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... ng was old-fashioned and hard working. (Textbook 271) Burrhus was an active, out-going boy who loved the outdoors and building things, and actually enjoyed school. Unlike Allport in life he did have tragedies. His brother died at the age of 16 of a cerebral aneurysm.
Burrhus received his BA in English from Hamilton College in upstate New York. He didnt fit in very well, not enjoying social events in school. He wrote for school paper, including articles critical of the school, the faculty, and even Phi Beta Kappa! To top it off, he was an atheist in a school that required daily chapel attendance. He wanted to be a writer and did try sending off his writing. It didnt work for him, even after he graduated.
After some traveling, he decided to go back to school; he went to Harvard. He got his masters in psychology in 1930 and his doctorate in 1931, and stayed there to do research until 1936. (Boree 98) He met his wife that same year when he moved to Minneapolis to teach at the University of Minnesota. They had two daughters the youngest being famous for being in one of Skinners inventions, the air crib. In 1948 he was invited to go to Harvard, where he remained for the rest of his life. Even though he was not successful as a writer of fiction and poetry, he became one of our best psychology writers. SKINNERS THEORY Skinners entire system is based on Operant Conditioning.
The organism is in the process of operating on the environment, which means it is bouncing around the world doing what it does. During this operating, , the organism encounters a special kind of stimulus, called reinforcing stimulus. (Skinner 67) Operant conditioning the behavior followed by a consequence, and the nature of the consequence modifies the organisms tendency to repeat the behavior in the future. (Boree 98) A behavior followed by a reinforcing stimulus results in an increased probability of that behavior occurring in the future. Extinction A behavior no longer followed by the reinforcing stimulus results in a decreased probability of that behavior occurring in the future. Schedules of reinforcement: Skinner likes to tell about how he accidentally came across various discoveries.
He did a lot of experiments on lab animals especially rats. Continous reinforcement is the original scenario: In a rat study, every time that the rat does the behavior (such as pedal-pushing), he get a rat goodie. The fixed ratio schedule was the first one Skinner discovered: There is a fixed ratio between behaviors and reinforcers: 3 to 1, 5 to 1, 20 to 1, etc. This is a little like apiece of rate in the clothing manufacturing industry: You get paid so much for so many shirts. The fixed interval schedule uses a timing device of some sort. Skinner noticed one strange thing that happens is that rats to pace themselves.
They slow down the rate of their behavior right after the reinforcer, and speed up when the time for it gets close. Skinner also looked at variable schedules. Variable interval means you keep changing the time period i. e.
first 20 seconds, then 5, then 35, then 10 and so on. A question Skinner had to deal with was how we get to more complex sorts of behaviors. He responded with the idea of shaping, or the method of successive approximations. (Skinner 67) Basically it involves first reinforcing a behavior only vaguely similar to the one desire. Once that is established you look out for variations that come a little closer to what you want, and so on. Skinner and his students have been quite successful in teaching simple animals to do some quite extraordinary things. Shaping can also account for the most complex of behaviors.
You are gently shaped by your environment to enjoy certain things, do well in school, and take a certain things... Averse stimuli is the opposite of a reinforcing stimulus, something we might find unpleasant of painful. A behavior followed by an aversive stimulus results in a decreased probability of the behavior occurring in the future. (Boree 98) This both defines an aversive stimulus and describes the form of conditioning know as punishment. If you remove an already active aversive stimulus after a person does a certain behavior, you are doing negative reinforcement behavior followed by the removal of an aversive stimulus results in an increased probability of that behavior occurring in the future. Skinner didnt approve of the use of aversive stimuli not because of ethics, but because they dont work well! Thats because whatever enforced the bad behaviors havent been removed, as it wouldve in the case of extinction.
Behavior modification often referred to as b-mod is the therapy technique based on Skinners work. It is very straight forward: Extinguish an undesirable behavior (by removing the reinforcer) and replace it with a desirable behavior by reinforcement. (Bjork 97) It has been used on all sorts of psychological problems; addictions, neuroses, shyness, autism, even schizophrenia and works particularly well with children. (Skinner 67) There is an offshoot of b mode called token economy. This is used primarily institutions such as psychiatric hospitals, juvenile halls, and prisons Certain rules are made explicit in the institutions and behaving yourself appropriately is rewarded with tokens; poker chips, tickets, funny money and etc. There is a drawback to token economy. When a inmate leave they return to an environment that reinforces the kinds of behaviors that got them into the institution in the first place. (Bjork 97) IMPORTANCE OF SKINNERS THEORY Skinner believed that the study of behavior must rest on what organisms do and do not do, and that is all one need pay attention to.
Most importantly concentrated on the observation and manipulation of behavior. A good theory and its evident because explains, synthesizes large amounts of information, generates new information, and can be used as a guide in solving practical problems. Skinners theory gets high marks in all of these categories. The only reason Skinner was criticized is because he was quick to generalize the human behavior with his experiments in the lab with lab animals. CONCLUSION When looking at these two behaviorist it is evident that these two had two completely different approached to psychology, though the two did share a strong quality; their uniqueness when explaining their theory.
Allport was the first to describe the personality in terms of traits... Allport theorized that traits provided the structure, the uniqueness, and the motivation that characterize a persons personality In Allport's theory, traits are inferred from behavior and then are used to explain the behavior of the individual. Allport's uniqueness was, he was willing to use whatever method he believed contributed to an understanding of human behavior. He showed that a great deal can be learned about a person by using straight methods of self-reports, personal documents, and the observation of expressive behavior. Allport's major concern, was with the dignity and uniqueness of each human being. Allport's anything unhealthy, children and unlike Skinner animals.
He was interested in studying healthy adults. Skinners theory is complex, and very difficult. No personality theory considered thus far is so intimately tied to experimental research a Skinner (textbook 297). Skinners position falls into the behavioristic camp because it stressed the study of overt behavior and not internal, mental or physical event. His efforts focused on efforts to modify behavior involved in changing reinforcement, and contingencies. Being far off from the beliefs of Allport, Skinner believed that much if not all of what is learned by studying non-human animals applies to humans an well, and well, unlike Allport many of the attributes though to be uniquely human are essentially ignored in the Skinnerian analysis.
As I end my conclusion please remember even though the two theories talked about are completely different. The comparison of the two are very important because, of their understanding, and the complexity of the learning theory; behaviorism and the complexity of the theorist and their theory. WORKS CITED: Allport, G. W. (1967) Autobiography. In E. G.
Boring G. Lindzey (Eds), A history of psychology in autobiography (Vol 5, pp 1 - 25). Ney your: Appelton-Century- Crafts. Allport GW (1937) personality: A psychological Interpretation: New York Henry Hott An Introduction to Theories of Personality 5 th edition B. R.
Here bahn and Mathew H. Olson Site (pp 271 - 301, 189 - 201). Boree, George C Dr. (1904 - 1990) B. F. Skinner Biography web) pg 1 - 6 Boree, George C Dr. (1897 - 1967) Gordon Allport Biography web) pg 1 - 6 Bjork D. W. (1997) Allport: A Life in Washington D.
C. American psychological association Stevenson, Harold W. Behaviorism and Instructional Technology Online http: 1129. 7. 160115 /inst 5931 /behaviorism. html pg 1 - 6 Skinner, G. W. (1967) Autobiography.
In E. G. Boring G. Lindzey (Eds), A history of psychology in autobiography (Vol 5, pp 387 - 413).
New York: Appelton-Century- Crafts.
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