Frederick Burres Skinner - biography and interesting facts from life. In his experiments, Skinner clearly preferred experimenting on animals, mainly pigeons and rats, believing that the difference between humans and animals is actually quite different.

B. Skinner's system of views represents a separate line in the development of behaviorism. Burres Frederick Skinner (1904-1990) put forward theory of operant behaviorism.

Based on experimental studies and theoretical analysis of animal behavior, he formulated the position of three types of behavior: unconditioned reflex, conditioned reflex And operant. The latter is the specificity of the teachings of B. Skinner.

The first two types are caused by stimuli (S) and are called respondent corresponding behavior. These are type S conditioning reactions. They constitute a certain part of the behavioral repertoire, but they alone do not provide adaptation to the real environment. In reality, the process of adaptation is built on the basis of active tests - the effects of the body on the world. Some of them may accidentally lead to a useful result, which, by virtue of this, is fixed. Some of these reactions (R), not caused by a stimulus, but emitted ("emitted") by the body, turn out to be correct and are reinforced. Skinner called them operant. These are R-type reactions.

Operant behavior assumes that the organism actively influences the environment and, depending on the results of these active actions, they are fixed or rejected. According to Skinner, it is these reactions that are predominant in the adaptation of the animal: they are a form of voluntary behavior. Skateboarding, playing the piano, learning to write are all examples of human operant actions controlled by their consequences. If the latter are favorable for the organism, then the probability of repeating the operant reaction increases.

After analyzing behavior, Skinner formulated his theory of learning. The main means of forming new behavior is reinforcement. The whole procedure of learning in animals is called "successive guidance on the desired response."

Skinner identifies four modes of reinforcement:

1. Reinforcement mode with constant ratio, when the level of positive reinforcement depends on the number of correctly performed actions. (For example, a worker is paid in proportion to the amount of product produced, that is, the more often the correct reaction of the body occurs, the more reinforcements he receives.)
2. Reinforcement mode with a constant interval, when the body receives reinforcement after a strictly fixed time has passed since the previous reinforcement. (For example, an employee is paid a salary every month or a student has a session every four months, while the responsiveness deteriorates immediately after receiving reinforcements - after all, the next salary or session will not be soon.)
3. Variable ratio reinforcement regimen. (For example, winning-reinforcement in a game of chance is unpredictable, unstable, a person does not know when and what the next reinforcement will be, but each time he hopes to win - such a regime significantly affects a person's behavior.)
4. Reinforcement mode with variable interval. (At indefinite intervals, the person receives reinforcements or the student's knowledge is monitored by "surprise checkpoints" at random intervals, which encourages compliance with more high level diligence and response as opposed to "constant interval" reinforcement.)

Skinner distinguished between "primary reinforcers" (food, water, physical comfort, sex) and secondary or conditional ones (money, attention, good marks, attachment, etc.). Secondary reinforcers are generalized, combined with many primary ones: for example, money is a means to obtain many pleasures. An even stronger generalized conditioned reinforcer is social approval: in order to receive it from the parents surrounding a person, a person seeks to behave well, to observe social norms, study hard, make a career, look beautiful, etc.

The scientist believed that conditioned reinforcing stimuli are very important in controlling human behavior, and aversive (painful or unpleasant) stimuli, punishment is the most general method control over behavior. Skinner identified positive and negative reinforcers, as well as positive and negative punishments (Table 5.2).

Table 5.2.

Skinner fought against using punishment to control behavior because it causes negative emotional and social side effects(fear, anxiety, antisocial actions, lying, loss of self-esteem and confidence). In addition, it only temporarily suppresses unwanted behavior, which will reappear if the likelihood of punishment decreases.

Rather than aversive control, Skinner recommends positive reinforcement as the most effective method for eliminating unwanted responses and rewarding desirable responses. The "method of successfully approaching or shaping behavior" is to positively reinforce those actions that are closest to the expected operant behavior. This is approached step by step: one reaction is fixed, and then replaced by another, closer to the preferred one (this is how speech, work skills, etc. are formed).

The data obtained from the study of animal behavior, Skinner transferred to the behavior of people, which led to a biological interpretation. Thus, the Skinnerian version of programmed learning arose. Its fundamental limitation lies in the reduction of learning to a set of external acts of behavior and reinforcement of the correct ones. This ignores the internal cognitive activity a person, therefore, there is no learning as a conscious process. Following Watsonian behaviorism, Skinner excludes inner world of a person, his consciousness from behavior and produces a behaviorization of the psyche. Thinking, memory, motives, etc. mental processes he describes in terms of reaction and reinforcement, and of man as a reactive being subjected to the influences of external circumstances.

