Skinner

Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and social philosopher. He was a professor of psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974. 1. Operational conditioning. An outgrowth from Pavlov’s classical conditioning, operational conditioning states that 2. Associative conditioning. He noted that teachers can teach children to associated bad consequences with certain actions. Skinner considered free will to be an illusion. He believed human action is dependent on consequences of previous actions. His theory emphasized the principle of reinforcement: 1. If the consequences to an action are bad, there is a high chance the action will not be repeated; 2. If the consequences are good, the probability of the action being repeated becomes stronger. Skinner developed behavior analysis, especially the philosophy of radical behaviorism,^[8] and founded the experimental analysis of behavior, a school of experimental research psychology. He also used operant conditioning to strengthen behavior, considering the rate of response to be the most effective measure of response strength. To study operant conditioning, he invented the operant conditioning chamber (aka the Skinner Box),^[7] and to measure rate he invented the cumulative recorder. Using these tools, he and Charles Ferster produced Skinner's most influential experimental work, outlined in their book Schedules of Reinforcement (1957).^[9][10] From Wikipedia (Full Wikipedia article)