Skinner and Behavior Analysis - Coursework Example

Skinner & Behavior analysis Research paper Skinner & Behavior analysis Research paper Abstract It does require one to be a psychologist to contemplate over personality. The concept of personality is currently part of daily language, and personality theories are formulated by individuals every time one answers the question, What she/he is like? Personality theories developed in contemporary times have rather varied emphasis compared to the characteristic theories or the psychodynamic conjectures. While B.F. Skinner may not have a personality theory, his operant conditioning theory can be utilized in the formulation of how personality statement is formed and how it operates. Skinner’s whole system is founded on operant conditioning. In the course of operating on the surrounding, the organism, which in normal terms implies it, is jumping around its globe, accomplishing what it does. In this operating, the organism experiences a unique kind of stimulus, known as a reinforcing stimulus, or just a reinforcer. This unique stimulus has the impact of enhancing the operant—the behavior happening just prior to the reinforcer. Operant conditioning, the behavior is trailed by an effect, and the type of the effect modifies the organism’s propensity to replicate the behavior in the future. Personality psychology entails the study of growth of personality, the impacts of personality on significant outcomes, and efforts to make useful alterations to maladaptive personality traits. Theories of personality, thus, vary in how much they emphasize on personality development, personality changes, characterizing aspects of personality, and results of personality. In this case, the classic personality theories emerge from the clinical viewpoint and; therefore, tackle human growth and change. On the other hand, the trait theorists are much less interested with development and transformation than in attracting the features of personality that differ across all people. But, still, another different focus in personality psychology concerns the connection of behaviors/thoughts/emotions which functions to build the dynamic appearance of personality in different situations (Haggbloom, 2002). According to B.F. Skinner’s personality theory (Skinner, 2011), personal variations in behavior are basically the outcome of various types of learning experiences met by different individuals. Some patterns of behavior may be discovered through straight experience—when an individual is punished or rewarded for behaving in a particular manner. However, many reactions are attained without straight reinforcement either via vicarious learning or observation. The reinforcement that manages the expression of learned behavior can be direct—tangible incentives, social support or disapproval, vicarious—witnessing someone getting punishment or reward for behavior alike to one’s own, and self-administered—assessing one’s personal performance with reproach or self-praise is based on the concept of reinforcement, in which the effect of behavior enhances the opportunities that the behavior will be replicated again. Moreover, reinforcement may be applied in the behavior shaping, where guesses to the preferred behavior are strengthened until the preferred behavior is eventually emitted. In Skinner’s view, no one is neurotic—one simply demonstrates a diversity of inefficient forms of escape. One is not frustrated, but simply substituting one response with the other. Furthermore, Skinner (2011) assert that much of a person’s behavior—particularly in the companionship of other people—involves unreservedly emitted operants or responses. Skinner contends that, if an operant is reinforced, an individual will be more probably to release that operant in the same situation. Therefore, Skinner’s two major concepts are generalization and discrimination. An organism must learn generalization of the stimulus so s to emit responses to a diversity of alike, if not matching, circumstances. For example, one can eat a hamburger in Burger King or in McDonald’s. Similarly, an organism can learn to discriminate when to or not to emit some responses. Skinner emphasizes the significance of indiscriminate reinforcers—such elements as money and/or social endorsement. They are regularly linked to the primary goal objects like food and water. Still, on instance, a person can even be managed by a smile. B.F. Skinner merely disregards Sigmund Freud’s idea of unconscious desires as surfeit baggage—needless to explain continuing human behavior. Skinner fancies to tell on how he inadvertently, that is operantly, came across his different discoveries. For instance, he discusses scarce food pellets in the midst of a research. These were the periods before Purina rat chow (O’Donohue & Kyle, 2001); thus, Skinner had to build his personal rat pellets, an unhurried and tiresome task. So he chose to decrease the amount of reinforcements he administered to his rats for whatsoever behavior he was attempting to condition and, the rats maintained their operant behaviors, as well as a stable rat. An issue that Skinner had to address was how an organism gets