B. F. Skinner

Drawing of B. F. Skinner

Burrhus Frederic "B. F." Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist and author. He conducted pioneering work on experimental psychology and advocated behaviorism, which seeks to understand behavior as a function of environmental histories of experiencing consequences. He also wrote a number of controversial works in which he proposed the widespread use of psychological behavior modification techniques, primarily operant conditioning, in order to improve society and increase human happiness; and as a form of social engineering.

Skinner was born in rural Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania to Edward Skinner, a lawyer, and Grace. His brother Edward, two and a half years his junior, died at sixteen of a cerebral aneurysm. He attended Hamilton College in New York with the intention of becoming a writer. While attending, he joined Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity, and eventually received a B.A. in English literature in 1926. After graduation, he spent a year at his parents' home in Scranton, attempting to become a writer of fiction, but he soon became disillusioned with his literary skills and concluded that he had little world experience, and no strong personal perspective from which to write. During this time, which Skinner later called "the dark year," he chanced upon a copy of Bertrand Russell's recently published book An Outline of Philosophy, in which Russell discusses the behaviorist philosophy of psychologist John B. Watson. At the time, Skinner had begun to take more interest in the actions and behaviors of those around him, and some of his short stories had taken a "psychological" slant. He decided to abandon literature and seek admission as a graduate student in psychology at Harvard University. While a graduate student, he invented the Skinner box.

Skinner received a Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard in 1931 and remained at that institution as a researcher until 1936. He then taught at the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis and later at Indiana University before returning to Harvard as a tenured professor in 1948. He remained there for the rest of his career.

In 1936 Skinner married Yvonne Blue (1911-1997); the couple had two daughters, Julie (m. Vargas) and Deborah (m. Buzan).

Skinner was granted numerous awards in his lifetime. In 1968, he received the National Medal of Science from President Lyndon B. Johnson. Three years later, he was awarded the Gold Medal of the American Psychological Foundation, and in 1972, he was given the Humanist of the Year Award of the American Humanist Association. Just eight days before his death, he received the first Citation for Outstanding Lifetime Contribution to Psychology by the American Psychological Association (Epstein, 1997).

He died of leukemia and is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Heart of Skinner's Behaviorism

In his book About Behaviorism --a book that he wrote to explain his behaviorism to his critics-- Skinner calls the points below "the heart of behaviorism". The points he makes are genuine breakthroughs and first time insights in the history of recorded thought. They are nothing like what one usually sees in psychology. (These may some of the reasons why people find Skinner so hard to accept.) (the following needs rewrite and polishing).

Skinner’s behaviorism has been accused of (among other things) ignoring thoughts, feelings, and the like, since the focus is only on behavior. This is not true at all – in fact, for from ignoring the mind, Skinner may have made a breakthrough contribution to understanding it, for the first time in the history of recorded thought. According to Skinner private events are best viewed as more learned (often verbal) behavior to be explained. Skinner’s explanation of private events is nothing short of brilliant and runs along the following lines:

1. As a child grows up, it learns non-verbal behavior as dictated by the law of effect (studied in great detail by Skinner) – the learning is accompanied by changes in the child’s nervous system

2. These changes do not produce any stimulation (that can be sensed) since there are “no nerves going to the right places” (i.e., there are no nerves between the parts of the nervous system that cause behavior change and the parts of the nervous system that causes stimulation). (This is a brilliant explanation for Freud’s “unconscious”. Also, this is such a specific observation/insight that other fields like anatomy and physiology can say whether this is right or wrong. How common is this kind of insight in psychology?) The only way to study this type of learning is by studying stuff like the setting, the behavior, the consequences, and the change in behavior.

3. The child is also taught to describe via public verbal statements its behavior and the behavior’s “causes” in a running commentary of sorts even though it cannot sense its own learning taking place.

4. Once the child learns to make public verbal statements it also starts making private verbal statements, i.e., it starts reasoning, analyzing, etc.

5. Such cognitive behavior is of limited use for the following reason also (in addition to “no nerves going to the right places”: the teacher of such behavior cannot sense the learner’s private sensations, has to depend on collateral public behavior, and thus the teaching is imprecise. In other words, the learner himself cannot sense learning making changes in his own body. However, he can sense some other things related to learned behavior occurring. The teacher can sense neither of this. The result is highly limited public verbal statements and private verbal statements (i.e., cognitive thought).

6. When we behave, the learned private verbal statements occur just before we behave. This is a red herring. This causes attention away from the real causes of behavior namely the setting, the behavior, the consequences, and the change in behavior. All these can be only studied experimentally.