The biologization of the world of people, which is characteristic of behaviorism as a whole, which fundamentally does not distinguish between man and animal, reaches its limits in Skinner. In his interpretation, cultural phenomena turn out to be "cunningly invented reinforcements."

For permission social problems modern society B. Skinner put forward the task of creating behavior technologies, which is designed to exercise control of some people over others. Since the intentions, desires, self-consciousness of a person are not taken into account, the management of behavior is not associated with consciousness. Such a means is the control over the regime of reinforcements, which allows manipulating people. For the greatest efficiency, it is necessary to take into account which reinforcement is most important, significant, valuable in this moment (the law of the subjective value of reinforcement) and then provide such subjectively valuable reinforcement in case correct behavior person or threaten him with deprivation in case of misbehavior. Such a mechanism will allow you to control behavior.

Skinner formulated the law of operant conditioning:

“The behavior of living beings is completely determined by the consequences to which it leads. Depending on whether these consequences are pleasant, indifferent or unpleasant, the living organism will tend to repeat this behavioral act, attach no importance to it, or avoid its repetition in the future.

Man is able to foresee possible consequences his behavior and avoid those actions and situations that will lead to negative consequences for him. He subjectively evaluates the probability of their occurrence: the greater the possibility negative consequences, the more it affects human behavior ( the law of subjective assessment of the probability of consequences). This subjective assessment may not coincide with the objective probability of the consequences, but it is she who influences the behavior. Therefore, one of the ways to influence a person's behavior is "forcing the situation", "intimidation", "exaggeration of the likelihood of negative consequences". If it seems to a person that the latter, arising from any of his reactions, is insignificant, he is ready to "risk" and resort to this action.

Burres Frederick Skinner(1904-1990) was born in Susquehania, Pennsylvania, where he lived until he entered college. His childhood passed in an atmosphere of love and tranquility. He loved his school and always arrived early in the morning. In childhood and adolescence, he was fond of creating a variety of objects. He also read a lot about animal behavior and kept a zoo at home.

Skinner went to Hamilton College in New York, but did not like it there. Despite his rebelliousness, Skinner successfully graduated from college with a degree in English language, the right to belong to the Phi Beta Kappa society and the desire to become a writer. For two years after graduating from college, Skinner engaged in literary activities.

After reading about the experiments of Watson and Pavlov on the formation of conditioned reflexes, Skinner turned sharply from the literary aspects of human behavior to the scientific ones. In 1928, he entered the graduate school of Harvard University in psychology - despite the fact that he had never taken a psychology course before. Three years later he received degree Ph.D. Upon completion scientific work, after defending his doctoral dissertation, he taught at the University of Minnesota (1936-1945) and the University of Indiana (1945-1974), after which he returned to Harvard.

At the age of 78, Skinner wrote an article titled "How to Maintain Intelligence in Old Age" in which he referred to his own experience.

In 1989, Skinner was diagnosed with leukemia. Two months later, he died at the age of 86.

Scientific analysis of behavior. Behavior, like any other phenomenon, can be investigated by natural science methods. It has its own patterns, and therefore predictable and manageable.

Personality is the sum of patterns (reactions) of behavior. Each behavioral response is based on previous experience and the genetic code.

Conditioning and reinforcement. Reactive conditioning is reflex behavior; The body automatically responds to the stimulus.

Skinner was more interested in the process that follows the reaction, operational conditioning. This is something more than a reaction, it is one of the mechanisms of behavior. Operational conditioning is at the heart of learning. Encouraging or punishing, you can form a certain stereotype of behavior. And not only in animals (training), but also in people.

Reinforcement - any stimulus that increases the likelihood of a certain (pre-programmed) response, shapes and regulates behavior (it can be positive or negative). In humans, the word is also a powerful reinforcement stimulus. Therefore, power, glory, on the one hand, and fear, humiliation, etc., join the basic reinforcements.

Explanatory fiction. When the true causes of behavior are not understood, they are explained by false (fictitious) mechanisms. The most common fictions are: "autonomous person", "freedom", "dignity", "creativity". Fictions mask the true mechanisms of behavior.

Behavior management. To predict behavior means to study its mechanisms. Behavior management is based on learning and changing the environment. Skinner viewed the human body as a black box. The input (stimulus) and output (behavior) are known. What goes on inside the box is largely a mystery.

