B.F. Skinner Research Paper: Avery Shiffer English LLL Period 1B
B.F. Skinner was an American psychologist who made significant contributions to modern psychology through theories like behaviorism and operant conditioning. He pioneered radical behaviorism, which argued that psychology should study observable behavior rather than mental states. Skinner's theories challenged the foundations of psychology and expanded it into new subfields. His work demonstrated that psychology is more complex than originally believed and changed the goals of the field to describe, explain, predict, and control human behavior and mental processes.
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B.F. Skinner Research Paper: Avery Shiffer English LLL Period 1B
B.F. Skinner was an American psychologist who made significant contributions to modern psychology through theories like behaviorism and operant conditioning. He pioneered radical behaviorism, which argued that psychology should study observable behavior rather than mental states. Skinner's theories challenged the foundations of psychology and expanded it into new subfields. His work demonstrated that psychology is more complex than originally believed and changed the goals of the field to describe, explain, predict, and control human behavior and mental processes.
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Avery Shiffer
English lll . Period 1B .
B.F. Skinner Research Paper
B.F. Skinner was born in 1904 and died in 1990, but in his lifetime he brought many ideas and contributions to Modern Psychology. He was always less concerned with understanding behavior and more interested in predicting and controlling it. B.F. Skinner contributed to Modern Psychology so greatly he shook its core foundation and built more layers and subfields to psychology. B.F Skinner’s History and Contributions to Modern Psychology. B.F. Skinner was an american psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and social philosopher. He was also a professor of psychology at Harvard University and had many theories that contributed to modern psychology. Some of his contributions consisted of writing the Behaviorist Theory and the Operant Conditioning Theory, and he pioneered Radical Behaviorism. Skinner also wrote many books including but not limited to Science and Human Behavior (1953), Verbal Behavior (1957), The Analysis of Behavior (with J.G. Holland, 1961), Technology of Teaching (1968), and Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971). What is Radical Behaviorism? The theory of Radical Behaviorism was written and pioneered by B.F. Skinner in 1945. This theory argues that a person's behavior should be the focus of study in modern psychology rather than the person's mental state. This theory also asserts that any science of behavior, including Modern Psychology, can be called a natural science. Radical Behaviorism emphasizes the importance of reinforcement and the relationships between observable stimuli and responses. This theory also shook the foundation that psychology was built on. What is Modern Psychology and what is its main goals? Modern Psychology, also known as the study of the mind and behavior, first began in 1879 and has grown immensely and into many subfields since then. Such as human development, sports, health, clinical, social behavior, and cognitive processes. Modern Psychology has many goals, but it’s main goal has always been to describe, explain, predict, and control behavior and mental processes of people all around the world. Many behaviorists and psychologists participated in making these goals possible including B.F. Skinner. B.F. Skinner not only created new theories that contributed to Modern Psychology, his theories completely changed the very foundations of psychology. He proved that psychology is and was never as simple as it is believed to be. Works Cited “B.F. Skinner Bio.” Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 16 Mar. 2019, www.britannica.com/biography/B-F-Skinner.
“ What Is Radical Behaviorism? A Review of Jay Moore's Conceptual
Foundations of Radical Behaviorism.” Edited by William M Baum, Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, Inc, Jan. 2011, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3014776/.