Burres Frederick was born in Pennsylvania, USA, in the family of lawyer William Skinner and his wife Grace. The boy had a happy childhood, and with early years he had a passion for all kinds of inventions. At an early age he becomes a convinced atheist. He dreams of becoming a writer, and in order to achieve his cherished goal, he enters Hamilton College in New York. However, because of his views, the boy will remain alien to the intellectual position of the educational institution. In 1926, Skinner received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature.
After this, in 1930, he entered Harvard University, where he received a Master of Arts degree.
After graduating from university, Skinner began writing a novel, but he soon became disillusioned with his literary talent. A chance encounter with John B. Watson's book Behaviorism inspired Skinner to focus his efforts on studying psychology.
In 1931, Skinner received his PhD from Harvard, and until 1936 he would be a research fellow at the university. It was here that he began work on creating an operant conditioning chamber, a device also known as a Skinner chamber and designed to study the processes of instrumental conditioning and classical conditioning in animals.
In 1936, after leaving Harvard, he became a teacher at the University of Minnesota, where in 1937 he received the position of senior lecturer, and in 1939 he became an assistant professor. Skinner would work in this position until 1945.
In 1945, he would take up the post of professor at Indiana University, where he would also be elected head of the psychology department. After working for three years, Skinner left the university.
Returning to Harvard, in 1948 he joined the staff of university professors, where he would remain until the end of his days.
Skinner founded his own school of psychology, known as “radical behaviorism.” His works in this area are based on the study of conditioned reflexes. Skinner firmly believes that a living organism does not have its own will, but only copies behavior that leads to an outcome favorable to it.
He designs a teaching machine - a device that simplifies the educational process for a wide audience of his students. This device teaches the educational course included in it, testing the acquired knowledge and, as motivation, rewarding for correct answers.
In 1948, Skinner wrote the utopian novel Walden Two, a highly controversial literary work in which the author refutes the theories of the existence of free will, spirit and soul. He argues that human behavior is determined by genetic factors and the influence of variable environment, and not at all a free choice.
In 1957, Skinner published the work “Verbal Behavior”, in which he analyzes the use of language, linguistic phenomena and speech - a purely theoretical work, not supported by practical research.
In 1971, his most famous book, Beyond Freedom and Honor, was published, in which Skinner outlines his own approach to science, which he calls “cultural engineering.” This publication instantly becomes a bestseller for the New York Times.
Skinner invented the operant conditioning chamber, which helps animals learn behavioral patterns by inducing them to perform specific actions in response to specific stimuli. These cameras have been used in a number of studies in the study of animal behavior and psychology. Skinner's psychological teaching, radical behaviorism, is used in many completely different areas modern society: in management, clinical practice, animal training and educational processes. His theories are used in prescribing therapy for autistic children.
In 1971, Skinner was awarded the Gold Medal of the American Psychological Foundation.
In 1990, for his invaluable contributions to the field, he received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the American Psychological Association.
In 1936, Skinner married Yvonne Blue. The family has two daughters, Julia and Deborah. Julia will later become famous writer and teacher.
The B. F. Skinner Foundation, founded in 1988 with his personal support, was created to promote the scientist's philosophy of science. The president of this foundation is his own daughter Julia.
In 1989, Skinner was diagnosed with leukemia, from which he died in 1990.
The most ardent opponent of Skinner's theories was the philosopher and cognitivist Noam Chomsky.
Skinner most often preferred to experiment on pigeons.
Lecture 6. Sociogenetic theories of development
The origins of the sociogenetic approach come from the tabula rasa theory that arose in the Middle Ages, formulated John Locke(1632-1704), according to which the human psyche at the moment of birth is a “blank slate”, but under the influence of external conditions, as well as upbringing, all the mental qualities characteristic of a person gradually arise in him. Locke put forward a number of ideas about organizing children's education on the principles of association, repetition, approval and punishment.
A representative of this trend was the French philosopher of the 18th century. Claude Adrian Helvetius(1715-1771), who believed that all people are born identical in their natural abilities and the inequality between them in the field of mental abilities and moral qualities is due only to unequal external environmental conditions and various educational influences.
Sociologizing ideas were consonant with the ideology that dominated the USSR until the mid-80s. According to this theory, with the help of targeted training and education, any qualities and behavioral properties can be formed in a child. In order to study a child, you need to study the structure of his environment.
The sociogenetic approach is associated with the behavioristic direction in psychology, according to which a person is what his environment makes of him. The main idea of behaviorism is the identification of development with learning, with the child’s acquisition of new experience. American researchers took the idea of I.P. Pavlov that adaptive activity is characteristic of all living things. Phenomenon conditioned reflex was perceived as some kind of elementary behavioral phenomenon. The idea of combining stimulus and response, conditioned and unconditional stimuli came to the fore: the time parameter of this connection was highlighted. The main theories of behaviorism include:
1. The theory of classical and instrumental conditioning I.P. Pavlova
2. Associationistic concept of learning by D. Watson and E. Ghazri.
3. The theory of operant conditioning by E. Thorndike.
4. B. Skinner's theory. With the help of reinforcement, you can shape any type of behavior.
The very idea of conducting a rigorous scientific experiment, created by I.P. Pavlov to study the digestive system, entered into American psychology. The first description of such an experiment by I. P. Pavlov was in 1897, and the first publication by J. Watson was in 1913. Already in the first experiments of I. P. Pavlov with the salivary gland brought out, the idea of connecting dependent and independent variables was realized, which runs through all American studies of behavior and its genesis not only in animals, but also in humans. Such an experiment has all the advantages of real natural scientific research, which is still so highly valued in American psychology: objectivity, accuracy (control of all conditions), accessibility for measurement. It is known that I.P. Pavlov persistently rejected any attempts to explain the results of experiments with conditioned reflexes by reference to the subjective state of the animal.
