Skinner's Behaviourist theory

Skinner’s Operant conditioning

This article summaries Skinner’s behaviourist theory: Operant Conditioning theory.

Whilst the end product, ‘the theory’, is of initial interest, there are many factors to consider when analysing a theory, critiquing a theory or applying a theory to explain practice, such as the researchers background, research methods and the evidence used to certify the theory (Noddings, 2018). Noddings (2018) highlights this in his book on the philosophy of education, stating that only once background information has been gathered and you yourself account for your bias, can a true judgement be made on a theory. Therefore, this video will first discuss the theorist’s background, then the theory alongside his chosen research methods and the data he collected to ensure strengths and limitations are identified, enabling a coherent and concrete understanding to be built.

Skinner was an American behaviourist theory. He was born in 1904 and died in 1990. For some of his career he was a professor of psychology at Harvard University, meaning he was well known as a professional in his field. Skinner (Albert, 2016), was not the first to work in the field of behaviourism and his research continued the work of Ivan Pavlov, John Watson and Edward Thorndike (Richelle, 2016). This means these theories could have had some influence on his work. All the listed theorists worked in the field of behaviourism and shared the common assumption that ‘psychology should be studied scientifically assuming the object of any study should be observable’ (Albert 2016). In other words, these theorists focused on what could be seen, rather than any internal reaction or process. Albert (2016) and Simple psychology (2018) highlight this as a weakness to Skinner’s theory, as other fields of learning theory, such as constructivism and cognitivism identify an internal process to learning. Whilst this provides evidence that the whole process of learning may not be observable, it is important to note that constructivism and cognitivism developed later in the 1900’s, meaning this research was developing or had not developed when Skinner carried out his work.

Skinner’s (1939) main work and theory was orientated around operant conditioning. Although he did conduct other studies, this article focuses upon operant conditioning and other concepts may be discussed in later videos.

Simple psychology (2018) defines Skinner’s Operant conditioning as a method of learning that occurs through rewards and consequences. Referring directly to Skinner’s book in 1938, it is claimed that ‘through operant conditioning an individual makes an association between particular behaviour and a consequence’ (Skinner, 1938). For example, in a classroom a child that follows instructions will be rewarded with a sticker. Skinner believed that this ‘positively reinforced’ the behaviour, meaning the child will be more likely to show this behaviour again.

Albert (2016) explains that Skinner based his work in Thorndike’s (1898) law of effect. Thorndike was another behaviour theorist. To outline Thorndike’s law of effect it can be summarised as follows: behaviour that is followed by a pleasant consequence is likely to be repeated and behaviour followed by unpleasant consequences is less likely to be repeated. The word ‘likely’ is important here, as this enables the theorist to consider that there are exceptions to his theory ‘law of effect’. Skinner agreed with Thorndike’s work, but he coined the words ‘operant conditioning’ and ‘reinforcement’.

McLeod (2015) defines Skinner’s term, ‘Operant Conditioning, as changing of behaviour by the use of reinforcement which is given after the desired response’ (McLeod, 2015, pg 1). Skinner (1938) explains reinforcement, particularly positive reinforcement to be something that happens after the correct behaviour is shown to encourage the behaviour to be repeated. Skinner also states that behaviour that is reinforced tends to be repeated and behaviour which is not reinforced tends to die out.

Within Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning, he believes there are three ‘operants’ that can follow a behaviour. These are identified as:

· ‘Neutral operant: responses from the environment that neither increase or decrease the probability of behaviour’

· ‘Reinforces: responses from the environment that increase the probability for behaviour. These can be positive or negative’

· ‘Punishers- responses from the environment that decrease the likelihood of behaviour.’ (McLeod, 2018)

To come to this conclusion Skinner conducted experiments on animals, such as rats. He designed something called ‘skinners box, where he put a rat into a box and in the box there were leavers (Skinner, 1938). If the rat pressed the correct leaver it was rewarded with food but if the rat pressed the wrong leaver it was given a shock. In this case, the food is the positive reinforcer and the shock is the punisher or the negative reinforcer in the environment. Skinner observed how the rats soon learnt which leaver to press, due to the action being followed with a positive or negative reinforcer.

Although education has moved away from behaviourist approaches in terms of teaching and learning, it can still be observed in the classroom today for behaviour management. For example, when schools give children a detention if they forget their homework. This can be seen as a punisher as the teacher’s aim of giving a negative consequence is to stop that behaviour and ensure the child brings their homework. It can also be seen with younger children and reward charts. A child may be sat nicely listening on the carpet and the teacher might reward that child with a sticker or a point. The behaviour here is the child listening, and the positive reinforcer, is the point or sticker. In skinners eyes, this positively reinforced the behaviour the child showed which means the child is more likely to display the behaviour again.

Within Skinners work certain assumptions are taken. These have been identified and critiqued in a variety of reviews and research articles (MacCorquodale, K.,1970; Critchfield, 2017). For example, Skinner believes that free will is an illusion and human action is dependent on consequences of pervious actions. This means our actions are determined by the positive and negative reinforces in our environment and our experience with them. The notion of not having free will is something that has not been proven by evidence, thus has been and can be questioned by others.

Secondly, Skinner carried out most of his research and experiments on rats. It is claimed that rats do not have a complex brain, like a human, demonstrating that transferring the evidence found through observing rats puts a weakness on the validity and reliability of his research (McLeod, 2015; Albert, 2016).

The third weakness to Skinner’s theory, and discussed earlier, is that he only considers what is known as observable behaviour. This means he has only looked the external process of learning: what we can see. In his research and work has little consideration for the internal process that happens in the brain. Thus, other theorists have claimed that Skinners work is too simple and it lacks core elements of the learning process (McLeod, 2015).

Bibliography

Albert (2016) Who was B.F. Skinner? AP Psychology Operant Conditioning Review. Available at: https://www.albert.io/blog/b-f-skinner-ap-psychology-operant-conditioning-review/ (Accessed on 26th January 2020)

Bandura, A. (1977) Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Kohler, W. (1924) The mentality of apes. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul

MacCorquodale, K. (1970) ‘On chomsky's review of skinner's verbal behaviour’, Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behaviour, 13; 1, pp. 83-89.

McLeod, S. (2018) Skinner- Operant Conditioning. Available at: https://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html (Accessed on 26th January 2020).

McLeod, S., 2015. ‘Skinner-operant conditioning’, Available at: wwww.simplephyschology.com. (Accessed on: 11th April 2020)

Noddings, N., 2018. Philosophy of education. Routledge: London.

Richelle, M. N., 2016. BF Skinner-a reappraisal. Routledge: London

Skinner, B. F. (1938). The Behaviour of organisms: An experimental analysis. New York: Appleton-Century

Skinner, B. F. (1948). ‘Superstition' in the pigeon’, Journal of Experimental Psychology, 38, pp. 168-172.

Skinner, B. F. (1953). Science and human behaviour. Available at: www.simonandSchuster.com. (Accessed on: 10th April 2020).

Thorndike, E. L. (1898) ‘Animal intelligence: An experimental study of the associative processes in animals’, Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 2(4), i-109.

Watson, J. B. (1913). ‘Psychology as the Behaviourist views it’, Psychological Review, 20, pp. q158–177