In his research on operant conditioning, Skinner came to the following conclusions:
- Conditioning most often occurs outside the realm of consciousness. Our individual perception depends on past perceptions (culture, traditions) as well as experience. They layer gay on top of each other and create a base for behavior that we often don't realize.
- Conditioning is maintained outside of consciousness. Many decisions and the resulting behavioral responses are associated with unconscious perception.
- Conditioning is most effective (and reaches a new level) when the elements of the unconscious are combined with the conscious (the unconscious becomes conscious).

Social relations. IN social behavior there is nothing that distinguishes it from all other behavior. It is only characteristic that two or more people interact. The behavior of an individual depends on the behavior of the people around him. He paid much attention to "verbal communication", it most of all contributes to feedback.

Skinner's work laid the psychological and methodological foundations modern programmed learning:
- each student works at his own pace (choleric - quickly, phlegmatic - slowly);
- the student moves on to more complex material only when he has mastered the simpler one;
- thanks to the existing correct answer “the student is always right”, he does not have a feeling of inferiority (“sit down, mediocrity, deuce”);
- the student is constantly active and receives immediate confirmation of his success;
- the question is always formulated in a qualified manner and in such a form that the student understands its essence;
- machine answers always have a hierarchy of accuracy, provide a choice, and are educational in nature.

History of Modern Psychology Schultz Duan

B. F. Skinner (1904–1990)

B. F. Skinner (1904–1990)

The most influential figure in psychology for several decades was B. F. Skinner. One of the historians of psychology called him "without a doubt, the most famous American psychologist in the world" (Gilgen. 1982. P. 97). A survey of psychology historians and department heads has shown Skinner to be one of the most eminent scientists of our time (Kot, Davis & Davis. 1991). When Skinner died in 1990, the editor of the American Psychologist wrote of him as "one of the giants of our field" who "left an indelible mark on psychology" (Forwer 1990, p. 1203). And in the obituary of the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, he was described as “a leading figure in the behavioral science of the present century” (Keller. 1991, p. 3).

Beginning in the fifties and for many years, Skinner was the leading behaviorist in the United States of America and attracted great amount loyal and enthusiastic successors and supporters. He developed a program for the behavioral control of society, invented an automated playpen and became one of the main inspirers and creators of behavior modification techniques and learning machines. He wrote the novel "Walden Two" ( Walden Two), which remained popular fifty years after its publication. In 1971, his book Beyond Freedom and Dignity ( Beyond Freedom and Dignity) became a national bestseller, and Skinner himself became "the most popular character in various national and urban talk shows" (Bjork. 1993. P. 192). He became a celebrity: he was well known to both the general public and colleagues.

Pages of life

Skinner was born in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, where he lived until college. According to his own recollections, his childhood passed in an atmosphere of love and tranquility. He went to the same school where his parents had once studied; Skinner's senior class had only seven students. He loved his school and always arrived early in the morning. In childhood and adolescence, he was fond of creating a variety of objects: rafts, carts, carousels, slings and slingshots, aircraft models, and even a steam gun that shot potatoes and carrots over the roof of a neighbor's house. He spent several years trying to invent a perpetual motion machine. He also read extensively about animal behavior and kept a zoo of turtles, snakes, lizards, toads, and chipmunks at home. Once, at a fair, he saw trained pigeons: many years later, he himself taught the pigeons various tricks.

Skinner's psychological system reflects the experiences of his life in childhood and adolescence. According to his own views, a person's life is the fruit of past reinforcements. He claimed that his own life was as predetermined, orderly and correct as his system dictates any human life. He believed that all aspects of human life can be traced back to their very origins.

Skinner went to Hamilton College in New York, but he did not like it there. He wrote:

I could never fit into student life. I joined this fraternity without knowing it at all. what it is. I did not excel in sports and suffered severely when I was hit on the shin in hockey or when a skilled basketball player won back the ball from my skull ... In an essay that I wrote after my first year, I complained about that. that in college I am continually bombarded with unnecessary demands (one of them being daily church attendance), and that most students have no intellectual interests whatsoever. In high school, I was already an open rebel.(Skinner, 1967. P. 392.)

Skinner's rebelliousness, in particular, manifested itself in practical jokes, as well as in the fact that he shocked the student community and openly criticized the faculty and the administration. His disobedience did not stop until graduation day, when, before the commencement of the ceremony, the college president warned Skinner and his friends that if they did not calm down, they would not be awarded diplomas.

Skinner still successfully graduated from college with a degree in English, the right to belong to society<Фи Бета Каппа>and aspirations to be a writer. At a summer writing workshop, poet Robert Frost praised Skinner's poems and stories. For two years after graduating from college, Skinner engaged in literary activities, and then decided that he<нечего сказать>. His failure in the writing field discouraged him so much that he even began to think about consulting a psychiatrist. He considered himself a failure. Feeling self-importance was severely shaken.