American scientists perceived the phenomenon of the conditioned reflex as a kind of elementary phenomenon, accessible to analysis, something like a building block, from many of which a complex system of our behavior can be built. The genius of I.P. Pavlov, according to his American colleagues, was that he managed to show how simple elements can be isolated, analyzed and monitored in the laboratory. The development of the ideas of I.P. Pavlov in American psychology took several decades, and each time the researchers were confronted with one of the aspects of this simple, but at the same time not yet exhausted phenomenon in American psychology - the phenomenon of the conditioned reflex.
In the earliest studies of learning, the idea of combining stimulus and response, conditioned and unconditioned stimuli, came to the fore: the time parameter of this connection was highlighted. This is how the associationist concept of learning arose (J. Watson, E. Ghazri). J. Watson started "his" scientific revolution, putting forward the slogan: “Stop studying what a person thinks; let’s study what a person does!”
Watson John Brodes
(1878 – 1958). American psychologist, founder of behaviorism (from the English behavior - behavior), one of the most widespread theories in Western psychology of the 20th century.
In 1913 His article “Psychology from the Point of View of a Behaviorist” was published, assessed as a manifesto of a new direction. Following this, his books “Behavior: An Introduction to Comparative Psychology” (1914), “Behaviorism” (1925) appeared, in which for the first time in the history of psychology the postulate that the subject of this science is consciousness (its content, processes, functions, etc.).
Influenced by the philosophy of positivism, Watson argued that only what can be directly observed is real. He argued that behavior should be explained from the relationship between the directly observable effects of physical stimuli on the organism and its also directly observable responses (reactions). Hence Watson’s main formula, adopted by behaviorism: “stimulus-response” (S-R). It followed from this that psychology must eliminate the processes between stimulus and response - whether physiological (nervous) or mental - from its hypotheses and explanations.
Methodologists of behaviorism proceeded from the assumption that the formation of basic mental processes occurs during life. Lipsitt and Kaye (Lipsitt, Kaye, 1964) conducted experiments on the development of conditioned reflexes in 20 three-day-old infants. Ten infants were assigned to the experimental group, and the combination of an unconditional (pacifier) and a conditioned stimulus (pure tone) was repeated 20 times. The researchers wanted to obtain the suckling response to the sound tone that a pacifier would naturally produce. After twenty stimulus combinations, infants in the experimental group began to make sucking movements in response to the sound, while infants in the control group, who were not exposed to stimulus combinations, did not show such a response. This research shows that learning occurs from the earliest days of life. It also suggests that a behaviorist approach can provide insight into development and that through conditioning, researchers can study infants' ability to process sensory information long before they acquire language.
D. Watson proved the ideas of classical conditioning in his experiments on the formation of emotions. He experimentally demonstrated that it is possible to form a fear response to a neutral stimulus. In his experiments, a child was shown a rabbit, which he picked up and wanted to stroke, but at that moment received an electric shock. Naturally, the child scaredly threw the rabbit and began to cry. However, the next time he approached the animal again and received an electric shock. By the third or fourth time, for most children, the appearance of a rabbit, even in the distance, caused fear. After this negative emotion was consolidated, Watson tried once again to change the emotional attitude of the children, forming an interest and love for the rabbit. In this case, they began to show it to the child during a tasty meal. The presence of this important primary stimulus was an indispensable condition for the formation of a new reaction. At the first moment, the child stopped eating and began to cry, but since the rabbit did not approach him, remaining far away, at the end of the room, and tasty food (for example, chocolate or ice cream) was nearby, the child quickly calmed down and continued eating. After the child stopped reacting by crying to the appearance of a rabbit at the end of the room, the experimenter gradually moved the rabbit closer and closer to the child, while simultaneously adding tasty things to his plate. Gradually, the child stopped paying attention to the rabbit and, in the end, reacted calmly, even when it was located near his plate, took the rabbit in his arms and tried to feed him something tasty. Thus, Watson argued, our emotions are the result of our habits and can change dramatically depending on circumstances.
Watson's observations showed that if the formed fear reaction to a rabbit was not converted to a positive one, a similar feeling of fear subsequently arose in children when they saw other fur-covered objects. Based on this, he sought to prove that persistent affective complexes can be formed in people based on conditioned reflexes according to a given program. Moreover, he believed that the facts he discovered proved the possibility of forming a certain, strictly defined model of behavior in all people. He wrote: “Give me a hundred children of the same age, and after a certain time I will form them into absolutely identical people, with the same tastes and behavior.”
The principle of behavior control gained wide popularity in American psychology after the work of Watson. His merit is also that he expanded the sphere of the psyche to include the bodily actions of animals and humans. But he achieved this innovation at a high price, rejecting as a subject of science the enormous riches of the psyche, irreducible to externally observable behavior.
Edwin Ray Ghazri
(1886 – 1959). He was a professor of psychology at the University of Washington from 1914 until his retirement in 1956. His major work was The Psychology of Learning, published in 1935 and reprinted in a new edition in 1952.
He proposed a single law of learning, the law of contiguity, which he formulated as follows: “A combination of stimuli which accompanies a movement, when reappeared, tends to produce the same movement. Notice that there is nothing said here about “confirmatory waves,” or reinforcement, or states of satisfaction.” Another way to define the law of contiguity is that if you did something in a given situation, then the next time you find yourself in the same situation, you will strive to repeat your actions.