to more intricate types of behaviors. He reacted with the concept of shaping, or the approach of consecutive approximations. Fundamentally, it entails first reinforcing behavior just vaguely same to the desired one. The moment this is established, an organism searches for differences that come somewhat nearer to what one want, et cetera, until one has the animal acting behavior that would never appear in normal life. Past these somewhat simple instances, shaping is also liable for the most intricate of behaviors. One does not, for instance, become a brain surgeon through falling into an operating room, cutting someone’s head open, effectively eliminating a growth, and being rewarded with status and a bulky pay, along the lines of Skinner’s box rat. Rather, one is gently shaped by the environment to take pleasure in some things, perform well in education, take a specific biology class, watch a doctor film possibly, have a proper hospital visit, go to med school, being motivated to drift towards being a brain surgeon as specialty et cetera (Hergenhahn & Olson, 2006). Skinner held a firm behaviorist perception supporting that operant active learning was more significant than Pavlov’s model of Classical Conditioning. In that, in Classical Conditioning obviously happening behaviors or responses are coupled with an unbiased stimulus, for instance dogs logically salivate whenever they food is presented to them. In operant active conditioning, learning happens because of reinforcement where particular punishment or rewards are executed so as to attain or deter the behavior to be transformed. Skinner moved further than Watson since he strongly proposed that the research of learning must only be interested in observable spurs and responses—feeling, thought, motivational aspects’ et cetera were considered unobservable and thus, not quantifiable and that mental actions were themselves behaviors and not bases. According to Engler (2008), Skinner asserted that if individuals were to be altered, even saved; then, the surrounding itself must be transformed and not an organisms’ inner self, through a specifically selected pattern of incentives and punishments. Skinner believed that it was probable to have major control on people behavior and that the idea that individuals were free agents were merely wrong. Therefore, to Skinner, the environment was the solution, since it was that shaped behavior. An aversive spur is the reverse of a reinforcing one, something one might find unlikable or excruciating. A behavior tracked by an aversive spur leads to a reducing possibility of the behavior repeating in the future. This two describes an aversive stimulus and explains the type of conditioning called punishment. On the contrary, if one eradicates an already vigorous aversive stimulus after an organism (rat) performs a particular behavior, what one is doing is known as negative reinforcement. That is behavior followed by an eradication of an aversive stimulus leads to an enhanced possibility of a particular behavior repeating in the near future. Contrary to certain stereotypes that have emerged about behaviorist, Skinner does approve of the application of aversive spurs—not due to ethics, but due to the fact that they do not function well (Skinner, 2011). This is because an aspect that was reinforcing the undesirable behaviors has not been eradicated, as it would have been in the situation of extinction. This concealed reinforcer has only been disguised with a contradicting aversive stimulus. Behavior modification—regularly termed as b-mod—is the psychoanalysis approach founded on Skinner’s work. The technique entails the extinguishing of unwanted behavior by eradicating the reinforcer and substituting it with enviable behavior through reinforcement. This technique has been applied on all forms of psychological issues—neuroses, addictions, schizophrenia, and autism—and functions especially well in children. There is a derivative of b-mod known as the token economy that is used mainly in institutions like the prisons, Juvenile halls, and psychiatric hospitals. Some rules are made clear in the establishment, and behaving oneself well is rewarded with tokens—tickets, poker chips, recorded, notes, and funny money. Certain bad behavior is also regularly flowed by a removal of these motivational tokens. Nonetheless, there is a disadvantage to technique: when a convict of these establishments leaves, they go back to a surrounding that reinforces the types of behaviors that brought them into prison earlier. The psychotic’s relations may be painstakingly dysfunctional. Skinner work on personality also influenced thinking in various areas of psychology, and his perceptions in the areas of language development have been widely discussed. Skinnier presumed that children were born as empty slates or ‘tabula rasae’ and that the shaping of language through the sounds they perceive from their care providers into words and ultimately sentences through discriminating reinforcements. This perception was most ardently criticized by Noam Chomsky, who established proof for a natural Language Acquisition Device (LAD) in which infants are biologically