B. F. Skinner Biography (1904-1990)

B. F. Skinner was an American psychologist best-known for his influence on behaviorism. Skinner referred to his own philosophy as 'radical behaviorism' and suggested that the concept of free will was simply an illusion.

All human action, he instead believed, was the direct result of conditioning.

In this operant conditioning process, actions that are followed by good consequences are reinforced and therefore those behaviors are more likely to occur again in the future. Behaviors that result in negative consequences, on the other hand, become less likely to occur again.

Among his many discoveries, inventions, and accomplishments were the creation of the operant conditioning chamber (aka the Skinner Box), his research on schedules of reinforcement, the introduction of response rates as a dependent variable in research, and the creation of the cumulative recorder to track these response rates.

In one survey, Skinner was named the most influential psychologist of the twentieth-century.
Birth and Death:
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Born: March 20, 1904
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Died: August 18, 1990
Biography:

Burrhus Frederic Skinner was born and raised in the small town of Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. His father was a lawyer and his mother a homemaker and he grew up with a brother who was two years his junior.

He later described his Pennsylvania childhood as "warm and stable." As a boy, he enjoyed building and inventing things; a skill he would later use in his own psychological experiments. His younger brother Edward died at the age of 16 due to a cerebral hemorrhage.

During high school, Skinner started to develop an interest in scientific reasoning from his extensive study of the works of Francis Bacon. He went on to receive a B.A. in English literature in 1926 from Hamilton College. After earning his undergraduate degree he decided to become a writer, a period of his life that he would later refer to as the "dark year." During this time he wrote only a few short newspaper articles and quickly grew disillusioned with his literary talents, despite receiving some encouragement and mentorship from the famed poet Robert Frost.

While working as a clerk at a bookstore, Skinner happened upon the works of Pavlov and Watson, which became a turning point in his life and career. Inspired by these works, Skinner decided to abandon his career as a novelist and entered the psychology graduate program at Harvard University.