Cognitive Psychology and running her own data research lab at State University

In contrast to Redl and Wattenberg 's theories about teachers; Skinner 's theory states that behaving students will continue to demonstrate positive behavior. The misbehaving students, desiring the positive reinforcement, will begin to behave appropriately. Redl and Wattenberg 's (1959) theories have contributed significantly to classroom management. Middle school educators can take several directions from those theories. Some of which are understanding group dynamics where one 6th-grade teacher established a rule that students must raise their hands to answer a question.

1. B.F. Skinner: Behaviour modification Positive and negative reinforcements or rewards and punishments are used to modify or shape learner’s behaviour. B. F. Skinner’s entire system 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.