B.F Skinner

1. B.F Skinner By: Amber Jose Kelley Claire

2. B.F. Skinner • Burrhus Frederic Skinner • Born March 20, 1904, in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. • Enjoyed school • Wanted to be a writer • Went to Harvard

3. His Theory • Operant conditioning-the behavior is followed by a consequence which modifies the organisms tendency to repeat the behavior in the future. • For example: There is a rat in a cage with a bar on the wall that when pressed releases a food pellet. The rat learns that every time he presses the bar he will receive a food pellet. There fore this will increase his tendency to press the bar more often

4. Extinction- A behavior no longer followed by the reinforcing stimulus resulting in a decreased probability of the behavior occurring in the future. • If the bar stops releasing food pellets, then the rat will no longer have an incentive to press the bar.

5. Scheduling Fixed Ratio- No matter how many times the rat presses the bar it will always get rewarded one food pellet. Fixed Interval-No matter how many times with in a certain period of time the bar is pressed, the rats only get one pellet. Therefore the rat paces itself. Variable-You keep changing the time period with x amount of increments. The rats will not pace themselves because there is no schedule.

6. Shaping-This is his method of successful approximations of reinforcing a behavior vaguely similar to the one desired. • Aversive Stimulus-Something we might find as unpleasant or painful. • The tendency to perform an action will decrease if pain or punishment is given as a consequence.

7. Behavior Modification • Often referred to as “b-mod” • Extinguish an undesirable behavior (by removing the reinforcer) and replace it with a desirable behavior by reinforcement. • This has been used to treat many psychological issues like autism, shyness, addictions, and sometimes even schizophrenia.