To further your points Paul, here is another quote in which, during a brief discussion on compassion and philanthropic behavior he mentions the importance of knowledge and of rewards. Again - a very interesting sound byte for any students who feel that Skinner thought that people were just robots or that they didn't think or have feelings:
https://soundcloud.com/thepsychfiles/b-f-skinner-on-compassionate Michael Michael A. Britt, Ph.D. [email protected] http://www.ThePsychFiles.com Twitter: mbritt On Mar 1, 2013, at 10:56 AM, Paul Brandon <[email protected]> wrote: > Right! > Comes from teaching about Skinner from the point of view of those opposed to > him. > Skinner made it clear that he favored: > 1. Positive reinforcement over aversive control. > 2. Natural reinforcers over contrived ones. > > That is, he favored using positive reinforcers already in our environments > and rearranging reinforcement contingencies to make them a consequence of > behaviors to be increased in frequency. > Contrived and aversive contingencies were to be used only until control could > be shifted to natural positive ones. > > On Mar 1, 2013, at 8:44 AM, Michael Britt wrote: > >> I think in our attempt to help students differentiate between the major >> schools of psychology - psychoanalysis, behaviorism and humanism - we >> teachers and the textbooks have to simplify things. I remember leaving my >> Intro Psych class not being too much of a fan of Skinner. But recently >> while "trolling the web" as they say, I found a really interesting interview >> with Skinner in which he was asked about his views on education. I >> extracted two brief sound clips that I think are interesting. He talks >> about how we can teach youngsters to read and to play music in ways that >> they will find pleasurable. Students might be surprised to hear these kinds >> of ideas from Skinner. Maybe it would be an interesting exercise to have >> students listen to the audio clips without telling them who's talking and >> see if they can guess. The giveway terms would be "contrived reinforcers", >> but still, I think anyone who might have gotten the idea that Skinner >> thought that we are all robots would find themselves in agreement with him >> here. >> >> On learning to read: >> https://soundcloud.com/thepsychfiles/b-f-skinner-on-learning-to-1 >> >> On learning to play music: >> https://soundcloud.com/thepsychfiles/b-f-skinner-on-learning-to >> >> Michael > > Paul Brandon > Emeritus Professor of Psychology > Minnesota State University, Mankato > [email protected] > > > > > --- > You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. > To unsubscribe click here: > http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13405.0125141592fa9ededc665c55d9958f69&n=T&l=tips&o=24031 > or send a blank email to > leave-24031-13405.0125141592fa9ededc665c55d9958...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=24046 or send a blank email to leave-24046-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
