B. F. Skinner Essays -- essays research papers

B. F. mule skinnerBurris Frederic muleteer was born on March 20th, 1904 in Susquehanna,Pennsylvania. His mother, Grace M. Burrhus, was a stenographer and a secretary,in a law note and later in a railroad chief executives office. His father,William A. Skinner, was an attorney, who studied law with another local attorneyat a New York Law School. Skinners parents were both good students. His fatherhad bought several sets of books, so there was a bevy of reading material theirchildren. Skinner said that his parents never used physical punishment, missfor the time they washed his mouth out with soap for bad language. (Ulrich,1997) B. F. Skinner was very adventurous child. He lead a 300 mile boat tripdown the Susquehanna River when he was only 13 years old. He was a naturalinventor and he loved build things. One of his inventions include a device thatautomatically reminded him to hang up his pajamas in the morning. He played thesaxophone in a jazz band during high give instruction a nd played piano until his failingeyesight made it hard for him to read the music. In college, he was veryindependent, and sometimes even a prankster. He have from Hamilton Collegein 1926 and later received his P.h.D. in psychology at Harvard University.(Ulrich, 1997) rump B. Watson     John Broadus Watson was born in Greenville, South Carolina on January9th 1878. He went to college at Furman University and the University of Chicago.Watson created " mental behaviorism" in 1912. He told the world about histheory of behaviorism in a 1913 paper entitled Psychology as the BehavioristViews It. In the paper he described Behaviorism as the part of psychology thatshows behavior as "a series of observable movements in time and spot". (Turner,1997) He rejected both conscious and unconscious mental activities and definedbehavior as a response to a stimulus. A few of John B. Watsons literary worksinclude the following books and papers Animal Education, Behav ior, Psychologyfrom the Standpoint of a Behaviorist, Behaviorism, and Psychological Care ofInfant and Child. (Turner, 1997)     Along with his own theories of behaviorism, Skinner developed the theoryof operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is based on the idea that "webehave the way we do because this kind of behavior has ... ...duces thestimulus."(Skinner, 1938) For Skinners Behaviorism page 7 example, Skinners cattries to remove his flea collar because it irritates his sensitive skin. Skinnerremoves the collar from the cat as a form of negative reinforcement. (Skinner,1938) In his time, B. F. Skinner attempt to make a lot of changes in modernpsychology. Made people didnt agree with his changes because he didnt thinkthat psychology had to do with feels or emotions. He matte up that psychology hadsuffered in the past because it tried to explain human behavior in terms offeelings and states of mind. Skinner thought that psychology had wasted a lo t oftime making theories about the mind and personality. He suggested thatpsychology should only deal with behavior that is "observable in the world inwhich it occurs." (Henderson, 1990) In conclusion, B. F. Skinner was a veryintelligent man that viewed behavior as "a response to a stimulus." Though hemay have based his theories generally on animal testing and he many have evenportrayed man as a being without feelings, creativity, or morality, he was actuallygreat and saw behaviorism like no one had seen it before. (Skinner, 1938)