DigiPsych Operant Conditioning: Burrhus Frederic Skinner PDF

# Theories of Personality - Operant Conditioning ## Burhus Frederik Skinner ### **Contents:** * **Biographical Background** * **Publications** * **Functional Analysis** * **Structure of Personality** * **Dynamics of Personality** * **Development of the Personality** * **Schedules of Reinforcement...

# Theories of Personality - Operant Conditioning ## Burhus Frederik Skinner ### **Contents:** * **Biographical Background** * **Publications** * **Functional Analysis** * **Structure of Personality** * **Dynamics of Personality** * **Development of the Personality** * **Schedules of Reinforcement** * **Superstitious Behavior** * **Secondary Reinforcer** * **Generalization and Discrimination** * **Psychopathology and Therapy** *** ## **Biographical Background** * Burrhus Frederik Skinner was born on March 20, 1904 in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, USA. * His father was a lawyer who prodded him to be one as well but to no avail. * Skinner initially planned to be a professional writer and so he enrolled at Hamilton College, majoring in English. * He devoted two years in writing before realizing that the realization of his dream of being a writer was remote. * He eventually decided to turn to science, particularly to psychology. * He enrolled in Harvard University in 1928 where Henry Murray and W.J. Crozier, a well-known positivist biologist, became his mentors. * He earned his M.A in 1930 and Ph.D in 1931. * Skinner became the chairman of the psychology department of Indiana University in 1945 and was later invited to work at Harvard University where he spent the rest of his life. * August 10, 1990, he was awarded a Citation for Outstanding Lifetime Contribution to Psychology by the American Psychology Association. * Eight days later, he died of leukemia at age of 86. *** ## **Publications** * _Behavior of Organisms_ * _Science and Human Behavior_ (1938) * _Walden Two_ (1948) * _Beyond Freedom and Dignity_ (1971) ## **Functional Analysis** * Functional analysis is the analysis of behavior in terms of cause and effect relationships, where the causes themselves are controllable. * For Skinner, it is not necessary to talk about the mechanisms operating inside the organism, as behavior can be studied and controlled purely by manipulation of the environment. ## **Structure of Personality** * Skinner had great indifference to structural variables, structures that make up the mental personality of the person. * Instead, Skinner focused on modifiable behavior. * Modification of behaviour is achieved by manipulating the environmental variables that bring about behaviour. * Skinner deamphasized the importance of biological variability, but regarded it as more important than mentalism. ## **Dynamics of the Personality** * Although Skinner acknowledged the existence of inner states (thoughts, emotions, etc.), he pointed out that a satisfactory answer must at some point involve discovery of an environmental variable to explain variability in behavior. * Skinner made no real distinction between drives and emotions. ## **Development of the Personality** ### **Classical Conditioning: Ivan Pavlov** * **Conditioned Stimulus:** The stimulus to which the person learns/is conditioned to respond. * **Unconditioned Stimulus:** The stimulus to which the response is expected/natural to respond. * **Unconditioned Response:** Response to the unconditioned stimulus * **Respondent:** a term from Skinner * **Conditioned Response:** Response to the conditioned stimulus **Example:** A student is always scolded by his professor who always wears blue shirt. * Blue shirt-conditioned stimulus * Scolding Professor─unconditioned stimulus * Fear toward Professor-unconditioned response * Fear toward blue shirt-conditioned response ### **Classical Conditioning: Ivan Pavlov** * **Extinction:** The decrease in the responding that occurs when the reinforcement following the response no longer occurs. **Example:** When the student always meets people wearing blue shirt but is treated well and nicely, he might lose his fear for blue shirts. * Skinner accepted the validity of Classical Conditioning but less concerned with it than the other type of conditioning—Operant Conditioning. ### **Operant Conditioning** * **Operant:** A response that operates on the environment and changes it * **Law of Effect:** This was formulated by Edward Lee Thorndike, a significant influence of Skinner. This concept states that responses that produce a satisfying effect become more likely to occur again in that particular situation, and responses that produce an unsatisfying effect become less likely to occur in that situation. ### **Operant Conditioning** * **Shaping:** This is the process that start by reinforcing a behavior that is a first step toward the final behavior and then gradually reinforcing successively closer approximations to the final behavior. Through this process, organisms acquire extremely complicated behaviors. ### **Operant Conditioning** * **Punishment/Punishing Stimulus:** This