In addition, he was disappointed in love. He was rejected by at least half a dozen young women, which caused him, in his own words, great physical pain. Once he was so shocked that he burned the initials of his beloved on his arm. The trace of the burn remained for many years. The biographer notes that Skinner's "love interests" were "always somewhat overwhelmed by split feelings and frustration. True, Skinner soon gained a reputation as an anemone” (Bjork. 1993, p. 116).

After reading about the experiments of Watson and Pavlov on the formation of conditioned reflexes, Skinner turned sharply from the literary aspects of human behavior to the scientific ones. In 1928, he entered the graduate school of Harvard University in psychology - despite the fact that before that he had never taken a psychology course. In his own words, he entered graduate school “not because he suddenly felt an irresistible craving for psychology, but only because of that. to get rid of the unbearable alternative” (Skinner, 1979, p. 37). He had or did not have an irresistible craving for psychology, but three years later he received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Upon completion of his scientific work, after defending his doctoral dissertation, he taught at the University of Minnesota (1936-1945) and the University of Indiana (1945-1974), after which he returned to Harvard.

The topic of his dissertation relates to a position that Skinner pursued unswervingly throughout his career. He suggested that the reflex is a correlation between stimulus and response, and nothing more. In his 1938 book The Behavior of Organisms ( The Behavior of Organism) describes the main provisions of this system. Curiously, in the first eight years after publication, the book sold only 500 copies and received mostly negative reviews, and fifty years later this book was said to be "one of the few books that has changed the face of modern psychology" ( Thompson, 1988, p. 397).

The quality of the system described in the book, which changed the attitude towards it from a complete failure to a stunning success, was its obvious applied significance for various areas of psychology. “The sixties saw the rise of Skinper's star, partly because of the acceptance of his ideas in education, and partly because of the growing influence of Skinner's ideas in the field of clinical behavior modification” (Benjamin. 1993, p. 177). Such a wide applicability of Skinner's ideas was consistent with his aspirations, since he had a deep interest in the problems real life. His later work Science and Human Behavior ( Science and Human Behavior. 1953) became the main textbook in behavioral psychology.

Skinner continued to work productively until his death at the age of 86 - and he worked with the same enthusiasm that he showed sixty years ago. In the basement of his house, he set up a personal "Skinner box" - a controlled environment that provided positive reinforcement. He slept there in a big yellow plastic box that just fit a mattress, a few shelves of books, and a small TV. Every night he went to bed at ten o'clock, slept for three hours, worked for an hour, then slept for another three hours, and got up at five in the morning to work another three hours. In the morning he went to his office at the university and worked there again, and in the afternoon he gave himself positive reinforcement by listening to music. In addition, the process of writing articles had a huge positive impact on him. “I really like to write, and it would be a great pity if someday I had to give it up” (Skinner. 1985, cited in: Fallen. 1992. P. 1439).

At the age of 78, Skinner wrote an article titled "How to Maintain Intelligence in Old Age" ( Intellectual Self - Management in Old Age) in which he referred to his own experience (Skinner 1983a). This article talks about how useful it is to exercise the brain for several hours a day in old age, while always giving breaks between bursts of activity in order to support a weakening memory and prevent a decrease in intellectual abilities.

In 1989, Skinner was diagnosed with leukemia. He had less than two months to live. In a radio interview, he spoke of his feelings:

I am not a religious person, and therefore I am not worried about what will happen to me after death. And when they told me that I had such a disease and that in a few months I would die, I did not experience any emotions. No panic, no fear, no anxiety. Nothing at all. The only thing that touched me and made my eyes water was the thought of how I would communicate this to my wife and daughters. You see, when you die, you unwittingly hurt those who love you. And nothing can be done about it ... I lived good life. It would be rather foolish of me in any sense to complain about her. Therefore, I will happily live the months that remain to me - just as I have always enjoyed life.(Cited in: Catania. 1992. P. 1527.)

Eight days before his death, greatly weakened, Skinner presented his paper at a meeting of the American Psychological Association in Boston. It was devoted to observable and unobservable stimuli, and, accordingly, respondent and operant behavior.

Skinner's Behaviorism

Operant behavior occurs without exposure to any external observable stimuli. The reaction of the body seems spontaneous in the sense that outwardly it has nothing to do with any observable stimulus. This does not mean at all that the stimulus causing this or that reaction does not exist; this means that when a given response occurs, no stimulus is observable. From the experimental point of view, if the stimulus is absent, then this means that it was not applied, and therefore is not observed.

