Skinner Article Beh/225

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Skinner Article BEH/225 Christina LakeMan January 31, 2013 Skinner Article Skinner's contributions to psychology are vast, Skinner‘s theories explored ways that we learn and process stimuli in the environment. Through his research, Skinner discovered operant conditioning, which indicated that behavior, could be controlled by influence such as, punishments and rewards in the environment. His entire system revolved around operant conditioning, which has been defined as the modification of behavior by making the presence or absence of rewards or punishment contingent on behavior, also known as instrumental learning. “Operant conditioning has been widely applied in clinical settings (i.e.,…show more content…
In this particular type of research he chose to use pigeons to prove his theories. He used reinforcements to change the behavior of the pigeons. Since the pigeons believed that they must continue this behavior to keep receiving the reinforcement, the pigeons were deemed to be acting in a superstitious manner. This theory was also applied to humans. B.F. Skinners contributions to the psychological world were great in theory and action. The last thing that B. F. Skinner was learning was that, to speed up the response acquisition during operant conditioning is to reinforce successive approximations to desired responses. This approach was called shaping. We might first reward the rat for turning toward the response bar. Once the rat has learned this behavior, we might withhold reinforcement until the rat moves towards the bar. Later we might reward it only for sniffing the bar or touching it with its nose or paw. By reinforcing successive approximations to the desired behavior we gradually shape the bar pressing response without waiting passively for the response to occur on its own. In conclusion B. F. Skinner was a great contributor to the…show more content…
The last thing that B. F. Skinner was learning was that, to speed up the response acquisition during operant conditioning is to reinforce successive approximations to desired responses. This approach was called shaping. We might first reward the rat for turning toward the response bar. Once the rat has learned this behavior, we might withhold reinforcement until the rat moves towards the bar. Later we might reward it only for sniffing the bar or touching it with its nose or paw. By reinforcing successive approximations to the desired behavior we gradually shape the bar pressing response without waiting passively for the response to occur on its own. In conclusion B. F. Skinner was a great contributor to the psychological approach to the Operant conditions and reactions of lab animals during study for others to

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