E. Ghazri explained why, despite the possible truth of the law of contiguity, the prediction of behavior will always be probabilistic. Although this principle, as just stated, is short and simple, it will not be understood without some explanation. The phrase “tends” is used here because behavior at any point in time depends on a large number of different conditions. Conflicting “tendencies” or incompatible “tendencies” are always present. The outcome of any stimulus or stimulus pattern cannot be predicted with absolute accuracy because other stimulus patterns exist. We can express this by saying that the behavior presented is caused by the entire situation. But in saying this, we cannot flatter ourselves that we have done more than find an explanation for the impossibility of predicting behavior. No one has yet described, and no one will ever describe, the entire stimulus situation, or observe any complete situation, so as to speak of it as a “cause,” or even as a pretext for misconceptions about a small part of behavior.
In a recent publication, E. Ghazri revised his law of contiguity to clarify: “What is noticed becomes the signal for what is done.” For Ghazri, this was a recognition of the enormous number of stimuli that an organism encounters at any given time, and the fact that it is apparently impossible to form associations with all of them. Rather, the organism responds selectively to only a small fraction of the stimuli encountered, and this is the fraction that is associated with any response caused by those stimuli. One can pay attention to the similarities between Ghazri’s way of thinking and the concept of “predominance of elements” by Thorndike, who also believed that organisms react selectively to various manifestations of the environment.
Edward Lee Thorndike
(1874–1949). American psychologist and educator. President of the American Psychological Association in 1912.
Conducted research studying animal behavior. They were aimed at getting out of the “problem box”. By this term E. Thorndike meant an experimental device in which experimental animals were placed. If they left the box, they received reinforcement of the reflex. The research results were displayed on certain graphs, which he called “learning curves.” Thus, the purpose of his research was to study the motor reactions of animals. Thanks to these experiments, E. Thorndike concluded that animals act by the method of “trial and error and random success.” These works led him to the theory of connectivism.
E. Thorndike concludes that the behavior of any living creature is determined by three components:
1) a situation that includes both external and internal processes that affect the individual,
2) reaction or internal processes occurring as a result of this impact;
3) a subtle connection between the situation and the reaction, i.e. association. In his experiments, Thorndike showed that intelligence as such and its activity can be studied without resorting to reason. He transferred the emphasis from establishing internal connections to establishing connections between the external situation and movements, which introduced new trends in associative psychology. In his theory, Thorndike combined mechanical determinism with the biological, and then with the biopsychic, significantly expanding the area of psychology, previously limited to the limits of consciousness.
Based on his research, Thorndike derived several laws of learning:
1. The law of exercise. There is a proportional relationship between the situation and the reaction to it with the frequency of their repetition).
2. The law of readiness. The condition of the subject (the feelings of hunger and thirst he experiences) is not indifferent to the development of new reactions. Changes in the body's readiness to conduct nerve impulses are associated with exercise.
3. Law of associative shift. When reacting to one specific stimulus out of several acting simultaneously, other stimuli that participated in this situation subsequently cause the same reaction. In other words, a neutral stimulus, associated by association with a significant one, also begins to evoke the desired behavior. Thorndike also identified additional conditions for the success of a child's learning - the ease of distinguishing between stimulus and response and awareness of the connection between them.
4. Law of effect. The last, fourth, law caused a lot of controversy, since it included a motivation factor (a purely psychological factor). The law of effect stated that any action that causes pleasure in a certain situation is associated with it and subsequently increases the likelihood of repetition of this action in a similar situation, the displeasure (or discomfort) in an action associated with a certain situation leads to a decrease in the likelihood of committing this act in a similar situation. This implies that learning is also based on certain polar states within the organism. If the actions taken in a certain situation lead to successful results, then they can be called satisfying, otherwise they will be violating. Thorndike gives the concept of a successful result at the neuronal level. When the action is successful, the system of neurons brought to alert is actually functioning and not inactive.
E. Thorndike, B. Skinner. They identified development with learning.
Burres Frederick Skinner
(1904 – 1990). American psychologist, inventor and writer. He made a huge contribution to the development and promotion of behaviorism.
Skinner is best known for his theory of operant conditioning, and to a lesser extent for the fiction and journalistic works in which he promoted the ideas wide application behavior modification techniques developed in behaviorism (for example, programmed training) to improve society and make people happy, as a form of social engineering. Continuing the experiments of D. Watson and E. Thorndike, B. Skinner designed the so-called “Skinner box”, which made it possible to accurately measure behavior and automatically supply reinforcement. The Skinner box, reminiscent of a rat or pigeon cage, has a metal pedal, which, when pressed, the animal receives a portion of food into the feeder. With this very simple device, Skinner was able to make systematic observations of the behavior of animals under different conditions of reinforcement. It turned out that the behavior of rats, pigeons, and sometimes people is quite predictable, since they follow certain laws of behavior, at least in this situation. In Skinner's experiments (as in Thorndike's experiments), food was usually the reinforcer.
A typical Skinner model usually includes the following components: discriminated stimulus, individual response, and reinforcement. A discriminable stimulus usually signals to the individual that learning has begun. In Skinner's experiments, light and sound signals, as well as words, were used as discriminative stimuli. The response is the emergence of operant behavior. Skinner called his type of conditioning operant conditioning because the individual's response operates the mechanism of reinforcement. Finally, a reinforcing stimulus is given for an adequate response. Therefore, reinforcement increases the likelihood of subsequent operant behavior. Operant behavior can also be taught through avoidance conditioning, where reinforcement consists of ending exposure to an aversive stimulus. For example, a bright light can be turned off, a loud sound can be muted, an angry parent can be calmed down. Thus, in operant conditioning, an individual learns a response when the reinforcement consists of stopping exposure to an unpleasant stimulus.