Superstition in the pigeon

One of Skinner's experiments examined the formation of superstition in one of his favorite experimental animals, the pigeon. Skinner placed a series of hungry pigeons in a cage attached to an automatic mechanism that delivered food to the pigeon "at regular intervals with no reference whatsoever to the bird's behavior". He discovered that the pigeons associated the delivery of the food with whatever chance actions they had been performing as it was delivered, and that they subsequently continued to perform these same actions.

One bird was conditioned to turn counter-clockwise about the cage, making two or three turns between reinforcements. Another repeatedly thrust its head into one of the upper corners of the cage. A third developed a 'tossing' response, as if placing its head beneath an invisible bar and lifting it repeatedly. Two birds developed a pendulum motion of the head and body, in which the head was extended forward and swung from right to left with a sharp movement followed by a somewhat slower return.

— B.F. Skinner, "'Superstition' in the Pigeon", Journal of Experimental Psychology #38, 1947 [1]

Skinner suggested that the pigeons believed that they were influencing the automatic mechanism with their "rituals" and that this experiment shed light on human behavior:

The experiment might be said to demonstrate a sort of superstition. The bird behaves as if there were a causal relation between its behavior and the presentation of food, although such a relation is lacking. There are many analogies in human behavior. Rituals for changing one's fortune at cards are good examples. A few accidental connections between a ritual and favorable consequences suffice to set up and maintain the behavior in spite of many unreinforced instances. The bowler who has released a ball down the alley but continues to behave as if she were controlling it by twisting and turning her arm and shoulder is another case in point. These behaviors have, of course, no real effect upon one's luck or upon a ball half way down an alley, just as in the present case the food would appear as often if the pigeon did nothing -- or, more strictly speaking, did something else.

— Ibid

Modern behavioral psychologists have disputed Skinner's "superstition" explanation for the behaviors he recorded. Subsequent research (for instance, by Staddon and Simmelhag in 1971) while finding similar behavior failed to find support for Skinner's "adventitious reinforcement" explanation for it. By looking at the timing of different behaviors within the interval, Staddon and Simmelhag were able to distinguish two classes of behavior: the terminal response, which occurred in anticipation of food, and interim responses, that occurred earlier in the interfood interval and were rarely contiguous with food. Terminal responses seem to reflect classical (rather than operant) conditioning, rather than adventitious reinforcement, guided by a process like that observed in 1968 by Brown and Jenkins in their "autoshaping" procedures. The causation of interim activities (such as the schedule-induced polydipsia seen in a similar situation with rats) also cannot be traced to adventitious reinforcement and its details are still obscure (Staddon, 1977). Eduardo J. Fernandez of the Department of Psychology of Indiana University sought to follow up on Staddon and Simmelhag's debunking of Skinner's hypothesis and to "further contrast superstitious versus functional interpretations of behavior" in pigeons. In a 2004 paper titled "Superstition Re-revisited: An Examination of Niche-Related Mechanisms Underlying Schedule Produced Behavior in Pigeons," he demonstrated that what Skinner had seen as "superstitious" behaviour was accounted for by the natural foraging behaviours of the species he used as test subjects.[2]

Social engineering

Skinner is popularly known mainly for his controversial books Walden Two and Beyond Freedom and Dignity. Walden Two describes a visit to an imaginary utopian commune in the 1940s United States, where the productivity and happiness of the citizens is far in advance of that in the outside world due to their practice of scientific social planning and the use of operant conditioning in the raising of children.

Walden Two, like Thoreau's Walden, champions a lifestyle that does not support war or foster competition and social strife. It encourages a lifestyle of minimal consumption, rich social relationships, personal happiness, satisfying work and leisure.

In Beyond Freedom and Dignity Skinner suggests that a technology of behavior could help make a better society, and the autonomous agent was not the driving force for one's own actions. Skinner offered alternatives to punishment and challenged the people of the future to use modern technology for more than just war, such as building a better society that actually helped people. Many people have argued that Skinner has ulterior motives, such as the believers in the existence of free will who are challenged by his ideas that free will may not exist.

As understood by Skinner, ascribing dignity to individuals involves giving them credit for their actions. To say "Skinner is brilliant" means that Skinner is an originating force. If Skinner is right, he is merely the focus of his environment. He is not an originating force and he had no choice in saying the things he said or doing the things he did. Skinner's environment and genetics both allowed and compelled him to write his book (unless the book's claims are untrue, which is a separate issue). Similarly, the environment and genetic potentials of the advocates of freedom and dignity cause them to resist the reality that their own activities are deterministically grounded. J. E. R. Staddon (The New Behaviorism, 2001) has argued the compatibilist position, that Skinner's determinism is not in any way contradictory to traditional notions of reward and punishment, as he believed.

