The Father Of Operant Conditioning By John B. Skinner

Although Burrhus Frederic Skinner is known as “The father of operant conditioning” there were other scientists who contributed to his theory of behaviorism. Edward Thorndike and Ivan Pavlov were two researchers whose findings influenced the founding of behaviorism by John B. Watson. All of their influences and research contributed to B.F. Skinner`s theory of behaviorism and formulation of operant conditioning.

Edward Thorndike is known as one of the most influential researchers in the development of animal psychology. Thorndike`s experiments using his own designed puzzle box was used in his research for animal learning. In 1898 Thorndike used this puzzle box to observe how cats and dogs open latches on gates and traced the idea to the reports

Pavlov` main focus was the study of the digestive glands of dogs when he stumbled across the function of saliva in dogs. He found that dogs salivate involuntarily whenever food is placed in front of them. Pavlov began to see conditioned reflexes which are reflexes that are conditional or dependent on the association between a stimulus and response. In Pavlov 's experiment he used a bell as a neutral stimulus and rang the bell everytime he gave the dog food. The food is the unconditioned stimulus and the dog 's saliva is the unconditioned response. After the dog associates the bell with food the bell becomes the conditioned stimulus. Therefore, every time the dog here`s the bell, he salivates believing food is near. Skinner used Pavlov 's conditioning experiments as a basis for his theory of operant conditioning. As Pavlov conditioned the dog to salivate after hearing a bell, Skinner conditioned his rats to associate pressing a lever to receive food

These scientists focused on animals and how their behaviors could be traced to human behaviors. B.F. Skinner and operant conditioning was incredibly influential during the 1950`s- 1980`s. During these decades the American people were going through segregation, recovering from World War II, the Cold War and the list goes on. After World War II, people were deciding to have more babies. Although the baby boom generation started in 1948, about four million babies were born each year in the 1950`s. (History.com Staff 2010) In 1964 towards the end of the baby boom nearly 77 million “baby boomers” had been born. (History.com Staff, 2010) People started to believe that after all the war and violence the nation had been through peace and prosperity was in the near future. During the 1950`s the economy began to redeem itself. Middle class people had more money to spend because of the economic growth that was now taking place. Between the years 1945-1960, the gross national product more than doubled going from $200 billion to $500 billion. (History.com Staff, 2010) After the war and baby boom, Americans started to move to the suburbs and use mass production to build houses that were inexpensive and great for families. The G.I. bill subsidized low-mortgages for returning soldiers which made it less expensive to buy a house than rent an apartment. (History.com Staff, 2010) Women were continuing