CHAPTER 10
SKINNER: BEHAVIORAL ANALYSIS
LECTURE OUTLINE
Unlike
any theory discussed to this point, the radical
behaviorism of B. F. Skinner avoids speculations about hypothetical
constructs and concentrates almost exclusively on observable behavior. Besides
being a radical behaviorist, Skinner was also a determinist and an environmentalist;
that is, he rejected the notion of free will, and he emphasized the primacy of
environmental influences on behavior.
II. Biography of B. F. Skinner
B. F.
Skinner was born into an upper-middle class family in Pennsylvania in 1904. As
a youngster, he was interested in constructing gadgets, playing music, and
writing novels. While in college, Skinner wanted to be a writer, and after
graduation he spent a year trying to achieve this goal. Having no success, he
changed his identity from that of a writer to psychologist. He spent the next
eight years at Harvard, five of which were after he earned his Ph.D. Skinner’s
first job came at age 32 when he accepted a teaching and research position at
the University of Minnesota. During his nine years in Minneapolis, he invented
a controversial and well-publicized baby tender and also trained pigeons to
guide bombs into enemy ships. After World War II, Skinner moved to the
University of Indiana, but not before he had written Walden Two and realized his earlier ambition of being a writer. In
1948 (the same year Walden Two was
published), he returned to Harvard where he remained until his death in 1990.
(For more information on Skinner’s search for identity, see Beyond Biography on the McGraw-Hill Web
site.)
III. Precursors to Skinner’s Scientific Behaviorism
Modern
learning theory received a strong impetus from the work of Edward L. Thorndike
who began working with animals more than a century ago. Thorndike’s law of effect stated that responses
followed by a satisfier tend to be learned, a concept that anticipated
Skinner’s use of reinforcement to shape behavior.
The second person to influence Skinner was John Watson, who argued that
psychology must deal with the control and prediction of behavior and that
behavior—not introspection, consciousness, or the mind—is the basic data
of scientific psychology.
IV. Scientific Behaviorism
Skinner believed that human behavior, like any other natural phenomena, is subject to the laws of science, and that psychologists should not attribute inner motivations to it. Although he rejected internal states (thoughts, emotions, desires, etc.) as being outside the realm of science, Skinner did not deny their existence. He simply insisted that they should not be used to explain behavior.
Skinner
believed that scientific behaviorism allows for an interpretation of behavior
but not an explanation of its causes. Scientists should begin by studying
simple phenomena and later evolve generalized principles that permit
interpretation.
B. Characteristics
of Science
Skinner
believed that science has three main characteristics. First, science is
cumulative; second, it is an attitude that values empirical observation, and
third, it is a search for order and lawful relationships. Skinner believed that
the primary goals of science are to predict, control, and describe. He also
believed that scientific behaviorism can accomplish each of these goals because
it rests on the assumption that human behavior is determined and lawful.
V. Conditioning
Skinner
recognized two kinds of conditioning: classical and operant.
A. Classical
Conditioning
In
classical conditioning (also called respondent or Pavlovian), a neutral
(conditioned) stimulus is paired with an unconditioned stimulus a number of
times until it is capable of bringing about a previously unconditioned
response, now called the conditioned response. An important early example of
classical conditioning is the case of Albert B. (Little Albert).
B. Operant Conditioning
With operant
conditioning, reinforcement is used to increase the probability that a given
behavior will recur. Thus, in classical conditioning, behavior is elicited, whereas in operant
conditioning it is emitted. Three
factors are essential in operant conditioning: (1) the antecedent, or environment in which behavior takes place; (2) the behavior, or response; and (3) the consequence that follows the behavior.
1. Shaping
Psychologists
and others use successive approximations
to shape complex behavior. With this procedure, gross approximations of the
target behavior are initially reinforced, but later only more specific
responses are followed by reward. Different histories of reinforcement result
in operant discrimination, meaning
that different people will respond differently to the same environmental
contingencies. People may also respond similarly to somewhat different
environmental stimuli, a process Skinner called stimulus generalization.
2. Reinforcement
Anything
within the environment that strengthens a behavior is a reinforcer. Any behavior that increases the probability that the
species or the individual will survive tends to be strengthened. Positive reinforcement is any stimulus
that, when added to a situation, increases the probability that a given behavior
will occur. Negative reinforcement is
the strengthening of behavior by removing an aversive stimulus. Both positive
and negative reinforcement strengthen behavior.
