BURRHUS FREDERIC SKINNER By: Troy Showers

BACKGROUND AND FAMILY INFO Born in 1904 Spent first 18 years of his life in a small Pennsylvanian town called Susquehanna, a city that flourished with the invention of the railroad but soon faded away. Born To William and Grace Skinner. Had a younger brother named Edward, “Ebbie”.

WILLIAM SKINNER Fred’s father came from a poor family and went to law school to make a name for himself. After graduation he became the attorney for the Eire Railroad. Director of the Susquehanna board of trade, United states commissioner for the Susquehanna district, director of Susquehanna telephone and Telegraph company and, the director of the First National Bank. Also a fierce republican who spoke at rallies in Susquehanna.

GRACE SKINNER Oldest of four daughters in a rich family. Had a wonderful music career with a beautiful singing voice before she married. She worked as a secretary as well before the marriage. Volunteered in the community, but never truly did enjoyed it. Both Grace and William graduated their high school as the salutatorian.

EBBIE SKINNER When Fred was 2 ½ his brother Edward was born. Nicknamed Ebbie, Edward was more socially outgoing and athletic than Fred. He loved raising pigeons and playing clarinet as well as playing basketball for the high school. Treated as the favorite it seemed to Fred and much more leniently. Had an incident with a revolver when he was younger. Did more of what was expected of a young man of the time,

FRED’S THOUGHTS ABOUT HIS PARENTS AND EBBIE Fred thought his father was very laid back and never argued with his wife. Pitied his father for his inability to socialize without talking about himself and how uncomfortable he was speaking with someone with of a higher social status. Fred attributes his own strong moral code to his mother that governed his and Ebbie’s childhood. Had an “ill will” towards his mother for her constant hypocrisy within the moral code. Lack of behavior modifier used by his parents. Fred was never jealous of Ebbie even though most of the activities and things they enjoyed seemed to be the opposite of each other.

FREDRIC’S CHILDHOOD Even from the beginning Fred was very inventive and showed ingenious and creative ways of doing things. After being continuously scolded by his mother about never hanging up his pajamas he made a small device to help remind him to do so, perhaps the first behavior modifying thing he created.

YOUNG FRED’S HOBBIES Was a very curious kid making things like sling shots, wagons, rafts, water pistols and even a steam cannon. This curious inventive side of Fred at times got him in trouble. (Halloween tricks, Steam cannon misfire) Fred loved music as well and made kazoos and other music/noise making devices with his inventive personality. Loved learning specifically from reading. He loved having tiny books that a person could hide in their hands. He said he loved having all the knowledge in the palm of his hands and how many he could hold in his hands and pockets.

CHILDHOOD INFLUENCE A teacher of Fred’s in middle school and high school, (which was the same building he had learned in all his life) helped encourage Fred’s curiosity and desire for knowledge. Mary Graves was Fred’s favorite teacher She showed Fred the limitations of his parents intellect and fostered Fred’s desire to learn, pushed and rewarded this behavior for him. Sir Francis Bacon was another major influence in Fred's early life and into later life. Fred himself said he was a Baconian in the ideas of the scientific method, education and that knowledge is power.

FINISHING HIGH SCHOOL Fred graduated from his high school just like his parents as Salutatorian. Shortly after graduating the town of Susquehanna started to decline. The Skinner family moved to Scranton and Fred went off to Hamilton college in Clinton, New York.

COLLEGE LIFE FOR FRED Adapting to college was difficult for Fred in Hamilton College. The college required public speaking which Fred felt inept at. Sophomores would pelt speakers for hesitating while speaking publically. Upper classmen also preformed mean pranks on the freshmen like abducting them and leaving them out in the middle of the country The campus being on a hill and secluded also showed Fred Isolation. By the end of the first month Fred felt completely disappointed with how college actually was with how he thought it would be.

TRAGEDY FOR THE SKINNERS After Fred’s first spring term at Hamilton he came home for the summer. One day during the spring Ebbie had come home from getting a sundae with his friend and went to the bathroom. He emerged after a long period of time complaining of a headache to Fred and asking for a doctor. Fred got a doctor to come as Ebbie suddenly got much worse. Fred left the house to get his parents from church, but Ebbie had died while Fred went for his parents. Fred’s parents were devasted and never recovered from the loss of Ebbie, while Fred appeared almost unfazed and emotionless about the untimely death of his brother.

2 ND AND 3 RD YEARS AT HAMILTON Fred’s next three years were rather uneventful. At a college called Bread Loaf School of English Fred spent his sophomore year of summer with a famous writer Robert Frost. He submitted some of his writing to him and Frost thought. Frost would be an excellent writer. Fred and his two friends started going to a whorehouse after Fred’s failed 2 relationships.

