Scientific and Practical Contributions of Scientists on Skinner - Essay Example

 Skinner and the scientific world were influenced by 3 works in the 1920s: Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species, Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalysis, and Ivan Pavlov’s experiments with Operant Conditioning.

 Skinner took the work of Ivan Pavlov even further. He was able to prove that the Stimulus-Response connection worked even in reverse- that is a Response could also lead to a Stimulus, and he interjected the concept of Discriminative Stimuli.

 Skinner's work was also acknowledged and appreciated by other psychologists such as Dr. J.B.Watson.

 Skinner proved that both in animals and humans, we tend to repeat those actions that lead to the desired response. We stop doing those actions that do not lead to the desired response.

 Skinner introduced the concepts of positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement would entail actions like praise and rewards that served for a person to repeat a certain behavior, while negative reinforcement would entail punishment or the withholding of the desired reward. In this way, positive behavior could be enhanced and negative behavior curbed in a person or an animal.

 Skinner’s work is used today by animal trainers as well as parents and teachers. It is even used in offices where people who contribute towards departmental and organizational goals are rewarded, while those who did not are sidelined, and some are even punished if they did bad work that put the organization into disrepute.

 Skinner amazingly noted that actions performed with lesser frequency were apt to be remembered longer than those performed with more consistent frequency.

Two Additional Questions for Students taking the Course in Applied Behavior Analysis
1. If our behavior is all a product of conditioning, can a psychologist program or influence us to do things against our will?

2. In infamous experiments by Dr. Stanley Milgram and Dr. Philip Zimbardo, people were induced to hurt other people. Is this a natural state of mankind? Can the henchmen of Hitler like Adolf Eichmann and Herman Goebbels be absolved of abetting in genocide like in the Holocaust, on the grounds that they were just following orders or because they wanted to save their own lives?

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