B F Skinner's Positive Reinforcement Theory

Burrhus Frederic Skinner was born on March 20, 1904 in Susquehanna Pennsylvania, a small town located on the Susquehanna River about twenty-three miles away from New York. As a youngster Skinner showed an interest in building different types of gadgets and contraptions. After spending his last six years being a professor of psychology at Harvard, Skinner was diagnosed with leukemia in 1989 and ended up dying on August 18, 1990 at the ripe old age of 86 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In his later years Skinner attended Hamilton College, a small liberal arts institution, where he would develop a passion for writing. As a matter of fact for a short period of timer after graduating college Skinner tried to become a professional writer, but unfortunately had very little success. While attending Hamilton College Skinner “revolted” against the Student Life Department by …show more content…
Skinner 's theories have lost most of there popularity amongst much of the scientific community, his realization of the stupendous importance of reinforcement to this day remains a very important discovery. He, like many others, believed that positive reinforcement could be used as a great means of shaping one 's behavior. As a matter of fact this idea is still given great amounts of “praise ' especially in many of today 's schools. Many of Skinner 's beliefs are still, to this very day, being promoted by the B.F Skinner foundation, which is headed by his daughter. Even though B. F. Skinner has been gone for many years his findings still have a very profound and noticeable effect on the way that we live our lives today. In fact many of his traditions continue to influence our society, such as how he, rather than use coercive practices to “fix behavior”, would use and recommend the use of positive reinforcement. The results of his shaping techniques are seen every where from the way a teacher teaches a child in a classroom all the way to how a supervisor teaches his