Psychology B.F Skiner

B.F. Skinner Running head: B.F. Skinner and His Influence in Psychology B.F. Skinner and His Influence in Psychology Abstract B.F. Skinner was one of the most influential theorists in modern psychology. His work was very important and has been studied by many for years. Skinner was a very straightforward man and a very educated man. His theories have helped mankind in many ways. He has studied the behavior patterns of many living organisms. Skinner was a well-published writer. His work has been published in many journals. He also has written many books on behaviorism. His most important work was the study of behaviorism. First began by John B. Watson, behaviorism is one of the most widely studied theories today. B.F. Skinner and His Influence in Psychology B.F. Skinner was one of the most famous of the American psychologists. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1904. Skinner was the father of modern behaviorism. Skinner did not get into psychology until he was in graduate school at Harvard. He was driven to Psychology after reading about the experiments of Watson and Pavlov. He received his doctoral degree in three years and taught at the University of Minnesota and the University of Indiana and finally returned to his alma mater at Harvard. Skinner contributed to psychological behaviorism by performing experiments that linked behaviors with terms commonly used to describe mental states. Skinner was responsible for some famous experiments such as the “Skinner box”. Skinner also wrote some very famous books. One of them was “The Behavior of Organisms”. This book describes the basic points of his system. Another was Walden Two. This book describes a utopian society that functions on positive reinforcement. Skinner was a very productive person until his death in 1990 at the age of 86. Behaviorism is a school of thought in psychology that is interested in observable behavior. Skinner said, “Behaviorism is not the science of human

References: Behaviorism. (1997). The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved April 07,1998 from the World Wide Web: http://www.utm.edu./research/iep/b/behavior.htm Boring, E.G. (1967). A History of Psychology in Autobiography. New York: Irvington Publishers. Retrieved April 07,1998 from the World Wide Web: http://lafayette.edu/allanr/early.html Skinner, B.F. (1974). About Behaviorism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf Press.