Skinner and Behaviorism

  The question this week regards B. F. Skinner and behaviorism. Do you agree with Skinner’s premise of “Behavior Is Determined by Its Consequences”? Please explain your reasoning.  

In regards to the premise "behavior is determined by its consequences" I think my answer would be, yes, I do agree with it but I agree with the passages from the Elias and Merriman (2005) text that provides a bit more nuance to that premise, more. 

Those passages that I most enjoyed stated "human behavior is the result of a person's prior conditioning and is determined by external forces in the environment over which a person has little or no control" (p. 83) and "the key to controlling behavior is being able to identify the most effective reinforcers, the amount they should e employed, and the timing of their use" (p. 89). 

These two passages seem to provide more depth and understanding to the premise of this question, but ultimately also reinforce that premise. The first passage, although talking about external factors, conditioning, and the environment, also focuses on prior conditioning. I wrote about how I liked Dewey's and Kolb's learning cycles in previous posts because of the ability to build on prior knowledge. This first passage alludes to that as well in terms of behaviorism. How prior conditioning, or prior knowledge attainment and stimulus-response can help build further understanding or conditioning. 

The second passage discusses finding the most effective reinforcement, the amount, and the timing to ensure that they are employed properly. Just having a reinforcement mechanism or a consequence isn't enough to ensure behavior is understood and repeated, it's necessary to fine-tune that consequence so that the behavior is reinforced the way that the trainer wants. 

Reference

Elias, J. L., & Merriam, S. B. (2005). Philosophical foundations of adult education. Malabar, FL.