For learning.

1. BEHAVIORAL
ANALYSIS

2.  Radical behaviorism
– a doctrine that avoids
all hypothetical constructs
such as ego, traits, drives,
needs, hunger.
OVERVIEW

3.  Determinist
Environmentalist
- he rejected the notion of
volition/free will.
- explain behavior on the
basis of environmental
stimuli.

4. BIOGRAPHY
Burrhus Frederic
Skinner or B.F. Skinner
 was born in
Susquehanna,
Pennsylvania, USA, on
March 20, 1904.

5.  William Skinner
- A lawyer and
politician
 Grace Mange
Burrhus Skinner
- A good Presbyterian,
who took care of the
house and family.

6.  Skinner grew up in a
comfortable, happy,
upper-middle class home
where his parents
practiced the values of
temperance, service,
honesty, and hard work.
BIOGRAPHY

7.  when Skinner was 2 ½ years old,
Edward was born.
BIOGRAPHY
 and died during
Skinner’s first year
at college.

8. YOUNG ADULTHOOD
 Skinner experience his first
identity crises when armed with
an undergraduate degree in
English.
 B.F. Skinner returned to his
parents’ home hoping to shape his identity
in the world of literature.
BIOGRAPHY

9. BIOGRAPHY
 William Skinner reluctantly agreed to allow
and support Fred but in one condition; He
would get a job if his writing career was not
successful.
 After 3 months of trying to become a creative
writer, Fred realized that the quality of his work
was poor.
 He blamed his parents, their hometown, even
literature itself.

10. BIOGRAPHY
 “Dark Year”
- time of identity confusion (Erikson)
- time for trying to discover who he was,
where he was going to get there.
November, 1927
- he decided to abandon literature and study
psychology.
 He became determined to be a behaviorist
after reading some of the works of Watson and
Pavlov.

11. BIOGRAPHY 1928
- He became a graduate student at Harvard
University’s psychology department, aged 24.
1931
- completed his PhD
- received a fellowship from the National Research
Council to continue his laboratory research at Harvard.
 1933
- Harvard created the Society of Fellows (a
program designed to promote creative thinking among
young intellectually gifted men in the university).

12. BIOGRAPHY
 1936
- Skinner began a teaching and research
position at the University of Minnesota and
married
Yvonne Blue
Julie, 1938 Deborah,1944

13. BIOGRAPHY
 Minnesota Years
- published his first book , The Behavior of
Organisms (1938).
- interesting ventures:
1. pigeon-guided missile

14. BIOGRAPHY
Pigeon-guided missile
attempt to condition pigeons to make
appropriate pecks on keys that would maneuver
an explosive missile into an enemy target.
 1944
- Skinner dramatically demonstrated to
government officials the feasibility of the project
by producing a live pigeon that unerringly
tracked a moving target.

15. BIOGRAPHY
2. Baby tender
 an enclosed crib with a
large window and a
continual supply of fresh
warm air.

16. BIOGRAPHY Skinner, still dependent on his father for financial
help. (40 yrs. Old)
 1945
- became the chair of Indiana University’s
psychology department.
- wrote Walden Two ( a utopian novel that
portrayed a society in which problems were solved
through behavioral engineering.
 1948
- He returned to Harvard where he taught mostly
in the College of Education.

17. BIOGRAPHY
 1964
- he retired from teaching but retained
faculty status. (60 yrs. Old)
 1974
- retired as a professor of Psychology but
continued working until his death on,
 August 18, 1990
- B.F. Skinner died aged 86 in Cambridge,
Massachusetts from complications resulting
from leukemia.

18. regarded as the
father of Operant
Conditioning.

19. SCIENTIFIC
BEHAVIORISM
 Skinner insisted that human behavior should
be studied scientifically.
 Skinner disagreed in postulating a
hypothetical internal mental function.
“People do not eat because they are hungry.”
-Hunger is an inner condition not directly
observable.

