Third Snippet from My New Book, >Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education<: The Behaviorist School of Psychology

Here is another snippet from my new book, Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education.


This segment is from the chapter focused on psychology.  Since I am personally intellectually in sync with the behaviorist school of psychology and have in other articles maintained that free will is a mere perception with no grounding in reality, I have presented this school of psychology in this article.


Do know, though, that as a formal debater I can easily assert the cases for the psychological viewpoints associated with such schools of psychology as the humanist, cognitivist, neuropsychological, developmental, and social---  and as a transmitter of all fundamental knowledge pertinent to humanity via Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education, I present the key tenets of these schools in the chapter on psychology, giving similar space and enthusiasm of presentation.


For more on the motivating force behind Fundamentals of an Excellent Liberal Arts Education,
scroll on down to the two articles that immediately follow this one (posted prior to article that you are now reading):




Behaviorist School


During the 1940s and extending to his death in the 1980s, the behaviorist B. F. Skinner developed a seminal approach to psychology. Building on the work of precursors such as J. B. Watson, Skinner described human behavior as the result of operant conditioning. In Skinner’s view, all of human behavior is determined by reinforcers (rewards) and punishments acting upon the individual according to her or his unique social environment. He denied the existence of free will and all internal mental states that we normally perceive as freedom, dignity, and intention.


The key concepts in this strict behaviorist view of operant conditioning as determinative of all human behavior is given below.


A. The Essentials of Operant Conditioning


1. Positive Reinforcement




Positive reinforcement is the reward that a person receives after exhibiting a given behavior: 


A father may cook a special dinner for a daughter who successfully fixes a leaky water faucet. The daughter is much more likely, for having been the recipient of the special dinner, to take on the leaky faucet task the next time the problem occurs.


A mother may pay her son $20 after he does the family laundry. The son, who had long lobbied for such a reward, is now much more likely to do the laundry cheerfully and with the desired results of very clean clothes than he would in the absence of the reward.


A teacher smiles and gives a hug to a child who has just successfully completed a double digit multiplication problem for the first time. The child, having been hesitant on the multiplication task, will now move on to a division task with much more enthusiasm in the expectation of similar approbation.


The child in turn may smile and tell the teacher that he is the best ever at explaining math. The teacher moves on to the next child or to the next task with the same child in a mood of exhilaration.


An employer may give “Employee of the Month” honors to an employee who never missed a day and performed all tasks at an exceptional level of accomplishment. If this is a reward that the employee sought, she or he will revel in the award and maintain the behavior in expectation of a possible “Employee of the Year” award.


All of these situations feature some behavior that was rewarded in a timely fashion with what Skinner called positive reinforcement: the special dinner, the $20, the smile and hug combination, the returned smile and words of praise, the two kinds of employee awards. Skinner maintained that the presentation of a positive reinforcer for a desired behavior is the single most effective means of encouraging and maintaining that behavior.


2. Punishment


Punishment is the aversive consequence that one receives for exhibiting an undesirable behavior:


If a daughter had given indication that she could fix the faucet but fails to do so, dad frowns and says, “You are always promising things that you cannot do.”


A son who says that he will do a super job if mom pays him son $20 for doing the family laundry does only half of what he said he’d do and leaves most of the clothes damp, leaving mom to finish up. Mom tells her son that he cannot participate in the family card game that evening but instead will have to write a three-page essay explaining how he will do the laundry better the next time.


A teacher frowns and says, “You never try hard enough on assignments I give to you,” when a child makes insufficient effort to solve a double-digit multiplication problem for the first time. The child tears up in the receipt of this reprobation from a beloved teacher.


The child, now emotionally hurting as a result of the teacher’s stinging words, slams her fist on the table and shouts, “You are the most useless teacher I’ve ever had.”


An employer may reduce the hours of an employee who failed to perform all tasks requested at an acceptable level of accomplishment. The employee, not a slacker by habit, feels terrible that she has disappointed her employer and lost needed income.


All of these situations feature some behavior that was punished in close proximity to the undesirable performance of an activity. Skinner would have labeled as punishment each of the negative consequences: the frown and harsh words from dad; missing the family card game and having to write the essay about becoming a better launderer; the frown and words of condemnation from the teacher; the slammed fist and insulting words leveled at the teacher; the reduced hours and lost pay.


3. Negative reinforcement


Like positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement rewards rather than punishes a given behavior, but the reward is in essence having the punishing circumstance terminated:




Negative reinforcement is the removal of an aversive stimulus (punishment):


Dad stands frowning and saying, “You are always promising to do things that you cannot do,” as the daughter is trying to fix the faucet, but his frown fades and his negative comments disappear when the daughter in fact fixes the faucet.


Mom maintains a steady monologue about how her son has never done the family laundry properly in his life and how she knows that the current effort will result in similar failure but stills her tongue when he surprisingly gets it right this time.


A teacher frowns and says, “You never try hard enough on assignments I give to you,” but stops the words of condemnation amidst a fading frown when the child solves a double-digit multiplication problem for the first time.


