This assignment provides some pleasure as well as some insights into the theories of the father of behaviorism, BF Skinner, especially his theory of operant conditioning that is the foundation of behaviorism and its relationship to personality development. Skinner fashioned a brilliant career with his theories that emphasized the role of observable behaviors as the core of the personality.
The following website will provide the necessary information:
http:plato.stanford.edu/entries/behaviorism
This website provides a great deal of background information about Skinner and his views of behaviorism. You can, obviously, read the entire page that provides an excellent historical perspective about behaviorism (skinner), but for this assignment, please check the following three sections:
Why be a behaviorist
Skinner’s social world-view
Why be an anti-behaviorist
This website provides the background information about
behaviorism and should allow you to respond to the ultimate question, what
do you think are the merits and/or lack of merits of behaviorism?
Some other questions to contemplate for this assignment include:
Does behaviorism accurately assess one’s personality?
How accurate is Skinner’s perceptions about the impact of
one’s personality and one’s social world?
Can a theory (behaviorism) explain personality without
any discussion of cognitive processes?
Does this theory (behaviorism) effectively reduce the
control of human behavior to nothing more than the product of the
rewards/punishment?
Do you agree/disagree with Skinner that man has no free
will, that is, man is nothing more that the product (deterministic view) of
his/her environment?
Do you agree/disagree with the behaviorist approach to personality, that is, what is your view of this theoretical view of personality?