BF Skinner
B.F. Skinner
1904-1990
Burrhus Frederic Skinner was born March 20, 1904, in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. He was brought up to be hardworking. His mother was a strong woman and a housewife, his father was a lawyer. His brother died at the age of 16 of a cerebral aneurism. Burrhus was an active out-going child who liked the outdoors, school, and building things; something he would later use in his own psychological experiments.
Burrhus attended Hamilton College in upstate New York. He wrote for the school paper, including articles that were critical of the school, the faculty, and even Phi Beta Kappa. He received a B.A. in English in 1926, and spent some time as a struggling writer in Greenwich Village before reading the writings of Watson and Pavlov. He became inspired by these writings, decided to end his career as a writer and entered the Psychology Graduate Program at Harvard University. He received his masters in psychology in 1930, his doctorate in 1931, and did research there until 1936.
The same year, Burrhus moved to Minneapolis to teach at the University of Minnesota, where he met and later married Yvonne Blue. The couple had two daughters, the second who became famous as the first infant to be raised in on of Burrhus’s inventions, the air crib. Built for baby care, the infant, instead of staying in a tight crib wrapped in layers of cloth, can lie with only a diaper on in an enclosed space which is temperature-controlled and plastic-sheeted, thus allowing the child greater freedom of movement.
In 1945, Burrhus moved to Bloomington, Indiana and became the Psychology Department Chair at the University of Indiana. In 1948, he was invited to return to Harvard, where he joined the psychology department and remained there for the rest of his life.
Burrhus is famous for his research on operant conditioning and negative reinforcement. He developed the “cumulative recorder,” which showed rates of responding as a sloped line. Using this device, he
1904-1990
Burrhus Frederic Skinner was born March 20, 1904, in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. He was brought up to be hardworking. His mother was a strong woman and a housewife, his father was a lawyer. His brother died at the age of 16 of a cerebral aneurism. Burrhus was an active out-going child who liked the outdoors, school, and building things; something he would later use in his own psychological experiments.
Burrhus attended Hamilton College in upstate New York. He wrote for the school paper, including articles that were critical of the school, the faculty, and even Phi Beta Kappa. He received a B.A. in English in 1926, and spent some time as a struggling writer in Greenwich Village before reading the writings of Watson and Pavlov. He became inspired by these writings, decided to end his career as a writer and entered the Psychology Graduate Program at Harvard University. He received his masters in psychology in 1930, his doctorate in 1931, and did research there until 1936.
The same year, Burrhus moved to Minneapolis to teach at the University of Minnesota, where he met and later married Yvonne Blue. The couple had two daughters, the second who became famous as the first infant to be raised in on of Burrhus’s inventions, the air crib. Built for baby care, the infant, instead of staying in a tight crib wrapped in layers of cloth, can lie with only a diaper on in an enclosed space which is temperature-controlled and plastic-sheeted, thus allowing the child greater freedom of movement.
In 1945, Burrhus moved to Bloomington, Indiana and became the Psychology Department Chair at the University of Indiana. In 1948, he was invited to return to Harvard, where he joined the psychology department and remained there for the rest of his life.
Burrhus is famous for his research on operant conditioning and negative reinforcement. He developed the “cumulative recorder,” which showed rates of responding as a sloped line. Using this device, he
Cited: B.F. Skinner Biography (1904-1990). (2012). Retrieved November 1, 2012, from About.com: http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesofmajorthinkers/p/bio_skinner.htm BF Skinner. (2012). Retrieved November 1, 2012, from Biography.com: http://www.biography.com/people/bf-skinner-9485671 Skinner, Brief Biography. (2012). Retrieved November 1, 2012, from Skeptically.org: http://www.skeptically.org/skinner/id5.html Boeree, D. C. (2012). B.F. Skinner. Retrieved November 1, 2012, from My Webspace Files: http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/skinner.html