20. SCIENTIFIC
BEHAVIORISM
 Cosmology – concern with causation.
To be scientific, psychology must avoid
internal mental factors and confine itself to
observable physical events.
Philosophy of SCIENCE
“Scientific behaviorism allows for an interpretation
of behavior but not an explanation of its causes”.

21. SCIENTIFIC
BEHAVIORISM
Characteristics of SCIENCE
 Science is cumulative.
 Science is an attitude that places value on
empirical observations.
Three components of scientific attitude:
 rejects authority
 demands intellectual honesty
 suspends judgment
 Science is a search for order and lawful
relationships.

22. STRUCTURE OF
PERSONALITY
 He focused on modifiable behavior and de-
emphasized the biological or genetic
determinants.
CONDITIONING
 Classical conditioning(respondent
conditioning)
 Operant conditioning(Skinnerian
conditioning)

23. Classical
conditioning
 a response is drawn out of the organism
by specific, identifiable stimulus.
 a conditioned stimulus is paired with an
unconditioned stimulus a number of times
until it is capable of bringing about a
previously unconditioned response.
(conditioned response)

24. Classical
conditioning
reflexive behaviors:
- light shined in the eye stimulates the
pupil to contract,
- food place on the tongue brings about
salivation,
- pepper in the nostrils results in the
sneezing reflex.
 responses are unlearned involuntary, and
common not only to the species but across
species as well.

25. Classical
conditioning
The Case of Little
Albert
 Conditioned
stimulus: white rat
 Unconditioned
stimulus: fear of the
loud sudden sound

26. Operant
refer to any "active behavior that
operates upon the environment to
generate consequences“
 In other words, Skinner's theory
explained how we acquire the range of
learned behaviors we exhibit each and
every day.

27. Operant
conditioning
a type of learning in which
reinforcement, which is contingent upon
the occurrence of a particular response,
increases the probability that the same
response will occur again.
 Reinforcement
- any condition within the environment
that strengthens behavior.

28. Operant
conditioning
behavior is made more likely to recur when
it is immediately reinforced.
 “if the occurrence of the operant is followed
by presentation of reinforcing stimulus, the
strength is increased”
 if a response is followed by a reward, the
response will be strengthened;
 or if you want to strengthen a response of a
behavior pattern, reward it.

29. Operant
conditioning
Example:
 when a lab rat presses
a blue button, he receives
a food pellet as a reward,
but when he presses the
red button he receives a
mild electric shock.

30. As a result, he learns to press the
but avoid the red button.
Operant
conditioning

31. Operant
conditioning
 Shaping
- a procedure in which the experimenter
or the environment first rewards gross
approximations of the behavior, then closer
approximations, and finally the desired
behavior itself.(Fiest)
- a process in which reinforcement is used
to create new responses out of old ones.
- a gradual molding of behavior through
reward.

32. Shaping
reward
reward
reward
reward

33. Operant
conditioning
 Instances:
 A. Antecedent
- refers to the environment or
setting in which the behavior takes
place.
 B. Behavior
- response must be within the
person’s repertoire and must not be
interfered with by competing or
antagonistic behaviors such as

34. Operant
conditioning
 Instances:
 C. Consequences
- the reward
 Operant Discrimination
- Skinner’s observation that an organism, as a
consequence of its reinforcement history, learns to
respond to some elements in the environment.
- a function of environmental variables and
organism’s previous history of reinforcement.

35. Types of responses
 Neutral operants
- responses from the environment that neither
increase nor decrease the probability of a behavior being
repeated.
Reinforcers
- Responses from the environment that increase the
probability of a behavior being repeated. Reinforcers can
be either positive or negative.
Punishers
- Responses from the environment that decrease the
likelihood of a behavior being repeated. Punishment
weakens behavior.

