1. B. F. Skinner Behaviorism Stephen Schrader Education 101

2. Biographical information: Born March 20, 1904, Burrhus Frederic Skinner, in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. Received his BA in English from Hamilton College in New York. After being dissatisfied with attempts to become a writer, he moved to Greenwich Village to live a “bohemian” life. From there he did some traveling. He returns to his education at Harvard University, from there he earns is masters degree in 1930 and doctorate in 1931, both in Psychology, and stayed to do research until 1936. Went to teach at University of Minnesota in 1936, took the chairmanship of the Psychology Department at Indiana University in 1945, and returned to Harvard in 1948, where he stayed for the rest of his career. "The major problems of the world today can be solved only if we improve our understanding of human behavior" About Behaviorism (1974)

3. Theories of Behaviorism: Classical conditioning- Pavlov’s experiments -Pavlov would ring a bell, then present meat powder to a dog which would result in salivation by the dog. -After repeating the process many times, Pavlov would just ring the bell, and before the meat powder was presented the dog would begin to salivate. -After more time Pavlov would just ring the bell, without providing the meat powder. Eventually the dog stopped responding with salivation to the bell. This process came to be called extinction. Extinction- removal of stimulus results in the ending of the conditioned response.

4. Theory continued… Skinner looked at the classical conditioning theory a little differently. He thought that certain behaviors occur because of reinforcement of that behavior in the past. -Operant- the behavior that you are attempting to teach the subject to do, that occurs just before the “reinforcer”. -Reinforcing stimulus- “reinforcer”or prize for demonstrating the right behavior. There is also an aversive stimuli, which is just the opposite of the reinforcing stimuli, it is a punishment, used to discourage a behavior.

5. Theory, again… Schedules of reinforcement- Reduction of the frequency of reinforcement will not reduce the “learned” response or lead to extinction of the response. -Continuous reinforcement- simple operant conditioning, with a 1:1 stimulus to reinforcement ratio. -Fixed ratio schedule- reinforcement supplied after a fixed number of “behaviors”, which is fixed over multiple intervals. -Fixed interval schedule- reinforcement is only given a set number of times during a fixed set of time, e.g.: one reinforcement per minute. No matter how many time the behavior is done in the time limit, the reinforcement is limited to a fixed number. -Variable schedules- both the schedule and the response ratio change constantly. This prevents the subject from establishing the pattern between behavior and reinforcement.

6. Theory, yet again… An example of reinforcement scheduling in a “Skinner Box”. -At first the bird is pecking around the box, occasionally hitting the correct contact, each time being reinforced by a small reinforcer, such as a light. -After eight pecks, the food is released. -Over time the bird learns that if he continues to peck at the specific spot a certain number of times he will get some food.

7. Theory, one last time…. Shaping- how subjects learn complex behaviors. Skinner defines this as “the method of successive approximations”. -The process of shaping takes place by developing a behavior similar to the goal. Once that is established you move on to a slightly more similar behavior, slowly closing in on the “goal” behavior each time -Slide StorySlide Story

8. Applications of Behaviorism: Behavior Modification- “training” a bad behavior away, using a combination of negative and positive reinforcements. -Can be used in classrooms to reinforce or discourage specific classroom behavior. By giving praise or feedback for specific behaviors. -”Token economy”- a system based on the behavior modification theory and used in some institutions. “Tokens” are rewarded for good behavior and taken away for bad behavior. The tokens can be exchanged for goods. Using shaping, teachers can take apart a hard topic and cover individual parts of it until they have finally completed it and can go through it beginning to end. -Music Education uses of BehaviorismMusic Education uses of Behaviorism “Gifted” students -Teachers should reinforce creativity from gifted students, but also set a limit to how far that student can go in the class. Both of these steps together encourage both the gifted students and the others to be active, without too much discouraging. Ormrod page 329, Table 9.3 has several other situations that may occur and uses of behaviorism to deal with them.

9. Critiques Behaviorist approaches do not take into account cognitive factors that may affect learning. -Cognitive disabilities may require more than just simple reinforcement to result in successful learning. Reinforcement begins to take precedence over the importance of the task. -Students may be encouraged to do a task more for the reinforcement than for what they can gain out of it. Tasks are completed faster to get reinforcement, but done less thoroughly. -Tasks that students may have enjoyed before the reinforcement was introduced begin to lose their importance if the reinforcement is removed.(students become “addicted” to reinforcement) Behaviorist methods do not take motivation into account. -students that are not motivated to do a task most likely will not be that much more motivated to complete it even with reinforcement.

10. Source Materials Boeree, C. George, “B. F. SKINNER”. ©1998. http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/skinner.html http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/skinner.html Ormrod, Jeanne Ellis, Educational Psychology: Developing Learners 4 th Edition. Merrill Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. ©2003. TechnoEd, “Curriculum Resources: B. F. Skinner”. ©1996-1998. http://www2.potsdam.edu/CRANE/campbemr/curriculum/college- methods/cognitive-theories/skinner-main,1.html Zimmer, Gene, “B.F.Skinner: Behavioral Psychologist”. ©1999. http://www.sntp.net/behaviorism/skinner.htm