3. Punishment
The
presentation of an aversive stimulus or the removal of a positive one is called
punishment. The effects of punishment are much less predictable than those of
reward, an observation that led Skinner to de-emphasize punishment. Other
undesirable effects of punishment include the suppression of behavior, the
conditioning of negative feelings toward the punished, and the inappropriate
spread of effects. Both punishment and reinforcement can result from either
natural consequences or from human imposition.
4. Conditioned and
Generalized Reinforcers
Conditioned
reinforcers are those things that are not by nature satisfying (e.g., money),
but that can become so because they are associated with a primary reinforcers
such as food. Generalized reinforcers are conditioned reinforcers
that have become associated with several primary reinforcers. Attention,
approval, affection, submission to others, and money are all conditioned
generalized reinforcers.
5. Schedules of
Reinforcement
Reinforcement
can follow behavior on either a continuous
schedule or on an intermittent
schedule. There are four basic intermittent schedules: (1) fixed-ratio, on which the organism is
reinforced intermittently according to the number of responses it makes; (2) variable-ratio, on which the organism
is reinforced after an average of a
predetermined number of responses; (3) fixed-interval,
on which the organism is reinforced for the first response following a
designated period of time; and (4) variable
interval, on which the organism is reinforced after the lapse of varied
periods of time.
6. Extinction
The
tendency of a previously acquired response to become progressively weakened
upon nonreinforcement is called extinction. Operant extinction takes place when the experimenter systematically
withholds reinforcement of previously learned behavior until the probability of
that behavior diminishes to zero. The rate of operant extinction depends
largely on the schedule of reinforcement under which the behavior was learned.
VI. The Human Organism
Skinner
believed that human behavior is shaped by three forces: (1) natural selection,
(2) cultural practices, and (3) the individual’s history of reinforcement,
which we discussed above.
A. Natural Selection
As a species, our behavior
is shaped by the contingencies of
survival, that is, those behaviors (e.g., sex and aggression) that were
beneficial to the human species tended to survive, whereas those that did not
tended to drop out.
B. Cultural
Evolution
Those
societies that evolved certain cultural practices (e.g., tool making and verbal
behavior) tended to survive. Thus, such cultural practices are reinforcing to
the group, though not always to the individual.
C. Inner States
Skinner did not ignore
various inner states, such as self-awareness, drives, emotions, and purposes
and intentions, but he rejected explanations of behavior in terms of any
nonobservable hypothetical construct.
1. Self-Awareness
Humans
not only have consciousness, but they also are aware of themselves as part of
their environment. Private events, such as self-awareness, are part of our
inner environment, but they cannot be directly communicated to others.
2. Drives
To
Skinner, drives refer to the effects of deprivation and satiation and thus are
related to the probability of certain behaviors. Drives, however, are not the
causes of behavior.
3. Emotions
Skinner
believed that emotions can be accounted for by the contingencies of survival
and the contingencies of reinforcement. Like drives, they do not
cause behavior.
4. Purpose and
Intention
Although
purpose and intention exist within a person’s inner environment, they cannot be
directly seen by others and are therefore beyond scientific study.
D. Complex Behavior
Although
human behavior is subject to the same principles of operant conditioning as
simple animal behavior, it is much more complex and difficult to predict
and control.
1. Higher Mental
Processes
Higher
mental processes (e.g., thinking and reminiscing) are covert behaviors that
take place within the skin but not inside a “mind.” As behaviors, they are
subject to the same contingencies of reinforcement as are overt behaviors.
2. Creativity
Skinner
explained creativity as a consequence of mutations and natural selection. To
him, creativity is the result of random or accidental behaviors that happen to
be rewarded.
3. Unconscious
Behavior
Humans
rarely observe the relationship between their genetic and environmental
variables and their own behavior. In this sense, Skinner said, most behavior is
unconscious. Many behaviors are automatic or unconscious because not thinking
about them has been reinforced.
4. Dreams
Skinner
viewed dreams as covert and symbolic forms of behavior that are subject to the
same contingencies of reinforcement as any other behavior.
