B F Skinner's Contributions to the Field of Psychology - Essay Example

B.F.Skinners Contributions to the Field Of Psychology B.F. Skinner took major inputs on the approach to the expansion of the field of behaviorism following the initial works of E.L. Thorndike. He was instrumental in redesigning and defining the law of effect. Skinner segmented behaviorism into two main sections of respondent conditioning and an entailed operant conditioning. He associated the latter that the consequences impacts of behaviors that are manipulated the occurrence of similar future scenarios. Introduction According to the outline and guidelines of the assignments, I chose to discuss the life of B.F. Skinner, who was a behavioral psychologist and propelled his work towards the field of operant conditioning. His work was more instrumental in structuring and confirming major sectors in the psychology field. B.F. Skinner, who was a fervent student of E.L. Thorndike and behavioral psychologist, created a remarkable view of the present view in regards to expanding the comprehension of conditioning. His model was typically instrumental confirming numerous understanding of the current conditioning psychological models out in use in most concurrent life practices. The psychological study approach by B.F. use of the pigeons and rats in enforcing presentations on positive and negative reinforcement and concurrent punishment in notable segmented regions well designed and crafted production of certain target behaviors and models showed the responsive approach regarding behaviorism. Skinner entailed his research on rats and pigeons in a process of conducting positive reinforcement and considerable negative reinforcement. In his contribution to psychology and researches, skinner heavily dealt with the considerable essence of behavior. He held a belief that associated response loop had a critical essence in providing an explanation to the behaviors of the human being. He outlined that this model heavily responsible in the process of elementary decision making to the eventual lifestyle model and design (Kuhn, 2007). He had his critical regards for the outlining and recognition of superstition beliefs. Superstition, a terms that dominantly has regards representing facts on belief that are not based or founded on the inherent human reason or even considerable scientific knowledge outlining that future occasion are intensely designed and projected by an individual behavior in appropriate magical ways or paths. With regard to his experiments, Skinner undertook punishments that can be explained as acts of imposing and inflicting sanction for certain typical undesirable behaviors in a bid to achieve conditioning towards a certain behavior. He also had an inclusion of aversion that talks of a tendency to repel and avoid a situation that is typically considered as the state of being. B.F. Skinner had a belief in the understanding that any behavior could be explained by any action undertaken and valence of equitable performance. B.F. Skinner introduced much easier and simpler explanations for the reinforcement experiments that were performed specifically on the lab rats and domestic pigeons. The two experiments highlighted heavily the involvement of the basic inherent principles entailed in the operant conditioning and his contributions have always remained very influential and dominating in the world of psychology associated behaviorism and subsequent education process. B.F. Skinner created intensive in the part of behaviorism regarded as the operant conditioning that heavily meant the process on which organism learned from the physical ambiance (Skinner, 1976). Skinner undertook most of his research in an entailed special recorder that has been now considered as Skinner box. The approach has been intensively entailed in the analysis of behavioral responses in Skinners test subjects. Skinner recognized from his initial work that rate of response and variation in responsive features highly depended on specifications that entailed on the following the occurrence of the behavior that were performed earlier. Skinner recognized the actions as operant behaviors since they acted on the environment thus creating entailed outcome. The process that was designed Skinner outlined the process on how a person typically could redesign contingencies regarding reinforcements that are accountable for the exhibition of certain typical behavioral models. It subsequent became to be understood and referred to as operant conditioning. Skinner conducted his initial researches on rats and subsequently created a similar research on domestic pigeons. From his researches, he noted that pigeons relayed critical, rapid and more extensive feedback. In the process of working with rats, Skinner placed the rats on Skinner box and had a lever attached on to feeding tube. The rat would then press the lever and food would be released subsequently. Following the experience with numerous multiple trials the arts would then learn an association of lever and food. It would proceed to undertake additional time in collection food as compared to undertaking other roles or even any associated function. Subsequent to this work, Skinner noted the impacts of behavioral contingencies after noting the eventual results and finding his initial works (Proctor & Weeks, 1990). Skinner later shifted to pigeons after working with them during military in the WWII when he noted that the birds were highly responsive during the diminutive time he had with them. He noted pigeons had greater stimuli response to the faster, quicker and efficiently. He made his conclusion on behaviorism regarding the dictation of the action had been facilitated. In an attempt to solidify this conclusion, he created a superstitious pigeon (Skinner, 1971). Skinner fed the pigeon in an unstoppable manner and continuous interval of every 15 seconds. He proceeded to observe the behavior model of the bird. He observed that pigeon’s actions differed according to what they were doing earlier before the food had been allocated or dispensed to them. These variations were notable even in disregard of the vital essence that actions of the pigeon had little association with dispensing of the food (ODonohue & Ferguson, 2001). Skinner noted that the pigeon had well fabricated an inherent causal relationship regarding the actions and appropriate presentation of rewards. Following the development of entailed superstition, Skinner developed a belief that virtually all behavior had regards for a learned reaction concerning consequences (Skinner, 1971). Skinner entailed specific principles and entailed schedules of reinforcements to facilitate the manipulation and study further into his tests subjects sector. In his tests, positive reinforcement was conducted on presence regarding the reward following performing of a desirable behavior. He undertook negative reinforcement, an action that entailed removal of the certain poor event in case the subject conducted a good or desired behavior models. This approach created an encouragement to the behavior in a varying and hugely effective model. He entailed opposite reinforcement that was mainly punishment in case the subject undertook undesirable behavior. According to (ODonohue & Ferguson, 2001), during Skinner’s work, he undertook negative reinforcement or punishment that seem hugely identical but punishment hugely lessens the behavior but the negative reinforcement hugely have an effect of increasing it. In the process Skinner inherently implied different types associated with reinforcement as schedules in an attempt to test varying and multifaceted theories entailing operant conditioning. He further entailed four notable reinforcement of schedules in terms of fixed ratio, variable ratio, fixed interval and relevant variable interval. He designed a fixed ratio schedule to show the set number with regards to the response that are slated for an occurrence. This process is subsequently forged in by reinforcing the behavior in the subsequent vital response. He noted that a fixed interval schedule entailed passing of the set time and subsequently reinforcing the subsequent behavior of the sequential time (Proctor & Weeks, 1990). In conclusion, Skinner’s heavy highlights and insights on the use of the pigeons and rats in enforcing presentations on positive and negative reinforcement and concurrent punishment in notable segmented regions well designed and crafted production of certain target behaviours and models. According to the psychological findings, there is great educational output from Skinner research work. On the contrary, a variable ratio schedule hugely entailed the provision of reinforcement following the response that occurred following variable multiples of time. The variable interval schedule further entailed the provision of reinforcement in the case when an appropriate response appeared following the passing of variable duration of time. Skinner noted that variable reinforcement schedules created the most efficient model in maintaining the behavior selection model. References ODonohue, W. T., & Ferguson, K. E. (2001). The psychology of B.F. Skinner. Thousand Oaks [u.a.: Sage. Skinner, B. F. (1971). Beyond freedom and dignity: (6. print.). New York. Proctor, R. W., & Weeks, D. J. (1990). The goal of B.F. Skinner and behavior analysis. New York: Springer-Verlag. Kuhn, C. (2007). Bridging Philosophy and Psychology Using the Example of Behaviourism and B.F. Skinners Beyond Freedom and Dignity. München: GRIN Verlag GmbH. Top of Form Skinner, B. F. (1976). About behaviorism. New York: Vintage Books. Read More