Anyone Remember B. F. Skinner? The father of Reinforcement Theory

[Marc]

Did any of you folks ever read any of the studies he did?

[Randy Stewart]

Are you asking for details or starting a conversation? I had classes on Skinner in psych I'd have to go back to my library to get the details of the studies.

[Kevin Mader]

Marc,

The extent of my reading of Skinner's studies is somewhat limited to second part reviews. Alfie Kohn covers some of this in his book, "Punished by Rewards" and includes transcripts of meetings between Skinner and Kohn where they discussed Skinnerian Thinking.

When studying Motivation, I read another 5 books or so that centered on Skinners beliefs, although much of what was written about never gave full credit to Skinner.

What are you looking for? Anything in particular?

Regards,

Kevin

[CarolX]

Isn't this the guy that found that no matter how he changed the work enviroment, people always out performed when they were being studied.

I seem to recall something about changing the lighting and finding the workers did better with the lights low, but further study only showed it was related to the study itself.

Is this the guy?

CX

[gpainter]

The father of reinforcement theory.
1. Positive
2. Escape and advoidance
3. Extinction
4. Punishment

[Craig H.]

Originally Posted by CarolX

Isn't this the guy that found that no matter how he changed the work enviroment, people always out performed when they were being studied.

I seem to recall something about changing the lighting and finding the workers did better with the lights low, but further study only showed it was related to the study itself.

Is this the guy?

CX

Carol:

Skinner was known for operant behavior. I believe what you describe is the Hawthorne effect, after the Hawthorn Western Electric plant. the study was supposed to measure the effect of lighting on productivity. When they found that productivity increased at each level of lighting, they deduced that something else was affecting the system.

"The Hawthorne Effect", then, is what happens when the system changes just because it is being observed.

That said, I could not find where Skinner was involved at Hawthorne, so he may have been... See http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/skinner.html for a description of his work. The Hawthorne effect was based on work by Elton Mayo. See http://www.accel-team.com/motivation/hawthorne_01.html

Craig

[Randy Stewart]

Skinner was known for operant behavior.

This theory is what that story about the monkeys and the water hose is based upon.

[Marc]

I've been playing with this cat that has taken up residence here. When ever I feed the little intruder I whistle first. Now she almost always comes to my whistle. I guess that's Pavlonian or something.