Skinner Box (Skinner, 1948)

• Operant Conditioning


  A type of learning in which behavior is controlled by consequences - reinforcement or punishment
• Law of Effect

  Behaviour that is followed by pleasant consequences is likely to be repeated, and behaviour followed by unpleasant consequences is less likely to be repeated
• Reinforcement

  Behaviour that is reinforced tends to be repeated (i.e., strengthened); behaviour that is not reinforced tends to die out or be extinguished (i.e., weakened)
• Skinner Box

  • A device used to objectively record an animal's behavior in a compressed time frame
  • An animal can be rewarded or punished for engaging in certain behaviors, such as lever pressing (for rats) or key pecking (for pigeons)
• Types of operant responses

  • Neutral operants
  • Reinforcers
  • Punishers
• Neutral operants


  Responses from the environment that neither increase nor decrease the probability of a behavior being repeated
• Reinforcers


  Responses from the environment that increase the probability of a behavior being repeated. Reinforcers can be either positive or negative.
• Punishers


  Responses from the environment that decrease the likelihood of a behavior being repeated. Punishment weakens behavior.
• Skinner's Pigeon Experiment

  1. Pigeons were placed in a cage with a food hopper that could be presented at regular intervals, regardless of the pigeon's behaviour

  2. Pigeons began to associate whatever random action they were doing when food was delivered with the delivery of the food itself

  3. Pigeons developed different "superstitious" behaviours or rituals to try to get the food to appear
• Skinner's theory may not be very useful in explaining learning in humans, given that cognitions are ignored
• Ethical issues are a further concern with Skinner's Research. The animals involved were exposed to stressful and harmful conditions.
• Shorter intervals between food presentations

  Led to more rapid and defined conditioning
• Once a behaviour was established

  The interval between reinforcements could be increased without diminishing the behaviour
• This experiment demonstrates that behaviours can be conditioned even without a direct cause-and-effect relationship
• Just like humans, pigeons can develop "superstitious" behaviours based on coincidental occurrences
• Skinner's notable contributions to psychology

  • The operant conditioning process
  • The notion of schedules of reinforcement
  • Introduction of response rates as a dependent variable in research
  • The creation of the cumulative recorder to track response rates