Experimental psychology

Lauren Slater used Opening Skinner’s Box to demonstrate B. F. Skinner’s biography, and unorthodox experiments as a psychologist. Slater acts like detective psychologist who is confused about the “real” Skinner. She wants to know who exactly he was, and what are the real facts and myths about Skinner’s life, personality, methods, and interactions with people and family members. I guess, it’s a research journey for Slater to find out every truth about the male colleague called Skinner. She is nosy…

Walk into any bookstore or library and it is easy to find self-help books that promise to transform your life. Karen Pryor demonstrates in Don’t Shoot the Dog! that the principles of behavioral training are applicable in all walks of life and illustrates the value of utilizing these techniques in daily life, as these principles can be used to train your pet, your parents or yourself with equal success. In this book she presents several concepts including reinforcers, shaping, stimulus control,…

The story “The Pit and the Pendulum’ is one of Edgar Allen’s most famous stories. He has three adjectives that describe him really well and there is supporting evidence from the story that will confirm it. The three adjectives that describe the character in this story are brave, scared and smart because of his choices he makes in the story and how he reacts to the different situations. The first adjective that describes the character would be brave. Brave describe this character in the “The Pit…

Introduction Behavior is generally both physical and psychological response towards stimuli. It encompasses organism’s observable physical movements and internal psychological process, summing up to how an organism responds with the environment. Sniffy experiment seeks to demonstrate how the virtual rat responds to tone and shock variation. It is possible to measure organism behavior using one or more parameters, including duration, intensity, and frequency. While experimentation is a better…

Scientists conducted an experiment on whether or not rats show empathy. Two rats were placed in a clear box where a treat was placed on one side of the box and the rats on the other. One rat was allowed to move freely while the other was restrained, but could be released if the other rat pushed the button to do so. As no one expected, the rat freed his companion rather than keeping the treat all for himself. There is much debate on if animals have feelings and if they contain the amount of…

Kyle Horne April 1 2016 1001 Khorne Do Pigeons Already Generalize, or did they Just Want Food? Summary An experiment was performed in order to test role of concept learning in pigeons. This experiment used contextual cueing, a non differential reinforcement procedure that involves low-level supervision, to test concept learning in pigeons, rather than a differential reinforcement procedure, which involves high-level supervision.The experiment involved pigeons pecking at a target stimulus when…

I, B.F. Skinner, believe that the cause of abnormal behavior is not due to any psychoanalytical or biological cause, rather they are formed based on a person’s history of conditioning. Through my studies I have found that behaviors that bring about positive consequences have a greater likelihood of being repeated than behaviors that bring about negative consequences. This is known as operant conditioning, the shaping of behaviors by providing rewards to reinforce desired behaviors and…

Thorndike’s law of effect states that rewarded behaviors will be repeated and punished behaviors will decrease. Mrs. Jones can use the law of effect to get her students to behave well. If the students follow directions, she can offer them candy to get them to keep up the behavior. Also, she can punish her students for misbehaving by assigning them to a silent lunch. The candy will give them an incentive to behave properly while the silent lunches will get them to stop misbehaving. Classical…

B.F Skinner would agree with the quote “It’s simple. You read books—to learn facts—to get grades—to pass the course—to get a degree. It has nothing to do with thoughts.” by Lorraine Hansberry. Skinner pioneered the idea that humans could simply be reacting to life instead of actually learning as they move through time. He would support the idea that humans are conditioned to go through life in a certain way, and that little development occurs when people are forced into repetitive habits.…

Author of the utopian novel, Walden Two (1948), Burrhus Frederic Skinner was born on March 20th, of 1904 in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. Skinner can also be described as the creator of the behaviorist theory of psychology. B.F. was born to a father occupied as a lawyer and a mother who did not work but stayed at home to tend to Skinner’s needs. Skinner had an early interest in building and inventing gadgets which later on in his life plays a minor role in his success. On the path of education,…