Overview of Behavioral Analysis

During the early years of the 20th century while Freud, Jung , and Adler were relying on clinical practice and before Eysenck and Costa and McCrae were using psychometrics to build theories of human personality, an approach called behaviourism emerged from laboratory studies of animals and humans.

TWO OF THE EARLY PIONEERS OF BEHAVIOURISM WERE E.L. THORNDIKE AND JOHN WATSON, BUT THE PERSON MOST OFTEN ASSOCIATED WITH THE BEHAVIOURIST POSITION IS B.F. SKINNER, WHOSE BEHAVIOURAL ANALYSIS IS A CLEAR DEPARTURE FROM THE HIGHLY SPECULATIVE PSYCHODYNAMIC THEORIES. SKINNER MINIMIZED SPECULATION AND FOCUSED ALMOST ENTIRELY ON OBSERVABLE BEHAVIOUR. HOWEVER, HE DIDN’T CLAIM THAT OBSERVABLE BEHAVIOUR IS LIMITED TO EXTERNAL EVENTS. SUCH PRIVATE BEHAVIOURS AS THINKING, REMEMBERING AND ANTICIPATING ARE ALL OBSERVABLE- BY THE PERSON EXPERIENCING THEM.

Skinner’s strict adherence to observable behaviour earned his approach the label radical behaviourism, a doctrine that avoids all hypothetical constructs, such as ego, traits, drives, needs, hunger, and so forth.

BF SKINNER

Burrhus Frederic Skinner was born March 20, 1904, in Susquehanna Pennsylvania. Burrhus received his BA in English from Hamilton College in upstate New York. After some traveling, he decided to go back to school, and earned his masters in

psychology in 1930 and his doctorate in 1931, both from Harvard University.,

Skinner accepted the model of classical conditioning as originated by Pavlov and elaborated on by Watson and Guthrie, but he thought this type of conditioning only

explained a small portion of human and animal behavior. He thought that the majority of response by humans do not result from obvious stimuli. The notion of reinforcement had been introduced by Thorndike,

and Skinner developed this idea much further. 

http://www.lifecircles-inc.com/Learningtheories/behaviorism/Skinner.html

Reinforcement: The Basis of Behavior

• Reinforcement: The act of strengthening a response by adding a reward, thus increasing the likelihood that the response will be repeated.

Skinner believed that an animal or human could be trained to perform virtually any act and that the type of reinforcement that followed the behavior would be responsible for determining it,

Respondent and Operant Behavior

• Skinner distinguished between two kinds of behaviour:

Respondent Operant Behavior Behavior

RESPONDENT BEHAVIOR:

• Involves a response made to or elicited by a specific stimulus. • A stimulus is applied and the response

occurs. This behavior is unlearned, it occurs automatically and involuntarily.• At a higher level is respondent behavior

that is learned, called Conditioning.

OPERANT BEHAVIOR:

• Behavior emitted spontaneously or voluntarily that operates on the environment to change it.

• It involves acting in a way that appears to be voluntarily rather than reacting involuntarily to a stimulus to which we have been conditioned.

OPERANT CONDITIONING

Through Operant Conditioning the consequences of a behavior produce changes in the probability of the behavior’s occurrence. A behavior followed by a rewarding stimulus is more likely to recur, where as a behavior followed by a punishing stimulus is more likely to not recur. (Theories of Development)

For example: In a nursery class where the teacher gives a student a reward , maybe a candy or a nap time, whenever a student does well in class, that student will most likely excel knowing that the reward will be given to him or her.

In Skinner’s view, REWARDS AND PUNISHMNETS shape a person’s development. BEHAVIOR is the key aspect to DEVELOPMENT, not thoughts and feelings. Behavior consists of pattern of behavioral changes that are brought about by rewards and punishments.

(2009).Theories of Development

SKINNER BOX

It is known as Skinner’s operant – conditioning apparatus used to demonstrate the operant - conditioning apparatus. It is also referred to as the operant conditioning chamber. “A Skinner box, used to study the concepts of behavior, reinforcement and psychology, is a box that houses an animal and offers both unconditioned and conditioned stimuli — such as colored lights and food, respectively — and response levers or keys that serve to monitor the animal's behavior.” (Foster)

An example would be a food – deprived rat placed in the Skinner box. “At some time during this activity, the rat will depress a lever or bar located on one wall of the Skinner box, causing a food pellet to drop into a trough. The rat’s pressing of the lever has operated on the environment and, as a result, has changed it. The environment now includes a food pellet.” (Schultz, 2005)

In this situation, the food pellet is also referred to as a reinforcer for the behavior of pressing the bar. Because it is provided with more food, it will behave in the same way, pressing the bar, more frequently. It is seen here that with everyday that the Rat is placed back in the Skinner box, his reaction of pushing the lever can be predicted. With this, we can control the rat’s behavior of pressing the lever through providing or withholding the reinforcer which is the food pellet.