Skinner developed a method of conditioning behavior through successive approximations, which forms the basis of operant conditioning. This method consists in the fact that the entire path from the initial behavior (even before the start of training) to the final reaction that the researcher seeks to develop in the animal is divided into several stages. In the future, all that remains is to consistently and systematically reinforce each of these stages and thus lead the animal to the desired form of behavior. With this method of learning, the animal is rewarded for every action that brings it closer to the final goal, and it gradually develops the desired behavior.
According to Skinner and other behaviorists, this is how most human behavior is developed. From Skinner's point of view, it is possible to explain the very rapid learning of a child's first words (without, however, extending this concept to language acquisition as a whole). At first, when the child is just beginning to utter some articulate sounds, the babbling “me-me-me” already causes delight among those around him, and especially the happy mother, who already thinks that the child is calling her. However, soon the parents' enthusiasm for such sounds cools down until the baby, to everyone's joy, utters “mo ... mo.” Then these sounds cease to be reinforced for the newborn until a relatively articulate “mo-mo” appears. In turn, this word, for the same reasons, will soon be replaced by the combination “moma”, and, finally, the child will clearly pronounce his first word - “mom”. All other sounds will be perceived by others only as “baby talk” in the literal sense of the word, and they will gradually disappear from the “lexicon” of the newborn. Thus, as a result of selective reinforcement from family members, the infant discards those incorrect responses for which he does not receive social reinforcement, and retains only those that are closest to the expected result.
Operant reactions in Skinner's sense should be distinguished from automatic, purely reflex reactions associated with unconditioned and conditioned reflexes. An operant response is an action that is voluntary and purposeful. However, Skinner defines goal-directedness in terms of feedback (that is, the effect on behavior of its consequences), rather than in terms of goals, intentions, or other internal states - mental or physiological. In his opinion, the use of these "internal variables" in psychology involves the introduction of dubious assumptions that add nothing to the empirical laws that relate observed behavior to observable environmental influences. It is these laws that are the real means of predicting and controlling the behavior of humans and animals. Skinner emphasized that “the objection to internal states is not that they do not exist, but that they are irrelevant for functional analysis.” In this analysis, the probability of an operator response appears as a function external influences- both past and present.
In the field of education, Skinner put forward the concept of programmed learning. According to him, such training can free the student and teacher from the boring process of simple knowledge transfer: the student will gradually advance in mastering a particular topic at his own rhythm and in small steps, each of which is reinforced; These steps constitute the process of successive approximation (Skinner, 1969). However, it was very soon discovered that such training quickly reaches its “ceiling”, and this is due precisely to the fact that only minimal effort is required from the student and therefore reinforcement soon becomes ineffective. As a result, the student quickly becomes bored with such training. In addition, personal contact with the teacher seems to be necessary to constantly maintain student motivation and orderly transfer of knowledge. All of this can perhaps be explained by the principles underlying social learning, and in particular observational learning.
Frederick Skinner is one of the most influential American psychologists in history, an atheist and radical behaviorist. He developed perhaps the main theory in behaviorism - the theory of operant conditioning. Despite the serious development of psychology since the formation of the basic positions of Skinner’s teaching, his principles continue to work effectively in science. For example, in the treatment of phobias or in the fight against various addictions. Skinner believed that the only correct approach to the study of psychology was the approach that studies the behavior of subjects (humans, animals, etc.). Therefore, in fact, he denied the existence of the mind outside the body, however, he did not deny the existence of thoughts that can be analyzed using the same principles that apply to the analysis of external behavior.
Burres Frederick Skinner was born in 1904 in the small town of Susquehanna, in Philadelphia. His father was a lawyer, and his mother was a strong-willed, intelligent housewife, which predetermined the child’s upbringing. Frederick grew up in a conservative religious environment that valued hard work and the love of God. From an early age, Skinner was an active boy, preferring games fresh air, loved to build, create various things. He studied with pleasure, although, despite all the efforts of his mother and teachers, he remained an atheist. His growing up was not without a tragic event: his younger brother died of a cerebral aneurysm at the age of sixteen.
Frederick Skinner graduated from Hamilton College in New York in 1926 with a degree in English literature. However, studying did not bring him much pleasure: he was usually left to his own devices, since he did not like football and sports in general, and he was not attracted to fraternity parties. Moreover, the college rules obliged him to attend church every day, which also did not please the future psychologist. While in college, he wrote articles for the faculty newspaper, often criticizing the college, the faculty and administration, and even the oldest fraternity, Phi Beta Kappa.
Frederick Skinner always wanted to be a writer, which is why he made numerous attempts to find himself in the craft of writing: he composed both prose and poetry, and sent works to newspapers and magazines. After receiving his diploma, he even built himself a studio in the attic of his parents’ house, but over time he realized that writing did not give the result he expected. It was not possible to achieve any significant success. “I realized that I had nothing important to say about anything important,” he later said.
Skinner soon stopped collaborating with newspapers, for which he wrote articles about problems in the employment market, and settled in Greenwich Village in New York, living a bohemian life. At the same time he began to travel. Quickly fed up with such a life, Skinner decides to enroll in the psychology department at Harvard. He always liked to observe the behavior of animals and humans, so there were no problems with specialization. The psychology department at the university at that time was predominantly focused on introspection (self-observation), and F. Skinner became more and more interested in behaviorism.
