Skinner: Behavioral Analysis

Kristoffer Ryan T. Gidaya, PhD, RGC, RPsy

Overview of Skinner's 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.
Biography of B. F. Skinner

• B. F. Skinner was born in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania in

1904, the older of two brothers.
• While in college, Skinner wanted to be a writer, but after
having little success in this endeavor, he turned to
psychology.
• After earning a PhD from Harvard, he taught at the
Universities of Minnesota and Indiana before returning to
Harvard, where he remained until his death in 1990.
Precursors to Skinner's Scientific Behaviorism

• Modern learning theory has roots in the work of Edward L.

Thorndike and his experiments with animals during the last part of
the 19th century.
• Thorndike's law of effect stated that responses followed by a
satisfier tend to be learned, a concept that anticipated Skinner's
use of positive reinforcement to shape behavior.
• Skinner was even more influenced by John Watson who argued
that psychology must deal with the control and prediction of
behavior and that behavior—not introspection, consciousness, or
the mind—is the basic data of scientific psychology.
Scientific Behaviorism

• Skinner believed that human behavior, like any other

natural phenomena, is subject to the laws of science, and
that psychologists should not attribute inner motivations to
it.
• Although he rejected internal states (thoughts, emotions,
desires, etc.) as being outside the realm of science,
Skinner did not deny their existence.
• He simply insisted that they should not be used to explain
behavior.
A. Philosophy of Science

• Because the purpose of science is to predict and control,

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.
B. Characteristics of Science

• Skinner held that science has three principal

characteristics:
– (1) its findings are cumulative,
– (2) it rests on an attitude that values empirical observation, and
– (3) it searches for order and reliable relationships.
Conditioning

• Skinner recognized two kinds of conditioning:

– classical
– operant.
A. Classical Conditioning

• In classical conditioning, a conditioned stimulus is paired

with an unconditioned stimulus until it is capable of
bringing about a previously unconditioned response.
– Watson and Rainier conditioned a young boy to fear a white rat
(the conditioned stimulus) by associating it to a loud sudden
noise (an unconditioned stimulus).
– Eventually, through the process of generalization, the boy
learned to fear stimuli that resembled the white rat.
B. Operant Conditioning

• With operant conditioning, reinforcement is used to

increase the probability that a given behavior will recur.
• Three factors are essential in operant conditioning:
– (1) the antecedent, or environment in which behavior takes
place;
– (2) the behavior, or response; and
– (3) the consequence that follows the behavior.
• Psychologists and others use shaping to mold complex
human behavior.
• Different histories of reinforcement result in operant
discrimination, meaning that different organisms will
respond differently to the same environmental
contingencies.
• People may also respond similarly to different
environmental stimuli, a process Skinner called stimulus
generalization.
• Anything within the environment that strengthens a
behavior is a reinforcer.
– Positive reinforcement is any stimulus that when added to a
situation increases the probability that a given behavior will
occur.
– Negative reinforcement is the strengthening of behavior through
the removal of an aversive stimulus.
– Both positive and negative reinforcement strengthen behavior.
• Any event that decreases a behavior either by
presenting an aversive stimulus or by removing a
positive one is called punishment.
– The effects of punishment are much less predictable than
those of reward.
• Both punishment and reinforcement can result
from either natural consequences or from human
imposition.
• Conditioned reinforcers are those stimuli that are not by
nature satisfying (e.g., money), but that can become so
when they are associated with a primary reinforcers, such
as food.
• Generalized reinforcers are conditioned reinforcers that
have become associated with several primary reinforcers.
• Reinforcement can follow behavior on either a continuous
schedule or on an intermittent schedule.
• There are four basic intermittent schedules:
– (1) fixed-ratio, on which the organism is reinforced intermittently
according to the number of responses it makes;
– (2) variable-ratio, on which the organism is reinforced after an
average of a predetermined number of responses;
– (3) fixed-interval, on which the organism is reinforced for the
first response following a designated period of time; and
– (4) variable interval, on which the organism is reinforced after
the lapse of various periods of time.
• The tendency of a previously acquired response to
become progressively weakened upon
nonreinforcement is called extinction.
• Such elimination or weakening of a response is
called classical extinction in a classical
conditioning model and operant extinction when
the response is acquired through operant
conditioning.
The Human Organism

• Skinner believed that human behavior is shaped by three

forces:
– (1) natural selection,
– (2) the evolution of cultures, and
– (3) the individual's personal history of reinforcement
A. Natural Selection

• As a species, our behavior is shaped by the

contingencies of survival; that is, those behaviors (e.g.,
sex and aggression) that were beneficial to the human
species tended to survive, whereas those that did not
tended to drop out.
•
B. Cultural Evolution

• Those societies that evolved certain cultural practices (e.g.

tool making and language) tended to survive.
• Currently, the lives of nearly all people are shaped, in part,
by modern tools (computers, media, various modes of
transportation, etc.) 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.
C. Inner States

• Skinner recognized the existence of such inner states as

drives and self-awareness, but he rejected the notion that
they can explain behavior.
– Drives refer to the effects of deprivation and satiation and thus
are related to the probability of certain behaviors, but they are
not the causes of behavior.
– Skinner believed that emotions can be accounted for by the
contingencies of survival and the contingencies of
reinforcement; but like drives, they do not cause behavior.
– Similarly, purpose and intention are not causes of behavior,
although they are felt sensations and exist within the skin.
D. Complex Behavior

• Human behavior is subject to the same principles of operant

conditioning as simple animal behavior, but it is much more
complex and difficult to predict or control.
• Skinner explained creativity as the result of random or accidental
behaviors that happen to be rewarded.
• Skinner believed that most of our behavior is unconscious or
automatic and that not thinking about certain experiences is
reinforcing.
• Skinner viewed dreams as covert and symbolic forms of behavior
that are subject to the same contingencies of reinforcement as
any other behavior.
E. Control of Human Behavior

• Ultimately, all of a person's behavior is controlled by the

environment.
• Societies exercise control over their members through
laws, rules, and customs that transcend any one person's
means of countercontrol.
• There are four basic methods of social control:
– (1) operant conditioning, including positive and negative
reinforcement and punishment;
– (2) describing contingencies, or using language to
inform people of the consequence of their behaviors;
– (3) deprivation and satiation, techniques that increase
the likelihood that people will behave in a certain way;
and
– (4) physical restraint, including the jailing of criminals.
• Although Skinner denied the existence of free will, he did
recognize that people manipulate variables within their
own environment and thus exercise some measure of
self-control, which has several techniques:
– (1) physical restraint,
– (2) physical aids, such as tools;
– (3) changing environmental stimuli;
– (4) arranging the environment to allow escape from aversive
stimuli;
– (5) drugs; and
– (6) doing something else.
The Unhealthy Personality

• Social control and self-control sometimes produce

counteracting strategies and inappropriate behaviors.
• A. Counteracting Strategies
– People can counteract excessive social control by
• (1) escaping from it,
• (2) revolting against it, or
• (3) passively resisting it.
• B. Inappropriate Behaviors
– Inappropriate behaviors follow from self-defeating techniques of
counteracting social control or from unsuccessful attempts at
self-control.
Psychotherapy

• 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.
Critique of Skinner

• 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.
Concept of Humanity

• 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.