SENIOR YEAR AND GRADUATION Fred’s senior year he and his friend pulled a prank that soon developed into a catastrophe that almost got them expelled. He graduated as, guess what, salutatorian yet again. He wrote his speech in Latin and quite satirically. Fred then moved in with his parents for 18 months to try his hand at writing novels. He referred to this time and his dark year.

FRED’S DARK YEAR 18 months of recurring depression and general negative things happening. His writing career was going nowhere and he felt depressed unable to write His grandfather had passed away in front of him and yet again this generally emotional person was completely unemotional in watching it. Fred’s father didn’t get the promotion he wanted so he went rather unsuccessfully into private practice as a lawyer. First heard of behaviorism during this time and about Watson.

THE END OF THE DARK YEARS After working on a taxing project with his father Fred decided to go to graduate school He got into Harvard and decided to go into psychology.

GRADUATE SCHOOL Fred conducted his first official experiment with shocking frogs to see how quick they would react and try and get away from the shock. Experiment was deemed unscientific because it wasn’t testing conditioned reflex but instead lowered threshold. Next experiment he tried was to scare rats with a clicking of a telegraph machine and see how long it took them to adapt to it and be less fearful of it. Again it didn’t quite work how he wanted it to the rats did other things instead of coming out when not scared and the data was too skewed from it.

INVENTION: SKINNER BOX In graduate school while trying to find a quantitative way to measure animals behavior for getting food Fred made one of the greatest tools for behavior psychology. The Skinner Box The box had a lever for the animal (usually rats) to push and receive something. In the original it dispensed food and therefor Fred was able to at any point after collecting data tell how hungry the rat was at any time from the curve created by the data. The box used operant conditioning and showed the effect of immediate reinforcement.

A RADICAL THEORY Fred’s Skinner box was widely recognized and extremely successful Fred could have easily coasted through graduate school but he wanted to go further. Fred’s Discertation was a theory that reflex was not to have such a narrow description but instead more broad definition of simply a correlation between stimulus and response to variables outside the organism. This helped Behaviorism really take off.

AFTER GRADUATE SCHOOL Fred continued his work in behavioral psychology and developed a name for himself not only as a psychologist but as a “womanizer”. Courted many women but could not find a woman that he was happy with until he met Yvonne Blue. She was a Literary graduate of University of Chicago. The met in July of 1936 and were married on the 1 st of November after going back to a hotel room to convince Yvonne to not call of the wedding.

IDEA: PIGEON-GUIDED MISSILES war/project-orcon-pidgeon-guided-missile/

INVENTION: AIR CRIB (BABY TENDER) Idea similar to Skinner box but more human. Prompted by the birth of his first daughter Julie and second Deborah on the way. A crib built to both restrain a baby and protect the infant while giving them remarkable freedom to move around and explore and practice motor skills. It was thermostatically controlled and had safety glass to protect the baby.

DISCUSSION QUESTION What do you think of the Air Crib? Would you leave your child in one?

UNSUCCESSFUL AIR CRIB After Fred tried many different marketing techniques the Air Crib was never really embraced as a household item. Rumors that because Fred used it on his daughter Deborah and that he had been doing experiments on his kids his neighbor believed that she committed suicide.

WALDEN TWO Fred wrote a book called Walden Two a continuation of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. The original Walden described the perfect society in Thoreau’s mind. Walden Two was written just after WWII and was Fred’s idea of a society that had been started and running on the ideas he came up with using positive reinforcement. Heavily inspired by what had happened with WWII.

CONCEPTS DISCOVERED BY FRED Fred discovered and made terms for 4 different ways of conditioning. Fixed-Ratio: reward after set number of responses. Token collecting video games Variable-Ratio: Reward randomly after so many responses. Slot machine Fixed-Interval: Reward given after set amount of time passed. Weekly Paycheck Variable-Interval: Reward given after a random amount of time. Pop Quizes

INVENTION: TEACHING MACHINE A box like machine that would give questions and then immediate feedback on the answer. Originally had problems teaching new skills and could only help with reviewing. Eventually developed a way to teach in very small incremental steps to teach new skills with the machine.

END OF FRED’S LIFE Towards the end of Fred’s life he wrote another book called Beyond Freedom and Dignity. In this book Fred proposed that we don’t actually have a free will and that we are governed by our behaviors which we have little control over normally. This book receive harsh criticism and really was widely looked at in the 60s when Walden Two also became popular. In August of 1989 Fred was diagnosed with leukemia. He was awarded the lifetime achievement award from the American Psychology Association and died on august 18 th 1990 a few weeks after receiving the award.

FINAL DISCUSSION QUESTION Fred really emphasized operant conditioning and reinforcing and their uses in the world around us. Do you think he took it too far and became fixated on it or should we use it more in today’s society?

SOURCES Bjork, D. W. (1997). B. F. Skinner a life. Washington D.C.: American Psychology Association. Cherry, K. A. (2005). B. F. Skinner Biography ( ). Retrieved from F. Skinner Biography