Education is what survives when what has been learned is forgotten. F. Skinner
In 1931, Skinner graduated from Harvard and received a diploma; he continued to engage in research at the university. The most significant theory for the psychology of behaviorism was the doctrine of operant conditioning developed by Skinner or the theory of operant learning. Its emergence was made possible not least thanks to numerous experiments with the so-called “Skinner box”. The device itself was a transparent, small sizes box with a special pedal inside. A laboratory rat was placed in the box and given complete freedom of action. As a result of chaotic and random movements in the box, each new rat inevitably touched the pedal over and over again. After pressing the pedal, food appeared in the box due to the operation of a special mechanism. After a few random presses, the rat developed a new behavior pattern: when the rat wanted to eat, it pressed the pedal and food appeared. Moreover, this behavior was formed without the participation of any additional incentives.
Skinner called such behavior patterns operants, that is, forms of behavior that represent a developed mechanism: the rat got hungry and pressed the pedal. At the same time, the scientist designated the positive consequences of such behavior as “reinforcements.” During numerous experiments with various types reinforcements Skinner found that there was a pattern with operants followed by positive consequences. It lies in the fact that such forms of behavior occur much more often than others. It turns out that if a rat “knows” that after pressing the pedal it will receive food, then it will repeat this action more often than others.
Similar behavior is typical for pigeons, with which Skinner loved to experiment. If a pigeon accidentally pecks at a red spot located on the floor of the cage and receives a grain, then this operant (an action with the expectation of success) will be repeated more often than others in the future. The same pattern of behavior is true for a person - if he was fed very tasty in one of the restaurants, then he will definitely return there, even if the establishment is located on the other side of the city. In some sources, the described pattern is referred to as the “first law of operant conditioning.” Although Skinner himself called it the “law of benefit.”
The practical value of this law is not in doubt. After all, now, if a teacher or therapist needs behavior correction by forming new habits or new form behavior, then using positive reinforcement for the “target” behavior is sufficient. By constantly reinforcing this behavior, the teacher will ensure that the behavior is repeated repeatedly in the future by the student or the therapist by the patient.
Concerning negative consequences behavior, this is where Skinner disagrees with many other psychologists. They believe that by imposing a “fine” on such behavior, they can eventually get rid of it altogether. But Skinner says that such a “fine” leads the individual to search for other forms of behavior that may be even more undesirable than the form that led to the punishment.
Skinner stayed at Harvard to conduct research for another 5 years after receiving his diploma. In 1936, he left his alma mater and moved to Minnesota, where he received a teaching position at a local university, a position that allowed him to continue research in the field of behaviorism. With the outbreak of the First World War, Skinner had new project: He tried to train pigeons to act as guides during air strikes. However, he failed to achieve his goal before the project was closed. But he managed to teach pigeons to play ping-pong.
In 1945, he became head of the psychology department at Indiana University. But, after working in the position for only a few years, he accepted an offer from Harvard University and returned to the position of lecturer at his alma mater. After some time, he received the title of professor, which allowed him to remain at Harvard for the rest of his life.
Skinner included all the developments in the theory of operant learning in his first published work, “The Behavior of Organisms.” This book has been compared by many to the works of I.P. Pavlov, but while Pavlov focused on reactions to various stimuli, Skinner focused on responses to the environment.
With the advent of his own children, he became increasingly interested in education, which was reflected in his book “Technology of Teaching”. The book was published in 1968. Three years later, his work “Beyond Freedom and Dignity” was published. She was seriously criticized due to the fact that Skinner hinted in the work about the lack of free will and individual consciousness in humans. Therefore, later he had to publish the work “About Behaviorism” to smooth out possible false interpretations.
However, in addition to his main early work, The Behavior of Organisms, Skinner's name is often associated with another of his works: WaldenTwo. This piece of art, a novel with which the scientist wanted to satisfy his eternal need for writing. Essentially this is a utopian novel. Despite the fictitiousness of the plot, Skinner applied some provisions of the theory of operant conditioning when describing the events. The people of the community described in the novel are raised from childhood through a system of rewards and punishments in order to become adults. good people. Which implies a completely equal position for all individuals, both according to social status: whether a cleaner or a manager, they are equal, and in material terms: there is no currency as such, and the daily rate for using any benefits of society is 4 credits, which are earned according to the plan and distribution of managers.
The novel somewhat damaged Skinner's reputation as a scientist among some of his colleagues; others noted his dubious emphasis on a scientific approach that did not take into account other aspects of human existence. However, there are several attempts to create a similar community in modern conditions. For example, the Twin Oaks community, which still exists today. However, it has moved away from most of the principles of Skinner's fictional society, but continues to use his idea of planning and loans.
Great value in scientific life Skinner had his own family. He met his wife Yvonne Blue while working at the University of Minnesota. In their marriage they had two daughters. The second daughter of the Skinner couple grew up in infancy in a special device invented by her father - in a “plexiglass heated crib with a window” (Aircrib). Skinner decided to take such a step after his wife’s requests during pregnancy to come up with a safe crib for their baby. Due to the fact that the couple then lived in Minnesota, the father of the family took into account both climatic factors and the general state of the environment in the state.
In engineering terms, the crib invented by Skinner was a large metal bed with a ceiling, three walls and plexiglass glass that could be raised or lowered if it was necessary to pick up or put the baby in the crib. Parents could regulate temperature and humidity using special device located on top of the crib. Came from below fresh air. Deborah – that was the girl’s name – spent the first two years of her life in such a crib. By all measures, she was healthy, and she also had a completely happy childhood and adult life.
