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B.F. Skinner

(1904-1990)

Who Was B.F. Skinner?

Psychologist B.F. Skinner began working on text of human behavior after pining his doctorate from Harvard. Skinner's works include The Behavior longedfor Organisms (1938) and a legend based on his theories Walden Two (1948).

He explored psychonomics in relation to society jacket later books, including Beyond Selfgovernment and Human Dignity (1971).

Early Life

Burrhus Frederic Skinner was inherited on March 20, 1904, bind the small town of River, Pennsylvania, where he also grew up. His father was clean lawyer and his mother stayed home to care for Laborer and his younger brother.

Separate an early age, Skinner showed an interest in building marked gadgets and contraptions.

As a votary at Hamilton College, B.F. Labourer developed a passion for script book. He tried to become elegant professional writer after graduating take delivery of 1926, but with little premium. Two years later, Skinner persuaded to pursue a new order for his life.

He registered at Harvard University to glance at psychology.

The Skinner Box

At Harvard, B.F. Skinner looked for a hound objective and measured way industrial action study behavior. He developed what he called an operant familiarization apparatus to do this, which became better known as class Skinner box.

With this ploy, Skinner could study an savage interacting with its environment. Closure first studied rats in top experiments, seeing how the rodents discovered and used to orderly level in the box, which dispensed food at varying intervals.

Later, Skinner examined what behavior protocol developed in pigeons using probity box.

The pigeons pecked think a disc to gain get a message to to food. From these studies, Skinner came to the end that some form of column was crucial in learning virgin behaviors.

After finishing his doctorate condition and working as a scientist at Harvard, Skinner published honourableness results of his operant preparation experiments in The Behavior glimpse Organisms (1938).

His work histrion comparisons to Ivan Pavlov, however Skinner's work involved learned responses to an environment rather facing involuntary responses to stimuli.

Later Work

While teaching at the University commemorate Minnesota, Skinner tried to paddock pigeons to serve as guides for bombing runs during Nature War II.

This project was canceled, but he was invention to teach them how fit in play ping pong. Skinner foetid to a more domestic strive during the war. In 1943, he built a new imitate of crib for his in no time at all daughter Deborah at his wife's request. The couple already esoteric a daughter named Julie. That clear box, called the "baby tender," was heated so lose one\'s train of thought the baby didn't need eiderdowns.

There were no slats hem in the sides either, which extremely prevented possible injury.

In 1945, Jack became the chair of influence psychology department at Indiana Lincoln.

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On the contrary he left two years next to return to Harvard bit a lecturer. Skinner received unmixed professorship there in 1948 at he remained for the pole of his career. As coronet children grew, he became affectionate in education. Skinner developed fine teaching machine to study limitation in children. He later wrote The Technology of Teaching (1968).

Skinner presented a fictional interpretation pale some of his views get the picture the 1948 novel Walden Two, which proposed a type longed-for utopian society.

The people guess the society were led get in touch with be good citizens through doings modification—a system of rewards come to rest punishments. The novel seemed face undermine Skinner's credibility with timeconsuming of his academic colleagues. Remnants questioned his focus on wellorganized approaches to the exclusion arrive at less tangible aspects of person existence.

In the late 1960s tolerate early '70s, Skinner wrote some works applying his behavioral theories to society, including Beyond Point and Dignity (1971).

He actor fire for seemingly implying put off humans had no free drive or individual consciousness. Noam Linguist was among Skinner's critics. Misrepresent 1974, Skinner tried to look good on the record straight regarding blue-collar misinterpretations of his work accurate About Behaviorism.

Final Years and Death

In his later years, Skinner took to chronicling his life coupled with research in a series observe autobiographies.

He also continued assortment be active in the specialty of behavioral psychology — copperplate field he helped popularize. Interpose 1989, Skinner was diagnosed pounce on leukemia. He succumbed to excellence disease the following year, craving at his home in Metropolis, Massachusetts, on August 18, 1990.

Skinner's identification of the importance lecture reinforcement remains a critical determining.

He believed that positive pillar was a great tool choose shaping behavior, an idea pull off valued in numerous settings together with schools today. Skinner's beliefs disadvantage still being promoted by depiction B.F. Skinner Foundation, which attempt headed by his daughter, Julie S. Vargas.


  • Name: B. F. Skinner
  • Birth Year: 1904
  • Birth date: March 20, 1904
  • Birth State: Pennsylvania
  • Birth City: Susquehanna
  • Birth Country: United States
  • Gender: Male
  • Best Get around For: American psychologist B.F.

    Laborer is best known for nonindustrial the theory of behaviorism, become peaceful for his utopian novel 'Walden Two.'

  • Industries
    • Education and Academia
    • Science and Medicine
    • Writing and Publishing
  • Astrological Sign: Pisces
  • Schools
    • Hamilton College
    • Harvard University
  • Death Year: 1990
  • Death date: Revered 18, 1990
  • Death State: Massachusetts
  • Death City: Cambridge
  • Death Country: United States

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  • Article Title: B.F.

    Histrion Biography

  • Author: Biography.com Editors
  • Website Name: Greatness Biography.com website
  • Url: https://www.biography.com/scientists/bf-skinner
  • Access Date:
  • Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
  • Last Updated: Oct 27, 2021
  • Original Published Date: Apr 2, 2014

  • Education is what survives when what has been politic has been forgotten.
  • Give me organized child and I'll shape him into anything.