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS.

A Skinner box may be fairly simple, with only one lever or key, or it may be quite complex, with a variety of stimuli and ways of monitoring response. The Skinner box has received criticism because it does not capture every nuance of the animal's behavior; pushing the lever with a nose or a paw registers as the same response, for example, and light touches of the lever may not be recorded. (Foster)

“Skinner believed that most human and animal behavior is learned through operant conditioning.” (Schultz, 2005)

Added Information about B.F. Skinner:

Did you know???

B.F. Skinner has been accused, notably by author Lauren Slater and by the Church of Scientology, of raising his daughter in a Skinner box, leading to her mental illness and suicide, but this is untrue. Skinner designed a special air-crib intended to make childcare easier, but he did not conduct psychological experiments on his daughter or abuse her. Deborah Skinner Buzan, Skinner's daughter, is still alive and has refuted every point of these rumors. (Foster)

Schedules of Reinforcement

• Reinforcement Schedules- Patterns or rates of providing or withholding reinforcers.• Provides an effective technique for controlling,

modifying, and shaping behaviour.• Among the rates of reinforcement he tested are the

following:• Fixed Interval• Fixed Ratio• Variable Interval• Variable Ratio

Fixed Interval

• Reinforcer is presented following the first response that occurs after a fixed time interval has elapsed.

• The timing of the reinforcements has nothing to do with the number of responses.

Fixed Ratio

• Reinforcers are given only after the organism has made a specified number of responses.

• Presentation of reinforcers depends on how often the subject responds.

Variable Interval

• Reinforcers are presented on a variable basis.

• Reinforcer might appear after 2 hours in the first instance, 1 ½ hours the next time, and after 2 hours and 15 minutes the third time.

Successive Approximatio

n

Also known as SHAPING

Small steps in behavior, one after

another, that leads to a particular goal or

behavior

Small steps one after another that get closer and closer to the goal

Small steps toward some ultimate goal are reinforced until the goal

itself is reached

Successive Approximation

More complex

tricksSHAPING

He never punished the rats for wrong behavior

He just ignored it and rewarded the behavior he

wanted

Learning was fast and painless and the tasks

were increasingly complex

Superstitious behavior

Defined as: Persistent behavior that has a coincidental and not a functional relationship to the

reinforcement received

Ex: when an athlete does something out of the ordinary once before a game (ex: tapping a sign “play like a champion”) and the athlete suddenly plays better. The athlete will instinctively look for a reason, find it and repeat it so he cam play with the same performance as last time he did it.

Superstitions are easily learned; in fact one occurrence can cause a superstition

In humans, superstitious behavior can persist throughout life and only require occasional reinforcement to sustain them.

Self- Control of Behavior

Defined as:The ability to exert control over the variables that determine our behavior

To some extend we can control

the external variables that

determine our behavior

Types of self control Stimulus avoidance:Removing yourself from the external variable that affects your behavior

Ex: when something annoys you, you leave or get rid of it

> Self- administered satiation:We exert control to cure an addiction by saturating ourselves with it to the point of disgust, illness or epic boredom (“angang sa super-UMAY sila!”)to traumatize themselves not to do it anymore…

Aversive stimulation technique:Declaring their intentions to the public so that if they do not attain their goal, they will face embarrassment, ridicule, personal failure and criticism thereby forcing them to stop a behavior or start a new one to attain a goal.

Self reinforcement:One rewards his/herself for doing or displaying good or desirable behavior (self-rewarding)

Works Cited a.k.a. sources!!!! :D 1.Foster, N. (n.d.). Language. Retrieved June 27, 2011, from Wise Geek: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-skinner-box.htm

2.Schultz, D. P. (2005). Theories of Personality . Wadsworth .

3. Ciccarelli , S. & White, J. (2009). Psychology. NJ: Pearson Education, Inc

4. http:/drjimgoldstein.com/site/the-magic-of-successive-approximation./