How Did Bf Skinner Become A Field To Study Psychology

Ever since the 20th century the study of behaviorism in psychology has become more popular than ever. The building blocks behind this theory not only came from B.F Skinner’s operant conditioning, but from psychologist before the 20th century when this field of study did not have a name. One of the main reasons why this became a field to study was because of B.F Skinner and Watson. “By an “independent” science of behavior Skinner meant, as Watson had, that behavior should be studied in its own right. He saw no place in such a science for fictional, explanatory entities of either the “mental” or the “neurological” kind.” (Tapp, 1969, p. 29) Behaviorist B.F Skinner who was one of many study different learning behaviors, but mostly focused on operant

Have you ever trained a dog how to offer a paw for a treat, or fasted for a religion? If so then you already know what operant conditioning is without studying psychology. The psychology definition of operant conditioning is, “Skinner’s term for the conditioning that occurs when organisms learn to actively manipulate, control, and “operate upon” their environments by encountering consequences.” (Francher & Rutherford, 1971, p. A51) B.F Skinner was the first person to finally give a name to this learning behavior, but was not the first person to come up with this type of learning behavior. He just made certain efforts to improve upon other psychologist ideas. For example, Thorndike was one of the main psychologist, and his Law of Effect. The basics behind this law were, “that the satisfying consequences of an action in a situation lead to a bond between the situation (S) and the behavior (R)—became a view that dominated theoretical interpretations of learning, animal and human, for 30 to 40 years.” (Hearst, 1999, p. 441) Thorndike’s law led B.F Skinner to his ideas, and research. Which, allowed him to study the empirical law of effect, and take the theory of behaviorism to its highest

In his book he asked questions and tried to answer them by experimenting. One question that reminded me the idea behind operant conditioning was when he was talking about the unfavorable effects of punishments, and if annoying consequences weaken connections in the same fashion as satisfying consequences strengthen connections. This reminding me a lot about Skinners idea about reinforcing stimuli either in a positive or negative way to create an operant behavior. This showing that Thorndike deserves most of the credit for discovering operant conditioning, but Skinner deserves credit for the expansion of his knowledge and experiments. Another example would be when Thorndike said, “ The facts found have made clear the importance for learning of two principles: the identifiability of the situation and the availability of the response.” (Thorndike, 1932, p.2) Skinner proved this in his Skinner box when the rats eventually identified in certain situations that pressing the bar a certain number of times gave them food or water. This making the rats available to certain responses that allowed for the term operant conditioning to be used. “ When it later became clear that relevant conclusions depended on the severity of the punishment or the magnitude of reward, Skinner