is usually an aversive stimulus, which when occurring after an operant response, decreases the future likelihood of that response. Eg. Being ticketed by a traffic enforcer after beating the red light. * **Reinforcement/Reward:** This is any stimulus, that when occurs after a certain behaviour, increases the likelihood of future occurrence of that behavior. Eg. Being ticketed by a traffic enforcer after beating the red light. * **Negative Reinforcement:** This is the removal of an aversive stimulus that is associated with a behavior, and thereby increasing the likelihood of such a behavior. Eg. Lifting the suspension of a student, if he promises to behave properly for the remainder of his student life. ### **Operant Conditioning** * **Personality:** Skinner viewed personality as a mere collection of behavior patterns. Studying personality, therefore, is studying these behavior patterns and their development. * **Skinner Box:** The Skinner box is a research equipment that was developed by B. F. Skinner. It is a chamber that contains a bar or key that an animal can press or manipulate in order to obtain food or water as a type of reinforcement. ## **Schedules of Reinforcement** * **Continuous Reinforcement Schedule:** This is when a reinforcement is presented on each occasion that the response is elicited. With this schedule, Conditioning is quickest and Extinction is quickest. * **Interval Reinforcement Schedule:** In this schedule the reinforcement is contingent on the interval of time. * **Fixed-Interval Reinforcement Schedule:** In this schedule the time interval is unchanging. * **Variable-Interval Reinforcement Schedule:** This is characterized by random or intermittent time interval in the reinforcement schedule. * **Ratio-Reinforcement Schedule:** For this schedule, reinforcement is determined by the number of responses and not by time interval. * **Fixed Ratio-Reinforcement Schedule:** The number of responses per reinforcement is unchanging in this schedule. * **Variable Ratio-Reinforcement Schedule:** The number of responses per reinforcements is random and varying in this schedule. * **Variable Interval and Variable Ratio Reinforcement Schedules:** This is the schedule that is slowest to result to conditioning/learning. However, extinction takes the longest time. ## **Superstitious Behavior** * This is the type of conditioning in which there is no causal relation between the response and the reinforcer. * According to Skinner this accounts for the many superstitions held by human beings. * Intermittent/variable reinforcement schedules are responsible for this. * Ex. Rain-making dance, lucky charms, power of prayer. ## **Secondary Reinforcer** * Stimuli that are linked to, associated to, and are causing the occurrence of reinforcers and/or punishments. * Skinner claims that the maintenance of the conditioning properties of the secondary reinforcer depends on its continuous association with the “primary” reinforcers. * He also said that money is the most common secondary reinforcer in today's world. ## **Generalization and Discrimination** * **Stimulus Generalization:** Happens when a previously unassociated or new stimulus that has similar characteristics to the previously associated stimulus elicits a response that is the same as or similar to the previously associated response. Ex. When you learn to fear your math teacher high school, you might also be fearful of your next math teacher in college. * **Stimulus Discrimination:** This the process of differentiating between a conditioned and other stimuli that have not been paired with an unconditioned stimulus. Ex. When you can discriminate between your old math teacher and your new one, thereby not exhibiting the same response of fear. * Skinner further explained that to the extent the response is maintained in a new situation there is stimulus generalization. Also, to the extent that the response is decreased or weakened there is stimulus discrimination. ## **Psychopathology and Therapy** * According to Skinner both normal and abnormal behaviors are products of operant conditioning. * If behavior is learned, it can be unlearned, whether it is normal or abnormal. * **Flooding:** Flooding is the rapid and sudden exposure of the person to the conditioned stimulus. Skinner said that this is only effective if the unconditioned stimulus does not appear anymore. ## **A Last Look** * Skinner provided a very usable basis for therapy-behavior therapy. * His theory was very useful in education through programmed learning, teaching methods, and for special education. * However, Skinner did not discuss personality development. * Notably, Skinner rejected explanations of behavior in terms of internal theoretical constructs and relied totally on external/environmental explanations. *** The attached image depicts a simple illustration of a Skinner Box, with labels for each component: Speaker, Signal Lights, Lever, Pellet Dispenser, Dispenser Tube, Food Cup, and Electric Grid. There is also a note indicating that it is connected to a "To Shock Generator".