Skinner's Theories Of Behavior

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The purpose of this paper is to cover similarities and differences of the Skinner’s theoretical perspectives within the theories of behavior to those of Freud and Rogers across multiple theoretical areas. Skinner, Freud and Rogers contribute so much in the pool of knowledge in Psychology in areas such as behaviorism, psychoanalysis and self-psychology (Munday, 2014). Skinner is known as the behaviorist, Freud as psychoanalyst and Rogers as self- psychologist. However, the Skinner’s concepts connect but also differ with those of Freud and Rogers as it is hereby discussed.
In the deterministic stance both Skinner and Frued believes that the behavior of an individual is determined by some preceding factors and therefore it can also be predicted
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According to Skinner the factors that contribute to the change of the behavior of a person come from the environment that the individual lives in. Even if people are not always aware there are so many environmental factors the acts as positive stimuli or aversive stimuli to the changing of their behavior. However, according to Freud the drives that control the human behaviors are biological or innate. For example the sex drives or aggression develops in stages as a person continual to develop from childhood to adulthood (Washington, 2017). According to Rogers human begins have an innate free will that helps them to choose how they want to behavior and therefore not all behaviors are determined by external factors. In addition, psychologists such as Rogers who believes the view of the human’s free will holds that determinism is a hindrance to personal freedom and dignity and also devalues the behavior of an individual (McLeod, 2013). Another point of diversion between Skinner’s perspective to that of Freud and Rogers is that Skinner put little emphasis on the role of the person in changing process of his or her behavior. The implications of Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning is that the individual’s behavior is shaped by the environment forces and the individual in question has no power to determine the behavior that he or she should conduct himself or herself in (Goodwin, 2008). In another word the role of a person in the process of behavioral changes is only to assume a predetermined behavior as he or she is directed by the consequences of his actions. For Freud and Rogers the role of a person is a major factor to one self’s change in the behaviors. The implication of the two theorists in their view about the innate drives to changes in behavior is that anyone who is in the right mind and he or she is conscious about his

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