BEHAVIORAL PERSPECTIVE—SKINNER & STAATS
Skinner, brief Bio.
•	Born 1904, father attorney, younger brother
•	Happy childhood; invented devices
•	English major in college, no psychology; after graduating, year off to write novel—failure, due, not to him, rather “limitations of literary method.”
•	Harvard grad. school; Henry Murray teacher and friend.
•	Invented new apparatus to isolate specific aspects of learning—“Skinner Box”; preference for rats.
•	Postdoctoral research, Harvard; faculty at U. of Minn.; chair at Indiana U.; enticed back to Harvard
•	Married, two daughters.
•	Wrote novel Walden Two, about utopian society, members choose their own reinforcers.
•	Died 1990, leukemia, age 86.

RADICAL BEHAVIORISM
•	Skinner proposed theory based on principles of reinforcement.
•	Researched/theorized using rats/pigeons -- highly respected; implications for humans—highly controversial.
OVERVIEW OF SKINNER & STAAT’S THEORIES
Individual differences	Reinforcement histories.
Staats—biological predispositions acknowledged.	
Adaptation & Adjustment	Best to specify which behaviors to eliminate, which to increase	
Cognitive Processes	Scientists have no access to mental processes.
Staats—can be studied by self-report measures.	
Society	Society shapes personality.  Behavioral principles can improve society	
Biological Influences	Species differences and Individual biological differences influence effectiveness of reinforcers.	
Child Development	Learning which behaviors --> reinforcement/punishment; also, impt.: stim. control, schedules of reinforcement, and early learning (Staats).	
Adult Development	Builds on earlier learning	

Scientific Study of Behavior: Skinner
Did not propose causes of beh., w/in the personality.
Skinner: 
-	Dismissed personality -- not scientific.  
-	Causes of behavior -- external to individual
-	Traits -- inferred from behavior.
-	External explanations -- a scientific step forward.
-	More external than other behaviorists—Radical behaviorism
-	Inner states:
•	Not observable
•	Self-reports -- flawed.
-	Inner thoughts/feelings -- Environmental factors causing overt beh.
•	Ex., Ad for movie seen w/ friend. Real cause is external—the ad.
-	Importance of control over behavior --> determining cause
Evolutionary Context of Operant Behavior
-	Selection of adaptive physical characteristics.  Beh. also selected, much faster than evolution.
-	Operant conditioning -- selection of beh., w/o genetic mechanisms.
Rate of Responding
-	Best operant beh.s for research—distinct and repeated
-	Measure of learning --  or  in rate of operant responses
-	Skinner box, operant responses readily observed/automatically recorded.
•	cumulative record of each response as a function of time.

LEARNING PRINCIPLES
Reinforcement
•	Primary reinforcers
•	Secondary reinforcers
•	Positive reinforcers
•	Negative reinforcers
Punishment
Extinction
Shaping
Chaining
Discrimination
•	Discriminative stimuli
•	Discriminative learning
Generalization
Superstitious Behavior
SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT
Contingency between response and reinforcement.
Continuous Reinforcement (CR)
•	Faster learning
•	Faster extinction
•	Few early failures --> greater persistence.
Partial Reinforcement Schedules
•	Slower learning
•	Slower extinction
•	Start w/ continuous, then partial
Ratio Schedules
•	Fixed ratio (FR) schedules
•	Variable ratio (VR) schedules
Interval Schedules
•	Fixed interval (FI) schedules
= “Scalloped” record of responding
•	Variable ratio (VI) schedules

APPLICATIONS OF BEHAVIORAL TECHNIQUES
Therapy
-	Skinner, therapy = relearning
-	Problems, commonly—learned ways of avoiding punishment.
•	E.g., Freud’s defense mechanisms
•	For Skinner, symptom = the disorder.
-	Behavior Modification
•	Functional Analysis
* Stim./reinforcements, carefully identified.
* Intervention planned—change beh. by adding reinforcers/withholding  reinforcers

• Token Economies
* Reward beh. w/ tokens in group setting.
Applications:
•	Oral hygiene, social skills training, weight control, organizational management, pain control, even creativity.
Esp. special populations w/ communication difficulties/limitations:
•	Delinquents, hyperactive children, autistic children, developmentally disabled.
Education
-	Teaching machine—presenting material in small increments w/ frequent reinforcement. 
•	With modern computers—individualized pacing

CONCERNS ABOUT RADICAL BEHAVIORISM & PERSONALITY THEORY
Critics:
-	Neglects: language and intelligent thought
-	Any behavior -- learned, overestimated
-	Overlooked genetic contributions to personality
-	No elaboration of social relationships except mutual reinforcements
-	Biggest objection -- people not free, though he strongly objected to coercion
-	Skinner's ideal culture described Walden Two.
•	Inspired actual communities, eg., in Mexico—Los Horcones
-	Big question: Higher order concepts, e.g. dignity, achieved by operant principles?
-	Language, “Verbal Behavior” -- language and thought analyzed into component operant beh.s
-	Did not specify in advance the nature of human motivation
•	E.g., nicotine innately reinforcing -- smoking abstinence programs.
-	Many -- Skinner's is not a personality theory.
•	It does not describe internal characteristics of the individual.
•	However, observes individuals not groups
Question: If behavior fully explained as consequence of environment, is personality theory necessary?
•	Skinner may be, most impt. alternative to personality theory.

