BEHAVIORISM

by Burrus Fredric
Skinner

PRESENTED BY : SWAPAN PALAK

ROLL -898, SEC- ‘A’
 B.F. Skinner (1904- 1990)

 Born on march,20 1904 in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania.

 Skinner started his career as an English major, writing poems and
short stories.
 He attended Harvard where he got his masters in psychology (1930)
and his doctorate (1931),and stayed there to do research until 1936
and studied in the field of psychology (behaviours).
 Died of leukemia on august 18, 1990.
 Skinner said that: psychology was science of
behaviour of what an organism does.
 Psychologists must restrict their investigation to
‘facts’, to what they can see, manipulate and
measure in laboratory.
 He also said that, human beings are “empty
organisms” by which he meant that there is
nothing inside us that can explain behaviour in
scientific terms.
 His theory was based upon the idea that
learning is a function of change in ‘overt
behaviour’. and his interest was in behavioural
response of ‘stimuli’.
 Operant Conditioning

 Skinner’s theory is based on operant

conditioning. It is a method of learning
that occurs through Rewards and
Punishments for behaviour.
 He is regarded as father of operant
conditioning, his work is based on
Thorndike’s (law of effect).
 Pleaseant Consequences = behaviour is
likely to be repeated.
 Unpleaseant Consequences = behaviour
is less likely to be repeated.
3 types of responses or operants
that can follow behaviour.

 Neutral operants: responses from the environment that neither

increases nor decreases the probability of a behaviour being
repeated.
 Reinforces: responses from the environment that increases the
probability of a behaviour being repeated.
 Punishers: responses from the environment that decreases the
likelihood of a behaviour being repeated. Punishment weakens the
behaviour.
 Skinner’s box

 Skinner studied operant conditioning by

conducting experiments using animals
which he placed in a skinner’s box . Let us
follow the progress of food deprived Rat in
skinner’s operant- conditioning apparatus.
 Positive Reinforcement

 Positive Reinforcement strengthens the

behaviour by providing a consequence
an individual find rewarding.
 For example, the rat presses the lever
and receives the food(reward).
 Negative Reinforcement

 Negative reinforcement is removal of an

adverse stimulus which is ‘rewarding’ to
the animals or persons. Negative
reinforcement strengthens behaviour
because it stops or removes an
unpleasant experience.
 For example, the rat in the skinner box
pressed the lever to stop the electric
current.
 Punishment

 Punishment is opposite of reinforcement as

it is designed to weaken or eliminate the
response rather than decrease it.
 Positive punishment: Like, reinforcement
punishment can work either by “directly
applying an unpleasant stimulus” like a
shock after a response
 Negative Punishment: or by “removing a
potentially rewarding stimulus.” For
instance, deducting someone’s pocket
money to punish undesirable behaviour.
 Schedules of Reinforcement
 Continuous Reinforcement: an animal/human is positively reinforced every time
a specific behaviour occurs.

 Fixed Ratio Reinforcement: behaviour is reinforced only after the behaviour

occurs a specified number of times. That is, there is a fixed ratio between
behaviours and reinforces.

 Fixed Interval Schedule: one reinforcement is given after a fixed time interval
providing at least one correct response has been made.

 Variable Ratio Reinforcement: behaviour is reinforced after an unpredictable

number of times.

 Variable Interval Ratio: providing one correct response has been made,
reinforcement is given after an unpredictable amount of time has passed.
 Applications of Operant
Conditioning
 Psychologists have applied skinner’s operant
condition technique to modify human
behaviour in clinical, business, and educational
settings.
 Behaviour modification: a form of therapy that
applies the principle of reinforcement to bring
about desired behavioural changes.
 Token economy: a behavioural modification
technique in which tokens, which can be
exchanged for valued objects or privileges, are
awarded for desirable behaviours.
 Educational applications: in the conventional
learning situation operant condition applies
largely to class or student management, rather
than to learning content.
 Critical evaluation

 It can be used to explain a wide variety of behaviours, such

as learning, addiction and language acquisition.
 It is also applicable in practical application such as
classrooms, prisons and psychiatric hospitals.
 It fails to take into account the role of inherited and
cognitive factors.
 Thus, it is an incomplete explanation of the learning process
in humans and animals.
 Some psychologists also argue , we cannot generalize from
studies on animals to humans as their anatomy and
psychology is different from humans.
THANK YOU.