programmed learning of the language (Salzinger, 2008). In the analysis of behavior, an individual is an organism that has attained a range of behavior; and is not a deriving instrument; a locus, a position at which various genetic and environmental situations collaborate in a join consequence. Consequently, an organism remains indisputably unique. While Skinner identified that each individual has a genetic capability to react to events, he highlighted behavior occurs in conditions and produces results. According to Skinner, people function on the surrounding to produce effects. According to Lattal (2004), Skinner countered the previous theories and theorists and centered chiefly on maturation. He acknowledged that maturation plays a significant role in development, although regards this method too restricted. Skinner adopted a position that emphasizes manipulation or control of events. As perceived, the main objective of science study is the forecast and control of occasions instead of describing them (Allen, 2005). Because of this, Skinner favored to examine personality by emphasizing on the discovering of a mass of behaviors that permit a person to survive and thrive in contact with the surroundings. Skinner acknowledged that individuals are learning all through life which conditions provides fulfillment or happiness and which generate pain. Surviving and thriving are interests of the majority of the personality philosophers; although, a separation in the position about whether the abilities for thriving are learned, as would be proposed by Skinner, or natural, as they would be challenged by the humanists. In giving more emphasis on personality development Skinner contended that he observes no evidence for an internal world of psychological life comparative either to an assessment of behavior as a function of the ecological factors or to the structure of an organism’s nervous system. Therefore, once more it was external surrounding, in addition to the past historical learning of the person that was asserted to shape one’s personality. Various new researchers have confirmed this line of thinking to be faulty—infants are born with some temperamental features, and it is both environment and genetics that form personality (Hayes, 2001). A major supposition of Skinner’s behavioral and personality theory is that individuals will behave in manners that are probably to generate reinforcement. In Skinner’s perception, all behavior is a result of reinforcement; reinforcement enhances the probability of that particular behavior, be it positively or negatively. Thus, the specific behavior selected in a particular condition will depend on the anticipated result. In addition to this, the person learns how to discriminate, and thus generalization occurs making sure that similar behavior will happen in diversity situations. The concept that behavior is the unavoidable outcome of reinforcement has happened in experience with animals within restricted surroundings. A number of psychologists, such as Mischel would assert, however, that individuals are not similar to rats in a box. Skinner’s model does not actually clearly describe personality. Every person as diverse interests and hopes that are somewhat varied from one another. Therefore, different psychologists—like Mischel—choose to discuss people variables; these decisive how individuals select, assess and interpret incentives and how that specific incentive will impact behavior. Thus, while in Skinner’s perception individuals involuntarily respond to every reinforcements and their behavior may be managed by the entire society, Mischel views man as intelligent and capable of delaying satisfaction via cognitive thinking process, beliefs, and plans. Nonetheless, the dispute over whether the present or past has a more deep impact on behavior is still unresolved. Researchers differ on the exclusivity of the person versus the consistency of the species. References Allen, B. (2005). Personality theories: Development, growth, and diversity (5th ed.). New York: Pearson Education / Allyn & Bacon Publishers. Ashby, F., Isen, A., & Turken, U. (1999). A neuropsychological theory of positive effect and its influence of cognition. Psychology Review, 106(3), 529-550. Engler, B. (2008). Personality theories (8th ed.). Boston: Wadsworth Publishing. Haggbloom, S. (2002). The 100 most eminent psychologist of the 20th century. Review of General Psychology, 6(2), 139-52. Hayes, C. (2001). The greatest dangers facing behavior analysis today. The Behavior Analyst Today, 2(2), 61-63. Hergenhahn, B., & Olson, M. (2006). An introduction to theories of personality (7th ed.). New York: Prentice Hall Publishers. Lattal, K. (2004). Steps and pips in the history of the cumulative recorder. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 82(3), 329-55. O’Donohue, W., & Kyle, F. (2001). The psychology of B.F. Skinner. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Salzinger, K. (2008). Skinner’s verbal behavior. International Journal of Psychology and Psychological Therapy, 8(3), 287-294. Skinner, B.F. (2011). Beyond freedom and dignity (1st ed.). Chicago: Hackett Publishing Co. Read More