Another difference between respondent and operant behavior is that operant behavior affects the organism's environment, while respondent behavior does not. An experimental dog in Pavlov's laboratory, clad in a harness, can do nothing but react (for example, salivate) when the experimenter offers it some kind of stimulus. There is nothing the dog can do on its own to get the stimulus (food).

The operant behavior of a rat in a Skinner box, by contrast, is instrumental in the sense that the rat reaches its stimulus (food). When a rat presses a lever, it gets food; and if he does not press the lever, he does not receive food. Thus the rat affects environment. (Skinner greatly disliked the term "Skinner box," first introduced by Hull in 1933. He himself called this equipment an operant conditioning apparatus. However, the term "Skinner box" became so popular that it entered all reference books and is currently in psychology generally accepted.)

Skinner believed that operant behavior is characteristic of everyday learning. Because behavior is typically operant in nature, the most effective approach to behavioral science is to study the conditioning and decay of operant behavior.

The classic experimental demonstration involved pulling a lever in a Skinner box. In this experiment, a rat deprived of food was placed in a box and given a full opportunity to explore it. In the course of research, she inevitably had to touch the lever, which actuated the mechanism that puts forward the shelf with food. After receiving several portions of food, which were supposed to serve as reinforcement, the rat quickly formed a conditioned reflex. Note that the rat's behavior (pulling the lever) has an impact on the environment and is a tool for acquiring food. The dependent variable in this experiment is simple and straightforward: it is the rate of the reaction.

Based on this experiment, Skinner formulated his law of acquisition, which states that the strength of operant behavior increases if the behavior is accompanied by a reinforcing stimulus. Although it takes practice to develop a quick response when pressing the lever, key parameter all the same is a reinforcement. Practice by itself does nothing: it only provides the opportunity for additional reinforcement to arise.

Skinner's Law of Acquisition differs from Thorndike's and Hull's learning propositions. Skinner did not deal at all with such consequences of reinforcement as pain - a pleasant sensation or pleasure - dissatisfaction, as Thorndike did. Skinner also did not try to interpret reinforcement in terms of reducing the impact of urges, as did Clark Hull. Thorndike and Hull's systems were explanatory; Skinner's system is strictly descriptive.

Skinner and his followers made a huge research work on learning issues such as the role of punishment in skill acquisition, the impact various systems reinforcements, the degree of operant conditioning extinction, the presence of secondary reinforcement, etc.

In addition to rats, they worked with other experimental animals and with humans, using the same principle as a basic approach.<скиннеровского ящика>. If pigeons were used as experimental animals, then they had to peck at a certain point or spot; food was the reinforcer. People's operant behavior included aspects such as problem solving reinforced by praise or the knowledge that the correct answer had been given.

Skinner reported that he used back pats as a reinforcer for his three-year-old daughter. However, this experiment took an unexpected turn. One day he was putting the girl to bed, stroking her on the back, and suddenly decided to test how much this was an encouraging reinforcement. “I waited,” Skinner wrote, “for her to lift her foot, and then stroked her. Almost immediately she lifted her leg again and I stroked her again. She laughed. "What are you laughing at?" I asked, and she replied: “As soon as I lift my leg, you start stroking me!” (Skinner. 1987. P. 179).

Reinforcement scheme

Already the first studies in<скиннеровском ящике>with the pull of a lever demonstrated the importance of reinforcement for operant behavior. In this situation, the rat's behavior was reinforced each time the lever was pressed. That is, every time you do right action, the rat was fed. Skinner noted that although in real life reinforcement is not always consistent or continuous, nevertheless, learning still occurs and behavior persists, even if the reinforcement was random or rare.

Not always, when we go skating or skiing, we find ourselves on good ice or snow ... Not always, when we go to a restaurant, we get good food. because chefs are unpredictable. Calling friends on the phone. we don't always get a response because friends may be away. … The reinforcing characteristics of activity and learning are almost always intermittent. because it just doesn't make sense to control every response with reinforcement.(Skinner. 1953. P. 99.)

Even if you do research all the time, you don't get an A on every experiment. At work, you don't get praise every day and you don't get a raise every day. How does this intermittent reinforcement affect behavior? Is this or that reinforcement regime better than the rest in terms of its effect on behavior? Skinner and his colleagues devoted years to investigating these questions (Ferster & Skinner 1857; Skinner. 1969).

