B.F. Skinner: A Reappraisal

By Marc N. Richelle

Book Overview

B.F. Skinner has been praised as one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century, but was also attacked by a variety of opponents within and outside the field of psychology.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0863773915
• ISBN13: 9780863773914
• Release Date: July 1995
• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

A European take on Skinner

Marc Richelle is a Belgian psychologist who studied in Geneva where, not surprisingly, he came under the influence of Piaget. However, as he began to read B.F. Skinner's work his viewpoint shifted towards radical behaviorism while still retaining a great respect for Piaget. His book, *B.F. Skinner: A Reappraisal*, is written as an evaluation of Skinner from the standpoint of a European psychologist, and he relates Skinner's work with that of such prominent European psychologists as Pavlov, Freud, Lorenz, Piaget, and Vygotsky. Richelle provides an overview of Skinner's career and how his views evolved over time. For those who are familiar with Skinner's work much of this should be familiar, but they still might learn a good deal from Richelle's comparison of Skinner to his European contemporaries. Richelle's evaluation of Skinner in reference to European psychology makes his book unique among the studies of Skinner's work. Richelle sketches out Skinner's contributions to experimental methodology in psychology, including the invention of the Skinner box and the development of a research methodology based on single-organism experiments, as opposed to the traditional method of comparing experimental groups with control groups. He reviews Skinner's challenge to traditional S-R models of behavior, those psychologies that Skinner labeled methodological behaviorisms. Such psychologies include the behaviorisms of John B. Watson and Clark Hull as well as the cognitive school of psychology. For all these schools, psychology is in one way or another the science which attempts to understand behavior in terms of stimulus-response pairings. This is true even for the cognitivists, who differ only in that they posit intervening cognitive mechanisms between stimulus and response. Against these schools, Skinner posited his own radical behaviorism which centered around his conception of operant conditioning (a conception that owed much to the work of Thorndike on the Law of Effect). In his elaboration of operant mechanisms, Skinner proposed to understand the development of behavior in Darwinian terms - that is, the selection of responses by the organism's environment. Richelle devotes one chapter to exploring Skinner's debt to Pavlov, which was certainly very large. Skinner borrowed much of his scientific vocabulary from Pavlov as well some of his methodology. However, contrary to Pavlov, Skinner contended that there were two types of conditioning rather than one: traditional Pavlovian conditioning (which he called respondent conditioning) and operant conditioning. Although both kinds of conditioning followed similar laws, there were also significant differences which required the use of different experimental methodologies. Skinner argued that the two types of conditioning had different neuroanatomical roots, with Pavlovian conditioning rooted in the autonomic nervous system and operant conditioning rooted in the somatic nervous system. This thesis was eventually

Outside the Skinner Box

An exceptional book. Marc Richelle was a student of Skinner's (and Piaget's) and co-translated some of Skinner's works into French. He seems able to identify Skinner's mistakes but also to represent well Skinner's achievements. One subject Richelle ventures into is why there were so many attacks on Skinner, often misrepresenting his positions badly and at time attacking him personally. In a chapter on language, Richelle considers the vicious attacks by Chomsky and how, by ignoring them, Skinner lost an opportunity to influence psycholinguistics. Richelle's understanding of the "Skinner box" and "operant conditioning" are liberating. "Operant conditioning" may be misnamed, "operant learning" seems more accurate. Skinner may have needed to isolate rats in boxes so he could understand some basic principles of behavior, but even a rat, outside a box, displays a rich set of behavior which we can not predict. The box is a reflection of Skinner's limitation, that he could't grasp the full richness of our behavior or a rats, so he needed the help of the box and its simple environment for a while to get a start on how organism's behave. Skinner appreciated how rich the behavior of orgnanism is, but he also appreciated how much scientific understanding of how we behave could benefit us. Richelle's discussion of Skinner's social concerns may be the strongest part of this book, as evidenced by Skinner's writings and inventions on education, by his concern for the plight of woman, and by his concern for all of us who have been duped into maintaining the status quo. Richelle shows how, seemingly paradoxicaly, the belief in our autonomy encouraged in us by controlling agencies like the government, works to keep us ineffective and under oppressive controls. Would this book function well as an introduction to Skinner, as Richelle himself intended? Anyone, including a lay reader, might benefit from reading some of Skinner first, for example "Walden Two" or "Beyond Freedom And Dignity". But Skinner's ideas may seem too foreign without preparation by a good guide such as Marc Richelle. On the other hand, Richelle himself is fairly challenging. If you haven't read Skinner and are interested, I suggest you choose yourself whether to start with Skinner or Richelle. If your choice seems like tough reading, try switching to the other. One way or the other, getting to understand Skinner may be one of the best things you ever did for yourself. The more of us who have at least some scientific understanding of behavior, the better for all of us.