skinner

Burrhus Frederic Skinner
1904-1990

Skinner was born in Susquhanna, PA., studied at Harvard and taught there. He is identified as the best-known psychologist of the behavioristic school.

Based on Watson's stimulus-response theory and from his studies with rats and pigeons, he invented his famous skinner box and developed his own operant conditioning theory.

He put forward "contingencies of reinforcement" and advocated that achieving target behavior demanded carefully designed program of gradually changing contingencies and the skillful use of schedules. Furthermore, he viewed the intermissions between response and reinforcement should be shortened as much as possible in order to produce the most desirable results. Because different individuals have different personalities, self-paced, self-controlled activities and small steps of reinforcement should be encouraged. He also thought learning was more easily to access with cooperation than competition. And mechanical aid was a necessary supplementary tool to the effective control of human learning, such as a teaching machine.

Other resources:
http://www.ben.esu6.k12.ne.us/s-scie/bfs.html
http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~rsauzier/Skinner.html

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	Skinner was born in Susquhanna, PA., studied at Harvard and taught there. He is identified as the best-known psychologist of the behavioristic school.
Based on Watson's stimulus-response theory and from his studies with rats and pigeons, he invented his famous skinner box and developed his own operant conditioning theory.