Skinner's types of schedules of reinforcement involved: continuous, interval (fixed or variable), and ratio (fixed or variable).

• Continuous reinforcement -consisted of a constant delivery of reinforcement for an action, that every time a specific action was performed the subject instantly and always received a reinforcement. This method is prone to extinction and is very hard to enforce.
• Interval (fixed/variable) reinforcement (Fixed)- is when the reinforcement is set for certain times.

(Variable)- is when the times between reinforcement are not set, but often differ every time.

• Ratio (fixed or variable) reinforcement (Fixed)- deals with a set amount of work needed to be completed before there is reinforcement. (Variable)- the amount of work needed for the reinforcement differs from the last.

Political views

Skinner's political writings emphasized his hopes that an effective and humane science of behavioral control - a behavioral technology - could solve human problems which were not solved by earlier approaches or were actively aggravated by advances in physical technology such as the atomic bomb. One of Skinner's stated goals was to prevent humanity from destroying itself.

Skinner was sometimes accused of being a totalitarian by his critics. In addition to his aspirations to state design, Skinner was a determinist, believing that all our behavior is profoundly determined and influenced by the environment.

Skinner saw the problems of political control not as a battle of domination versus freedom, but as choices of what kinds of control were used for what purposes. Skinner opposed the use of coercion, punishment and fear and supported the use of positive reinforcement.

Skinner's book Walden Two presents a vision of a decentralized, localized society which applies a practical, scientific approach and futuristically advanced behavioral expertise to peacefully deal with social problems. Skinner's utopia, like every other utopia or dystopia, is both a thought experiment and a rhetorical work.

Skinner answers a problem that exists in many utopian novels: "What is the Good Life?" Skinner answers that it is a life of friendship, health, art, a healthy balance between work and leisure, a minimum of unpleasantness, and a feeling that one has made worthwhile contributions to one's society.

Additionally Skinner felt behavioral technology would offer alternatives to coercion, good science applied right would help society, and we would all be better off if we cooperated with each other peacefully. Skinner's novel has been described by Skinner as "my New Atlantis" referring to Bacon's utopia.

Intellectual opponents, ranging from Noam Chomsky to Ayn Rand, in their attempt to show Skinner wrong, have equated Skinner's philosophic determinism with political oppression. Skinner has often been associated with political and social positions he never espoused and even explicitly objected to.

"When Milton's Satan falls from heaven, he ends in hell. And what does he say to reassure himself? 'Here, at least, we shall be free.' And that, I think, is the fate of the old-fashioned liberal. He's going to be free, but he's going to find himself in hell." – B. F. Skinner (William F. Buckley, Jr., "On the Firing Line", 87.)

Rumors

One often-repeated but wrong urban legend claims that Skinner ventured into human experiments by raising his daughter Deborah in a Skinner box, which led to life-long mental illness and a bitter resentment towards her father. Accounts of Deborah's supposed suicide in a bowling alley in Montana even made it to scholarly papers.

In fact, the baby tender, air-crib, or "Heir Conditioner," a humorous term for Skinner's baby tender, was heated, had filtered air, with the approximate space of any other child's crib. It was designed to make the early childcare more simple (by greatly reducing laundry, diaper rash, cradle cap, etc.), while encouraging the baby to be more confident, more mobile, more comfortable, less sick, and therefor less prone to cry, and so on. Reportedly it had some success in these goals.. Air-cribs were later commercially manufactured by several companies, most successfully by T.M.I. (Teaching Machines Incorporated). Air-cribs of some fashion are still used to this day, and publications continue to dispel myths about, and tout the progressive advantages of Skinner's original.

In 2004, psychologist and author Lauren Slater published a book, Opening Skinner's Box, which mentioned claims that Deborah Skinner (now Deborah Skinner Buzan) unsuccessfully sued her father for abuse, and later committed suicide. In response, Buzan herself came forward and denounced the story as nothing more than outrageous rumors.. Buzan wrote, "there's the story that after my father 'let me out', I became psychotic. Well, I didn't. That I sued him in a court of law is also untrue. And, contrary to hearsay, I didn't shoot myself in a bowling alley in Billings, Montana. I have never even been to Billings, Montana."

