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B.F. Skinner, American psychologist, theorist, and writer.

Burrhus Frederic Skinner, better known as B.F. Skinner, is a highly regarded American psychologist and theorist best known for his contribution toward the philosophy of behaviorism. B.F. Skinner was born on March 20, 1904, in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. His father was a lawyer and his mother stayed home to care for Skinner and his younger brother. As a student at Hamilton College, Skinner developed a passion for writing. He tried to become a professional writer after graduating in 1926, but had no success. Two years later, Skinner decided to pursue a new endeavor. He enrolled at Harvard University to study psychology. Skinner boasted that his own philosophies were "radical" and argued that free will was an illusion and that all human action is the result of conditioning. Skinner was one of the most influential of American psychologists of his area of study, he developed the theory of Operant Conditioning, the idea that behavior is determined by its consequences, whether they're reinforcements or punishments, which will determine if that behavior will repeat or cease. Skinner came to the conclusion that some form of reinforcement was crucial in learning new behaviors. After finishing his doctorate degree and working as a researcher at Harvard, Skinner published the results of his operant conditioning experiments in The Behavior of Organisms in 1938. B.F. Skinner is also known for having written books on his studies throughout the years such as About Behaviorism, Science and Human Behavior, Verbal Behavior, and many more books on issues of science as well as social issues and philosophy.

The Skinner Box

At Harvard, B.F. Skinner looked for a more measurable way to study behavior. He developed an operant conditioning apparatus, which became better known as "the Skinner box". With this device, Skinner studied animals interacting with their environment. He first studied rats in his experiments, seeing how the rodents discovered and used a lever in the box, which dispensed food at varying intervals. An operant conditioning chamber (Skinner box) allows the observer to study behavior by teaching a subject animal to perform certain actions by responding to specific stimuli, such as a light or sound signal. When the subject performs the behavior, the chamber mechanism delivers food or another reward. These types of apparatuses allow experimenters to perform studies in conditioning and training through reward/punishment mechanisms.

Basic Concepts of Behaviorism

Behaviorism is the belief that psychology should be the science of observable behavior, rather than focusing on what goes on inside the mind. Behaviorists believe psychology should focus on the environmental influences that cause behaviors. Behaviorists suggest that behavior along with learning are direct results of stimulus-response associations and that behaviors can be explained by figuring out the learned associations.

Key Concepts of Behaviorism
Classical Conditioning is a process in which an association is formed between a naturally occurring stimulus and a previously neutral stimulus. Once this association has been made between the naturally occurring stimulus and the desired outcome, the previously neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus that is capable of invoking a conditioned response.
Operant Conditioning is a learning process that involves either reinforcement or punishment of a behavior. Reinforcement makes it more likely that the behavior will be repeated in the future, whereas punishment makes it less likely that a behavior will be reoccur.

Nature vs Nurture
In regard to the argument of Nature vs. Nurture, Skinner takes the side of Nurture and asserts that children are comparable to blank tablets, they can be shaped and influenced by their environment. In the field of psychology nurture refers to all the environmental factors that contribute to our identity, including our early childhood experiences, how we were raised, our social relationships, and our cultural surroundings.

Children as PASSIVE Learners
Skinner asserted that children were as "blank slates" or "blank tablets" and that it was their experiences that developed their personalities and moral virtues. According to Skinner this also meant that a child's response is learned through association and is maintained through reinforcement.