B. F. Skinner's Two Types Of Respondent Behavior

B. F. Skinner took psychology and made it into a science. He believed that it was not internal forces that directed the personality but external stimuli. Instead of studying people he chose to study animals, rats and pigeons. It is interesting how he took an idea that worked to train animals and transferred that information to train people. Using Ivan Pavlov’s experiment conditioning dogs with a bell, hungry rats in a box and hours of research, he decided that the basic drive for behavior is reinforced. Skinner defined two types of behavior. Respondent behavior, or “responses made to or elicited by a specific environmental stimuli” (Schultz & Schultz, 2013, p. 321). These responses are unlearned and happen automatically like reflex. Our book gives the example of the stimuli, a tap on the knee causes a response to occur, your leg to jerk. Another example could be the stimulus, someone jumping out and scaring you, which causes a response to occur; you scream something that happens automatically. The second behavior and more important behavior to Skinner, was operant behavior “behavior emitted spontaneously or voluntarily that operates on the environment to change it” (Schultz & Schultz, 2013 p. 332). These responses are learned and happen with a purpose. The example in the book is of a …show more content…
The child and parent both use operant conditioning and reinforcement to train the other. Operant conditioning is using reinforcement to change the behavior. The reinforcement or reward is given after the desired behavior is completed. The rat in Skinner’s box randomly pressed the lever and was rewarded with the food. Babies learn that when they are hungry, they cry-operant conditioning; mom feeds them-reward. Parents also use this to teach children the correct behavior. If the children do their chores or homework, they are rewarded with a new toy or