In one famous experiment, Skinner pushed a button, causing a food pellet to drop into a pigeon's cage, whenever the bird inadvertently raised its head for a second or two. Getting a food pellet was a ...

B. F. Skinner is arguably psychology’s most influential academic, and is perhaps second only to Freud in terms of psychological scholars who have had an impact on society at large. And as with Freud, ...

While I appreciate David P. Barash’s fine essays, I take exception to his latest (“B.F. Skinner, Revisited,” The Chronicle Review, April 1). In it, he manages to misrepresent the views of not one but ...

Burrhus Frederic Skinner studied observable behavior along with its causes and consequences. He showed how people given positive reinforcement are likely to repeat the action. When a small business ...