The need for these studies arose not out of purely scientific curiosity, but on the basis of practical expediency - which, by the way, illustrates the fact that science often differs significantly from the idealized model that is presented in some textbooks. One Saturday evening, Skinner discovered that he was almost out of food. At that time (the thirties) it was still impossible to buy food from special companies supplying research laboratories; the experimenter had to make the balls by hand, which was a rather long and laborious process.

Instead of spending his weekends making food pellets, Skinner asked himself the question: what would happen if he fed his rats once a minute, no matter how many responses there were? With this approach, he will need much less food, and should be enough for the weekend. Skinner decided to conduct a long series of experiments to test various options reinforcement systems.

In one such study, Skinner compared the response rates of animals that were reinforced for each response with the response rates of animals that received reinforcement only after a certain interval of time. The latter condition is called the fixed-interval reinforcement scheme. Reinforcements could be issued, for example, once a minute or every four minutes. An important point in this case is that the experimental animal received reinforcement only after a certain period of time. (For example, a job where money is paid once a week or once a month is a fixed-interval reinforcement scheme; workers are paid not for the amount of output produced—that is, not for the number of conditioned responses—but for the number of days of the week that have elapsed.) Skinner's research showed that the shorter the interval between reinforcements, the more often the animal exhibited a conditioned response. Conversely, as the interval between reinforcements increases, the reaction frequency decreases.

The frequency of reinforcement also influences the extinction of the conditioned response. The manifestation of the conditioned response fades more quickly if there was a continuous reinforcement, which was then abruptly stopped, than if the reinforcement was given intermittently. Some pigeons showed up to ten thousand reactions without reinforcement, if initially they had a conditioned reflex based on intermittent, intermittent reinforcement.

Skinner also explored a fixed frequency reinforcement scheme. In this case, reinforcement is given not after a certain period of time, but after a certain number of conditioned reactions have been performed. The very behavior of the animal determines how often reinforcements will be issued. For example, it takes ten or twenty conditioned responses to get new reinforcement. Animals that are rewarded on a fixed-frequency schedule respond much more intensely than those that receive reinforcement on a fixed-interval schedule. For it is obvious that a high frequency of response in a fixed-interval scheme does not lead to additional reinforcement; the animal may press the lever five or fifty times, but the reinforcement will appear only when the specified length of time has elapsed.

The highest rates of response to a fixed frequency reinforcement scheme were observed in rats, pigeons, and humans. An example of this: piecework wages, when an employee's earnings at his workplace depend on the number of products produced, and commissions depend on the number of sales. True, such a reinforcement scheme only works successfully when the required level of conditioned response is not too high (thus, daily output rates must be realistic) and if the expected reinforcement is worth the effort.

Verbal behavior

Those sounds that human body produces in the process of speech, Skinner argued, are also a form of behavior, namely, verbal behavior. They are responses that can be reinforced by other speech sounds or gestures, in the same way that a rat pressing a lever is reinforced by getting food.

Verbal behavior requires two interacting people - a speaker and a listener. The speaker reacts in a certain way - this means that he utters a sound. The listener can control the speaker's subsequent behavior by expressing reinforcement, lack of reinforcement, or punishment, depending on what was said.

For example, if every time the speaker uses a particular word, the listener smiles, then he thereby increases the likelihood that the speaker will use this word again. If a listener reacts to a word by furrowing his brow or making sarcastic remarks, then he thereby increases the likelihood that the speaker will avoid using this word in the future.

Examples of this process can be observed in the behavior of parents when their children are learning to speak. Invalid words or expressions, not correct application of words, bad pronunciation elicits a reaction radically different from that which is met with polite phrases, correct application, pure pronunciation. Thus, the child learns correct speech - at least at the level at which it is owned by parents or educators.

Since speech is a behavior, it is also subject to reinforcement, prediction and control, like any other behavior. Skinner summarized the results of his research in Verbal Behavior. verbal behavior) (Skinner. 1957).

Air cradle and learning machines

The use of the "Skinner box" in psychological research laboratories made him famous among psychologists, but the air cradle - an apparatus for automating the care of babies - made him famous throughout the country.

He described the invention of the air cradle in an article in a magazine for housewives. When he and his wife decided to have a second child, she told him that caring for an infant in the first two years of life was too much attention and tedious work, and so Skinner invented an automatic device that was supposed to save parents from routine work. Air cradles began to be produced industrially, but, frankly, they were not very successful.

The air cradle was “a large, soundproof, air-conditioned, temperature-controlled, bacteria-proof room in which a child can sleep or stay awake without a diaper, in just a diaper. This provides complete freedom of movement and relative safety from colds or overheating ”(Rice. 1968. P. 98). Skinner's daughter did not experience any ill effects from using the air cradle.