The Church of Scientology often repeats the rumor about Skinner raising his baby in a box. Freedom Magazine and its online incarnation report that Skinner used a Skinner box on his baby, writing under his picture, "B.F. SKINNER created experimental 'Skinner Boxes' — small, enclosed containers for animals, with signaling levers and food chutes — even fashioning a 'baby box' version to monitor and modify his own infant daughter’s behavior." The Church of Scientology also has a "Psychiatry: An Industry of Death" museum in Los Angeles, California that repeats the claim about Skinner raising his baby in a Skinner box.

Trivia

• According to a photo caption at the site of Los Horcones community (which was inspired by Skinner's Walden Two), in his youth Skinner used to swim in Thoreau's Walden Pond.
• The show Lost mentions Skinner, and its plot may resemble social engineering.
• The TV show The Simpsons references Skinner, in an episode where psychiatrist Marvin Monroe asks for $100,000 to buy a kid for his already built "Monroe Box".
• The Simpsons character Principal Seymour Skinner is named after B F Skinner. Many of the early writers of The Simpsons were educated at Harvard University while Skinner was alive.
• Skinner is referenced in a further episode of The Simpsons where Principal Skinner tells Lisa that every good scientist is part P. T. Barnum and part B. F. Skinner.
• In the movie Howard Stern: Private Parts, Stern makes reference to Skinner by saying, "And you know I think Skinner was right, we're all just mice trapped in a box, searching for a piece of cheese."

Works

• The Behavior of Organisms: An Experimental Analysis, 1938. ISBN 1-58390-007-1, ISBN 0-87411-487-X.
• Walden Two, 1948. ISBN 0-02-411510-X.
• Science and Human Behavior, 1953. ISBN 0-02-929040-6.
• Schedules of Reinforcement, with C. B. Ferster, 1957. ISBN 0-13-792309-0.
• Verbal Behavior, 1957. ISBN 1-58390-021-7.
• The Analysis of Behavior: A Program for Self Instruction, with James G. Holland, 1961. This self-instruction book is no longer in print, but the B.F. Skinner Foundation web site has an interactive version. ISBN 0-07-029565-4.
• The Technology of Teaching, 1968.
• Contingencies of Reinforcement: A Theoretical Analysis, 1969. ISBN 0-390-81280-3.
• Beyond Freedom and Dignity, 1971. ISBN 0-394-42555-3.
• About Behaviorism, 1974. ISBN 0-394-49201-3
• Particulars of My Life: Part One of an Autobiography, 1976. ISBN 0-394-40071-2.
• Reflections on Behaviorism and Society, 1978. ISBN 0-13-770057-1.
• The Shaping of a Behaviorist: Part Two of an Autobiography, 1979. ISBN 0-394-50581-6.
• Notebooks, edited by Robert Epstein, 1980. ISBN 0-13-624106-9.
• Skinner for the Classroom, edited by R. Epstein, 1982. ISBN 0-87822-261-8.
• Enjoy Old Age: A Program of Self-Management, with M. E. Vaughan, 1983.
• A Matter of Consequences: Part Three of an Autobiography, 1983. ISBN 0-394-53226-0, ISBN 0-8147-7845-3.
• Upon Further Reflection, 1987. ISBN 0-13-938986-5.
• Recent Issues in the Analysis of Behavior, 1989. ISBN 0-675-20674-X.
• Cumulative Record: A Selection of Papers, 1959, 1961, 1972 and 1999 as Cumulative Record: Definitive Edition. This book includes a reprint of Skinner's October 1945 Ladies' Home Journal article, "Baby in a Box," Skinner's original, personal account of the much-misrepresented "Baby in a box" device. ISBN 0-87411-969-3 (paperback)

See also

• Supernaturalization
• Project Pigeon
• Behavior Modification
• Skinner Box
• Walden Two
• Verbal Behavior
• Behaviorism

References

• Epstein, R. (1997) Skinner as self-manager. Journal of applied behavior analysis. 30, 545-569. Retrieved from the world wide web on: June 2 2005 from http://seab.envmed.rochester.edu/jaba/articles/1997/jaba-30-03-0545.pdf

External links

• Learno.com - A website set up by academics which allows anyone to create and learn using the Programmed Learning method originally devised by B F Skinner
• The Analysis of Behavior: A Program for Self-Instruction, in software.
• National Academy of Sciences biography.
• The B. F. Skinner Foundation.
• B.F. Skinner profile, NNDB.
• Los Horcones Walden Two Community.
• I was not a lab rat, response by Skinner's daughter about the "baby box".

Articles by Skinner:

• Two Types of Conditioned Reflex and a Pseudo Type (1935)
• "Superstition" in the Pigeon (1947)
• Are Theories of Learning Necessary? (1950)