Background
Skinner, Burrhus F rede rick was born in 1904 in Susquehanna. Pennsylvania.
Skinner, Burrhus F rede rick was born in 1904 in Susquehanna. Pennsylvania.
Hamilton College and Harvard University.
1936, University of Minnesota. 1944, University of Indiana. 1948, Harvard University.
Skinner', New York Review of Books, 30 December. Sagal. Paul T. (1981) Skinner's Philosophy, Washington, DC: University Press of America. Skinner’s most important work has been in empirical psychology. He eschewed, for the purposes of psychology, any concern with unobservables, whether mental or physical, and held that psychology should study directly patterns of behaviour. In particular, he concentrated on the responses of organisms to external stimuli which, by ‘punishing’ or ‘rewarding’ behaviour, processes which he called positive and negative reinforcement, build up the patterns of behaviour which are the basis of psychological laws. Most of his experimental work was done with pigeons and rats in what are often referred to as ‘Skinner Boxes’, but he also attempted to apply his techniques to the study of human behaviour. Skinner wrote a considerable amount of somewhat amateurish philosophy, most famously in his novel Walden Two (1948), and most systematically in Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971). He held that mental states, including the having of intentions and purposes, were at most epiphenomenal, a by-product of the patterns of behaviour to which we mistakenly think they give rise. Since all patterns of behaviour, according to Skinner, are the product of past reinforcement, there is no such thing as freedom if this is thought of as freedom from all external control. Properly understood, the desire for freedom is simply the desire that our behaviour be produced by positive reinforcers rather than aversive ones. This desire is one that Skinner thought we should respect. He held that society could not avoid control but that it should try to move away from punishment as a mode of social control, and that it should be practicable to design a world in which positive reinforcement would make punishable behaviour nonexistent. This may seem to threaten man’s dignity, but that is a concept that Skinner deals with dismissively. He held that the intentional design of a culture, and the control of human behaviour that it implies, are essential if the human species is to continue to develop. Outside of academicpsychology, Skinner’s main influence has been in the field of education. He was a pioneer in the development of programmed instruction for use with so-called ‘teaching machines’.