In addition, Skinner contributed to the spread of the learning machine, invented back in the twenties by the psychologist Sydney Pressey. Unfortunately for Pressy, his invention was far ahead of its time and did not arouse anyone's interest.

The situation was such that if at first the learning machine did not attract attention, then thirty years later it caused a real explosion of enthusiasm (Benjamin. 1988b). In the twenties, when Pressey had just invented his machine, he argued that it would now be possible to teach schoolchildren more efficiently and with fewer teachers. However, at that time there was an excess of teachers, and public opinion was not set up to improve the educational process. In the 1950s, when Skinner introduced a similar device, there were not enough teachers, the classrooms were overcrowded, and the public was worried and urged to improve the educational process so that it would be possible to compete with the Russians in the field of space exploration. Skinner claimed that he knew nothing of Pressey's invention and developed his own teaching machine, but he always gave credit to his predecessor.

Skinner began developing his teaching machine after he visited his daughter's fourth grade and decided that something needed to be done to improve the learning process. He summarized his experience in this area in the book "Teaching Technology" ( The Technology of Teaching, 1968). Learning machines were widely used in the fifties and early sixties, until they were replaced by computer learning methods.

Walden Two - Behavioral Society

Skinner put forward the Behavior Control Program, a behavior technology in which he attempted to apply his laboratory discoveries to the life of the whole society. While John B. Watson spoke only in general terms about the use of conditioned reflexes on the way to more healthy life, Skinner described in detail the functioning of the society in which this idea is implemented.

In 1948, he published the novel Walden Two, which described the life of a rural community of a thousand people. Every aspect of life in this community is controlled by positive reinforcement. The book was the fruit of a mid-life crisis that Skinner experienced at the age of 41. He was able to overcome his depression by returning to his youthful dream of becoming a writer. Captured by personal and professional conflicts, he expressed his despair in the book, recounting the fate of protagonist T. E. Frazier. "A lot of Walden Two's life is taken from my own life," Skinner admitted. “I let T. E. Frazier say what he didn’t dare to say” (Skinner. 1979. P. 297–298).

The book received both positive and negative reviews in the press. Until the early 1960s, only a few thousand copies were sold, but in 1990, the year of Skinner's death, about two and a half million copies were sold (Bork. 1993).

The society depicted in Skinner's novel, and Skinner's very foundational assumption that humans are essentially machines, reflects the culmination of a long development in this line of thought, from Galileo and Newton to the British empiricists and then Watson. “If we are going to use scientific methods in human affairs, we must recognize that behavior is deterministic and subject to certain laws, ... that what a person does is the result of certain conditions, and if these conditions become known, then it is quite possible to foresee up to define actions to some extent” (Skinner, 1933, p. 6).

The mechanistic, analytical and deterministic approach adopted in the natural sciences, reinforced by Skinner's experiments on the formation of conditioned reflexes, convinced representatives of behavioral psychology that human behavior can be controlled, directed, modified and shaped by correct use positive reinforcement.

Behavior modification

Skinner's program for society, based on positive reinforcement, existed only in theory, but the control or modification of the behavior of people or small groups was widespread in practice. Behavior modification through positive reinforcement is one of the most popular techniques in psychiatric clinics, factories, schools, correctional institutions, where it is used to change abnormal or unwanted behavior, make it more acceptable or desirable. Behavior modification acts on humans in the same way as operant conditioning, which changes the behavior of rats or pigeons by reinforcing the desired behavior and not reinforcing the undesirable behavior.

Let's imagine a child throwing tantrums to get food or attention. If the parents satisfy the child's demands, thereby reinforcing the unwanted behavior. When modifying behavior, actions such as stomping or yelling should not be reinforced. Reinforcement is only given for desirable and satisfying behavior. After some time, the child's behavior will change, as the demonstration of character will no longer lead to the desired result.

Operant conditioning and reinforcement are also being applied in the workplace, where behavior modification is widely used to reduce absenteeism or sick leave abuse, as well as to improve performance and improve safety. Behavior modification techniques are also used to teach job skills.

Behavior modification programs have proven effective when used to change the behavior of psychiatric patients. For good behavior, patients were rewarded with badges that could be exchanged for certain privileges or benefits; destructive or negative behavior was not rewarded. Gradually, positive changes in behavior began to be observed. Unlike traditional clinical techniques, what goes on in the patient's mind was no more taken into account here than in the case of the Skinner's box rats. All attention was focused exclusively on external behavior and positive reinforcement.