The child fights through lingering emotional pain but, relieved at the absence of insulting words, does not slam her fist on the table or shout, “You are the most useless teacher I’ve ever had,” as she has done so many times before.


An employer shows a schedule of reduced the hours to an employee who seems to be failing on a given night to perform all tasks requested at an acceptable level of accomplishment--- but tears up the schedule with the atypically reduced number of hours when the employee gets busy and completes all tasks in good form.


All of these situations feature some behavior that was rewarded with the removal of an aversive situation in close proximity to the adroit performance of an activity. Skinner would have labeled each instance of removal of an aversive consequence as negative reinforcement: the fading of dad’s frown and the termination of harsh words from dad when the faucet is in fact fixed; the ceasing of mom’s litany of invective when the son does a good job with the family laundry; the teacher no longer speaking words of condemnation and no longer wearing a frown; the absence of a slammed fist and insulting words leveled at the teacher; the employer tearing up the schedule of reduced hours.




B. Schedules of Reinforcement


There are four fundamental schedules of reinforcement, each built on pairing important concepts related to the variability of the routine and whether the reinforcement is timed or delivered according to a quantity of reinforced behaviors.


In terms of variability, schedules may be either fixed or varied. A fixed schedule of reinforcement delivers the reinforcement on a dependably regular schedule; a variable schedule of reinforcement delivers the reinforcement on an irregular schedule, one that is not predictable by observers other than the designer of the experiment. In terms of the factors of timing or quantification, schedules may be either based on interval or ratio. Interval schedules deliver the reinforcement after the passage of so much time; ratio schedules deliver the reinforcement according to the number of behaviors exhibited.


Examples of these schedules of reinforcement are given below:


1) fixed interval >>>>> A fixed interval schedule of reinforcement rewards behavior exhibited over an exact time period.


For example, a father may reward his son for doing his chore of washing the dishes every night that the family eats at home each week by giving him his allowance every Saturday afternoon.


2) variable interval >>>>> A variable interval schedule of reinforcement rewards behavior dependably over an identifiable long-term period but not precise in the short term.
 
For example, a father may reward his son for doing his chore of washing the dishes every night that the family eats at home each week by giving him his allowance four times each month----- but not on a set day or time.


3) fixed ratio >>>>> A fixed ratio schedule of reinforcement rewards each behavior right after exhibition of the behavior.


For example, a father may reward his son for doing his chore of washing the dishes each time he completes the task, for the agreed upon amount of $5.00.


4) variable ratio >>>>> A variable ratio schedule of reinforcement rewards a certain number of behaviors but not after right after exhibition of the behavior;  hence, while the average number of exhibited behaviors rewarded may be the same as with a fixed ratio schedule, the exact moment of presentation of the reward is not predictable by the recipient.


For example, a father may reward his son for doing his chore of washing the dishes according to the number of times he completes the task, for the agreed upon amount of $5.00 per task, but not necessarily paid right after completion of the task.


C. Further Comments


All of the schedules of reinforcement given above are highly effective and result in what behaviorist psychologists call behavior acquisition (beginning to manifest a given behavior in the presence of reinforcement) and maintenance (continuing a behavior in the presence of ongoing enforcement). When reinforcement is discontinued, the behavior of the organism (the human or other creature exhibiting the behavior) is extinguished.


Because the exact delivery of reinforcement is not predictable with variable reinforcement on either an interval or a ratio schedule, behavior on variable reinforcement schedules takes longer to be extinguished: The organism continues to manifest the behavior for a while in the absence of reinforcement, expecting that the reward (reinforcement) will eventually be gained, but when this does not happen the behavior comes to an end (is extinguished).


Behaviorist psychologists observe that all creatures respond in similar ways to the schedules of reinforcement. The schedules given above are for positive reinforcement but work similarly for negative reinforcement and for punishment. Because they tend to be convenient subjects under laboratory conditions, behaviorist experimental psychologists frequently use creatures other than humans to observe responses to reinforcers and punishments; for example, they frequently use rats as the subjects (organisms) for their experiments.


With animals, primary reinforcers are frequently used.


Primary reinforcers are those such as food, liquids, and sex--- similar to the aspects of the human being that Sigmund Freud located in the Id.


With humans, various other kinds of rewards, called secondary reinforcers, are often used (and may be used with other creatures, as well).


Secondary reinforcers may involve smiles, words of praise, and material rewards such as the monetary allowance that the father gave the son for doing the dishes in the examples give above.


Behaviorist psychologists say that all responses to secondary reinforcers can be traced back to those biological imperatives that make the organism predisposed to respond to primary reinforcers. They maintain that all behavior (doing well on a job; leading a volunteer effort with great skill; or seeking to attract a mate) is related to the need or desire to satisfy biological imperatives.


Behaviorist psychologists say that free will is a perception, not a reality:


Behaviorists deny the existence of free will.


They hold that all behavior is acquired and maintained as a result of the presentation of positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, or punishment.


Of these three, experimental psychologists have found that positive reinforcement is the most efficient for achieving behavior acquisition in the organism, and that positive reinforcement along with punishment is even more efficient and effective in getting the organism to deliver the desired response under experimental conditions.