36. Operant
conditioning
Stimulus Generalization
- a response to a similar environment
in the absence of previous reinforcement.
- the tendency for the
conditioned stimulus to evoke similar
responses after the response has been
conditioned.

37. Operant
conditioning
 Reinforcement
- any condition within the environment
that strengthens a behavior.
Effects:
 Strengthens the behavior
 Rewards the person

38. Operant
conditioning
 Positive
reinforcement
- strengthens a
behavior by
providing a
consequence an
individual finds
rewarding.
 Positive
reinforcer
- Any stimulus
that, when added to
a situation,
increases the
probability that a
given behavior will
occur.

39. Operant
conditioning
 Negative
Reinforcement
-removal of an
unpleasant
reinforcer can also
strengthen
behavior.
 Negative
reinforcer
- Any stimulus
that, when remove
from a situation,
increases the
probability that the
immediately
preceding behavior
will occur.

40. Operant
conditioning
 Punishment
- opposite of reinforcement
- presentation of an aversive stimulus
or the removal of a positive one.
 Effects:
 supress behavior
Ex. If the boy teases his younger sister,
his parents can make him stop by
spanking him.

41. Operant
conditioning
 conditioning of a negative feeling
-If the pain of spanking is strong enough, it will
instigate a response (crying) that is incompatible
with the behavior of teasing a younger sibling.
 spread of its effects
- The boy may simply learn to avoid his younger
sister, stay away from his parents, or develop
negative feelings toward the paddle or the place
where the paddling occurred.

42. Operant
conditioning
Conditioned reinforcer (secondary reinforcers)
- those environmental stimuli that are not by
nature satisfying but become so because they are
associated with such unlearned (primary
reinforcers) as food, water, sex, or physical
comfort.
 Generalized reinforcer
- conditioned reinforcer that has been
associated with several primary reinforcers.
Ex. Money

43. Operant
conditioning
 Schedules of Reinforcement
 continuous schedules
- the organism is reinforced for every
response.
- type of schedule increases the frequency
of a response but is an efficiency use of the
reinforcer.

44. Operant
conditioning
intermittent schedules (partial schedules)
- the reinforcement of an organism on only
certain selected occurrences of a response;
opposed to a continuous schedule in which the
organism is reinforced for every correct trial.

45. Operant
conditioning
Ratio
- amount of responses
 Interval
- time
 Fixed
- consistent
 Variable
- variation
Fixed-Ratio
 Fixed- Interval
 Variable- Ratio
Variable -Interval

46. Operant
conditioning
Basic Intermittent Schedules:
 Fixed-ratio schedule
- the organism is reinforced intermittently
according to the number of responses it makes.
-Behavior is reinforced only after the behavior
occurs a specified number of times. One
reinforcement is given after every so many
correct responses (after every 5th response).
Ex. A child receives a star for every five words
spelt correctly.

47. Operant
conditioning
Fixed-Ratio
Car salesman
1 2 3 4 5
It emits high rate of behavior
because the frequency of getting a
reward with a reinforce depends
on the person.

48. Operant
conditioning
 Variable-ratio schedule
- the organism is reinforced after the nth
response on the average.
- Behavior is reinforced after an
unpredictable number of times.
Ex. gambling or fishing
(Playing slot machines) The machine is set
to pay off at a certain rate, but the ratio must be
flexible, that is, variable, to prevent players from
predicting payoffs.

49. Operant
conditioning
Variable-Ratio
Car salesman
1 2 3 4 5
1st bonus2nd bonus
1 2 3 4 5 61 2 3 4 5 6 7
3rd bonus
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
4th bonus
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
5th bonus

50. Operant
conditioning
 Fixed-interval schedule
- the organism is reinforced for the first
response following a designated period of time.
- One reinforcement is given after a fixed
time interval providing at least one correct
response has been made.
Ex. being paid by the hour, or would be every 15
minutes (half hour, hour, etc.)