No punishment was applied. People were not punished for not behaving in the right way. They only received reinforcement or reward when their behavior changed in a positive direction. Skinner believed that positive reinforcement for behavior modification was more effective than punishment. He confirmed his point of view with a significant volume experimental studies both in animals and in humans. (Skinner wrote that as a child, his father never physically punished him, and his mother punished him only once: she washed his mouth laundry soap for what he used obscene words(Skinner 1976). True, he did not mention whether the punishment had any effect on his behavior.)

Criticism of Skinner's behaviorism

Most of all objections to Skinner's behaviorism were caused by his extreme positivism and rejection of all theories. Opponents of Skinner argue that it is impossible to reduce all theoretical constructions to zero. Since the details of the experiment must be planned in advance, this in itself is evidence of the construction of at least the simplest theory. It was also noted that the adoption of Skinne - rum basic principles the formation of conditioned reflexes as the basis for his work is also to some extent theorizing.

The prevailing belief system gave Skinner confidence in economic, social, political and religious matters. In 1986 he wrote an article with the promising title<Что неправильно в западном образе жизни?>(What is Vrong with Life in the Western World?) In this article, he claimed that<поведение жителей Запада ухудшилось, но его можно улучшить посредством применения принципов, выведенных на основании экспериментального анализа поведения>(Skinner. 1986, p. 568). Critics have accused Skinner that his willingness to extrapolate from experience is incompatible with his anti-theoretical attitudes and demonstrates the fact that in his desire to present own project reorganization of society, it goes beyond strictly observed data.

The narrow range of behavioral research in Skinner's labs (pulling a lever or pecking a key) has not escaped criticism either. Opponents of Skinner's theory argued that such an approach simply ignores many aspects of behavior. Skinner's claim that all behavior is learned was challenged by a former student of his who trained over 6,000 animals of 38 species to perform in television programs, attractions, and fairs (Breland & Breland. 1961). Pigs, chickens, hamsters, dolphins, whales, cows and other animals showed a tendency to instinctive behavior. This means that they were substituting instinctive behavior for the one that was being reinforced, even if that instinctive behavior prevented them from getting food. Thus, reinforcements were not as omnipotent as Skinner claimed.

Skinner's position on verbal behavior - in particular his explanation of how children learn to speak - has been challenged on the grounds that certain behaviors must be heritable. Critics have argued that the infant does not learn the language word by word because of the reinforcement received for each word correctly pronounced - the child learns grammar rules needed to build sentences. But the potential for such rules, argue Skinner's opponents, is hereditary, not learned (Chomsky 1959, 1972).

The Significance of Skinner's Behaviorism

Despite these criticisms, Skinner remained the undisputed leader and hero of behavioral psychology—for at least three decades, American psychology was shaped by Skinner's work more than by any other psychologist.

In 1958, the American Psychological Association presented Skinner with the Distinguished Contribution to Science Award, noting that<мало кто из американских психологов оказал такое глубокое влияние на развитие психологии и воспитание многообещающих молодых ученых». В 1968 году Скиннер получил национальную медаль, что является высшей наградой, которой правительство Соединенных Штатов удостаивает за вклад в науку. В 1971 году Американский психологический фонд представил Скиннера к награждению золотой медалью; его фотография появилась на обложке журнала «Тайм». А в 1990 году он был отмечен занесением на доску почета Американской психологической ассоциации за большой вклад в психологию.

It is very important to understand that Skinner's main goal was to improve the lives of individuals and society as a whole. Despite the mechanistic nature of his system, he was essentially a humanist. This quality was evident in his efforts to modify people's behavior in the real world of families, schools, businesses, and hospitals. He hoped that his technology of behavior would alleviate the suffering of people, and therefore he felt growing frustration, realizing that, despite all his popularity and influence, his system was not widely adopted.

As Skinner grew older, he became more pessimistic about the hopes that science was capable of transforming society in a timely manner. His despair about the future of the world grew.(Bjork. 1993. P. 226.)

There is no doubt that Skinner's radical behaviorism won and still holds a strong position in psychology. "Journal of Experimental Behavior Analysis" and "Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis" ( Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior and Journal Applied Behavior Analysis) continue to thrive, as does the American Psychological Association's Division of Experimental Behavior Analysis. The application of Skinner's principles - in particular behavior modification - remains popular, and the results of this activity confirm the correctness of Skinner's approach. By all standards of professional and public acceptance, Skinner's behaviorism has certainly eclipsed all other forms of behavioral psychology.