Skinner+Biography

Skinner (March 20th, 1904- August 18th, 1990), was an American Psychologist and Poet. He grew up with a great appreciation and curiosity for the sciences, but after attending Hamilton College, determined he wanted to be a writer. After writing a few articles about psychologists such as Pavlov, he became intrigued, and decided to re-enroll in school, this time at the Department of Psychology at Harvard. He found his studies to be frustrating, as he frequently disagreed with the established ideas in his curriculum. He disagreed with the concept of studying the behavior of the animal as a whole, and not the processes occurring within the animal,and it was because of this he decided to develop his own theory on Behavioral Psychology. He believed the behavior of an animal is dependent on his surroundings and environment, and to prove this he created the Operant Conditioning Box, also known as the Skinner Box. Through his research using the Skinner box,as well as various other methods he determined our behavior is a product of environmental reinforcements, both positive and negative.