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B.F. Skinner

In: Philosophy and Psychology

Submitted By bharman
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PSY410 B.F. Skinner used operant conditioning in order to describe development. He believed that behavior was learned and reinforced through the environment. The Skinner box is what he designed and created to test his theory. In the Skinner box, there was a rat, a lever, button and other tool in it that was connected to a food source. When the box’s lever was triggered, food would come out and the rat could eat. The rat soon learned that through positive reinforcement, by pushing the lever meant that he could have food. Skinner also found that different sequences made the learning more reliable. If food only came out every other time the rat pushed the lever, the rat would be more persistent with the behavior than if it came out every time. Skinner later found that there was also recovery for lost behaviors. If the rat was out of the Skinner box for a while and then was returned to the box with the same lever they originally had, the rat would start pushing the lever for food again. This process is known as spontaneous recovery. Skinner took it a step further into development by adding shaping to his theory for complex behaviors. Shaping is when reinforced steps are used to teach a creature something. An example of this would be teaching a child to sound out a word. This is done by first teaching the child how to sing the alphabet and is encouraged to remember and sing the song. Then the child is taught how to recognize the individual letters from the alphabet and praised for their recognition. The child then learns the different sounds the letters make and is praised for their ability to recognize and sound out the letters. The child is then taught how to put the letters together to make words and then the words to sentences, paragraphs and stories. Skinner also handles getting rid of negative behaviors through conditioning. An example of this would be a dog chewing on furniture. If every time the dog chews on the furniture, it receives negative stimuli, the dog will stop chewing the furniture. Another way of learning is negative reinforcement or when the behavior is reinforced because a negative stimuli goes away. Freud on the other hand took a psychosexual approach to development. He divided development into stages. Each stage needs to be completed successfully in order for a person to move on. If the stage is not completed properly, the person will develop a fixation with something based on the stage. The first of Freud’s stages is the oral stage. This stage occurs when the infant is nursing. If the need for oral gratification is not met in the infant sufficiently, the infant will develop an oral fixation as an adult. This may include excessive talking, smoking a cigar, nail biting, or an obsession with food. The second stage is the anal stage and occurs in the toddler years when the toddler is potty training. If the child does not feel like they have proper control over themselves in this stage, they may become an anal retentive adult also known as a neat freak or controlling of their environment. The third stage, also known as the phallic stage, is the most important stage in Freud’s theory. This is when a child discovers the difference between male and female. This is the stage where the child also has a conflict to deal with. According to Freud, the child develops an attraction to the parent of the opposite sex and becomes jealous of the parent of the same sex. The child decides to imitate the parent of the same sex in order to win the attention of the parent of the opposite sex. The fourth stage is the latency stage and this is where the child focuses on social exploration, school work and skill building. The fifth and final stage is the genital stage which lasts through adulthood. During this stage, sexual desires are repressed and let out through socially acceptable channels, such as marriage and having a family. Freud also broke the personality down into three parts: the id, superego and ego. The Id is formed at birth and is a here and now part of the personality. The Superego is formed as a child reaches the stage where they realize what society wants from them and what rules there are. The third part is the ego. The ego is the middle ground that allows the Id’s desires to be met in a socially acceptable way that allows for the superego to be alright with the id’s desires being met. By the genital stage, these three parts of the personality should be completely functional and the person should be able to regulate their needs and wants through the genital stage. Skinner was definitely right about conditioning playing a role in development. Conditioning is used in school to learn new skills piece by piece and at home to learn behaviors that are and are not acceptable. Skinner’s theory is the only theory that has anything to do with the environment. He is not looking at what love and encouragement do for the child as opposed to what abandonment and discouragement do in the long run.

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