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Skinner's Theories of Behaviorism Essay

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Behaviorism is by far one of the most interesting fields of psychology in my opinion. B.F. Skinner’s view on behaviorism was that a person’s actions are controlled by rewards and punishments. Relating this to a real life situation, a great example of this would be a parent and a child. Behavioral analysis is how a person’s behaviours are based on the individuals’ personal history and past experiences. This is different then radical behaviorism, which Skinner fell into. Skinner believed that mental events, such as thinking, were not needed to explain behavior. A parent raising a child deals with a lot of operant conditioning if they know it or not. A parent is always trying to teach a child right and wrong. From operant conditioning …show more content…

The changing of the channel is removing the unwanted television program. Punishment refers to a response with an unpleasant consequence. Punishment unlike reinforcement decreases the likelihood that the response will occur again. Positive punishment is any stimulus that, when added to a situation decreases the probability that a given behavior will occur. If a child is destroying the house by painting the walls and the parent catches them doing this act. The parent may spank the child adding an unpleasant consequence and hoping this behavior will not occur again. Negative punishment is any stimulus that, when removed from the situation decreases the probability that the behavior will occur again. A lot of times the negative punishment is called the response cost. If a child is hitting their sister instead of adding an action such as hitting the child a parent (mostly permissive parenting) will remove this action. Another way this can be seen is if you take away the child’s playtime and replace it with a timeout. The child is having a pleasant event removed, which will decrease the chance that the child will hit their sibling again. All of these reinforcements and punishments are shaping the child to grow into an individual who has the right morals in life. If a parent wants their child to do well in school and clean the house they need to set a series of gradual daily goals for their child. The parent then can reward them for

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