51. Operant
conditioning
Fixed- Interval
Car salesman
1
two weeks
The paycheck is on the interval
schedule because the reinforcement
occurs after a consistent amount of
time has passed(two weeks).

52. Operant
conditioning
 Variable-interval schedule
- the organism is reinforced after the lapse
of random periods of time.
- reinforcement is given after an
unpredictable amount of time has passed
Ex. self-employed person being paid at
unpredictable times.

53. Operant
conditioning
Car salesman
1
Variable- Interval
supervisor

54. Operant
conditioning
 Four Reasons why responses can be lost:
a) passage of time
b) interference of preceding or subsequent
leaning
c) punishment
d) cause of lost learning or EXTINCTION
- Defined as the tendency of a previously
acquired response to become progressively
weakened upon nonreinforcement.

55. Operant
conditioning
 Operant Extinction
- takes place when an experimenter
systematically withholds reinforcement of a
previously learned response until the
probability of that response diminishes to
zero.

56. Operant
conditioning
 HUMAN
BEHAVIOR/PERSONALITY
 Forces:
 Natural selection
 Cultural Evolution
 Individuals history of reinforcement

57. Operant
conditioning
 Natural selection
- we are shaped by contingencies of
survival.
 Cultural Evolution
 Selection is responsible for those
cultural practices that have survived.

58. Operant
conditioning
 Inner States
Drives
- the effect of deprivation and satiation
and the corresponding probability
that the organism will respond.
 Emotions
 Purpose and Intention

59. Operant
conditioning
 Complex behavior
 Creativity – result of random or accidental
behaviours that happen to be rewarded.
 Dreams
 Higher Mental Processes
- Thinking, problem solving, and reminiscing
are covert behaviors that take place within the
skin but not inside the mind. As behaviors, they
are amenable to the same contingencies of
reinforcement as overt behaviors.

60. Control of Human Behavior
Methods of social control:
a. Operant conditioning
b. describing contingencies
c. Deprivation and satiation
d. Physical restraint

61. 2. Self-Control
• the contingencies of self-control
do not reside within the individual
and cannot be freely chosen.

62. 2. Self-Control
Techniques:
 physical aids
- Such as tools, machines, and financial
resources
Ex.
A person may take extra money when
going shopping to give herself the opinion
of impulse buying.

63. 2. Self-Control
Techniques:
 changing environmental stimuli
Ex.
A student wanting to concentrate on his
studies can turn off a distracting a
television set.

64. 2. Self-Control
Techniques:
 arranging the environment to allow
escape from aversive stimuli
Ex.
A woman can set an alarm clock so
that the aversive sound can be stopped only
by getting out of bed to shut off the alarm.

65. 2. Self-Control
Techniques:
 Drugs
Ex.
A man ingest tranquilizers to make
his behavior more placid.

66. 2. Self-Control
Techniques:
 Doing something else
Ex.
An obsessive woman may count repetitious
patterns in wallpaper to avoid thinking about
previous experiences that would create guilt.

67. The Unhealthy Personality
A. Counteracting Strategies
People counteract through:
- escape
People withdraw from the
controlling agent either physically or
psychologically.

68. The Unhealthy Personality
A. Counteracting Strategies
- revolting
People rebel through vandalizing
public property, tormenting teachers,
verbally abusing other people, etc.

69. The Unhealthy Personality
A. Counteracting Strategies
- passively resisting
Skinner believed that passive resistance is
most likely to be used when escape and revolt
failed.
Ex.
A child with homework to do finds dozen
excuses why it cannot be finished.

70. The Unhealthy Personality
B. Inappropriate behaviors
 excessive vigorous behavior
 excessive restrained behavior
 blocking of reality
 defecting self-knowledge
 self-punishment

71. Skinner was not a
psychotherapist, and he even
criticized psychotherapy as being
one of the major obstacles to a
scientific study of human behavior
in a therapeutic setting.
PSYCHOTHERAPY