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Lauren Slater begins this chapter by expressing the controversy B.F Skinner caused in his time. Did he take his experiments too far? Was he truly revolutionary? Through all of the controversy, Slater comes to the conclusion that Skinner was revolutionary and influential for all scientist to come. Skinner began his research at Harvard University, looking into psychological experiments that would help our world become a better place, a place where we people could take action. In his experiments, he was able to uncover the science behind behavior and make animals react based on cues in their environments. In Slater's personal research of Skinner, she questions whether or not we have free will, or if our actions are ruled by reinforcers. She
In Lauren Slater’s book Opening Skinner’s Box, the second chapter “Obscura” discusses Stanley Milgram, one of the most influential social psychologists. Milgram created an experiment which would show just how far one would go when obeying instructions from an authoritative figure, even if it meant harming another person while doing so. The purpose of this experiment was to find justifications for what the Nazi’s did during the Holocaust. However, the experiment showed much more than the sociological reasoning behind the acts of genocide. It showed just how much we humans are capable of.
Skinner, B.F. A Brief Survey of Operant Behavior. Cambridge, MA: B. F. Skinner Foundation. 1938
Upon analyzing his experiment, Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist, concludes that people will drive to great lengths to obey orders given by a higher authority. The experiment, which included ordinary people delivering “shocks” to an unknown subject, has raised many questions in the psychological world. Diana Baumrind, a psychologist at the University of California and one of Milgram’s colleagues, attacks Milgram’s ethics after he completes his experiment in her review. She deems Milgram as being unethical towards the subjects he uses for testing and claims that his experiment is irrelevant to obedience. In contrast, Ian Parker, a writer for New Yorker and Human Sciences, asserts Milgram’s experiments hold validity in the psychological world. While Baumrind focuses on Milgram’s ethics, Parker concentrates more on the reactions, both immediate and long-term, to his experiments.
The Web. 16 April 2014. Monmaney, Terence. A.S.A. & Co. Free will, or thought control?
“Review of Stanley Milgram’s Experiments of Obedience” was written by Diane Baumrind. Baumrind is a psychologist at the Institute of Human Development at the University of California, Berkley. Throughout her article, Baumrind attacks multiple aspects of Milgram’s experiment. She immediately states that the location of the experiment played a factor in the produced results (Baumrind 225). She continues in saying the lack of emotion and concern from the teacher caused heavy stress on the subjects. Baumrind also calls into question the supposed attempts of Milgram to allow the subjects to leave in a clear, whole state of mind (Baumrind 227). The affects the experiment would have on the subjects afterwards is also a point of concern for Baumrind. Lastly, Baumrind pleads for the subjects to be fully informed of the experiment they would be partaking in (Baumrind 229). However, Baumrind is not the only author who reviews the experiment. Ian Parker, “Obedience”, writes about the consequences Milgram himself experienced after the results of hi...
B.F. Skinner was an early psychologist that invented the operant conditioning chamber, also known as the Skinner Box . The information gathered from the experiment conducted with Skinner’s Box, “Functional analysis of behavior-environment interchange has facilitated the analysis of infants learning and development” (B.F. Skinner, Toward a Unified Theory of Development: Connectionism and Dynamic Systems Theory Re-Consider. ). This means that the action that is taking will be reproduced over and over again because of the reward. This strategy is used in teaching children how to read, write and speak. This is applied later in life when a person gets a job. The harder a person works, the more they are usually paid. The next psychologists work was set up into distinctive sections of development.
Skinners studies included the study of pigeons that helped develop the idea of operant conditioning and shaping of behavior. His study entailed making goals for pigeons, if the goal for the pigeon is to turn to the left, a reward is given for any movement to the left, the rewards are supposed to encourage the left turn. Skinner believed complicated tasks could be broken down in this way and taught until mastered. The main belief of Skinner is everything we do is because of punishment and reward (B.F. Skinner).
At the expense of the tester’s life and the teacher’s conscience, mankind’s long-term benefits from knowledge gained from the experiment outweighs immediate negative
As schools give out rewards for positive behavior and work places give bonuses for those who put out good work. Today this research is used for autistic kids as a way of teaching them. If Skinner had been denied this experiment many autistic kids would not have the education they have now. So no matter how harsh his ideas were his research has helped progress the way we learn today. Milgram’s data showed that we forget our morals when it comes to obeying an authority figure. Meaning if the government wanted to control us many would follow just because it was an authority figure. His research showed that “an anonymous experimenter could successfully command adults to subdue a 50-year old man and force on him painful electric shocks against his protests.”(Wayne 3) Proving that people would blindly follow anyone if they are seen with power. If we had not known this data we may as well could have ended up like the Nazis. Now that we know this many oppose authority figures today and question their
Skinner designed an experiment to test operant conditioning, known as a ‘Skinner box’ (Gross 2005). In the box, animals, such as rats, would be conditioned into certain behaviour. For example, by pressing a lever to receive food (Gross 2005).
Although the experimental model pushed psychology into a more advanced period, it still had its own issues that could ultimately ruin experiments. For a long time, research was conducted at colleges and universities by students who were participating just for class credit. In addition, the participant pool mostly consisted of white males. That creates a problem - a WEIRD problem. These participants were WEIRD: Western, educated, and from industrialized, rich, and democratic
On Watson’s heels came Skinner (1906-1990) who, like Watson before him, established his own school of psychology called experimental analysis of behavior. Within the psychological community, he is considered one of the great pioneering minds of behaviorism, along with Pavlov and Watson. In 2002 Skinner was named the most influential psychologist of the twentieth century.
In 1875 one of Wundt's former students Williams James (1842-1910) form a psychology laboratory in United States of America, at Harvard University. It is alleged that James didn't get the recognition he deserved because his laboratory was strictly for the teaching, rather than experiments and research like his former teacher and colleague- Wundt and G. Stanley Hall (1844-1924).
There are two types of learning, one is operant conditioning, and the other is classical conditioning. Operant behaviour is behaviour that is controlled through consequences. Operant conditioning consists of a behaviour, consequence (reinforcement or punishment) and likelihood of (staddon & cerutti, 2003). Skinner, who came up with this theory based his ideologies on the work of Thorndike, who had studied learning on animals using a puzzle box. He proposed the theory known as ‘the law of effect’ (Catania, 1999). From this skinner developed operant conditioning as he had set out to identify the processes which made certain behaviours more or less likely to occur.
Skinner believed humans were flexible and could learn anything through conditioning. Skinner stated that the environment controlled human behavior thus, believing humans did not have the capacity for free will. Skinner also believed individuals can be manipulated by the environment to change behaviors. This can be seen in the United States criminal justice system, regarding punishments. Prisons and jails can “retrain” individuals to “go on the right path again”. This is a vital part of Skinner’s operant behavior