Unfortunately, Skinner's invention was not destined to become commercially successful, despite its fame and recognition. The press did their best: after several photographs of his daughter in the crib, many people had a direct association with the “Skinner Box”, as well as with reinforcements, levers and other things. In addition, people are very careful when it comes to technologies that replace the work of a loving mother. Perhaps the criticism had no basis in reality: Deborah Skinner grew up as a healthy and happy child, she had no problems with her crib and always talked about her childhood in a positive way.
I don't admire myself as a person. My successes do not negate my shortcomings. F. Skinner
IN last years Throughout his life, Skinner was still active in scientific activities, although he somewhat retreated from direct research. In several autobiographical works, the scientist tried to give logical order to his life. rich life and chronologically build its important milestones. But he carried out research in the field of behaviorism even at an advanced age, although the diagnosis of leukemia in 1989 seriously limited his activity. He lost his battle with the disease on August 18, 1990, when he died at the age of 86 at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The basic principles of Skinner's theory live on, primarily thanks to the B.F. SkinnerFoundation,” whose president today is his eldest daughter Julia Skinner (married Vargas). Throughout his life, the scientist received more than two dozen “Honorary Degree” titles from various higher educational institutions USA. A few days before his death, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Psychological Association. He published more than 20 books and wrote about 180 articles, and his contemporaries recognize him as a pioneer of modern behaviorism along with John Watson and Ivan Pavlov. According to many researchers, Skinner is the second most influential psychologist in history after Sigmund Freud.
1. Behavior of Organisms (1938).
2. Walden - 2 (1948).
3. Science and Human Behavior (1953).
4. Verbal Behavior (1957).
5. Regimes of Reinforcement (1957).
6. Summation of Observation (1961).
7. Technology of Education (1968).
8. Random Reinforcement (1969).
9. Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971).
10. About behaviorism (1974).
11. Details of my life (1976).
12. Reflections: Behaviorism and Society (1978).
13. Portrait of a Behaviorist (1979).
14. The Meaning of Consequences (1983).
15. The joys of middle age (1983).
16. To further thoughts (1987).
The behaviorist program was led by John Watson (1878 - 1958), trying to find forms of approach to mental life, with a clearly expressed natural-scientific bias. Behaviorists could not consider such concepts as “awareness”, “experience”, “suffering” to be scientific, since they are subjective in nature and are products of introspection. Science, according to behaviorists, cannot operate with concepts that are not recorded by objective means. The most radical behaviorist, B.F. Skinner, called such concepts “explanatory fictions” and deprived them of the right to exist in science. The subject of study of behaviorists was behavior. “We replace the stream of consciousness with a stream of activity,” said Watson. Activity - internal and external - was described by the concept of reaction, which included those changes in the body that could be recorded by objective methods - movement, secretory activity.
J. Watson proposed the formula S => R as an explanatory scheme, according to which an impact (stimulus) generates a reaction, and the nature of the reaction is determined by the stimulus. Learning to manage behavior was scientific program D.Watson. If the response is determined by the stimulus, then it is enough to select the necessary stimuli to obtain the desired behavior. According to Watson, such laws of learning (the formation of a reaction to certain stimuli) are universal and apply to humans and animals. The descriptions of learning are based on the patterns of formation of a conditioned reflex according to I.P. Pavlov, to whom behaviorists have always referred.
B. Skinner suggested a different principle of behavior. Behavior may be determined not by the stimulus that precedes the response, but by its likely consequences. An animal or person will reproduce behavior that had pleasant consequences and avoid it if the consequences were unpleasant. In other words, it is not the subject who chooses the behavior, but the likely consequences of the behavior that control the subject. Accordingly, behavior can be controlled by positively reinforcing certain behaviors, thereby making them more likely to occur. This is the basis of Skinner's idea of programmed learning, which provides for “step-by-step” mastery of an activity with reinforcement for each step.
» Skinner's operant theory
© V.A. Romenets, I.P. Manoha
Burrhus Frederic Skinner is considered the second leading neo-behaviourist after C. Hull, but he significantly exceeds him in popularity. Until his death, he remained one of the most famous psychologists in the world; his ideas still influence the nature of psychological research, pedagogy and the practice of psychology. Historians of science ask: Did Skinner make significant contributions to human self-knowledge? And basically they answer like this: “He was too far from such questions.”
Man's understanding of himself, or at least what philosophers and psychologists have sought for centuries, was not Skinner's goal. Throughout his long life, he adhered to an extreme behaviorist position, according to which “subjective entities,” such as the mind, thinking, memory, and argumentation, do not exist at all, but are only “verbal constructs,” grammatical traps into which humanity fell with the development of speech. Skinner looked for the determinants of behavior: how it is determined by external causes. He had no doubt about the correctness of his position, since he believed that “behaviorism needs explanation.”
The theory of conditioning that Skinner sought to create was to summarize his rather unusual research: everything we do and everything we are is determined by the history of our rewards and punishments. The details of his theory came from such principles as partial reinforcement of the effect, the study of the environment that causes a certain behavior or stops it.
Like J. Watson, Skinner was socially active, particularly as a publicist. In one of his early television appearances, he cited a dilemma that had been proposed by M. Montaigne: “What would you do if you had to choose: have children or create books?” - and answered that for himself personally he would give birth to children, but his contribution to the future would be significant thanks to his labors.
