PSYCH 2GG3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: B. F. Skinner, Operant Conditioning, Cognitive Psychology
Document Summary
Behaviour, skinner claimed, should be studied & explained in the most direct way possible. Explaining schedules of behavior viz. direct observation. This opposed all of the other behaviorist-theories. Skinner"s behaviourism: rely exclusively on directly observable phenomena, psychology is considered an objective science, cognitive psychology / neuroscience was not what he was interested in, analysis of behaviour without appeal to subjective mental events or speculative physiological events. One of the giants of 20th-century psychology. As a child, read a great deal; he desired to become a novelist. He displayed remarkable mechanical skills; he put these skills to good use in devising and constructing the devices he later used in his experiments. As an undergraduate, skinner majored in english. Skinner was recognized as the leading proponent of the behaviouristic position, a position that he continued to develop and defend throughout his life. Skinner"s theory is based on two fundamental assumptions: (exemplifies the idea of parsimony: he wanted to keep everything simple, 1.
