B.F Skinner

B. F.
SKINNER
Burrhus Frediric Skinner
Biography
Burrhus frederick skinner
• American psychologist B.F. Skinner is best known for
developing the theory of behaviorism, and for his utopian
novel Walden Two (1948).
• Born in Pennsylvania in 1904, psychologist B.F. Skinner
began working on ideas of human behavior after earning
his doctorate from Harvard.
• Skinner's works include The Behavior of Organisms (1938) and
a novel based on his theories Walden Two (1948).
• He explored behaviorism in relation to society in later
books, including Beyond Freedom and Human Dignity (1971).
Skinner died in Massachusetts in 1990.
Early life
• Burrhus Frederic Skinner was born on March 20, 1904, in the
small town of Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, where he also
grew up.
• His father was a lawyer and his mother stayed home to care
for Skinner and his younger brother.
• At an early age, Skinner showed an interest in building
different gadgets and contraptions.
• As a student at Hamilton College, B.F. Skinner developed a
passion for writing. He tried to become a professional writer
after graduating in 1926, but with little success.
• Two years later, Skinner decided to pursue a new direction
for his life. He enrolled at Harvard University to study
psychology.
Behavioral theory of
personality
• B.F. Skinner is a major contributor to the Behavioral Theory of

personality, a theory that states that our learning is shaped by
positive and negative reinforcement, punishment, modeling, and
observation.
• An individual acts in a certain way, a.k.a. gives a response, and
then something happens after the response.
• In order for an action to be repeated in the future, what happens
after the response either encourages the response by offering a
reward that brings pleasure or allows an escape from a negative
situation.
• The former is known as positive reinforcement, the latter known as
negative reinforcement (Sincero, 2012). A teenager who received
money for getting an “A” is being positively reinforced, while an
individual who skips a class
personality and skinner
• B.F. Skinner proposed that our differences
in our learning experiences are the main
reason behind our individual differences
in our behavior. And we learn these
patterns of behavior either directly
(reward as positive reinforcement of good
behavior or punishment as a negative
reinforcement of bad behavior) or
indirectly (through observational learning
or modeling).
Personality and skinner
• Skinner believed that it is simply human
nature that we behave in such a way that
we would receive rewards or favorable
things.
• If we want to experience reinforcement,
then we should develop personality traits
that are positive, such as those attributes
included in the "agreeableness" category of
the Big Five (e.g. being understanding,
compassionate, empathetic, and a positive
thinker).
Personality and skinner
• In this sense, Skinner argued that we respond to
every kind of reinforcement, and that our
behavior and personality traits can be shaped and
controlled by the society.
• In addition to this, Skinner implied that if we
want our negative traits to be changed into
positive ones, we must changed our environment
first.
• This strict behaviorist point of view tries to refute
other psychologists belief that we must alter our
inner self first (that is, our own personality traits)
before we can fully experience the change that we
want.
BEHAVIORIST
• Behaviorists also feel that are personality is
established by these learned responses, which
help individuals develop habits.
• These habits become so ingrained in people that
individuals start to engage in them automatically,
which leads to patterns of behavior that form
one’s personality (Cicarelli & White, 2011).
• Some examples of habits include allowing others
to take charge in a group situation, waiting until
the last minute to write papers, and lighting up a
cigarette when out at a bar.
BEHAVIORISM
• being too focused with the external world and not enough
on what an individual wants.
• regards people as more of robots, who just respond to
whatever the environment throws at them.
• individuals do not have as much control of their own
destiny, operating as just a by-product of whatever their
environment presents.
• The needs, desires, wants, and the goals of person are not
focused on as much as theories, such as Carl Roger’s or
Abraham Maslow’s Humanism Theory, which gives more
control to the individual.
The role of social workers in
behavior therapy
• Social workers who use the behavioral model have the
potentiality of giving substantial help in the treatment of many
patients suffering from learned abnormalities of behavior.
• Their role provides the advantages of first-hand observation by a
professional person of the patient's behavior in its natural
environment.
• Upon identifying the stimuli that control unadaptive emotional
behavior use can sometimes be made of learning principles
within the environment to bring about diminution of this
behavior.
• In other circumstances social workers can utilize operant
conditioning principles to modify undesirable behavior by
manipulating reinforcing contingencies.
• A number of specific proposals are made for the use of behavior
principles by social workers, and some examples are given.

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B. F.

• B.F. Skinner is a major contributor to the Behavioral Theory of

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