B.F. Skinner (Burrhus Frederic Skinner)

Reinforcing Stimuli Theory:

• Skinner agreed that reinforcement is necessary to learn, however, unlike Hall, Skinner believed that reinforcement was nothing more than a fact; certain events, following the occurrence of a response, would alter the frequency of that response.
• Based theory on operant conditioning (an organism that is in the process of operating on the environment)
• Discovered stimulus called reinforcing stimulus, which has the effect of increasing the operant.
• To explain the theory:
• Skinner made a special cage.  It is known as a “Skinner Box”.  This box has a bar on one wall that, when pressed, causes a little mechanism to release a food pellet into the cage.
• The rat in the cage naturally bounces around in the cage.  When he accidentally presses the bar, food pellet falls into the cage.  Following this experiment Skinner discovered Schedules of Reinforcement.

Reinforcement

Continuous Reinforcement-each time an animal performs a behavior it gets a treat.
Fixed Ratio Schedule- There is a fixed ratio between behaviors and reinforces (an animal gets a reinforcement for every “x” times it completes a behavior).
Variable Schedules- Changing the amount of behaviors the subject has to do before it is awarded with a reinforcement.

Other Behavior Related Theories

• Shaping-Reinforcing a behavior close to the behavior you want preformed and shaping it into exactly what behavior is wanted.
• Adverse Stimuli-
• A behavior followed by an adverse stimulus results in a decreased probability of the behavior occurring in the future.
• Behavior followed by the removal of an adverse stimulus results in an increased probability of that behavior occurring in the future.