5. Social Behavior
The
group mind does not exist; only individuals can behave. During the history of
the species, humans have formed groups because to do so was reinforcing.
However, living within a particular society is not always reinforcing, and
people sometimes try to escape both from families and from nations.
E. Control of Human
Behavior
Ultimately,
all human behavior is controlled by the environment; will power plays no part.
1. Social Control
Societies
exercise control over their members through laws, rules, and customs that transcend
any one person’s means of countercontrol. Skinner identified four basic methods
of social control: (1) operant
conditioning, including positive and negative reinforcement and punishment:
(2) describing contingencies, or
using language to inform people of the consequence of their behaviors; (3) deprivation and satiation, techniques
that increase the likelihood that people will behave in a certain way; and (4) physical restraint, including the
jailing of criminals.
2. Self-Control
Although
Skinner denied the existence of free will, he did recognize that people
manipulate variables within their own environment and thus exercise some
measure of self-control. Skinner listed at least seven techniques of
self-control: (1) physical restraint, (2)
physical aids, such as tools; (3) changing environmental stimuli; (4) arranging the environment to allow
escape from aversive stimuli; (5) drugs;
and (6) doing something else.
VII. The Unhealthy Personality
Social
and self control sometimes produce counteracting strategies and inappropriate
behaviors.
A. Counteracting Strategies
People
can counteract excessive social control by escaping from it, revolting against
it, or by using passive resistance.
B. Inappropriate
Behaviors
Inappropriate
behaviors follow from self-defeating techniques of counteracting social control
or from unsuccessful attempts at self-control. Skinner listed several common
patterns of inappropriate behavior, all of which can be reinforcing: (1) taking
drugs; (2) engaging in excessively vigorous behavior as a means
of escaping from an aversive stimulus; (3) using excessively restrained behavior, which may result in stubbornness
or even hysterical paralysis; (4) blocking
out reality, or paying no attention to aversive stimuli; (5) expressing
inappropriate behaviors that are based on defective
self-knowledge; and (6) using aversive self-stimulation, such as self-punishment or masochistic
behaviors.
VIII. Psychotherapy
Skinner,
of course, was not a psychotherapist, and he even criticized psychotherapy as
being one of the major obstacles to a scientific study of human behavior.
Nevertheless, others have used operant conditioning principles to shape
behavior in a therapeutic setting. Behavior therapists play an active role in
the treatment process, using behavior modification techniques and pointing out
the positive consequences of some behaviors and the aversive effects of others.
IX. Related Research
Skinner’s theory has generated more research than nearly any other personality theory. In general, much of this research can be divided into two questions: (1) How does conditioning affect personality? and (2) How does personality affect conditioning?
A. How Conditioning Affects
Personality
A
multitude of studies have demonstrated that operant conditioning and shaping
can change personality (that is, behavior). For example, Stephen Higgins and
colleagues (2000) found that a contingency management program was more
effective in deterring cocaine use than was a traditional counseling approach.
B. How Personality
Affects Conditioning
Some
research suggests that different personalities may react differently to the
same environmental stimuli, meaning that the same reinforcement strategies will
not have the same effect on all people. Pickering and Gray (1999) and Corr,
Pickering, and Gray (1997) found that learning was improved for participants
high in anxiety but was diminished for those low in anxiety. Other research has
demonstrated that infants as young as 2 or 3 months of age react differently to
conditioning tasks, and that extraverted adults seem to learn better from
reinforcers, whereas introverts learn more quickly from punishment.
X. Critique of Skinner
Skinner’s
ideas have been controversial for nearly 60 years, yet they have been widely
adopted by therapists, parents, teachers, and others who wish to change or
control human behavior. On the six criteria of a useful theory, we rate
Skinner’s approach very high on its ability to generate research and to guide
action, high on its ability to be falsified, and about average on its ability
to organize knowledge. In addition, it rates very high on internal consistency
and high on simplicity.
XI. Concept of Humanity
On the
one hand, Skinner had an extremely deterministic view of human nature, but, on
the other hand, he remained somewhat optimistic about humanity’s ability to
improve itself. In addition, Skinner’s concept of humanity was a completely
causal one that emphasized unconscious behavior and the uniqueness of each
person’s history of reinforcement within a mostly social environment.