ARTHUR STAATS: PSYCHOLOGICAL BEHAVIORISM
Brief Bio.
-	Born N.Y., 1924., father died 3 months later
-	Jewish ethnic tradition, family atheist, radical thinkers; poor.
-	Ph.D. UCLA
-	1960s -- center for psychological behaviorism and radical behaviorism
-	Raising own 2 children -- systematic behaviorism
-	Invented “time-out” and “token economy”
-	More detailed personality theory, compared w/ Skinner
-	Criticized Skinner’s neglect of individual differences and psychological tests.  Model includes biological influences.
Basic Idea: Personality through learning, via behavioral principles.
Reinforcement
Behavior maintained by reinforcers.  Two interventions followed:
-	Token economy
-	Time-out, child out of environment where problematic behavior occurs
•	Commonplace in elementary schools
-	Contrast to Skinner: Emotion-inducing stimuli also serve as reinforcers in new learning.
•	Stimuli in daily life vs. Skinner box.
•	Emotion-inducing stimuli can reward or punish

Basic Behavioral Repertoires (BBRs)
-	Behavioral repertoires, individual
-	BBRs most impt. of these 
-	BBRs, a cause of behavior.
 Three types of BBRs (long-term, cumulative, complex ramifications): 
1. Emotional-Motivational Repertoire
-	Learned emotional responses to large # of stimuli,  some innate; others via classical conditioning
•	Effect approach/avoid tendencies; Ex., Staats & Burns (1982), High/Low religious participants 
* Results: high religious slower pushing handle away in respond to religious words, and vice-versa. 
2. Language-Cognitive Repertoire
Language, primarily cognitive
-	Children who visualize objects/ideas --> more easily build upon these responses
-	Staats feels talents—artists, musicians, etc. -- are learned.
3. Sensory-Motor Repertoire
-	Ex.s, using tools, performing work; Impt. for later learning
-	Early motor development, more learning, less innate
PSYCHOLOGICAL ADJUSTMENT
Failing to learn basics --> maladjusted beh.
Deficits in:
-	Emotional-motivational repertoire --> phobias, depression, and anxiety
-	Language-cognitive repertoire --> mental retardation, defense mechanisms, paranoid delusions.
-	Sensory-motor —poor social and work skills, violent people.
-	Positive self-concept, occurs when favorable self-statements become habitual.
•	Our beh. is a stim. to others
-	Language-cognitive repertoire reflects defensive learning
•	Repression—avoidance of making statements that elicit negative emotions
•	Even hallucinations can be a conditioned response to stimuli (Staats).
-	Perfectionism, via behavioral view—individual adopts rigid rules (enforced through self-directed language), of unrealistically high standards.
•	Source can be parents
•	Adaptive high standards are possible
-	Whatever the psychological disorder, beh.’al interventions can be designed to modify the deficient beh.

THE NATURE-NURTURE QUESTION VIA PSYCHOLOGICAL BEHAVIORISM
Staats criticizes the competition aspect of this question:
-	Biological evolution has made humans highly adaptable.  We can also survive through adapting by learning
•	Learning can even change our biology—e.g., hormonal and neurological/structures .
Considers impact of biological factors on learning:
-	Learning stored in biological representations --> impact new learning and influence biological storage of past learning, e.g., physical trauma, stroke (memory loss).
-	IQ tests don’t measure innate ability to learn, rather, BBRs for educ. succes, e.g., preschool preparatory lessons.
•	Training 4 yr. olds from culturally deprived backgrounds --> 12 point average IQ score increase.
-	Staats challenges biologically-based temperament proposition; too early to be certain, may be differential parenting
•	E.g., appearance matters, Cute newborns -->  positive interactions from mothers.

PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT FROM A BEHAVIORAL PERSPECTIVE
-	Staats: self-report measures summarize BBRs well enough to have value.
-	Change in focus among personality theorists:  consideration of behavior—“personality in action”.
Emergence of Personality and Behaviorism Combined
-	Some behaviorists, personality trait measures be included in planning beh. treatment; esp. if traits redefined to be specific to situations.
Staats: many of the BBRs involved in personality, not yet identified.