Skinner liked to laugh at the terms that experts used to understand human behavior: “Behavior is human nature, and therefore there must be an extensive “psychology of individual differences” in which people are compared with each other and described in terms of character traits, abilities, inclinations. But behind tradition, everyone who deals with human actions continues to interpret human behavior in a pre-scientific way.”
Skinner also rejected attempts to understand inner side character of the individual: “We had no need to say that personalities, states of mind, feelings, character traits of a person really exist so that they can be reconciled with scientific analysis behavior... Thinking and everything else is behavior. The mistake lies in trying to attribute behavior to the soul."
According to Skinner, it is necessary to know the external causes of behavior and its observable results. Only based on such assumptions can a clear picture of the activity of the organism as a behavioral system be given.
According to this position, he acted as a convinced determinist: “We are what we appear in our history. We want to think that we choose, that we act, but I cannot agree that the individual is either free or responsible." Skinner considers self-sufficient and autonomous human existence an illusion. For him good man is so because it is completely conditioned to behave in a certain way, and a good society must be based on "behavioral engineering", which means the scientific control of behavior using positive reinforcement methods.
Skinner's contemporaries considered him a deft popularizer of science: he was eloquent, confidently selfish, and knew how to grab attention. To demonstrate the benefits of conditioning, he taught a pigeon to play a tune on a toy piano and a pair of pigeons to play table tennis by rolling a ball with their beaks. Millions of viewers watched it on television as a science documentary.
Two pigeons play ping pong during an operant conditioning experiment. Cambridge, Massachusetts, June 1950.
Skinner transferred his naturalistic visions to the society he invented. In his utopian novel Walden Two (1948), he describes a small community in which children's behavior from birth was strictly rewarded (positive reinforcement) to set them on a path of cooperation and sociability, all behavior scientifically controlled for the common good. Despite the artificiality of the dialogue and the somewhat hackneyed plot, this book became a favorite among students. It quickly sold over two million copies.
Skinner's popularity with the public was much greater than among his professional colleagues. The American Psychologist magazine wrote: “Skinner is a leading figure in the behaviorist myth. He is the scientist-hero, Prometheus, the bearer of the fire of discovery, the master technologist, the chief rebel who frees our thoughts from old views."
Skinner was born in a small town in Pennsylvania to a lawyer father. As a boy, he was interested in inventions; later, as a psychologist, he created original and effective equipment for experiments with animals. In school and college, Skinner dreamed of becoming a writer, and after college he tried writing. Although he closely watched various shapes human behavior around him, he once clearly understood that he could not say anything about what he saw and experienced, and in deep sadness abandoned such efforts.
But Skinner soon found another, more practical way for himself to understand human behavior. Having become acquainted with the works of Watson and Pavlov, he realized that his future lay in the scientific discovery of human behavior, in particular in the study of conditioning reactions. “I was very upset by my failures in literature,” he said in 1977. “I was convinced that the writer didn’t really understand anything.” And this led me to return to psychology.”
Although introspective psychology reigned at Harvard at the time, Skinner was not interested in the “inner history” of man and went his own way, conducting behavioral studies with rats. In his autobiography, he openly says that, despite his professorial training, he became more and more a behaviorist, and during the defense of his dissertation he sharply rejected criticism of behaviorism.
Using his inventive abilities, he designed the "problem cell", which was a significant achievement after the famous Thorndike model. It was quite spacious for white rats, and there was a bar on the wall with food and drink. When a rat, while walking around the cage, accidentally rested its front paws on the bar, pressing on it, food in the form of a ball fell onto the tray.
This made it possible to obtain more objective data on behavior than was possible before Skinner's experiments. It was the rat that “determined” how much time passed between pressing the bar. Therefore, for his discovery of the principle of learning, Skinner could thank the so-called “rat response” - a class of achievements in which the behavior of an animal changes in response to reinforcement without intervention by the experimenter.
Skinner structured the cage research program in such a way that it brought its conditions closer to real situations where behavior is reinforced or not reinforced. He examines, in particular, the learning of responses when they are regularly reinforced or when reinforcement is suddenly interrupted, and the effect on learning of time intervals with their regularity and irregularity.
On this basis, Skinner formulated a number of principles that shed light not only on the behavior of rats, but also on human existence. It's about, in particular, about his discovery of important variations in the effect of partial, partial reinforcement. Skinner finds an analogy in the behavior of players with a slot machine in a casino: neither the rat nor the players can predict when the next reinforcement will appear, but they have the hope that it will appear with each new attempt.
Skinner's important contribution to the behavioral sciences is his concept of operant conditioning. This alone already deserves, in the opinion of American historians of psychology, a prominent place among the famous psychologists of the world.
In classical Pavlovian conditioning, an animal's unconditioned response (salivation) to food is converted into a conditioned response to a previous neutral stimulus (the sound of a metronome or bell: the decisive element in behavioral change is the new stimulus.
In Thorndikeian “instrumental” conditioning, the critical element of behavioral change is the response, not the stimulus. The neutral response - a random step (press) on the pedal during random efforts to obtain food - is a reinforcing learning step of behavior that results in a change for which the animal has not previously been trained.
Skinnerian operant conditioning is important development instrumental. The random movement that an animal performs can in any case be understood as operant for others and therefore, according to Skinner, is precisely operant. Reinforcement movement leads to operant conditioning. By reinforcing a series of small, random movements, the experimenter can "create" the animal's behavior while it acts in ways that were not part of its original natural repertoire.
