John+B.+Watson+&+B.F.+Skinner

John B. Watson published the article “Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It” in 1913, in which Watson explained the most important facets of his new philosophy on psychology which he called “behaviorism.” Watson explicitly describes “behaviorism” in this selection from “Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It”: “Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior. Introspection forms no essential part of its methods, nor is the scientific value of its data dependent upon the readiness with which they lend themselves to interpretation in terms of consciousness. The behaviorist, in his efforts to get a unitary scheme of animal response, recognizes no dividing line between man and brute. The behavior of man, with all of its refinement and complexity, forms only a part of the behaviorist's total scheme of investigation” (Watson 1913.) The main idea of Watson’s “behaviorism” would be that the external behavior of individuals and not their internal, mental state best predicts their response to hypothetical situations. According to “behaviorism,” the analysis of behaviors and responses is the only objective way to gather information on human action and reaction. The majority of Watson’s colleagues would dismiss “behaviorism” as intellectual masturbation without realistic foundation. Watson was subsequently dismissed from Johns Hopkins University in October 1920 amidst much controversy and rumor circulation; in addition to his affair with graduate assistant Rosalie Rayner, it was also conjectured that the two had been conducting experiments on the human sexual response in line with Watson’s ideas on “behaviorism.”
 * Watson’s Behaviorism **

The Little Albert experiment was conducted by John B. Watson in 1920 and showcased concrete evidence of classical conditioning and stimulus generalization in human beings. Watson conducted the experiment because he sought support for his theory that the reaction of children to loud noises was prompted by innate fear. Watson believed he could condition children to fear other stimulus’s which would not normally condition fear. The experiment began by placing Little Albert on a table in close contact with a laboratory rat with which he was allowed to play; at this point the child showed no fear of the rat. In subsequent trials, a loud noise was created when Little Albert began to play with the rat which made the child cry and show fear. After several trials involving both the rat and the loud noise, Little Albert was introduced to the rat separately from the loud noise which conditioned a fear response from the child in the form of crying and retreating from the rat. Little Albert was classically conditioned to associate the white rat (neutral stimulus) with the loud noise (innate stimulus) which produced the fearful response (unconditioned response to noise, now conditioned response to rat.)
 * “Little Albert” Experiment **

B.F. Skinner developed a philosophy which he dubbed radical behaviorism that continues the experimental analysis of behavior approach which began with John B. Watson’s “behaviorism.” The main ideas of Skinner’s radical behaviorism are as follows: first, all actions produced by organisms are determined and not free; second, it rejects the construction of theories about events in unobservable and unmeasurable “other places” (i.e. the mind.) These main ideas led Skinner to propose a theory that explained how certain behaviors came about which is known as operant conditioning. In operant conditioning, an operant (behavior) is removed from the equation and produces consequences in the world that change the likelihood of that behavior occurring again. Operant conditioning has two basic purposes, increasing or decreasing the likelihood of a specific behavior occurring in the future, which are accomplished by adding or subtracting a positive or negative stimulus. The goal of operant conditioning is to know something about the future of an organism that was previously unknown: in the future, the organism will be more likely to repeat the reinforced behavior and less likely to repeat the punished behavior.
 * Skinner **** ’s (Rad **** ical) Behaviorism **

B.F. Skinner defines a reinforcer as a stimulus that affects a change in response strength. Therefore, activities, foods or items considered pleasurable may not necessarily be reinforcing unless they produce a future increase in the behavior that precedes the potential reinforcer. Skinner believed that positive reinforcement was superior to negative reinforcement in altering behaviors. He posited that punishment was not the opposite of reward because rewards will engender consistent behavior modification, whereas, punishment will only temporarily produce behavior modification. Skinner defined reinforcement as the creation of a situation that a person likes or removing a situation that a person does not like and punishment as creating a situation that a person does not like or removing a situation that a person likes. Skinner also developed schedules of reinforcement that proved more effective than singular instances of reinforcement. The most notable schedules were interval and ratio reinforcement which could be either fixed or variable in degree. Fixed interval reinforcement followed the first response after a set time; whereas, variable did not follow a set time but instead an average value. Fixed ratio reinforcement followed a set number of responses; whereas, the number of responses before reinforcement differs from the last in variable.
 * Reinforcement **

B.F. Skinner analyzes human behavior in linguistic terms in the 1957 book, //Verbal Behavior//. For Skinner, verbal behavior is subject to the same controlling variables as any other operant behavior. The context of verbal behavior is key to Skinner’s philosophy of language, which led Skinner to define verbal behavior as behavior that is under the control of other people (who can function as either speaker or listener.) Skinner argued that verbal behavior is a best understood as a combination of the speaker’s current environment and past behavioral history. According to Skinner, it is the behavior that must be the object of study, analyzed within the context of the physical environment in which it occurs and not the hypothetical (i.e. mental) environment in which it could possibly occur. Skinner’s theories on verbal behavior led him to develop a “three term contingency model” with which to analyze that same behavior. The first term “antecedent” is the stimulus that conditions the response which is the second term “behavior” followed by the result of the behavior that is the third term the “consequence.”
 * Verbal Behavior **

About Behaviorism Ch. 1 Causes of Behaviour § 3 Radical Behaviorism, B. F. Skinner 1974.
 * References **

Schedules of Reinforcement, B.F. Sklinner with [|C. B. Ferster], 1957.

Verbal Behavior, B.F. Skinner 1957.

[|Psychology as the behaviorist views it (1913)]. Watson, John B., Psychological Review, 20, pp. 158–177. [|Conditioned emotional reactions (The Little Albert study, 1920).] Watson, John B. & Rayner, Rosalie, Journal of Experimental Psychology, 3(1), pp. 1–14.

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