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B. F. Skinner was one of the most influential of American psychologists. A radical behaviorist, he developed the theory of operant conditioning, the idea that behavior is determined by its consequences, by reinforcements or punishments, which make it more or less likely that the behavior will occur again. His principles are still incorporated within treatments of phobias, addictive behaviors, and in the enhancement of classroom performance. Skinner believed that the only scientific approach to psychology was one that studied behaviors, not internal mental processes. He denied the existence of a mind as a thing separate from the body, but he did not deny the existence of thoughts, which he regarded simply as private behaviors to be analyzed according to the same principle as publicly observed behaviors.
In 1948, Skinner published his actual ideas on child-rearing in Walden Two, a fictional account of a behaviorist-created utopia in which carefree young parents stroll off to work or school while their little ones enjoy all the comforts of community-run, behaviorist-approved daycare. In 1971 he wrote Beyond Freedom and Dignity, which suggests that the concept of individual freedom is an illusion. Skinner later sought to unite the reinforcement of individual behaviors, the natural selection of species, and the development of cultures under the heading of The Selection by Consequences (1981), the first of a series of articles in the journal Science.
Skinner was heavily influenced by the work of John B. Watson as well as early behaviorist pioneers Ivan Pavlov and Edward Thorndike. He spent most of his professional life teaching at Harvard University and in 1990 he died of leukemia.
The basic ideas of the behaviorist theory are still in thought today. Behaviorism is based on the idea that learning is a change in overt behavior and that changes in obvious behavior occur as a response to external stimuli. Responses to stimuli produce consequences....