Burress F. Skinner
This approach allowed Skinner to “create” the behavior of a pigeon - to force it to peck at a large colored plastic disk attached to the wall of the “Skinner” cage. He writes about it this way: “We first gave the bird food when it slowly turned in the direction of the disk. This determined the frequency of such behavior. We maintained reinforcement until slight movement was directed toward the spot (disc). This again changed the general distribution of behavior without developing a new unity. We continued the successful approach to the spot with position reinforcement, then reinforced only when the head moved slowly forward, and finally only when the beak actually made contact with the spot.
In this way, we can construct operant behaviors that would never otherwise appear in the organism's repertoire. When reinforced by a series of successful approximations, we obtain the answer for a short time. A functionally related unity of behavior arises; it is constructed by an ongoing process of differential reinforcement away from nondifferential behavior.”
Skinner likened the pigeon's operant training to a child's learning to talk, sing, dance, play, and eventually the entire repertoire of human behavior, created from small units of simple behavioral acts. This could be called an "an Erector-set" (a view from human existence), a mindless robot assembled by operant conditioning from many meaningless pieces.
Skinner was not recognized for a long time by leading psychological institutions, but gradually he gained supporters, which later resulted in the publication of four journals of Skinner's behavioral works, as well as in the creation of a special section on Skinnerian studies.
Skinner's technique of operant conditioning has been widely used in experimental psychology. In recent years, his work has been cited in hundreds of scientific publications annually (about one-seventh the frequency of Freud's mentions). In addition, Skinner had great influence outside the mainstream of psychology.
Darby, 13 month old daughter of Professor B.F. Skinner, from the moment of birth lived in a dust-proof, closed and glassed playpen, in which temperature and humidity were automatically regulated. Skinner gradually reduced the amount of time Darby spent in her crate until eventually she would only sleep in it.
In 1956, while visiting his daughter at school, it occurred to Skinner that the operant technique used to teach a pigeon to play the piano might be more effective for learning than traditional methods. Complex subjects can be broken down into simple steps in a logical sequence; students may be asked questions, and the teacher should immediately answer which of their answers are correct. There are two principles at work here: 1) knowledge that is communicated correctly must become reinforced by behavior; 2) immediate positive reinforcement works better than destructive negative reinforcement. The result is known as a "programmable instruction".
Since a teacher cannot apply reinforcement simultaneously in a classroom with many students, new textbooks must be written so that questions and answers follow one another. In addition, Skinner proposed training machines for operant self-learning. Mechanical model was eventually abandoned, but today the use of computer-based direct reinforcement instruction is experiencing a renaissance.
Within a few years, the programmed learning movement had become widespread. The principles of operant conditioning have been adapted for teaching in schools and colleges in the United States and other countries. But educators realized that “atomistic” methods of programmable instruction are only part of what human existence needs: integral, hierarchized mental structures are also needed. More recent research has shown that delayed reinforcement often produces best result than instant reinforcement. Reasoning about the nature of the answer can lead to a greater learning effect than quickly obtaining the answer. At the same time, Skinner's doctrine of direct reinforcement has been qualified as useful and is contained in many curriculum and school textbooks.
Burress Skinner also had some success in uncovering the causes of mental and emotional disorders. A system of small reinforcements for small changes towards health makes it possible to change the patient's behavior. In the late 1940s, Skinner and two of his students carried out the first experimental test of what became known as behavior modification. They set up a hospital in a psychiatric hospital near Boston, in which, according to an appropriate technique, psychotic patients were given candy or cigarettes in order to operate the machine accordingly. Therapists provided patients with incentives for appropriate behavior, such as voluntary attention aids, support with household tasks, privileges of choosing lunch company, talking to a doctor, or the opportunity to watch television.
Reinforcing the desired behavior often worked for such people. One depressed woman did not want to eat and was afraid of dying from starvation. But she received guests, watched TV shows, listened to the radio, read books and magazines, and had flowers in her room. The therapists moved her to a room devoid of this comfort and shined the light directly on her. If she ate something, certain comfort items were temporarily returned to the room. Gradually the woman regained her weight. After 18 months she was leading a normal life.
The "behavioral modification" movement spread to many mental hospitals and schools. This modification was used to solve important problems such as smoking, obesity, timidity, tics, and speech difficulties. This was a specialized behavior therapy technique, but was based more on Pavlovian conditioning than Skinner's modification.
Burrhus F. Skinner
Skinner's famous book - "Walden Two" - did not make American society, or at least part of it, happy, but it undoubtedly influenced the social views of millions of its readers. Some efforts have been made to realize a utopia modeled after "Walden Two" - Twin Oaks Community in Louisiana, Virginia, and a commune founded by eight people in 1966. After several years of survival, this commune grew to 81 members. They tried, on the basis of relevant knowledge, to evoke ideal behavior and create models of its various forms using Skinnerian reinforcement methods.
Skinner once remarked: “My influence on other people was much less than on rats and pigeons or on human subjects.” This, apparently, should not be taken literally. What he really thought about was: “I never doubted the importance of my work.” And he added, in his characteristic perverse style: “When this work began to attract attention, I was more wary of this experiment than I was pleased with it. Some reproach me that I was afraid or depressed from the so-called pride and thirst for fame. I reject any ambition that would take time away from my work or that would overly reinforce specific aspects of it.
The historian of psychology M. Hunt, presenting Skinner's ideas, does not go further than stating individual facts and describing the characterological traits of the scientist himself. But this presentation cannot help but suggest an idea: is it possible to draw a parallel between Skinner’s intentions to build an ideal communist community, based on the idea of operant conditioning, and the intentions of Marxists to change the world, relying on “scientific communism” as a technology of social transformation?
Romenets V.A., Manokha I.P. History of psychology of the 20th century. - Kyiv, Lybid, 2003.
